It's Not an Optical Illusion, It's a Punt Gun!

Don't tell PETA, but the Punt Gun was really used for Duck Hunting in the late 1800's and early 1900's.  The Punt Gun, was used to shoot large amounts of water fowl, primarily ducks, with one pull of the trigger. Now worries, this gun was used for commercial harvesting purposes and not necessarily for sport shooting.  Could you image using this guy on your next duck hunting trip? No thanks!

As you can imagine, the use of this enormous shot gun depleted duck populations and was consequently banned.

By now you've got to curious as to what it's like to fire one of these beasts! Check out the video below.

Read more about the punt gun.

The Importance of Body Alignment and your Bipod

We all assume that a bipod helps you shoot more accurately.  But that is not always the case.  How many times do you see a shooter on the range shooting badly with a bipod? It is certainly no guarantee of success in the pursuit of precision.  Although, the Army favors bipods the Marine Corp traditionally have taught their snipers to shoot over a pack.  Achieving sub half MOA precision under field conditions is difficult enough but without correct body alignment it’s IMPOSSIBLE. The all too frequent mistake made when shooting with a bipod is to have the bipod too high.  Your body position in relation to your rifle must be as neutral as possible in order to achieve accuracy. That means that you muscles should not be unduly tense in order to maintain correct alignment of the rifle to the target.  If you’re bipod legs are too high then your arm and chest muscles will have to be unduly tense.  At the moment of firing will be your body will relax slightly, and you will tend to throw your shot high as the butt of the gun will lower fractionally.  The easy way to test alignment form a firing position is to aim at your target take several deep breathes and then close your eyes, all the while keeping your body relaxed.  You should be able to open your eyes, and your cross hairs still be pointed at your target.  If your crosshairs are high, your bipod legs are adjusted too high.  Ensure that your bipod legs are set to the proper height using that simple test and your group sizes will diminish.  

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Long Range Tip: Beware of wet suppressors. part 1

Suppressors are a great addition to any precision rifle, or any firearm for that matter.  Hollywood often portrays a suppressor wielding thug assassin,  secret agent, or Special Forces Delta Seal Ranger silently eliminating sentries unbeknownst to others nearby.  In the gun world, we know this to be false, with few exceptions concerning sub-sonic ammunition with .22's, Mp5sd's, 300BLK, etc.. Still, with the latter firearms, they are still comparable to the sound signature of a nail-gun or a door slamming. Even the sound of the bullet impacting the target is quite loud, loud enough to alert nearby enemies. Let's look at the practical uses of suppressors.  They serve as excellent hearing conservation whether you are one of the elite in the mountains of Afghanistan, or elk hunting in Alaska.  People often report getting greater accuracy with a suppressor attached. I have not found a good study indicating why this would be.  However, a couple of theories are:  1) It allows the bullet to travel uninfluenced by as many gasses since they are blocked by baffles. 2) It reduces the concussion of the blast on the shooter which helps him/her focus on the fundamentals without anticipating the recoil.  Either way, once you shoot with a suppressor, you'll never want to shoot without one.

Now let's talk about the environment.  In many places, there can be an extreme array of environmental ups and downs.  It can be 80 degrees by day and drop to 30 or less by night.  It can be sunny and within hours be snowing or raining. The following report is based on an experience I had while hunting in Alaska.

Rifles used: 

LWRC REPR 16" 7.62x51, AAC Mk13-SD, Nightforce 2.5-10, and 168gr Federal Gold Medal Match 308

LWRC M6IC 14.7" 5.56x45, Surefire Socom 556RC, Elcan SpecterDr 1-4x, Hornady 55gr Vmax 223

I live on the southern coast of Alaska, and the annual rainfall is almost always above 200 inches. It is extremely difficult to keep things dry.  On August 12th of 2014, I went to a nearby island to hunt dear.  At this time the season was bucks only, so no doe's. (Suppressor Hunting is legal in Alaska).  My brother and I went to a bay where we have seen many deer before and decided to hike up the steepest part to get to the top without providing our scent to the wind on the less steep part.  At no time were we crossing streams or ponds.

I think it's worth noting, before EVERY hunt or field training I do, I take my rifles to the range the day before and ensure they are zeroed and I do NOT clean them until after the hunt or field training.  On the day of this specific hunt, I went to a range at 0600 hours before we left and made a cold bore shot at 630 yards on a 13" steel target, followed by a 3 shot group at 100 yards that was well under 1 MOA and zeroed perfectly.

We hike all day long for as much usable daylight as we had, which was about 6 hours.  It was raining cats and dogs.  We were both wearing "waterproof" gear, the real expensive name brand gear that I won't name. We were soaked in the first 10 minutes.  We both carried suppressed carbines muzzle down. The only exception to this was when we had to sling the rifles on our backs to use both hands for climbing, which was only about 5% of the time.  We saw 6 doe's, no bucks.  During the hiking, neither of us bumped or dropped the rifles, nor did we stick the muzzle in the dirt.  We also kept the ejection port covers closed, we were pretty religious about that.

After returning to town, I went to the local range and attempted to shoot an 8" diameter gong at 300 meters.  My REPR appeared to be impacting about 4 feet right, but was not predictable. The elevation seemed fine, but it was really all over the place.  The suppressor was on tight, and the gas adjustment was on the correct setting.  After firing most of a 20rd magazine, I was finally getting good hits. My last 5 or 6 rounds were within 4 or 5 inches of each other.

Then came the M6IC.  I pretty much got the same results.  I also go blasted in the face with water and powder after the first few shots.  The REPR did the same thing but it wasn't quite as bad because of the receiver design.  It appeared to me that the suppressors got some water in them, but I wouldn't have imagined that it would throw the impact off that much.  I contacted both Surefire and AAC to ask if they had ever received calls about similar issues, and neither one could think of why it happened, and admitted they hadn't heard of it before.  I started scratching my head, thinking maybe water had run down outside of the barrel and got past the suppressor mount and into the can, or perhaps into the gas block and down the bore. Neither one of those really made sense to me. The easiest way would be from the end, which we carried down 95% of the time.

After this I decided to run a little test. Bare with me, it might no be the most scientific test in the world, but with the resources available to me it was the best I could think of at the time.  The temperature was 38 degrees F and Barometric Pressure was 29.82.  Elevation is approximately 10 feet above sea level.

First I set up a test target at 100 yards. On the target there are 1 MOA grid lines with diamonds that are 9 MOA apart from each other in the corners and another diamond in the center.  After cleaning both rifles thoroughly, I attached the Surefire suppressor to the M6IC tightly and shot a 6 round group at the upper left diamond using Hornady 55gr Vmax.  Shooting was done from a bench with bean bags. The group measured barely over 1 MOA, roughly 1.18" center to center.  I then allowed the rifle and suppressor to cool for about 20 minutes. I then removed the suppressor and poured water into it muzzle end down, until it came out the end, then shook it in both directions until no more water poured out of it.  I then reattached the suppressor tightly and fired a 10 round group at the lower left diamond of the same target, using the ammunition from the same lot as previously.  I didn't think to measure the group because it was so bad. My guess is around 7".  Here is a picture of the test target.

Next I followed the same process with the REPR.  I thoroughly cleaned the rifle and shot 5 rounds of 168gr Federal Gold Medal Match on the upper left diamond of a new target.  It was well under 1 MOA center to center, and would have been 1/2 MOA had it not been for a flyer. I allowed the rifle and suppressor to cool for about 20 minutes.  I then removed the suppressor and repeated the same process of filling it with water then shaking it out. After reattaching the suppressor tightly, I fired a 10 round group at the lower left diamond. The group was so bad that I was amazed to find that I did not have a baffle strike on the suppressor.  Here is a picture of the REPR test target. Notice the extremely high shot in the middle, and the extreme far right shot. Only 9 of the 10 shots were accounted for.

After this test, I cleaned both rifles and shot about 1 magazine worth of junk ammunition to evaporate the remaining water, then proceeded to shoot clay pigeons at 300 meters. The zero of the rifles were not changed at any time during the test, nor were the optics removed.

...end part1

*Gregory Rubio is a former USMC infantry rifleman and current law enforcement officer. He is an LE Colt AR-15/M16 armorer and Rangemaster/Firearms Instructor in Alaska with over 20 years of experience with practical firearms usage.

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