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This is what Mr. AR carries when he walks his dogs at night. As he describes his gear, it’s “Quick to pickup, check cylinder load, conceal IWB along with clip knife, backup moonclip load, and a bright flashlight.” See the details at Everyday Carry . . .

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25 COMMENTS

  1. What is with this “pickup” bullshit. Carry a gun at all times. If your pants are on, your gun should be in its holster on your hip.

    • I am not sure the fluted (or otherwise fluid vectoring) bullet concept is just a gimmick. I realize that it seems designed to just make big tracks in gel. I too have been wondering about it is performance in living flesh rather than gel. I am not sure that the dead meat test I have heard of are an accurate predictor either. Has anyone here examined a wound from such bullets in a living creature and seen if the flutes do or don’t ad damage beyond just what the bullet directly crushes? I have been working up a load with the Lehigh .32 Xtreme cavitator for my wife’s 4.2″ .327 SP101. It results in a much lower recoiling round that penetrates and damages gel a bit better than GoldDots or XTPs. It’d sure be nice if it works that well in the real thing.

      • I have a neighbor who’s a habitual drunk and his dog is really, really obnoxious because he leaves it out 24/7.

        Send me some, I’d be glad to test them. However, be warned, his BAC and bodyfat content might affect the results.

        /end sarcasm.

      • Once up to any sort of speed, a projectile pushes a high pressure cavitation zone in front of it. Which depends on frontal area and perhaps shape, as well as speed. As a first order approximation, a heavier, wider (expanded) bullet and a lighter, faster, smaller (non expanded) one, pretty much evens things out, as long as impact momentum and penetration is the same.

        Where things start to differ, is where along the bullet trajectory, the momentum is transferred to tissue. In a fluid medium, the heavier bullet has a more gradual decline in speed, hence hitting deeper organs with more momentum. While a faster one, is slowed down quicker, hence interacting more violently with initially contacted tissue. Most “vitals” can often sit fairly deep, depending on impact angle. But aside from spinal hits, superficial tissue is more heavily enervated, hence could (I ran out of volunteers. Before even getting going) be expected to more decisively “inform” the target that “you have been shot, dude. Chill Out!”

        But in general, I highly doubt there is all that much systematic difference between two rounds that recoil the same (external, not felt) and penetrate the same, both with equal consistency. Geeking out over the exact final shape, and width from petal edge to petal edge, a bullet has assumed once coming to rest in gel, is pretty much just overdoing it. If A momentum is stopped in B inches, you have to dig far below the (very high) noise floor to find any meaningful difference between them.

        Which, taken to it’s logical conclusion, in a revolver loading, is a good argument for shooting cheap-ass hardcast full wadcutters cut to the sectional density and weight, and driven to the speed, required for desired penetration with tolerable recoil. No more bullet woodoo than that required.

        • I would suspect that harder bullets, being that no momentum and energy is consumed deforming them, are indeed more efficient at a tissue damaging. Momentum and drag determine how far a bullet penetrates in a fluid, but the damage to near by structures would be proportional to the energy of the displaced fluid striking them, no? A shape that more efficiently redirects fluids to do damage perpendicular to the bullet path should be a more efficient wounder, no? Greater bullet velocity would increase the damage done perpendicular to the bullets path because it would, all other things being equal, increase the velocity and thus energy of the redirected fluid. Simplistically stated, momentum vs drag determines penetration while energy largely determines damage. If any of my blather here is true, (and I am not at all sure it is) lighter bullets designed to efficiently redirect fluid (and other things) would do more damage than heaver bullets less efficient at redirecting fluid.

        • “Energy transfer”, aka heating up, surrounding tissue is very debatable as a means to damage tissue, at handgun round energies in humans. Instead, the transfer of momentum from a moving bullet, to previously still tissue, is what disturbs, hence effects, hence sometimes damages, that tissue.

          Published energy figures may still be useful, since tissue is generally elastic, and higher velocities means the momentum transfer happens faster. Hence with increased likelihood of overloading that elasticity. So that the damage becomes permanent tears, rather than just temporary displacements that reconfigure themselves once the bullet has moved on.

          As for bullet shape and redirection, all bullets needs to redirect tissue away from them in order to make room for themselves to pass through. And this redirection is taken from bullet momentum, reducing it until the bullet comes to rest. The “more” redirection (probably a pretty hard to measure accurately metric), the more bullet momentum is bled off. Hence, the lesser the penetration. Any added redirection in one direction, given constant momentum loss, will mean less redirection in another. So, impact momentum and penetration, still sounds like the two only free variables that needs to be measured, with the rest being mainly woodoo and sales pitches.

          The exception being if a bullet can create narrow jet-streams, cutting a long-skinny-tentacled star shape instead of a rounder hole. Similar to some of the fancier rounds for the Judge revolvers and such. just with high velocity tissue doing the cutting, instead of long, folded out metal petals. But man, does that sound unlikely at handgun round momentums and velocities.

          So, I still feel, assuming the gun can feed, chamber, fire and eject the round, simply making bullets as buttons cut (perhaps chamfered a bit) from round, caliber diameter, barstock of hard lead, would be the most efficient way to go. Cheap as heck, and easily tunable for barrel length, penetration requirements, and recoil sensitivity.

        • The above assumes fairly uniform and “flesh’y”/”gell’y” tissue.

          A possibly very real justification for Lehigh style “tissue redirection” cutouts, is that they may allow for momentum transfer nearly as efficient as a flat front in gel/flesh, yet preserves a fairly sharp point if body armor is encountered. Behave like a stiletto against armor, and as a flat front in flesh. As such, assuming the cutout shapes really do increase tissue movement, hence momentum transfer, they may be the bullet designs of the future. At least for those who can afford them…..

    • “Nylon holster and gimmick ammo scream amateur hour.”

      H’mm.

      Lesse what we gots here – Ruger LCR in a universal caliber (9mm).

      Not a damn thing ‘amateur hour’ about that choice.

      The ammo – Polycase ARX 80gr. 9mm +P.

      Not my choice, but hollow points may be no-go in his locale.

      The holster is cheezy, but a quality gun with a nice, long, heavy trigger like the LCR I’d have no problem with just pocket carry and dispensing with the holster entirely. (Striker-fired, *NEVER*)

      But that weak, blue-spectra horror he calls a flashlight?

      Yeeech. LEDs have advanced bro…

    • I carried a 442 in an Uncle Mikes holster like that for almost a year in college when I was practically on a ramen and beans budget. Worked fine. I wore the holster clip outside the pants but inside the belt, because the clip didn’t want to fit over both. It was a comfortable holster for casual trips to the grocery store or wherever. I think I paid $15 bucks for it. Retention is fair but depends on belt tension to work. I wouldn’t want to end up rolling around fighting on the ground while depending that holster though.

      • My 442 is in my front right pocket in an uncle mikes pocket holster. If it looks stupid and works, it ain’t stupid.

        Some guys are just equipment snobs.

  3. 50 lumens is a “bright flashlight” these days? Jesus Christ, someone needs to start The Truth About Flashlights to get these people an education on illumination.

    I guess this thing isn’t bad for an $8 Walmart flashlight… of course if you’re trusting your life to an $8 Walmart flashlight you have bigger problems.

    • There are a bunch of flashlight forums out there already.

      I’d trust the TTAG Chimps over most of them, tho.

      Can anyone recommend a drop-in upgrade for my stock Suerfire 6P-LED that won’t break the bank? This one I’m leaving 6V…

      • The problem with a lot of those forums is that the people there get overly technical and noobs can’t understand what they’re talking about. Testing of flashlight brightness scientifically is a fairly complicated and esoteric topic that flashlight fans love to nerd out about.

        I subscribe to the KISS principle. My EDC light is nearly indestructible, weighs 2.15oz, makes a perfect fist pack, has glass breaks, runs 3-210 lumens (five settings), is waterPROOF to 8 feet (tested unfortunately), puts out a beam nearly on par with a SureFire and costs $50 at full price (never pay full price). Simple, highly effective, four years of beating the shit out of it and it still works flawlessly. Everything from close up weld inspection to scanning the woods at 100 yards for mountain lions in a tiny package. Can’t ask for much more.

        I rarely buy a second item of anything but I like that light so much I bought two spares because they’re discontinued but still available on amazon.

    • Eh, compared to a mini-maglight of yesteryear (14 lumens or so?) 50 lumens is plenty bright to illuminate the ground you are walking on, the dog shit you are hopefully picking up, and the bad guy you might need to shoot at bad breath distance. Most people don’t need to melt eyeballs at 100 yards or blind a helicopter pilot with their EDC light. My aging $25 ATAC PLx is only about 69 lumens and is plenty bright enough for my EDC needs.

      • You’re free to carry anything you want.

        IMHO when you can get a way better light at the same weight for $50 or less you might as do it. A light that covers everything other than spotting aircraft and can be set from 3-210 lumens… eh, just read my response to Geoff.

        Suffice to say that guy’s light sucks. It’s not bright at all. If you never need a bright light, great. If you break down on the side of a highway you’re rapidly going to find that your 40-60 lumen light is invisible against the backdrop of headlights. Hell, that light would be a challenge to see in an area with street lights.

        FYI, brand new Mini-Mags are still 14 lumens. It’s an inspection light for an EMT or for looking under the hood of a car in the pitch black. It’s not going to do shit to actually show you anything past about 15 yards and there are four legged predators that can cover that before you blink your eyes.

      • Bro, if you’re not carrying AT LEAST a 6″ tallow candle in a brass chamberstick-style holder, you’re fucking up, bro. Better still, a kerosene hurricane lantern with a quart of refill kerosene and two backup wicks, bro. Do you even operate, bro?

  4. I like the LCR with that grip! That’s the first time I’ve seen the snub wearing the longer grip. It looks good. I imagine it improves the fireability as well. (Although the LCR is the softest shooting lightweight snub I have ever shot.)

    • The Tamer does work well, especially when I run 50-100 rounds per week through it. The ARX’s seem a good choice since I hit better with them than anything snappier.

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