Remember last post when i said "I became popular a little to quickly but more on that later"
Well now is time for that story, the last time i was in the Khyber pass we were on a manhunt for a warlord who was not part of the Khyber warlords (In the pass, different areas are controlled by the big warlords, and they work together on a board, but not quite as formal) Now he was hiding out somewhere in the town and we didn't know, he had men we knew this, and they were well armed with RPG-7 Rocket launchers and warheads, Kalashnikov rifles, and Home made explosive devices, Makeshift grenades IED's, and worst of all were these propane tanks that were actually full of Acetylene (Which can be highly explosive, a little bit inside of a weak balloon can blow the hood off a car, imagine what a Metal propane tank filled with this stuff could do if set off)
Now, A couple of Americans and a French guy don't exactly hide well in places like the Khyber pass. especially not when they have nice guns and gear, now we didn't go in with uniforms, but those little urchin know brands, and when you're expensive plate carrier that PMC's use gets flashed in front of these little urchins, they'll be sure to share this information with the locals. for a price of course.
Now we were in town for about 3 days trying to find out about this guy, and we finally got a tip off that he's not actually in town, but rather hiding outside town at a police checkpoint which is more like a ramshackle military base of about 4 buildings, and a nice tower looking over the whole thing. He had several informants in town relaying information through messanger-urchin (its like a carrier pigeon, but instead of flight it bums rides off passing trucks and begs constantly and never shuts up and sometimes takes pot shots at you with rifles) Now you may ask yourself "Wait police? why would the police help him if he's a wanted criminal?" Never trust third world police ever, especially not secret police, those are the worst kind. Now the problem with him hiding behind the secret police is the fact that even though they are corrupt, we cant exactly kill a bunch of Pakistani police officers even if they are protecting a known warlord. Now what we did, was flush him out the fun way, we used a Milkor MGL loaded with smoke grenades launched about 200 yards into a window, they flushed him out and with the help of Remington 700 28'' heavy fluted barrel in .338 Lapua He was down for the count.
Until next time Warriors.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Friday, April 11, 2014
The Kyber pass and Home made firearms
Lets take a few moments to talk about the Khyber pass, a mountain road 3,500 feet above sea level which connects Pakistan and Afghanistan located in the north east part of the Spin Ghar mountains, its possibly the oldest mountain pass in the world being one of the most important parts of the silk road, its history going back nearly as far as human history has recorded.
Genghis khan and ALEXANDER THE GREAT used the Khyber pass to conquer the known world in their time. today the Khyber pass is something of legend among gun-enthusiasts purely for the things they create and how they create them. Everything from Reproduction Martini-henry rifles, Tokarev pistol clones, Armsel Protecta's and Franchi Spas-12's the Khyber pass gunsmiths are dedicated to their work, often producing several hundred guns a day, the quality varying from Grenades-disguised-as-Rifles to some very impressively made firearms. the exactness varies from shop to shop, some being very strict with quality control and others not even batting an eye at a mistake.
Now, I've been to the Khyber pass twice now and thanks to my sweet government contacts I've been able to just-barely bring a few items back but not much that hasn't been seen already. ill mostly be talking about some examples that can be seen on the internet after a quick search, more on that soon.
Now the way most of the shops operate is they have lots of handtools and some heavy machinery most of which is about 100 years old and hasn't seen proper maintenance since 1908. They have what is commonly referred to as "master rifles" or "master guns" often a True production firearm or a well made Khyber pass knockoff on which they base their builds on. often a shop will have a handful of early Russian produced or Chinese AKM rifles and they will build AK's based on that rifles construction sometimes with extreme or light variation, micro ak's in 8mm kurz or pistol calibers designed for child soldiers, MASSIVE Ak battle rifles in 8mm mauser or 308 or very rarely .303 british, they build magazines loosely based on the ak design and make them work with just about any cartridge, or in a much neater example they very carefully machine the parts to a Armsel protecta/Street sweeper shotgun using metal from old cars construction equipment or destroyed guns! the quality of the build depends on the quality of the scrap used or if the gun built is used on a damaged or parted out gun, example being a majority of the AK's built are built using spare parts from soviet and sino-soviet ak's the most popularly built firarms are tokarev pistols ak's Martini-henry rifles and Variants of the SMLE (short magazine Lee-Enfield) for your long range needs of course. while most of these rifles construction is horrid, there are a handful of gunsmiths who produce impressive arms, one paki I met who was blind in one eye, deaf, could lip read Russian and Pakistani, and was only in his mid 40's built a absolutely amazing Mauser K98 rifle while I stayed in Khyber pass for a handful of days I became popular a little to quickly but more on that later, this rifle was effective in my hands out to 400 yards hitting a old car door consistently with 8mm mauser ammo made by children in the alleyway next to his shop, those cretins demanded too much for their shoddy construction, but atleast they had good primers, and this impressively built k98 easily handled the stout loads of some of the slight overcharges it was fed, and I took a handful of measurments for future refrence, his K98 clone stamped with fake Nazi marks is about 1.8mm's thicker in the receiver than the k98 mauser in my collection which is a bonafied ww2 bringback (unmolested with correct markings, no importer markings) and the barrel he constructed is 1mm thicker in the chamber than my k98 which is good because without it I may have had a rifle balloon in my face after a few of those hot 8mm mauser cartridges were fired. one surprising thing is the amount of love for the shotgun the people of the Khyber pass have, everything is clones as mentioned earlier the Spas-12 shows up commonly, along with the armsel protecta, but other more prestigious arms show up too such as clones of the Benelli M series shotguns and the Mossberg 500 shotguns show up commonly cloned with some surprising detail. there is also a large amount of disdain for Al-Qaeda forces in the Khyber pass but there is also a large amount of support on the other side of town, only certain arms actually show up in the hands of forces that fight US/Nato troops in middle eastern countries come from the Khyber pass, most of them being enfields, mausers, and AK variants.
One of the slightly rarer things you seen in Khyber is the revolver market. Amazing reproductions of british webley revolvers and shoddy Khyber-smiths have a cult-classic like appeal to some locals, while I was there they would occasionally get together just outside of town and in the back of the truck they would have junk to shoot at and hundreds of revolvers to testfire before they put them on the shelves of their shops to sell. while my moon speak isn't very good luckily I was with company that spoke it fluently and understood English too for the most part. the guys who meet outside of town take a lot of pride in their work, and when they have a gun that doesn't function to their liking it can be kind of sad when they let out a sigh and put it in the box that gets sent back into the work room. some of the revolvers I had a chance to fire had some amazing lock-up and smooth indexing with rare errors in operation.
If you ever go around gun websites you may have seen this horrifying thing and you might ask yourself: What the hell is it? where is it from? the answer is VIETNAM! this was made by a Viet cong gunsmith (if you can call them that) for a officer loosely based off the 1911. and i mean loosely, there is no rear sight, the trigger guard is tiny, the proportions are all wrong, the grips are poorly made, the frame is hap hazard,it doesn't even really work right, the hammer has to be held back and then released, the magazine wiggles around and doesn't really feed the cartridges and worst of all, it'll probably explode in your hand!
Thats all for this shoddy installment of home made firearms and the khyber pass, i plan on doing a writeup in the future on other homemade firearms and gunsmiths that started out in garages (or worse, JAIL!)
Until next time Warriors.
Genghis khan and ALEXANDER THE GREAT used the Khyber pass to conquer the known world in their time. today the Khyber pass is something of legend among gun-enthusiasts purely for the things they create and how they create them. Everything from Reproduction Martini-henry rifles, Tokarev pistol clones, Armsel Protecta's and Franchi Spas-12's the Khyber pass gunsmiths are dedicated to their work, often producing several hundred guns a day, the quality varying from Grenades-disguised-as-Rifles to some very impressively made firearms. the exactness varies from shop to shop, some being very strict with quality control and others not even batting an eye at a mistake.
Now, I've been to the Khyber pass twice now and thanks to my sweet government contacts I've been able to just-barely bring a few items back but not much that hasn't been seen already. ill mostly be talking about some examples that can be seen on the internet after a quick search, more on that soon.
Now the way most of the shops operate is they have lots of handtools and some heavy machinery most of which is about 100 years old and hasn't seen proper maintenance since 1908. They have what is commonly referred to as "master rifles" or "master guns" often a True production firearm or a well made Khyber pass knockoff on which they base their builds on. often a shop will have a handful of early Russian produced or Chinese AKM rifles and they will build AK's based on that rifles construction sometimes with extreme or light variation, micro ak's in 8mm kurz or pistol calibers designed for child soldiers, MASSIVE Ak battle rifles in 8mm mauser or 308 or very rarely .303 british, they build magazines loosely based on the ak design and make them work with just about any cartridge, or in a much neater example they very carefully machine the parts to a Armsel protecta/Street sweeper shotgun using metal from old cars construction equipment or destroyed guns! the quality of the build depends on the quality of the scrap used or if the gun built is used on a damaged or parted out gun, example being a majority of the AK's built are built using spare parts from soviet and sino-soviet ak's the most popularly built firarms are tokarev pistols ak's Martini-henry rifles and Variants of the SMLE (short magazine Lee-Enfield) for your long range needs of course. while most of these rifles construction is horrid, there are a handful of gunsmiths who produce impressive arms, one paki I met who was blind in one eye, deaf, could lip read Russian and Pakistani, and was only in his mid 40's built a absolutely amazing Mauser K98 rifle while I stayed in Khyber pass for a handful of days I became popular a little to quickly but more on that later, this rifle was effective in my hands out to 400 yards hitting a old car door consistently with 8mm mauser ammo made by children in the alleyway next to his shop, those cretins demanded too much for their shoddy construction, but atleast they had good primers, and this impressively built k98 easily handled the stout loads of some of the slight overcharges it was fed, and I took a handful of measurments for future refrence, his K98 clone stamped with fake Nazi marks is about 1.8mm's thicker in the receiver than the k98 mauser in my collection which is a bonafied ww2 bringback (unmolested with correct markings, no importer markings) and the barrel he constructed is 1mm thicker in the chamber than my k98 which is good because without it I may have had a rifle balloon in my face after a few of those hot 8mm mauser cartridges were fired. one surprising thing is the amount of love for the shotgun the people of the Khyber pass have, everything is clones as mentioned earlier the Spas-12 shows up commonly, along with the armsel protecta, but other more prestigious arms show up too such as clones of the Benelli M series shotguns and the Mossberg 500 shotguns show up commonly cloned with some surprising detail. there is also a large amount of disdain for Al-Qaeda forces in the Khyber pass but there is also a large amount of support on the other side of town, only certain arms actually show up in the hands of forces that fight US/Nato troops in middle eastern countries come from the Khyber pass, most of them being enfields, mausers, and AK variants.
One of the slightly rarer things you seen in Khyber is the revolver market. Amazing reproductions of british webley revolvers and shoddy Khyber-smiths have a cult-classic like appeal to some locals, while I was there they would occasionally get together just outside of town and in the back of the truck they would have junk to shoot at and hundreds of revolvers to testfire before they put them on the shelves of their shops to sell. while my moon speak isn't very good luckily I was with company that spoke it fluently and understood English too for the most part. the guys who meet outside of town take a lot of pride in their work, and when they have a gun that doesn't function to their liking it can be kind of sad when they let out a sigh and put it in the box that gets sent back into the work room. some of the revolvers I had a chance to fire had some amazing lock-up and smooth indexing with rare errors in operation.
now one of the easiest ways to spot a Khyber pass firearm besides shoddy construction is its markings: backwards letters, incorrect dating, (Some British SMLE rifle clones have been spotted as being maked as early as 1881 or having the incorrect stampings for its year) poor English (one common example on the tokarev pistols I saw was "make in china" almost as if there was some sort of in-joke amongst the smith's about it) and poor marking at that. they use often hand made or nearly ancient metal stamps they hammer into the metal with nothing more than the stamp and a good 4 or 5 pound hammer, the stampings not being even, one of the most common errors on Lee-Enfield rifles is the N in Enfield being a Cyrillic letter (essentially a backwards N) or the E's being 3's stamped upside down (L33t speak is apparently alive and well in the Khyber pass)
Heres our first example, looks like a kind of rough 1880's possibly 1890's Martini-Henry right? Wrong. This is one of the many Khyber pass clones that were made based off british leftovers, they cloned all the markings and measurements to the best of their abilities.
Now this is a much more intresting example (and nicer) of Gunsmithing in the khyber pass, i didint take this picture, but there were several just like it in the markets and i even bothered to bring one back with me, this is a 8mm Mauser (7.92x57mm) AK, the magazines are of course custom and its a very intresting and well built rifle, built by one of the best smiths in the pass, who's name is so middle easternly generic you can probably guess it (protip, it starts with mohammed) but he's a really nice guy who takes pride in his work, his rifles and pistols sell amazingly well, and this 8mm mauser rifle is a joy to shoot, its got alot of muzzle climb which is probably its biggest short coming, along with the heavy kick in the small platform. the rifle i brought back has a side folding triangle stock as opposed to this underfolder pictured, the grip and front M-16 style sight are the same, and the rear sight is their own design, similar in vein to the Russians Krinkov sight. The example i brought back has pretty surprising accuracy (about 2-3 MOA at 100 yards, not the best but for a Khyber pass gun..)
The old guy was nice enough to give me a Leather sling to go along with it and i asked some of the smiths to give it their own mark (some of them marked it with their own crests and logos, others their names, some of them attached things to it like beads and one of them built a tiny knife with a sheath for it). the ammo i initially tested was their own cast cases from scrap brass that had been ruined, and loaded with god only knows what concoction of gun powder and some really hard primers (had a few light primer strikes and firing pin is like a weapon in its own right on this gun) the ammo was dirty, and function was spotty at best, but when i got home i ran some PPU 8mm through it no problem, the weapon functions quite nicely, the AK platform really likes the 8mm round and the magazines they make by hand are surprisingly good, this was probably one of the best firearms i shot the whole time i was there that was a clone or original design of firearm.
Now the bad.
one of the most terrifying examples were these knockoff martini-henry pistols. quality ranged on these so much i was afraid to shoot it, the metal of the one i did shoot used to be a bumper off a UAZ truck. the one i shot was actually chambered for 7.62x54mmR and it was some hot ammo, I only fired two rounds and didn't hit anything at 10 yards, upon inspection the second projectile had lodged itself in the end of the barrel.
Now this is something a bit different, this looks like a strange AK doesn't it? now this particular example was actually found in Chechnya, but this design was seen in the pass. the receiver is unlike any other ak out there, its big robust and blocky, its cut to accept SVD/PSL type magazines and this example has two magazines put together for more capacity, the barrels are either surplus, custom built, or mosin barrels modified for a gas piston system there is nothing in place to help with recoil, and the bolts are very light for the large cartridge (on full auto they can clock about 750-800 RPM compared to the standard ak which is much closer to the 600 range) and the 7.62x54r cartridge is very hard to control in this state, sadly i did not bring one of these back as i only found one of them for sale but it was a shoddy one the fit was horrible, you could pass your thumbnail through the dust cover and receiver almost everywhere, and it was the wobbliest ak i'd ever seen.
Now for an honorable mention in the home made firearms world
If you ever go around gun websites you may have seen this horrifying thing and you might ask yourself: What the hell is it? where is it from? the answer is VIETNAM! this was made by a Viet cong gunsmith (if you can call them that) for a officer loosely based off the 1911. and i mean loosely, there is no rear sight, the trigger guard is tiny, the proportions are all wrong, the grips are poorly made, the frame is hap hazard,it doesn't even really work right, the hammer has to be held back and then released, the magazine wiggles around and doesn't really feed the cartridges and worst of all, it'll probably explode in your hand!
Thats all for this shoddy installment of home made firearms and the khyber pass, i plan on doing a writeup in the future on other homemade firearms and gunsmiths that started out in garages (or worse, JAIL!)
Until next time Warriors.
Friday, December 6, 2013
6.8 spc, its surprising ballistics.
Lets talk about cartridge design for a moment,
new cartridges have popped up here and there over the years but nothing really groundbreaking lots of high velocity hunting style cartridges and a few heavy hitting CQB driven chamberings (.458 socom for instance) and among these cartrdiges is 6.8 spc
Meant as a bridge between intermediate and rifle calibers 6.8 spc has potential but falls flat marketwise
Between 5.56x45mm and 7.62x51mm, 6.8 spc stands trying to be a rifle cartridge, with the size of a intermediate (and the price of a caliber that hasn't been around for 70 years)
Ballistics wise, 6.8 spc is a superior round to 5.56 but it has its flaws as nobody wants to pick it up, and ammunition is expensive, very few companies build parts for rifles in 6.8 and most of them end up just being on the AR platform. because Nato standardized cartridges are cheaper due to their mass production, people want .223/5.56 rifles because they are affordable to shoot. 6.8 spc is seen as "the future of intermediate calibers"
here's a crappy chart (fps/joules are shown with averages)
| FPS | Joules of energy | Bullet weight | Barrel length |
6.8 spc (6.8x43mm) 2570 fps 2,297 115 grains 16 inch
5.56x45mm (M855) 2800 fps 1,105 62 grains 16 inch
7.62x51mm 2,733 fps 2,733 147 grains 24 inch
The results are kind of interesting, considering that 6.8 spc can achieve rather decent energy even with the shorter case and out of a 16 inch barrel, would like to buy a longer (20+ inch) barrel to do some testing, but I need to find a set of 6.8 dies first so im not paying out the ass for factory ammo
6.8 spc also gave me some cycling errors, I was shooting it out of a purpose built AR platform rifle and I have on type 4, which was likely a 1 in a million error and a couple of FTE's (failure to eject)
despite this the cartridge is effective on paper, and building a 1 moa or even sub moa rifle for the cartridge isn't hard, i'd love to see a TRUE purpose built rifle (magazines specifically designed for the rifle, and a specific rifle for 6.8 spc that isn't just a AR) I was using PMAG-30 Gen 3's for most of the testing, for .308 I used a M1A1 with standard US GI magazines.
new cartridges have popped up here and there over the years but nothing really groundbreaking lots of high velocity hunting style cartridges and a few heavy hitting CQB driven chamberings (.458 socom for instance) and among these cartrdiges is 6.8 spc
Meant as a bridge between intermediate and rifle calibers 6.8 spc has potential but falls flat marketwise
Between 5.56x45mm and 7.62x51mm, 6.8 spc stands trying to be a rifle cartridge, with the size of a intermediate (and the price of a caliber that hasn't been around for 70 years)
Ballistics wise, 6.8 spc is a superior round to 5.56 but it has its flaws as nobody wants to pick it up, and ammunition is expensive, very few companies build parts for rifles in 6.8 and most of them end up just being on the AR platform. because Nato standardized cartridges are cheaper due to their mass production, people want .223/5.56 rifles because they are affordable to shoot. 6.8 spc is seen as "the future of intermediate calibers"
here's a crappy chart (fps/joules are shown with averages)
| FPS | Joules of energy | Bullet weight | Barrel length |
6.8 spc (6.8x43mm) 2570 fps 2,297 115 grains 16 inch
5.56x45mm (M855) 2800 fps 1,105 62 grains 16 inch
7.62x51mm 2,733 fps 2,733 147 grains 24 inch
The results are kind of interesting, considering that 6.8 spc can achieve rather decent energy even with the shorter case and out of a 16 inch barrel, would like to buy a longer (20+ inch) barrel to do some testing, but I need to find a set of 6.8 dies first so im not paying out the ass for factory ammo
6.8 spc also gave me some cycling errors, I was shooting it out of a purpose built AR platform rifle and I have on type 4, which was likely a 1 in a million error and a couple of FTE's (failure to eject)
despite this the cartridge is effective on paper, and building a 1 moa or even sub moa rifle for the cartridge isn't hard, i'd love to see a TRUE purpose built rifle (magazines specifically designed for the rifle, and a specific rifle for 6.8 spc that isn't just a AR) I was using PMAG-30 Gen 3's for most of the testing, for .308 I used a M1A1 with standard US GI magazines.
Romance the woodsman way (a step by step guide of the previous evening with my wonderful wife Valerie)
Or: how do I women (I don't know son, I don't know.)
heres a picture from last years Hot shots calendar
I wish this was my wife.
heres a picture from last years Hot shots calendar
STEP ONE. Wool blankets and a lady friend in sexy lingerie
STEP TWO. fire.
STEP THREE. Wine that you grew the grapes for.
STEP FOUR. Wrap lady friend in blanket, place infront of fire, apply wine.
STEP FIVE. [REDACTED]
STEP SIX. Have sex like she's a bar wench and you're a wild stallyin
Profit.
Atleast that's basically how it went, it just took a hour and a half to get to the good part. Also it helps if said lady friend is horny as a toad and probably thinks about sex more than you do and isn't afraid to talk about fetishes while watching tv and browsing imgur
And that's why I love my wife (Among other things)
Gun techno babble will probably come next
XBAWKS HUEG TEXT FOR THE IMPARED (me)
XBAWKS HUEG TEXT FOR THE IMPARED (me)
Friday, November 29, 2013
6 Days of rain 24 of Pain
Alternate title: A hello,
I should start by saying you don't have to believe me about a /ounce/ of what I say, part of my life is near Audie Murphy in levels of unbeliveability, and I don't expect anyone to take me seriously.
now because of my job theres a lot I'm not allowed to say. and for good reason, I wont delve into all the places I've been (You know that blackspot on google earth at the Alaska/Canada border? yeah I have no idea about that)
But since this "other job" doesn't occupy but a small amount of the time in the year (1-2 month spurts, longer depending) I mostly work as a bodyguard, with a fondness for Light machine guns and pistol caliber carbines. I work mostly in the big cities, but I travel outside of them constantly (I live in the middle of nowheresville northern California) which may sound surprising to some people, having the government job is nice, as its not traditional special forces, atleast not the kind you hear about almost ever. Those seals that went to Syria and got caught? we went to Syria 3 times without them and didn't leave a trace. we've run operations in countries you wouldn't think would even have possible threats. Seals are badass operators still though so don't worry about that.
But we'll talk about that some other time, for now we talk about the months of May-June of 2013
a lot has actually happened since then (one quick trip to a small place in Russia to find some chemical weapons, and then we tried to get a foothold on the current Syrian war, this didn't work as everyone we interrogated died but more on that another time) earlier in my life I was in the army only for a very short time (3 years starting when I was 20) I one day had a thought that GRUNT LIFE WAS FOR ME! Because I had to be 21 for a couple legal reasons to go to gunsmithing school at the bare minimum and I figured even though the pay is substandard I would get to shoot machine guns and learn some discipline, I knew it was going to be tough and I wasn't sure I could make it through Basic. well I ended up going through basic in a rather smooth process, guys would joke about buttsex a bit too much for my taste, but besides that it was a great learning experience (Plus I got to shoot a M2HB for the first time, more on that later also) (I say that a lot don't I?) anyway after making my way to Corporal (In a somewhat quick fashion it felt like, but those 3 years moved by quickly) I left the army, but not before being noticed by some commanding officers who actually recommended I try at special forces, and I did but some personal things came up in life at that time and I decided it was best I pick another path in life. during that last year of military life I managed to secure a job at a gunstore in Idaho, so I moved up there and upon arriving there I spent 80% of my first several paychecks buying firearms and related items. probably wasn't the best idea as I was constantly late on my rent, luckily my land lady had inherited her grandparents buildings, and she was a real cutie, and I'd butter her up with My mothers recipe for Choclate chip cookies and she didn't quite mind rent being 2-3 days late luckily. Anyway fastforward to the 3rd of may 2013 one day I was out in my shop trying to design a simple conversion for the AKM style receiver to accept UZI magazines, one of my old commanding officers showed up at my house, and I hadn't seen him in over 9 years, he handed me a small tan colored envelop and asked me if I was interested in a job finding and fighting possible threats mostly dealing with chemical weapons and rouge foreign military groups. A few days later I drove to a barracks tucked away in the mountains in a forest, there were over 50 people standing around in a circle outside shooting the shit for about half a hour till a couple Officers came out of the building and after a short de-briefing training began! we were stripped of anything useful we had (pocket knives, Conceal carry firearms, lighters, etc,) blind folded, and trucked out into the woods and asked to raid a "enemy" military base without being detected by any of the patrol units and being shot at with marker ammo (think paintballs but worse), if we were hit once we were out of the program. About 10 minutes after being un-blindfolded I ran into the most operator man I've ever seen. a man we call Grizzly. Grizzly stands 6'6'' has arms like tree trunks, and a beard you could smuggle a disassembled firearm in. 280 pounds of muscle and courage. We rode under a 2 1/2 ton truck like Indiana jones to get close to the base, we snuck inside moving through rafters slowly, and since we weren't given a objective, we spent the next 3 hours waiting out the enemy, and after all of that, it was thinned down to 18 people.
over the next few weeks a few more were thinned out Leaving me, Grizzly, a ex-CIA special agent who sort of looks like an angry tour de france cyclist. bald and tall. a Asian-American guy who runs faster than just about anyone I've ever seen and can hit a 10 inch steel target at a thousand yards with a Mauser action rifle in .300 Winchester magnum, a ex-combat medic who's already seen 4 tours in Iraq, a current service Explosives expert, a marine who I can count the number of words he's said during those 2 months, and last but not least a Green beret who was hand picked for the team after initial thinning.
after these weeks we were given small missions one of which involved a bear from hell, that has survived more fights and hunters than anything I've ever seen.
Now I wont exhaust you with details (yet) on some of the things we did but they were rather generous with our budget. towards the end of it we decided it was time to have some fun, we loaded up a 2 1/2 ton M35A3 with a couple of HMG's and plenty of other fun toys and a bunch of tax payer funded (And stolen drug money funded, See: Mexican drug cartel's getting caught) ammo. anyway we had to take public roads and we were towing a small trailer behind us and grizzly was sitting behind one of the M2's while we were driving toward the wilderness we were going to have a bit of fun at, scared the hell out of a couple of passerby civillians on those mountain roads, minus the fact that training was brutal, exercise was long and didn't get enough sleep and slept In dirt a lot, it was fun as hell.
because machine guns you see.
moving on after weeks of brutal training we shipped off and fought men in In the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
now where was I going with this? oh right.
Special forces draw a specific type of people, a very specific, neigh indescribable type of man who is ready for action, and gruff. A true manly man among men. maybe the next post I'll talk about the guns we used. Should have written this in one go, but if it comes back to me completely ill talk about it.
I should start by saying you don't have to believe me about a /ounce/ of what I say, part of my life is near Audie Murphy in levels of unbeliveability, and I don't expect anyone to take me seriously.
now because of my job theres a lot I'm not allowed to say. and for good reason, I wont delve into all the places I've been (You know that blackspot on google earth at the Alaska/Canada border? yeah I have no idea about that)
But since this "other job" doesn't occupy but a small amount of the time in the year (1-2 month spurts, longer depending) I mostly work as a bodyguard, with a fondness for Light machine guns and pistol caliber carbines. I work mostly in the big cities, but I travel outside of them constantly (I live in the middle of nowheresville northern California) which may sound surprising to some people, having the government job is nice, as its not traditional special forces, atleast not the kind you hear about almost ever. Those seals that went to Syria and got caught? we went to Syria 3 times without them and didn't leave a trace. we've run operations in countries you wouldn't think would even have possible threats. Seals are badass operators still though so don't worry about that.
But we'll talk about that some other time, for now we talk about the months of May-June of 2013
a lot has actually happened since then (one quick trip to a small place in Russia to find some chemical weapons, and then we tried to get a foothold on the current Syrian war, this didn't work as everyone we interrogated died but more on that another time) earlier in my life I was in the army only for a very short time (3 years starting when I was 20) I one day had a thought that GRUNT LIFE WAS FOR ME! Because I had to be 21 for a couple legal reasons to go to gunsmithing school at the bare minimum and I figured even though the pay is substandard I would get to shoot machine guns and learn some discipline, I knew it was going to be tough and I wasn't sure I could make it through Basic. well I ended up going through basic in a rather smooth process, guys would joke about buttsex a bit too much for my taste, but besides that it was a great learning experience (Plus I got to shoot a M2HB for the first time, more on that later also) (I say that a lot don't I?) anyway after making my way to Corporal (In a somewhat quick fashion it felt like, but those 3 years moved by quickly) I left the army, but not before being noticed by some commanding officers who actually recommended I try at special forces, and I did but some personal things came up in life at that time and I decided it was best I pick another path in life. during that last year of military life I managed to secure a job at a gunstore in Idaho, so I moved up there and upon arriving there I spent 80% of my first several paychecks buying firearms and related items. probably wasn't the best idea as I was constantly late on my rent, luckily my land lady had inherited her grandparents buildings, and she was a real cutie, and I'd butter her up with My mothers recipe for Choclate chip cookies and she didn't quite mind rent being 2-3 days late luckily. Anyway fastforward to the 3rd of may 2013 one day I was out in my shop trying to design a simple conversion for the AKM style receiver to accept UZI magazines, one of my old commanding officers showed up at my house, and I hadn't seen him in over 9 years, he handed me a small tan colored envelop and asked me if I was interested in a job finding and fighting possible threats mostly dealing with chemical weapons and rouge foreign military groups. A few days later I drove to a barracks tucked away in the mountains in a forest, there were over 50 people standing around in a circle outside shooting the shit for about half a hour till a couple Officers came out of the building and after a short de-briefing training began! we were stripped of anything useful we had (pocket knives, Conceal carry firearms, lighters, etc,) blind folded, and trucked out into the woods and asked to raid a "enemy" military base without being detected by any of the patrol units and being shot at with marker ammo (think paintballs but worse), if we were hit once we were out of the program. About 10 minutes after being un-blindfolded I ran into the most operator man I've ever seen. a man we call Grizzly. Grizzly stands 6'6'' has arms like tree trunks, and a beard you could smuggle a disassembled firearm in. 280 pounds of muscle and courage. We rode under a 2 1/2 ton truck like Indiana jones to get close to the base, we snuck inside moving through rafters slowly, and since we weren't given a objective, we spent the next 3 hours waiting out the enemy, and after all of that, it was thinned down to 18 people.
over the next few weeks a few more were thinned out Leaving me, Grizzly, a ex-CIA special agent who sort of looks like an angry tour de france cyclist. bald and tall. a Asian-American guy who runs faster than just about anyone I've ever seen and can hit a 10 inch steel target at a thousand yards with a Mauser action rifle in .300 Winchester magnum, a ex-combat medic who's already seen 4 tours in Iraq, a current service Explosives expert, a marine who I can count the number of words he's said during those 2 months, and last but not least a Green beret who was hand picked for the team after initial thinning.
after these weeks we were given small missions one of which involved a bear from hell, that has survived more fights and hunters than anything I've ever seen.
Now I wont exhaust you with details (yet) on some of the things we did but they were rather generous with our budget. towards the end of it we decided it was time to have some fun, we loaded up a 2 1/2 ton M35A3 with a couple of HMG's and plenty of other fun toys and a bunch of tax payer funded (And stolen drug money funded, See: Mexican drug cartel's getting caught) ammo. anyway we had to take public roads and we were towing a small trailer behind us and grizzly was sitting behind one of the M2's while we were driving toward the wilderness we were going to have a bit of fun at, scared the hell out of a couple of passerby civillians on those mountain roads, minus the fact that training was brutal, exercise was long and didn't get enough sleep and slept In dirt a lot, it was fun as hell.
because machine guns you see.
moving on after weeks of brutal training we shipped off and fought men in In the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
now where was I going with this? oh right.
Special forces draw a specific type of people, a very specific, neigh indescribable type of man who is ready for action, and gruff. A true manly man among men. maybe the next post I'll talk about the guns we used. Should have written this in one go, but if it comes back to me completely ill talk about it.
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