Prepper's Armory: Ammo Mishaps, part 1

I decided to put together this post after two recent incidents on the range. In one, a customer loaded .380 ACP rounds into his 9mm pistol and while they fed, chambered, and fired properly, they didn’t cycle the action.

In the other, a different customer was having a problem with his new AR pistol. The bolt wouldn’t go all the way forward when he chambered a round, and that was because he was trying to load .223 Remington rounds in a gun chambered for .300 Blackout.

Those two incidents were resolved without injury or damage to the firearms. Sadly, this isn’t always the case. Most of the time, a firearm will only chamber and fire the correct cartridge, but the exceptions to this rule can be disastrous.

With certain bullets, a .300 BLK round will chamber in a .223 Rem or 5.56mm rifle because the case head is identical and the case is shorter than the .223/5.56. In most rifles, the extractor will keep the base of the cartridge against the bolt face and the firing pin will set off the primer. The shooter is then presented with a .30 caliber bullet trying to make its way through a .223 caliber bore. The best case in this situation is damage to the gun from the pressure spike; the worst case is injury or death to the shooter and anyone else nearby.

A .300 Blackout Bullet Recovered from a .223 Barrel

I can’t stress enough the importance of making sure that correct ammunition is used in a gun.  However, even if it’s the right caliber, it may still be too "hot" for the firearm, which can occur when shooting +P or +P+ ammunition in guns not rated for that energy level. It breaks my heart when I hear about a vintage revolver being blown up because someone fired a cartridge that develops far more pressure than the gun was designed to handle.

For example, many British Webley revolvers originally chambered in .455 were cut for .45 ACP in moon clips when they hit the surplus market after both world wars.  The .45 ACP round will chamber and fire, but the pressure level of 21st century .45 ACP is considerably greater than 20th century .455 Webley. Owners of these revolvers should either handload low pressure rounds or relegate  their Webley to "safe queen" status.

A revolver destroyed by overpowered ammunition

Less dangerous, but not entirely without risk, are surplus revolvers originally chambered in .38 Smith & Wesson which have been cut for .38 Special. The .38 S&W cartridge is both slightly wider and slightly shorter than .38 SPL, and importers would cut the chambers in the cylinder deep enough for .38 SPL to fit and call it a day. Firing .38 SPL out of these revolvers almost always results in ruptured cases and can cause erosion pits in the cylinder walls, both weakening the cylinder and making extraction more difficult.

Something similar was done to .38 SPL revolvers after the introduction of .357 Magnum, since the .357 MAG case is dimensionally identical to .38 SPL other than being 1/10th of an inch longer. Some people would have the chambers deepened in their .38 SPL revolvers so they could chamber .357 MAG cartridges, perhaps because they didn’t want to buy a new gun. Needless to say, this rarely ended well for the revolver.

I will list more examples in a future article, but I hope by this point the message is clear: know your firearm and its appropriate ammunition. A good resource is SAAMI, the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute.

Be careful, be safe, and enjoy many more years of shooting without blowing up any guns.

A Liquid Plastic Repair Job

Not actually Erin.

Picture by KJ Photography

& is used with permission.

Back in 2017, I talked about the prepping uses of liquid resin and a UV curing light. This past weekend I had an emergency situation where this method of repair came in very handy. 

As I have mentioned before, I use a CPAP at night. Well, after many years of faithful service, part of my mask broke. Actually, I'm not sure if "broke" is the correct word, as it doesn't look like anything sheared off; instead it just seems like the hard plastic ring inside the soft silicone nose piece, which serves as an attachment point for my headgear, decided it didn't want to stay in place any more. Perhaps there was a spot of glue holding it in place, or maybe the silicone just softened enough over time that there wasn't sufficient friction to keep it in position; regardless, the malfunction prevented proper operation of my CPAP because the nasal pillows wouldn't stay in place. 

More distressing is that it decided to break when I was already in bed and about to fall asleep. I needed to fix this quickly with a solution that didn't take a lot of time, effort, or brainpower:

• I considered using superglue to keep the rings in place, but I didn't know how well it would adhere to silicone, and even if it did I had no desire to breathe ethyl cyanoacrylate fumes all night. 
• I thought that something like duct tape or electrical tape might work. However, trying to wrap a complex curved surface with flat tape is something I find extremely challenging. Additionally, I wasn't sure how well the tape would stick to the silicone; if it didn't stick well then it would slip off in the night, but if it stuck too well then I might damage my headgear when I took the tape off to replace the broken nasal pillow. 
• As you have guessed, I fixed it with UV-cured liquid plastic. I reasoned that if I coated the exterior of the locking ring and then placed it back inside the silicone nose piece, even if it didn't glue the ring in place it would increase the surface area enough that I would have a good enough friction fit to make it through the night. As a bonus, I wouldn't be breathing any toxic fumes or risking damage to anything I wasn't intending to replace. 

I'm pleased to report that my quick fix did indeed solve my problem for that night. Unfortunately, the bond didn't hold for a second night, but by that point I had dug out my backup mask and ordered a replacement part, so it lasted as long as I needed it to last. Honestly, that's all you can ask of a patch job. 

Stainless Knife Steels: 440A vs. VG10

I have a passing interest in the history of both official and unofficial knives used by the US Military throughout history. In WW2,  the Marbles Ideal Knife was never official issue, but was known to be carried in every theater of operations. The Ideal pattern knife had been around for decades by the time WWII came about, and wouldn't have been out of place in any deer camp in America. This made the Marbles Ideal Knife a boyhood dream knife for many an American youth, up through when the Marbles company failed financially and essentially exists only as intellectual property. That being said, the current owner of the Marbles IP offers a modern take on the classic Marbles Ideal pattern knife: 

https://amzn.to/45scaYN

At $16 at Amazon, that Marbles knife is $10 less than what I paid for mine. But what does your $16 get you? Some 440A stainless steel, in a thick blade, with a rubber handle and a sheath to house it. However, that’s almost all you get with a nearly $90 Cold Steel SRK made in San Mai.

https://amzn.to/45se7EB

Cold Steel has been making the Survival Rescue Knife (SRK) pattern for decades and in many different steel types. It's even advertised as the Navy SEAL knife for sailors going through BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/Seal training).

So what gives? 

What makes one a $24 knife and the other a $90 knife? Is the price worth the difference?

First, the Marbles Ideal is a Chinese knife, and the Cold Steel SRK San Mai is a Taiwanese knife; the difference in country of origin reflects in the price. 

Second, the Chinese 440A stainless steel blade is a standard cutlery stainless steel with a decent carbon content,  and depending on the heat treatment it can be awesome or awful for edge retention (the awful reputation comes from a lot of cheap gas station/flea market knives using 440A with a bad heat treatment). The SRK San Mai has a VG10 steel core, which is sometimes called a "super steel" due to toughness, corrosion resistance, and edge retention. Lots of producers make 440A, but there is only one producer of VG10, so that is reflected in the price difference.

Comparing the steels by chemical makeup, VG10 has more carbon but less chromium, and also has a significant Cobalt content in the alloy. This means that 440A is theoretically slightly more rust resistant, and VG10 is going to have better edge retention at a given hardness level (more carbon to make carbides in the steel matrix). In practice, this means you’ll need to sharpen the Marbles Ideal knife slightly more often than the SRK San Mai. You can’t tell the different by eye or feel; you'll need a chemical assay to do that for you.

Finally, market forces. The Marbles brand may have been a big name in outdoors publications decades ago, but not anymore. On the contrary, Cold Steel has been a big name in the knife industry for decades, and brand equity is a thing, so that reflects in the price as well.

What does this mean for you?
In my experience with both knives, they are both going to get the job done. The Marbles Ideal has a better belly for skinning large game and the SRK has slightly better edge retention. I’d take either one with me into a salt water environment and expect no problems, given the very high chromium content of both blades. However, that same high chromium content combined with the final edge hardness makes sharpening with traditional stones a very poor life decision, so I would use a diamond stone when sharpening both knives.

Given that both work, have good edge retention, which one is better and why?

The SRK is better, because the handle is more comfortable, and the edge retention is slightly longer. The sheath is also a better design in my opinion, but that’s largely irrelevant. However, is it over three times better? No. The Chinese Marbles Ideal knife offers great utility for your money if you're pinching pennies and need a nearly 7” stainless steel Bowie style outdoorsy knife to do outdoorsy stuff. If you could only have one tool, a 4-7" Bowie style fixed blade isn’t the worst option to take with you.

However, if you are in the market for a knife to use as a general cutting tool for a Get Home Bag or use around the homestead, it is hard to beat the Mora Companion which has a more comfortable handle than either the SRK or Ideal knives, and while the blade is much thinner at 1/8th of an inch, that means it is that much lighter on the belt or in the pack. It also means it's the absolute best knife here for food preparation (I know, I've tested all three). The Sandvik stainless steel blade is the softest of the three, but that means it can be sharpened more easily, and by conventional stones, no need for a diamond stone.

It's heavy and thick, but if you need a "big camp chore knife", then for the money the Marbles Ideal really is a great value.

Converting 7.62x51 brass to 6.5 Creedmoor

I shoot a lot of 5.56x45mm and 7.62x51mm ammunition. The 5.56 is mainly used in Service Rifle Competition (although I compete less than I used to), and the 7.62 for hunting because it’s still very economical to handload and will reliably kill any large game in North America.

Years ago I put together a Swedish M41 sniper rifle clone for NRA Vintage Sniper matches, and got into the “6.5 bore” that way. A lot of my friends in the service rifle boards were extolling the virtues of the 6.5 Creedmoor as an excellent deer/antelope/competition cartridge, and I decided that if the price was right I’d get one. 

However, due to contentious American politics combined with the COVID pandemic, both ammunition and reloading components have been “scarce.” For my birthday two years ago I bought a 100 round bag of Starline brand 6.5 CM brass, which eventually was used building a hunting load for an Army buddy because he couldn’t find commercial hunting ammunition for less than 4 dollars per round going into that year’s deer season. I put together a basic load with a 139gr PPU brand soft point, IMR 4064, and Winchester primers, and that ended up printing five shots under an inch from his hunting rifle. He was tickled pink, and passed my “reloading recipe” on to his brother so they can replicate it in the future.

Unfortunately, that left me with no 6.5 CM brass (a truly first world problem if there ever was one), since I started getting into the caliber at a bad time. I did have bags and bags of spent 7.62x51 brass waiting to be processed, though, I figured I would give converting some into 6.5 CM a try.

I crushed and ruined a lot of cases. Despite being very similar in dimensions, this isn’t as simple as turning .30-06 into 8x57 or .30-06 into .25-06. You always pay for an education — sometimes with tuition fees, sometimes with time, and sometimes with ruined supplies — but the education and skills you get from that payment are worth it. What eventually worked with the highest conversion percentage, is this process:

1. Clean the cases
2. De-prime the cases
3. Anneal the necks with a small propane torch
4. Remove the expander ball from the resizing die
5. Lubricate the cases
6. Slowly size down the cases in a single stage press (this is where you’ll crush shoulders if you don’t have enough lube, or have too much lube, or go too fast)
7. Add the expander ball back into the resizing die
8. Lubricate the inside of the case necks
9. Run the cases back through the resizing die enough to set the neck size to 6.5 mm (do not fully run them up since the necks are way too long at this point, you just need to open them back up enough to use the trim tool in the next step)
10. Trim the resized cases (I use the Lee system combined with a handheld drill, works just fine)
11. Deburr the case necks (inside and out) with a chamfer tool
12. Tumble to remove the lube
13. Anneal the case necks

Note: depending upon your rifle chamber, you may need a neck turning tool to decrease the outside diameter of the newly sized brass necks for safe operation at this point. I found out this brass worked fine in the LR-10 6.5 CM upper, but the necks were just a smidge too thick for the Ruger American Predator to chamber easily. Trust me that you don’t want any interference between your case necks and the chamber, as that mechanical squeeze massively increases chamber pressure. If your loads were close to top end, you’ll experience blown primers immediately.

In the end, I have 48 6.5 CM cases with the headstamp “FC 11” indicating their military surplus origins. It would have been an even 50 except I crushed a few cases learning the ins, outs, and feels of making a process that works with my tools. I also have nearly a hundred more with LC headstamps of various years which is enough to develop a decent hunting load.

The benefits of this conversion is that generally American military surplus 7.62x51 brass is consistently high quality and built to last being cycled through automatic firearms. The downside is that you often get reduced case volume because the brass is on the thick side, but that only matters to people who are looking to maximize velocity. With a 6.5 CM, or 7.62x51 for that matter, velocity is much less interesting than accuracy. If you can accurately put the bullet where you want, you can put meat on the table and score high in matches.

Now, do I recommend you go out and buy a 500 lb lot of 7.62x51 brass and do the conversion on your single stage press at home? No. In fact, unless you already have the 7.62 brass and a lot of time to do the conversion, I wouldn’t recommend conversion at all. Supplies are coming back in stock and I purchased 150 spent casings of “range brass” that netted me 104 Hornady brand 6.5 CM brass and 20 Federal brand which ended up on a buddy’s desk (hand loaders stick together!). 

I do however recommend that you run through the process enough times so that if you have to do it in the future, you can, while knowing how your dies work. The worst thing that could happen is breaking your tools without a way to replace them, in an economic disruption, while trying to learn a tricky conversion. Maybe the next “contentious political season” will cause another market disruption, and I’ll spend my weekends converting brass because I that’s the only way to have brass to shoot.

Tools Used
Press: RCBS Jr. Press (built in 1967 and still working, but nearly any press will do)
Dies: Hornady 6.5 CM dies, Lee universal decapping die
Lube: Hornady One Shot
Trimmer: Lee case length gauge and lock stud system, Ryobi brand cordless drill to spin them
Chamfer Tool: Lyman VLD chamfer tool
Case Tumbler: Lyman brand
Neck Turning Tool: K&M brand

Note: you may need to do a final sizing with a “Small Base Resizing Die” if your chamber is on the small side and the original 7.62x51mm brass was fired through a machine gun with a generous chamber; I found that about one in five converted brass had difficulty chambering in the Ruger American Predator. 

I use RCBS Small Base dies when this is necessary for my 5.56x45 service loads, and so I picked up a set for the 6.5 CM. They make chambering a cartridge from the magazine a breeze, and if you reload for a “gas gun” you’ll eventually need a small base die set to avoid chambering issues on the firing line. I don’t anticipate needing to use the SB dies for any of the loads shot solely in the Ruger since the cartridges aren’t being extracted under pressure, and so the Hornady dies will do the bulk of work for that rifle.

Motorcycle First Aid Kit, Part the Latest

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Follow along as I build a long term plan via Prudent Prepping. 

Maybe the title for this should be "MY Motorcycle First Aid Kit", since I'm certain there have to be kits labeled for motorcycles and setups created by other riders. The problem I had is how to make the things I need accessible to me after a crash, and I believe I've solved it.

Zip Ties!

The old joke about fixing everything with duct tape or bailing wire needs to be amended to add zip ties since there are so many places tie wire won't allow for a tight twist to finish and tape isn't right. 

I'm attaching a zip tie mount to the interior of my saddle bag door as the final (for now, at least) place to keep everything secure and handy. I've had them loose in the saddlebag where they were flopping around when there wasn't anything in there, and I tried sticking them to the back. Neither was good: if I was carrying stuff no one could see the first aid gear on the back wall, and if I kept it loose I was worried about damage to the packaging and ruining any sterile seals. In March I posted the first attempt of carrying a first aid kit on my motorbike where you can get links to what I currently have.

The zip tie holding the two bags together is threaded normally, and the zip tie attaching the bag to the mount is backwards, meaning it won't ratchet down tight but still hold things together by a small amount of friction, allowing the first aid supplies to be removed from the saddle bag door easily when needed. There's no way that I could find to show that small zip tie in a picture, but if you try it you'll see that it'll slide out with very little effort. 

This project has been a struggle for me, as I had to stop adding bits and pieces of first aid gear to my motorcycle such like a very small kit with Band-Aids of various sizes, triple antibiotic and such. I've convinced myself that in the case of an actual accident, it's unlikely that Band-Aids are going to be much help, and if they are then many other people will probably have them. My only concession to this 'pack ratting' is a Pocket Pack of Kleenex and a small bottle of Advil in my riding jackets. The Advil gets refilled with fresh pills from a big bottle purchased from a warehouse store.

The end result, as of today.

I'll have to run this for a while to see if it really is safe and secure, but I'm optimistic. 

Recap and Takeaway

• I try to have first aid gear close to me wherever I am, and on the motorcycle is one of the more important places where I never want to need it.
• I really like what is in the Adventure Medical pack, which you can buy from Amazon and use our BCP link. The North American Rescue kit needs to be purchased directly from them. Seriously, go right to their site and shop there. 
• Be safe and expect better, but plan for problems; those around you will appreciate it.

* * *

Just a reminder: if you plan on buying anything through Amazon, please consider using our referral link. When you do, a portion of the sale comes back here to help keep this site running!

 

If you have comments, suggestions or corrections, please post them so we all can learn. And remember, Some Is Always Better Than None!

NOTE: All items tested were purchased by me. No products have been loaned in exchange for a favorable review. Any items sent to me for T&E will be listed as such. Suck it Feds.