Friday - May 14, 2010

Little Big Guns

I had fun yesterday doing my own peculiar follow up to the post I did on the new Mustang GT. First I found out that the tires for this monster cost nearly $325. Each. Then I played around with the gear ratios in the car’s transmission, trying to figure out the breaks between shifts (ie how much the engine slows down when you upshift). That was a fun spreadsheet exercise, and I also worked up some numbers for a new 5th and 6th gear that would give the car another 3mpg on the highway. The new GT uses some very interesting ratios in it’s manual transmission, and the breaks between gears are huge, considering that the 6 speed transmission is a 5+1; it only has a single overdrive gear. First gear is stump pulling low, so low that for normal driving you wouldn’t even use it most of the time. Shifting at a moderately sporty 4000rpm will let you shift from 4th to 5th (or 6th) gear at a hair over 65mph, while going real easy on the gas and shifting at 3000rpm puts the 5th to 6th shift right at 65mph. Lead footed boy racer types will redline the engine and hit highway speed coming out of 2nd gear. Yikes.

Then I looked at torque loading on the tires, weight balance, fuel consumption, etc, and determined the obvious: this is a toy car to have fun with on the weekends in nice weather. Keep a little Hyundai in the garage for day to day driving, rainy weather and winter use.

And while the new GT is wicked fast, both the Corvette Z06/LS7 and the Corvette ZR1/LS9 will eat it alive for lunch and spit out the bones while laughing. Sorry guys. There is no replacement for displacement, and both ‘vettes make at least 50% more power while weighing at least 500 pounds less. And cost nearly twice as much, but who counts price when we’re talking toy cars for sunny weekends?



Um, gee, that’s nice and all, but I thought this was a gun porn post? What’s the connection?

Well, diddling around with gear ratios trying to get the GT’s RPM down to just over idle in top gear at 65mph to maximize MPG without compromising the on-ramp rush was an exercise in practicality while dealing with excessive power. The same concept can be applied to firearms. There are two ways to get lots of power out of a gun: shoot a small bullet very fast, or shoot a really big bullet at pretty much any velocity. Big bullets at high velocity pack unbelievable power. Elephant guns and anti-aircraft weapons. But big soft bullets at moderate velocity get the job done just fine on everything else that is not an elephant or a 747. Buffalo guns and elephants guns comprise a class of firearms known as heavy rifles, and that’s exactly what they need to be. Massive power generates massive recoil, and the one true way to dampen that is with mass. So these rifles need to weigh 10 to 15 pounds. And that’s a whole lot of gun, too much for most people to schlep around in the woods all day. Over the past couple of decades the trend has been for lighter, shorter rifles, while at the same time the newest hunting cartridges have become far more powerful. Combine the two and you get an easy to carry gun potent enough to hunt blue whales with, that smacks the bloody snot out of you when you pull the trigger. Not the ideal situation.

One way to lighten a rifle is to shorten the barrel. Steel is pretty heavy stuff, and lopping half a foot or so off the barrel can cut a pound or two of weight. One of the problems with that is that the new super-boomer cartridges really need that long long barrel to work their magic. With stubby barrels all you’re doing is wasting powder and damaging your hearing from the mighty muzzle blast; short barrels cause their velocity to drop a large amount, sometimes 300-400 feet per second, negating all the extra performance you bought them for in the first place. But short barrels make for short rifles, and short rifles are very easy to maneuver in the bushes.

So what’s the work-around? Little light rifles that shoot big soft bullets at moderately low velocities. They give you all the power you need to hunt deer, elk, and bears out to 200 yards, without the excessive recoil. Ok, with only somewhat excessive recoil. And that’s where modern technology comes in, because these days you can buy guns that have shock absorbers built right in. And that helps a lot, far more than just a rubber recoil pad.

So onto the latest in the Little Big Gun field.

Marlin introduces it’s new 1895GBL. This is the 1895G model rifle with a larger loop in the lever and a full length magazine tube. Chambered in the .45-70, it gives you 6 shots and a lever big enough to work while wearing thick gloves. The pistol grip stock and the big squishy recoil pad absorb quite a lot of kick, and it’s wood laminate stock and blued metal finish give it a traditional look while being fairly weather resistant. With a mere 18.5” barrel, the gun is just 37” long and weighs only 7 pounds empty. Fully loaded it will tip the scales at about 8 pounds and be a bit muzzle heavy, but that makes for a smooth aiming gun and helps cut recoil even more.

Taking the concept even further is a new rifle with a name nearly as big as the gun itself. This is the Thompson Center Encore Katahdin Pro Hunter FlexTech™ Carbine. It’s a 6 1/4 pound single shot rifle, chambered in the same .45-70 as the Marlin, along with the .460 S&W, the .500 S&W, and the “209 x 50” black powder version. All 4 of these chamberings will push a 300 grain bullet to 2000fps, plus or minus a little, which makes them potent short range hunters for deer, hogs, elk, and medium huge bears. The TC Encore is a break action design, so it’s receiver is very short. The Katahdin version comes with a 20” barrel, yet the rifle is only 34.5” long. That’s mighty short, and mighty light. The really impressive thing about this one is the FlexTech™ stock, which has a recoil absorbing design. It works like a series of progressive leaf springs, and is said to reduce felt recoil by up to 50%. I believe it; I’ve played the heavy rifle game for years and I have concluded that it is not the pounds/feet of recoil impact that causes the pain, it’s the speed of the impulse. The springy stock slows the impulse down a lot, turning a sharp punch into a big slow push. That’s much less punishing, and keeps you from wimping out in front of the other guys at the rifle range for much longer periods. Been there, done that, own the Past Magnum pad and use it without shame.

So there’s your gun porn. Power in a small package without excess recoil. That’s practical, for practical hunting at practical ranges.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/14/2010 at 01:30 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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