Keith, at 16:48 on May 19 1996, you wrote to Bill Grimsley...

KR> i saw a gun on sale in a shop in paris. it was a bolt action pistol with a 
KR> barrel about 9" long and had a silencer and tele sight.

BG> Oh dear.  The ideal assassins' weapon.

KR> thats the only use for it that i could see. the shop in question was in an 
KR> arcade on the champs elaisee (sp?)and sold virtually any sort of weapon 
KR> that you could think of, flick knives, butterfly knives, knuckle dusters, 
KR> crossbows etc etc.

Charming.  Any wonder that Europe is becoming a cesspit.

KR> the blurb stated that it was .22 calibre, and fired subsonic ammo. it makes 
KR> you wonder which market they were catering to.

BG> Indoor 25m target shooting would be my guess (or would have been, in
BG> the absence of a silencer).  The 'scope, bolt action and 9" bbl are
BG> for accuracy, but I fail to see any need for a silencer.  It's a worry.

KR> you wouldn't use a scope for 25m target work.

Of course you can!  I was in the Bexley Small-bore Rifle Club many years
ago, and they had ranges of 10m and 25m indoors, and 50m and 100m outside,
and there were various levels of competition, mainly using vernier peep
sights, but some did use 'scopes, and on pistols as well.

KR> it is worth remembering that, when mossad were taking revenge for the 
KR> munich massacre, their weapon of choice was a .22 pistol with reduced ammo. 
KR> they had to get really close but the gun was small and almost silent. it 
KR> amuses me to see the movie assassin screw a silencer on a luger and just 
KR> get a small po when he fires, the ammo would have to be so reduced that the 
KR> bulet would hardly make it out of the barrel.

There are two problem with silencing a bullet.  Revolvers are poor, because
some gas (i.e. noise) escapes between the cylinder and the barrel, and
autos aren't any better, as a hell of a lot of noise comes from the breech
as the pistol auto-loads the next round, and the slide also makes a hell of
a racket when it activates.  The rest of the noise comes from the sonic
boom created by the bullet if it has a muzzle velocity in excess of
1000fps.

Therefore, the ideal assassins' handgun is an auto which has a bolt-locked
breech (or a specialist single shot gun), is fitted with a silencer, and
fires sub-sonic ammunition.  I can tell you from experience that the
sub-sonic Zs have enough muzzle energy at point blank range to completely
pass through a 1" pine board and a Brisbane yellow pages, and still
keep going (through the wall in my case, and boy, was Lyn pissed!).  It's
the prfect assassin's cartridge, and it ain't too shabby on cats either. 
:)

KR> it turned out that some kids had been shooting at a tree about 500 metres 
KR> away (and quite a lot further up the hill), and missed. you'd have to say 
KR> that the guy was very unlucky, 

BG> Very.  Any idea where it hit him?  Even at 500m, there's very little
BG> muzzle energy left in the projectile.  Any reloading manual will tell
BG> you that too.

KR> no idea, he was obviously very unlucky.

Yeah, extremely.

KR> i do wonder sometimes when i see people firing guns into the air, what 
KR> damage the bullets do when they land.

If fired straight up in the air, the end result is the same as if you'd
dropped a 40g piece of lead from Australia Square Tower.  If it hit you on
the head, it could possibly cause a bit of damage, but I doubt that it
would kill anybody.  However, if a bullet still has a fair bit of forward
motion, it's extremely dangerous until it almost stops, IMO.

Regards, Bill

--- Msgedsq/2 3.20