Quote of the Day, Chris

Chris from Alaska over at Joe’s place

As a hunter, I don’t particularly care for detachable magazines for most of my hunting arms. In fact fixed magazines are probably better for a bunch of reasons on a big game rifle. Still, companies insist on selling hunting rifles with detachable mags, sometimes without even offering a fixed version (like my XBolt). Some of that is driven by consumer preference (American civilian markets have emulated common military and police trends forever, and detachable mag rifles have been “in” for a long time). But a lot of it has to do with gun safety laws that require the rifles to be loaded and unloaded frequently. If you live in a place with lots of places that require you to handle the gun frequently and take all the ammo in and out of the rifle frequently then a detachable mag is a lot more convenient than a fixed one (or even a hinged floorplate). Yet another case of unintended consequences — without some of these gun laws there would likely be even fewer detachable mag rifles out there…

Yep, magazines are failure points, and the less complicated the magazine the less prone to failure. But gun laws promote answers to problems nobody had. I have an old Remington 722 which is the predecessor to the extremely popular Remington 700. The 722 has a fixed box magazine, and a two-position safety. When the gun is on “Safe” the gun is locked up solid. Trigger is disconnected, and the bolt is locked in place. This is ideal for hunters as you don’t want your trigger getting pulled when crawling through brush, but you also don’t want your bolt opened and you ammo spilled. The 700 (at least the more modern offerings) has a 3-position safety so the trigger can still be disconnected, but the action free to swing, and a detachable magazine, these are just for easily unloading the gun, and as Chris says in compliance with hunting laws.

The antis love to talk about how I should give up my handguns for a shotgun. Now I will admit shotguns have superior short-range ballistics to handguns. But I actually don’t use a shotgun as my preferred home defense arm because #1. Its not convenient for me to carry my shotgun around with me at home. #2. My Mossberg 590, for all its evil features has a fixed magazine.

I of course COULD appease the antis and replace my handgun with shotguns with removable magazines, and get over the portability issue by simply stashing one on every floor of my house.

Would that make you antis feel better, or worse?

Oh and I’m not sure if you guys who live in free states, but the AWB restricts pistol and rifle magazines to 10-rounds…but shotgun magazines to FIVE! The only reason for this was just picking a random number that was common in the industry so as not to gore the hunter’s ox. Most pump shotguns hold 5, so that was the magic line in the sand. I’m sure if they were gaining ground they’d make like Australia and ban pump-guns the same as semi-autos.