What's the Deal?

by Ben Small

As many of you know, I’m a gun guy. Figured if I was gonna write about this stuff, I ought to learn something about guns. And then lo and behold, I found I enjoy shooting, and carrying a piece gives me a better sense of security in a part of the country where home invasions, car jackings and shootings are on the rise.

But the .380? C’mon. I always thought the .380 was sort of a .38 junior, like a spitball that just tumbles out of a pretend-gun. No stopping power, known to bounce off a thick leather jacket.

Well, evidently I was wrong. (Yeah, it happens occasionally, more than that according to my wife.) Because just about every gun manufacturer is announcing a new .380 these days. And of course, they’re all claiming their little pistols are “revolutionary,” whatever that means. And what does it mean? All these pistols are semi-auto, most are double action, and all contain anywhere from six to nine rounds. So what’s revolutionary about that?

In the last year, we’ve seen old standbys like Sig Sauer, Ruger and even Magnum Research come out with one. And the only one is “revolutionary,” at least in the sense of radically new and unexpected ― the Magnum Research Micro Baby Eagle. What makes this pistol revolutionary is its place in the Magnum Research arsenal. Magnum Research is known for its gigantic pistols, the Desert Eagle being the standard. You’ve seen this pistol, it’s the one that requires a weight lifter to just pick it up. The Desert Eagle is huge, perhaps the largest semi-auto manufactured. You can usually find them in the “used” section of your gun dealer’s stock, or on Gunbroker, which usually means someone’s selling one from his collection. Why? Because the Desert Eagle is no fun to shoot; heck, it’s not even fun to lift. I shot a .50 AE Desert Eagle once, and that was enough for me. It goes bang in a big way, lots of fire and recoil, the gun often pictured in You Tube videos banging some unaware shooter in the forehead because of its massive recoil. I don’t know anyone who enjoys shooting a Desert Eagle, which is why so many are sold used. The gun is so ugly, it’s even sold in a gold version. Just pull this gun out and people start running, maybe the shooter, too.

Okay, so here’s the Desert Eagle.


And here’s the Micro Baby Eagle.

Ugly little sucker, isn’t it? And it only holds 6 +1 rounds of .380.

Now, a little research will show you that the .380 cartridge is nothing more than a .38 in semi-auto style. It’s essentially the same bullet as found in the .38, the .38 Special, the 9mm and even the .357 magnum, but it’s not the bullet size that counts; it the powder and cartridge in which this bullet resides. Not much oomph here. As I said, the .380 has been known to bounce off thick leather jackets.

So why the demand, especially in this day and age when bigger is usually better and when folks want more rounds than just six or seven? Heck, even the tiny Glock 26, the “Baby Glock” and the Walther PPS come in 9mm and hold more rounds.

Here’s the Glock 26. Holds ten rounds, twelve if a mag extension like the one pictured is added. And it’s a 9 mm pistol, more oomph than the .380.

The answer is .380 pistols, being so small, are easily concealed, and with the number of concealed carry licenses being granted during the Great Obama Panic, concealment is important. You can drop these babies in your pocket, and your pants won’t fall down. Or drop it in your purse, and you’ll have room for your wallet. Wear it on your ankle, and it won’t even pull your socks down. There’s almost no recoil, no big flash of flame, and while not as quiet as a .22 lr, this one won’t break your eardrum.

Some cops carry these guns, but usually only as a second or third back-up. And even then, most prefer a 9mm.

But the economy is down, and fear is up, and many newcomers to concealed carry are nervous about doing so. They feel like everybody is looking at them, and can see they’re packing heat. They want protection, but don’t want anybody to know they’ve got it. A comfort factor.

Yes, I carry concealed. Have a permit to do so. But I opted for the Baby Glock. More bang for my buck. And if I carry a backup, which occasionally I do, it’s a tiny North American Derringer, five rounds of hollow point, .22 magnum bang. I carry it in a pocket holster that also contains eight additional rounds, meaning I’ve got thirteen rounds of powerful .22 mag available. My North American Derringer is petite, about half the size of a .380.

So here’s my back up of choice. You can fit this little baby inside your sock.




The .22 lr has always been the mob hit man gun of choice, because up close it will do the job with a bang so soft only the hitter will hear it. Put a .22 lr slug in the back of the hittee’s head, and he’s ready for the morgue, probably with an open casket. The bullet will bounce around the hittee’s skull like a pinball, but probably won’t exit. And the .22 mag is just one step up.

So why the .380, if it’s the smaller brother to the .38, with a little less bang and fewer rounds than its cousins?

Hell if I know. But they’re coming out all over, and each one is being called “revolutionary.” Funny thing, though, all these new .380s, and yet the .380 round is one almost impossible to find on ammo shelves. Go ahead, ask your local gun dealer for some .380 ammo. Watch him laugh at you. Better yet, order some from an online store. At least nobody will be laughing with him, because nobody will see your rejected order unless you show it to them.

So, do I want a .380? You betcha. I’m a gun nut, and they’re “revolutionary.”

Poof!

by Ben Small

What if your protag or perp, in a hurry, picks up some ammo, plugs it into a gun and it goes poof? Not bang. Poof.

Can this happen?

You betcha. It happened to me at the range a few weeks ago. A cloud of smoke and burning powder, some of which burned my cheek, and then the gun locked up. Yes, the bullet made it out of the barrel and there appeared to be no damage done, but I would not have been able to fire a second shot without clearing the cartridge and risking damage to the gun.

Not all guns and cartridges play well together.

So what went wrong?

Well, it could have been a hand-loaded cartridge, perhaps using the wrong powder or too much of it. Or it could have been a reloaded cartridge, and maybe the case failed. Bullets may look simple, but they are anything but. The standard cartridge is the product of precise development engineering and testing, where various corrosive or non-corrosive primers must be matched with cases matched to specific cylinders, each with dimensions proven through years of experimentation in controlled environments. But that’s just part of a bullet’s development. There’s also choice of powders: some fast burning, some slower. And on top of that, you add a bullet, which requires weight, composition and construction choices. Each manufacturer’s bullet is different, and there are many standard production bullet manufacturers.

And then there are the wildcatters and reloaders, those who make their own bullets. Believe it or not, there are millions of these people, and the market for bullets, cases, primers, powders and loading equipment is enormous. Take a look at Gun Digest, the leading gun magazine, considered by many as the place to look for gun ads. You will find pages of advertising for each of these items.

But that’s just the bullet side of it. You gotta consider the gun, too. Guns can be finicky about the ammo they’ll eat.

What prompted this article was my experience at the range. I was firing a high end pistol, a Sig Sauer X-5 9mm pistol, perhaps the most accurate production pistol currently made. It’s a match grade pistol, which means the fittings are tight. And I was firing Winchester Ranger ammo, again, a high grade of ammo.

Poof.

Now, it could have been a bullet manufacturing error, but if so, I would have expected to have the problem recur. And it did. But only in this gun. My much cheaper Beretta and Glock had no trouble with this box of ammo at all or with Winchester Ranger ammo in general.

A defective gun? Believe it or not, this match grade pistol ate the much cheaper aluminum cased Blazer ammo with nary a hiccup. And it ate all the other non-Winchester Ranger I fed it.

No, the answer in this case – pardon the pun ― was in the mating of the gun and ammo. Ask any gun expert about what ammo works best in any particular gun, and he’ll tell you he can’t know without experimentation. Usually this answer means accuracy will vary depending upon the individual characteristics of the gun, the barrel, its condition, the weather, lubrication, the weight of the bullet and how all these conditions work together.

But sometimes they don’t work at all. And sometimes the mating of ammo to gun can be dangerous. Guns do explode; people can be hurt. Usually, the problem is careless handloading, maybe a defective case, an improperly seated bullet or poor choice of powder…or too much of it. Or maybe the gun was poorly maintained, over lubricated or under lubricated. Maybe there was a bulge in the barrel. The Gun Zone - Springfield M1A
The Gun Zone - Glock



This stuff does happen. Kabooms aren’t common, but they occur. Jams are much more common, especially with semi-automatic firearms. That’s why some people prefer revolvers.

A gun owner who shoots his gun frequently will know what ammo it likes. But someone who picks up a gun or ammo may not have a clue. And some guns are more finicky about ammo than others. For instance, Glocks and Berettas feed on just about any form of standard production ammo. Springfield XDs and XDms seem to like heavier weight bullets. A Sig Sauer .22 LR Mosquito is notorious for having ammo preferences. Shoot modern .30-06 ammo in an M-1 Garand, and you may get a nasty surprise. The military version of .30-06 ammo, the bullets for which this gun was designed, use a slower burning, lower pressure powder.

What to do when the gun jams… A seasoned shooter will know; an amateur probably will not.

Bang

by Ben Small


Many mystery and thriller writers use guns in their stories. Guns are perceived as simple, deadly and hard to track, assuming the murder weapon is not found.

But that’s not always true, just as it’s not always true that ballistics can match the gun to the bullet. And in some cases, DNA might be a bigger threat to the perp than ballistics.

Many writers don’t use the research tools available to provide realism to their character’s gun use. Ignorance or error may cause the writer to overlook what might be a fascinating plot turn, or worse yet, there's an error that turns off the reader. Trial judges usually give juries a form of the following instruction, “If you find that a witness has been untruthful in one part of his or her testimony, you may disregard the testimony in whole or in part.”

Many readers apply the same rule to the books they’re reading.

So let’s discuss some interesting aspects of gun use, some mis-conceptions, and I’ll toss in some research resources where you can learn other tidbits useful in your writing.

First, DNA may be as large a hazard to the gun-toting perp as ballistics. Probably the most famous and best American gun designer to date was John Moses Browning. The famed 1911 pistol was a Browning design, as are most non-striker-fired semi-automatic pistols. A recent enhancement, most notably developed by Ed Brown, a high-end custom gun manufacturer, is the beavertail, a looping attachment at the butt end of a gun that looks like an extended thumb. (See image on right.)
The purpose of the beavertail is to protect the shooter's hand from slide-bite, caused by a meaty hand or a high grip on many semi-automatic pistols. As the trigger is pulled, hot gases from the discharge rocket the slide backward. Anything caught in this movement, like the webbing of the hand between the thumb and first finger, will be torn, leaving the shooter’s DNA on the slide and the perp wearing a bandage. Slide-bite can occur on any gun lacking a beavertail, even on a Glock or Sig Sauer, but it’s most prevalent with guns that follow Browning’s designs more closely, guns like the Browning Hi-Power, still with a high market share, and the famous Sig Sauer P-210, perhaps the most accurate production pistol ever made.

These babies can take some skin.

For this reason, many shooters use shooting gloves, usually possessing nylon webbing where slide-bite may occur and thinner material for the trigger finger, so the shooting finger will still fit within the trigger guard.

But slide-bite isn’t the only DNA risk. If you’ve loaded many semi-auto mags, you no doubt know how sore your loading thumb gets. If you’re not wearing gloves, you’ll not only leave prints on the cartridge casing, you may leave some skin, too. Saavy shooters use auto-loaders for their semi-auto pistols, little plastic devices that fit over the magazine. A bullet is inserted and a button pushed, then the bullet is slid into place. Easy on thumbs, but no protection against prints.

The shooter may wear gloves as he’s loading the cartridges, but will he wear them when he’s removing the cartridges from the box? Not doing so will leave at least partial prints and maybe some loose skin tissue on the bottom of the cartridge. Wearing gloves will make cartridge removal awkward, unless the shooter just dumps the box out, in which case a cartridge or two may roll away, perhaps rolling under a couch or chair.

Another hazard exists in racking a semi-auto’s slide. While slide grooves or serrations usually exist front and back, to provide traction with a somewhat difficult slide, racking the slide using the front grooves exposes the meat of the hand to hangfire risk. A hangfire is an accidental discharge caused by something striking the primer and causing the bullet to fire when the trigger hasn’t been pulled. Until recently, when Hornaday developed the LeverEvolution bullet, lever guns with tube feed used rounded, soft lead bullets. The guns were loaded in a horizontal position. All this because of hangfire danger, risk that the tip of one bullet might bump the primer of the bullet on top of it. Well, hangfire can occur in semi-automatic pistols, too, which is why experts caution people to only rack the slide using the rear serrations. Needless to say, a semi-automatic pistol hangfire can do serious damage to a hand exposed to an open slide via the front serration pull. The problem is that some guns, especially 1911s, custom guns, and new guns are tight, the slides don’t move easily. Many women and men with small hands have difficulty racking these slides. So they use the front serrations.

That can be an oops the shooter will remember.

Another oops can arise from shooting a revolver the same way one usually shoots a semi-auto. Many semi-auto instructors teach one to use the support hand to point at the target and support the firing hand in anticipating recoil. This positions at least one finger in front of the trigger guard. Do this with a revolver, and you may be missing some fingers, or you’ll at least suffer a bad burn. Why? Because there’s a gap between the cylinder and the barrel, and hot gases explode out of the revolver’s cylinder and leak around the barrel. The preferred support hand positioning for a revolver is below the firing hand, not in front of it. Screw up this rule and your perp will be in a bad way.

And what about ballistics? It’s not foolproof, you know.

First, one must find the bullet. If the perp used a FMJ (full metal jacket) bullet, the traditional ball ammo, the bullet probably passed through the victim and may never be found. If a JHP (jacketed hollow point) bullet was used, it may be a mostly flat blob of metal inside the victim’s body. Some barrel marks may be visible under magnification, but maybe not. If a .223 round was used, the bullet will likely fragment, break up into little pieces. These bullets don’t often pass through windshields or body armor, one of the reasons the M-4 and M-16 rifles aren’t popular with troops.

Did you know replacement barrels are available? Barsto is one company that makes replacement barrels for almost any pistol. And gun manufacturers sell replacement barrels, too. Some of these barrels may have to be fitted by a gunsmith, but others are drop-in. It would be easy for a perp to switch gun barrels, kill someone, then replace his old barrel and dispose of the new one. Ballistics might be able to match a strange firing pin profile on the primer, but they’d never match the barrels. Replacement barrels can be ordered by anybody, and some gun shops have them on hand. Nothing to sign, no background check required. Throw that into your ballistics stew and chew on it.

Another company, Otis Technology, has come out with a ceramic barrel liner. Just coat a bunch of bullets, fire them, and whamo, you’ve got new life in an old barrel. And new life in the old barrel probably means a new ballistics pattern, although there may be some carryover. Can Ballistics determine if this ceramic coated barrel is from the same gun before the ceramic treatment? Stay tuned. This stuff is too new for anyone to say with certainty.

It’s widely believed that hollow point bullets are rare, that usage of them demonstrates intent to kill. This is just false. In fact, hollow points are considered the standard defense round and the round cops carry in their guns. Why? Because they’re safer to bystanders than ball ammo; they tend to keep the damage limited to the target.

Many people don’t believe the 9mm bullet to be a man-stopper. While proponents complain it’s all about aim, and protest that a 9mm bullet aimed correctly will do the job, most people believe the 9mm bullet is not the preferred man-stopper. In fact, the FBI developed the .40 cal S&W cartridge after a fatal Miami bad guy encounter. The bad guys were pumped full of 9mm bullets, but still managed to keep firing and killing FBI agents.

Many people feel the primary risk associated with a .45 acp round is over-penetration, the likelihood that a round will penetrate walls and strike people even at distance. But tests with ballistic gelatin show that .45 acp bullets, because of their mass, travel at slower speeds than 9mm bullets and penetrate less. Make that bullet a hollow point, and there will likely be no .45 acp over-penetration at all.

I’ve often heard the statement made by experts that mystery writers who claim a gun can be identified by a bullet alone are wrong. And in most cases, that’s a correct statement. But as with most things, this isn’t the full story. In fact, in some cases, the crime investigators and CSI folks can come mighty close.

For instance, short barreled pistols are popular for concealed carry, for obvious reasons. But hollow point bullets shot out of a Baby Glock (G26, G27, G28, G29, G30, G33 and G36) for instance, may not open up. Hollow points need to reach a certain velocity to open upon impact, and the extremely short barrel of some guns prevents the velocity from reaching terminal energy limits of the round. These hollow point bullets may perform like ball ammo. An investigator who sees an unopened hollow point will likely determine it was shot out of a short-barreled gun.

That narrows the field somewhat, but let’s carry this scenario further. What if it was a .357 round? Well, the .357 was designed for a revolver. The semi-auto version is the .357 Sig. They’re different bullets. There are very few short barreled revolvers shooting a .357 round; fewer still semi-auto models shooting the .357 Sig round. (A side note is necessary here. If you’re an investigator investigating a .357 indoor shooting, look for someone who’s deaf. Most crimes are spontaneous, and even if not, how many mysteries or thrillers have you read where the gun-shooting perp was wearing hearing protection?)

What if the bullet was lead? Well, if you’re thinking Glock, which has the largest gun market share, lead bullets should not be used. Most guns have lands and grooves inside the barrel. These are used to start the bullet spinning, which like a spiral pass in football, makes the bullet more accurate. But Glocks use a proprietary system, different from the typical lands and grooves. Read your Glock manual; it says not to use lead bullets. Lead bullets in a Glock, even just one firing, will foul a Glock barrel, affecting accuracy and velocity. Only someone who doesn’t know much about Glocks would fire a lead bullet in one.

Issues like these abound in shootings and the investigation of them. If you’re looking for ways to trip up your perp and make your protag more brilliant, knowledge of some of these facts or issues may be of help. In future columns, I may add some more interesting factoids that make your book a little more special.

But you can also research these things yourself. As I said in my last blog here, I got interested in guns when my editor excoriated me for a gun safety error I’d made. So I researched guns, bought some and found I caught the bug. No, I haven’t shot anybody, and I don’t intend to. But the gun is America’s weapon of choice, and I decided if I was going to write about them, I should learn something about them. And I’ve found some really good resources.

I subscribe to many gun magazines. The three best, I believe, are Combat Handguns, Guns and Ammo, and The American Rifleman, the magazine of the NRA. Additionally, Personal Defense, Guns and Ammo, and The American Rifleman are television programs that are broadcast weekly. Another good television program is Tactical Impact, where not only are stalking skills taught but also comparative analysis of the positives and negatives associated with various weapons assigned to various missions. Interesting and useful stuff.

But by far the best resource I’ve found is the internet. My favorite site is SigForum.com. You’ll find over forty-five thousand members talking guns, not limited to Sig Sauers, and most of the members are military or law enforcement. Ask a question, you’ll get an answer. Or use the search function. This site is extremely well run and is focused on being helpful. Jerks are not tolerated.

Other useful sites are GlockTalk.com, The HighRoad.com, WarRifles.com, AR15.com, and ArizonaShooting.com to name a few.

Bottom line: If your perp used a gun, make sure you know what you’re writing about.