BG> Standard .22 LR. The Ruger's magazine looks like a 1" square
 BG> box, and the cartridges load in a rotary fashion, not unlike
 BG> the old Thompson .45. The whole idea is to make it sit flush
 BG> with the stock, without protruding. 

 BL> Terrific!

 BG> It is, actually. Doesn't catch on the window during drive-bys.
 BG> :)

  ROFL! I areally didn't know they still used rotary magazines, except
for the mad Russians.

 BL> .44 Magnum pistol rounds? What a strange calibre. It would be
 BL> rather effective at killing people, but not very good at range.

 BG> It's actually a very useful calibre, especially for short-range
 BG> work, such as with pigs. The muzzle velocity is only 1960fps
 BG> but it has a massive amount of muzzle energy at close range,
 BG> with its heavy 240g projectile. 

  Is it likely to replace 9mm? It started off more-or-less the same
way as your 44 magnum, as a pistol round that ended up the standard
for submachine guns.

 BL> Rifles are things of great beauty, but so are viruses, and both
 BL> are dangerous on the loose.

 BG> Nope. Just like viruses, guns are harmless without people to
 BG> carry

  AIDS? Mad Cow's disease? Armalites. They're all dangerous on the
loose, Bill.

 BG> Not to cats though, if they're within 25m or so. :)

 BL> (grin). At what range would the bullet become harmless... 100m
 BL> or so?

 BG> Hard to say. I wouldn't really like to be hit with a Z, even
 BG> from 100m. Any bullet with forward motion is dangerous IMO. :) 

  I realise that. I meant at what range could it hit you in the chest
say, and only bruise. An air rifle is like that almost point-blank...
or at 10 metres.

 BG> Something for which we can be thankful, I suppose. I'd sooner
 BG> be shot at from a .22 than a fucking 9mm Uzi, or whatever. 

  I agree! This is my reasoning behind banning SLRs. I'd much rather a
loony went bonkers in a Mall with a 303 than an AK47.

 BG> Give me a ¬" drill and 5 minutes, and I can turn ANY semi into
 BG> a full auto, which means that anybody who's really serious can
 BG> do exactly the same thing. 

  Yair... it's actually more difficult to make it semiautomatic, and
keep the firing rate low on full auto.

 BG> Sorry Bob, but at 1000m the .22 has used almost all of its
 BG> muzzle energy, and is at the extreme end of its maximum range

 BL> I know that, but you misread what I wrote.

 BG> No, I correctly read what you mistyped. :)

  (grin)

 BL> I know all that, but a loony with the 303 will only get off one
 BL> shot before I'm over the urban horizon, and he'll probably
 BL> miss.

 BG> Whether or not you believe that Oswald killed Kennedy, the
 BG> Warren Commission proved beyond any doubt that it was possible
 BG> for Oswald to chamber and fire three rounds in five seconds,
 BG> ALL with extreme accuracy, from his prehistoric Mannlicher
 BG> Carcano rifle.

  Actaully, they didn't. They asserted it, but in the actual tests, no
one ever suceeded in doing what Oswald is supposed to have done - put
three rounds into a moving target at 200m, firing from a 2nd storey
window.

  But I agree that an expert can work a bolt action rather well. I
forget the firing rate claimed for a 303, for instance, but it was
surprisingly high, top-feeding preloaded 5-round clips... something
like 30/minute. Oddly, being left-handed, I'd much prefer an SLR. It's
a real bastard reaching over the top all the time.

  BG> That can logically be extended to 36 aimed shots per minute, or
 BG> 360 shots in just 10 minutes. Deduct maybe 25% of that total
 BG> for reloading the 5-shot magazine with clips (takes about 2
 BG> seconds), and it means that even with an old bolt-action rifle,
 BG> Bryant could still have killed 35 people in well under 2
 BG> minutes.

  You're assuming that Bryant is a crack shot like Oswald. He wasn't.
And I can't imagine a psycho being perfectly calm, either.

  I remember once a kangaroo got confused by a wire fence and actually
hopped along the fence while I fired at it. My first shot was aimed
(and missed at 200m), but after that I just blasted away, and in the
end the kangaroos was so close I could have thrown the rifle and hit
it. I'll never know, because it looked so good so close up that I
fired the last shot intentionally high... but I was trying until then!

  In Vietnam there were 500 million rounds of ammunition fired against 
2 million Vietcong. It takes a trained expert to freeze, aim, fire, 
and hit.

 BG> And in your example above, you'd get just a few feet before his
 BG> second shot put your lights out for good. 

  If I got 5 feet, he'd never hit me. As a kid firing shanghais, 5
feet was all I ever needed, and a shanghai has the firing rate of a 303.

 BL> The hoon will enpty the entire clip, and as soon as I'm hit and
 BL> immobilised, he'll empty what's left into me. 

 BG> Bryant didn't. With few exceptions, he methodically shot each
 BG> person just once, then set about finding another victim. 

  The Armalite .223 really works at close range. I read an article on
the M-16. The hydrostatic shock of the mach-3+ bullet is almost always
fatal close up. The old 303 or the 7.6mm is better at range, but the
kill-rate of the 223 is incredible at 50m in a jungle situation.

 BG> Next time you visit the library, have a look at one of the
 BG> ballistics manuals, compare the velocity and energy figures
 BG> between a .22 and a 7.62mm, then come back and tell me that
 BG> you'd still prefer the .22 for a mass slaughter. 

  The Oz Army has stuck with the 5.6mm. They could have bought anything.

 BL> I went shooting pigs at Mooree in swampy scrub like you said,
 BL> and the local publican used an old 303 (in the 60s)

 BG> Probably because ex-WWII Lee-Enfield SLMEs were only a couple
 BG> of quid each then, and ex-military ammo was dirt cheap too. 

  That's right! I paid $26 for my old 303/25 in the 60s, and half of 
that was the stock.

 BL> plus a 357 you could hardly lift, let alone fire.

 BG> Might have been an old Webley, but they were generally .45
 BG> calibre.

  No... this was the latest thing at the time. The publican was a gun
nut, and his best mate was the local cop! ROFL!

 BL> I stayed well out of it! I reckoned the shooters and their dogs
 BL> were more dangerous than the pigs. No one had a shotgun, but
 BL> they had everything else. It was a funny weekend. 

 BG> Sounds hilarious. :)

  It was actually, and miraculoulsy, no one got shot. But it cured me
of pig shooting for life. Talk about dangerous!

 BL> But in those days, the FN SLR was military and there were no
 BL> other semiautomatics except a Bren. ROFL! I remember fondly the
 BL> way they looked at Peter's .343

 BG> Presumably you mean the .243 Winchester (round, not rifle).

  Yes... you're right. I saw him shoot a kangaroo at 600 yards with
it. In those days, .243 Winchester was state-of-the art. It was the
first of the new-shape cartridge - parallel and necked.

 BL> They just let the dogs find the pig, yelled madly, and shot
 BL> anything that wasn't a dog.

 BG> Bloody hell, I can just imagine everybody running around
 BG> yelling "woof"

  ROFL!! And everyone pissed before and after. I kept about 50 yards
back, clutching my 303/25 like a club in case a pig jumped out at me!

  Do you know that scene in Crocodile Dundee, where everyone is
shooting off the back of a truck? We didn't have a truck, but it
*felt* like that. I'll bet the bloke who wrote that scene has been pig
shooting at Mooree.

Regards,
Bob
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12
@EOT:

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