► Show Top 10 Hot Links

Posts Tagged ‘Iron Fist’

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Saturday Night Weapons Thread

by Kafir ( 399 Comments › )
Filed under Guest Post, Open thread at October 31st, 2009 - 7:00 pm

Blogmocracy in Action!
Guest post by: Iron Fist

Swords, Wonderful Swords
swords

A few weeks ago now I wrote a bit on knives, especially high-dollar knives. Today I want to touch on knives bigger brothers, swords. Sword making is truly an art form, one that has fewer practitioners as time goes on. It is a difficult, fairly low-demand market, and one where actual functionality of a weapon is not necessarily the primary goal of the smith creating the weapon. Thus we have thousands of low-end, factory made weapons that are of inferior quality that flood the market and satisfy most of what demand is there.

These low –end weapons aren’t necessarily cheap, themselves. Paul Chen, is one such manufacturer, and their weapons approach being of what I would consider acceptable quality. They are definitely of sufficient quality for a weapon that one doesn’t require as a weapon of personal defense (I wouldn’t bet my life on them). I have wanted a Chen Naginata for some time now, but have not been able to justify the money for something that is entirely for decoration (although I refuse to decorate with weapons that are not sufficient to the task for which they are ostensibly designed).

At the more moderate price-point, we have blades by a company named Last Legend. I own a daisho (set of katana and wakizashi; the katana being the long sword and the wakizashi being a short sword. The right to carry such a pair of weapons belonged exclusively to the Samurai cast even before Japan passed the draconian weapons-laws that are still basically on the books today) made by this company. Specifically, I own a pair of their top-end 8192-layer forged dual-steel blades. These are way more than is necessary for simple decoration. They are designed to be used, mostly for cutting competition today. They are, quite simply, weapons I would bet my life on if I had to. Last Legend makes only a small quantity of each of their designs (the pair I own was limited to four hundred blades), so they have a measure of potential as collector’s items as the years wear on. These are not (quite) the best production level katanas available. That distinction probably goes to weapons by Bugai. The price differential easily exceeds 100% of the lesser weapon (i.e. the Last Legend).

Where one goes from there is basically the “godawful expensive and up” market. Hand-made, custom swords with Damascus blades, 10,000 layer blades, exotic steels, cryogenic tempering (Last Legend used to offer the cryo-tempering, but do not appear to any longer. My pair are cryo-tempered), and a host of other options come with that decision. The sky really is the limit, up to and including six-figure weapons by top-ranked smiths adorned with gold and jewels.

All the pretty-pretty doesn’t make the weapons more efficient tools for killing, though. The Last Legend is admirably suited to that task. Owning two, I want to get a third. I really like the Taketoshi design. I will eventually get one if their limited run does not run out first.

(Savage, this one’s for you)

Tags: , ,
Posted in Guest Post, Open thread | 399 Comments »

Saturday night WEAPON thread

by Kafir ( 314 Comments › )
Filed under Blogmocracy, Guest Post, Open thread at October 10th, 2009 - 8:00 pm

Blogmocracy in Action
Guest post by: Iron Fist
knife

And now for something a little different.  It is no secret that as weapons go, knives are my favorite weapon.  They offer a tremendous amount of diversity of design.  The steel they are made of, the materials used in the construction of the hilt, the length of the blade, the angle of the hilt all come together to define the weapon.    In no particular order, these are some links for knives.  You can find almost anything you want, from fancy art knives to cheap utility knives for sale on the web.  Enjoy.

http://www.eliteknives.com/index.htm

http://steeladdictionknives.com/store/index.php?osCsid=0a132b2ba2d7bad96f7fe29b4fb95730

http://www.mercworx.com/EN/newitems.html

http://www.spartanbladesusa.com/cart/

http://www.emersonknives.com/

http://www.888knivesrus.com/

http://topsknives.com/

http://www.knifemart.com/browse.asp?ManuID=176

http://www.switchblade-knives.it/

http://www.benchmade.com/

Tags: ,
Posted in Blogmocracy, Guest Post, Open thread | 314 Comments »

Saturday night gun thread!

by Kafir ( 332 Comments › )
Filed under Guest Post, Open thread, Weapons at October 3rd, 2009 - 6:00 pm

Blogmocracy in action!
Guest post by:
Iron Fist
if_gun

These are interesting times for those of us who support the Second Amendment and related rights in the United States. The odious so-called “Assault Rifle” ban expired in 2004, opening up a market that had been severely limited for a decade. This brought with it a wave of new firearms that had developed during the years of oppression that had followed the Democrat’s ill-advised abridgement of the civil rights of all Americans. Some of these weapons were simply American made variants of existing weapons (George H.W. Bush’s disastrous Executive Order banning the import of certain weapons is still in force), but some were weapons that were new to the market.

The weapon pictured above is one of these. It is a Sig 556 pistol. It has a short barrel, but no shoulder stock. The Democrats made it illegal to put a shoulder stock on a pistol in 1933, and during the intervening years no Republican has had the guts to try and remove such an asinine law. Perhaps in the future…

For now, one has to choose one or the other. The Sig, IMHO, is the best of these out there. It is a high quality, reliable weapon at a relatively reasonable price. It is what I’d term an “investment” weapon in that if the Democrats were to re-authorize the AWB it would be one of the weapons that dramatically increased in value, much as the H&K SP 89 (a semi auto variant of their excellent MP-5K) increased in price, nearly tripling in value overnight. It is also an investment in fun. It is light, and in a mild but effective caliber (5.56 NATO), compatible with many after-market M-4/AR-15 accessories. Life is short. You know you want one…

Tags:
Posted in Guest Post, Open thread, Weapons | 332 Comments »

Saturday night GUN THREAD!

by Kafir ( 379 Comments › )
Filed under Blogmocracy, Guest Post, Open thread, Weapons at September 19th, 2009 - 5:00 pm

Blogmocracy in ACTION!
Guest post by: Iron Fist
machinegun2
Happiness is a Belt-Fed weapon, and one of the best is the WWII-era German MG-42. An old design, but far from obsolete, the MG-42/MG-3 general purpose machinegun is one of the finest weapons of its type ever made. Originally developed for the Nazi war machine during the Second World War, it has been manufactured by armies around the world ever since.

The MG 42 is a short-recoil operated, air cooled, belt fed weapon which fires from an open bolt. The barrel is quick-removable, and can be replaced in less than six seconds by a properly trained crew, although an asbestos glove is required to remove the hot barrel. The action of the weapon is operated by the recoil of the locked barrel, assisted by a muzzle booster which uses pressure from the muzzle blast to increase the recoil impulse. Locking is achieved by a pair of rollers, which are forced outwards from the sides of the bolt head to engage cuts in the barrel extension. Locking (outward) movement of the rollers is controlled by the wedge-shaped front part of the bolt body; unlocking (inward) movement of the rollers by the cams made in the receiver. This is a simple and solid system which minimizes the length of parts that are under stress upon discharge, and also minimizes the strain on the receiver. On MG 3 machine guns, two types of bolts are available, with standard weight (about 650 gram) for fast rate of fire and with heavy weight (about 900 gram) for slow rate of fire. It must be noted that those bolts also are used along with different return springs.The receiver and barrel jacket are made in one unit, and formed from a sheet of rolled steel, cut to shape by pressing and stamping, and then welded and pinned to form a gun housing of generally rectangular cross-section. The front part of the housing serves as a barrel jacket and has a number of oval cooling slots at all sides except the right.

Having to change bolts to change the rate of fire is somewhat archaic, but for a weapon nicknamed “Hitler’s Zipper” for its fearsome rate of fire, it is understandable that one would want to slow the rate of fire when the weapon is being used in certain roles. Unfortunately, the laws of the Unite States are such that most people will find that actually owning one of these fine weapons is simply not possible. While civilian-legal registered MG-42 machineguns do exist, they are rare and prohibitively expensive. Bummer. But all is not lost. Recently, a company named Wise Lite Arms began re-manufacturing MG-42s from Yugoslavia (designated the M53) as a semi-automatic weapon. This weapon can be bought for around $3000. This is still not cheap, but it is orders of magnitude less expensive than the legal full-auto version. If you are more of a do-it-yourself person you can lower the price even further by buying your own receiver from BRP Corp. and a parts kit (there are a number of suppliers for this) and building the Weapon yourself.

Either way, a semi-automatic MG-42 is civilian legal, just like any other rifle. It requires no special license, paperwork, or approval to purchase. Ain’t America great?

MG 42 MG 3
Caliber 7,92×57 7,62×51
Weight (gun)+20, 5kg (Lafette 42 tripod) 10,5 (gun) + various tripods
Length 1219 mm 1225 mm
Length of
barrel		 533 mm 565 mm
Feed belt belt
Rate of fire 1200-1500 rounds per
minute		 700-800 or 1100-1200 rounds per
minute

http://world.guns.ru/machine/mg33-e.htm

http://www.wiselitearms.net/7.html

http://www.brpguns.com/mg42semi.htm

Tags:
Posted in Blogmocracy, Guest Post, Open thread, Weapons | 379 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »