Cruel Hand Luke

Since this date did not work out for a bunch of people we are going to reschedule this one for later in the fall.

Here is a good article on 35 Whelen..... .35 Whelen : Overlooked, Misunderstood, Vastly Underrated.... http://35whelen.blogspot.com/ In 1922, British archaeologists discovered the entrance to King Tutankhamen’s tomb. Russia and allied republics formed the USSR. James Joyce published Ulysses. Ava Gardner and Lizabeth Scott were born in small towns 487 miles apart. Col. Townsend Whelen and James Howe invented the .35 Whelen cartridge, affectionately known by some as “The Colonel.” To date, not one of these mysteries has been solved. The lion and leopard sit with their paws crossed at or near the top of the Big Five list of the most dangerous game in Africa and therefore the world. They’ve sat there from the moment someone thought to devise such a ranking. The big cats are the only thin-skinned animals on the list, sharing it with the monster pachyderms -– the African elephant, the Cape buffalo and, moseying back toward active status, the black rhino. North America’s potential candidates are limited to the great brown and grizzly bears, certainly big and dangerous but not quite dangerous enough. A thousand-pound bear may decide to dismember you if it suspects you’re carrying a Sierra Club membership card instead of a pistol in your pocket, and it may eat you if it’s hungry enough. But an African cat’s toughness, vitality, tenacious grip on life and ruthless predatory mindset place it in a higher danger zone entirely. Even a well-fed lion, if it disapproves of your Chanel No. 5 or Hoppe’s No. 9, would as soon kill you and toss you in the recycle bin for the hyenas to squabble over. It happens often enough that a lion will pad into a camp of hunters in the middle of the night, carefully sniff out one particular individual for no reason known to man, chomp through the victim’s skull to switch off his dreams and silently carry him into the darkness never to be seen again. Man’s original nightmare. The leopard’s joy in killing for his own personal amusement is well known. A leopard who enters a pen of goats or sheep may slaughter all thirty or forty of them in a matter of minutes, indulge in a delicate taste of liver with his bloodbath and disappear. Cats are not content to pick berries for a living. Man-eating lions and leopards are documented in volumes of African literature. No other beast, no matter how deadly it may be at any given moment, has ever shown such professional tendencies. Considering the big cats’ essential view of man as morsel, plus the fact that their muscles are as hard and dense as their skin is soft and thin, one is well advised not to approach a lion or a leopard with a deer rifle. Ernest Hemingway’s hunter-in-search-of-his-courage in The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber shot his lion five times with a 30-06 and you heard where that got him. Even scarier real-life stories concerning inopportune meetings between big cats and small bullets are written every year in Africa. On the other hand, the big-bore Nitro Express cartridges loaded with huge solid bullets intended for extreme straight-line penetration in the thick-skinned members of the Big Five are not ideal lion or leopard killers either. A witchdoctor of my acquaintance once leaned over one of those little tables in the bar at the Ritz Hotel in Paris and told me that the best medicine for thin-skinned dangerous animals is a heavy-for-caliber, controlled-expansion, premium bullet loaded in a mature, moderate-velocity, medium-bore cartridge. This brew delivers the proper combination of penetration and expansion, momentum and hydrostatic shock, shooter control and reliable performance. It is a highly effective way to inject lethal energy into a hard-wired bundle of claws and fangs. He named his poisons. The 9.3x62mm Mauser, developed by German Otto Bock in 1905. The .350 Rigby Magnum, developed by John Rigby of London in 1908. The .35 Whelen, developed by Americans Col. Townsend Whelen and James Howe in 1922. Case capacities differ slightly among these cartridges, as do maximum possible loadings. But maximum loads are never a good idea in Africa, where elevated chamber pressure combined with high air temperature and direct sun on brass and steel can wreak havoc on reliable functioning. In reality, all are loaded to near identical ballistics. In premium factory loads, any variations between them are not enough to drop a pebble in your boot. The witchdoctor included the short, fat, belted .350 Remington Magnum, ballistic twin of the .35 Whelen introduced in 1965 to work through short actions. If our rendezvous at the Ritz had been a year later, he would have added the .376 Steyr, developed by the Steyr factory in Austria in 2000 to match the ballistics of the .350 Remington Magnum which Jeff Cooper chose to define his big-bore “Lion Scout” rifle. If you’ve hunted with any one of these “Fatal Five” you may as well have hunted with them all. Each has proved so useful for so many things and so perfect in so many ways they have all become cult cartridges treasured by aficionados. Two of them have, over the years, held the coveted title of Most Widely Used Sporting Cartridge in Africa. A couple have become particular darlings of expensive custom gunmakers. One has been generally ignored by its country of origin and left to stand in the corner and gather dust. The .35 Whelen is still standing there, as good as it ever was, even though I would venture to say that a shocking number of American hunters have never even heard of it. It was this country’s first and perhaps best attempt to design an international cartridge, not only for North American elk, moose, bear, boar and bison, but also for Africa’s big antelope and other plains game including the eland which is the size of a horse, and the big cats of all continents, counting the tiger before he retired from the game and the jaguar before he left the Amazon and headed north to the Rio Grande. The actual fact is, the .35 Whelen has been used quite successfully on Cape buffalo and elephant as well. Perhaps the cartridge has been overlooked and underrated by the masses of hunters because its creation was so simple anybody could have done it. Col. Townsend Whelen and his friend James V. Howe got together in New York with big game in mind. American hunters were beginning to think beyond the back forty and dream of Alaska and Africa. Both Whelen and Howe were firearms sophisticates. Whelen was commanding officer of the government arsenal at Frankford, later to author the classic book, Mr. Rifleman, and write the much-quoted statement, “only accurate guns are interesting.” Howe was a talented if temperamental metalworker, toolmaker and gunsmith who worked for Whelen and who would briefly become the Howe of Griffin & Howe, America’s pioneering custom rifle shop. Whelen and Howe looked around at the African and European success of the 9.3 and the .350, then looked at the 30-06 case, of which there were millions lying around between world wars. They decided to neck up the 30-06 brass from .308” to .358” and load it with enough powder to drive a bigger, wider, heavier bullet of 250-275 grains at about 2400 fps, the optimum velocity for penetration in big, tough game. With new loading data, trajectories were about the same as the 30-06 firing smaller, lighter bullets. What a simple idea. And how brilliantly it worked. The .35 Whelen instantly achieved a level of performance equal to the Mauser and Rigby mid-bores and vastly superior to the smallbore 30-06 as a big-game hunting round in every way. The new cartridge even had certain advantages over the heavier and still quite exotic .375 Holland & Holland Magnum to which it was kissing close in power. Since the 30-06 was originally designed to fit the standard Mauser action, a simplified version of which was the foundation of the 1903 Springfield, the .35 Whelen fit just as well. That meant it could be chambered in even lighter and handier rifles than the long, belted .375, characteristics deemed important because quickness in bear brawls and cat fights is one of the basic rules of the game. Initial reception of the wildcat was positive. Custom gunmakers embraced the new chambering like a mother gorilla with a first-born son. Griffin & Howe built some beautiful and expensive Whelens on Springfield and Mauser actions. And a lot of old shot-out 30-06s were rebored or rebarreled for the .35, which is one of the reasons it remained a wildcat until Remington finally started producing factory ammunition in 1987. Ammo makers, as always quaking with terror in the face of their hysterical liability lawyers, were afraid that if they loaded the .35 Whelen to its full potential they would be deafened by the sounds of rusty Springfields spontaneously detonating all across the country. Currently, Remington offers two loads, with 200- and 250-grain Core-Lokt bullets, Federal offers a 225-grain Trophy Bonded Bear Claw load, and Nosler loads .35 Whelen ammo with their 225-grain Ballistic Tip, 225-grain Partition and 250-grain Partition bullets. Of course, you can always load your own, properly headstamped and labeled for the African customs clerks, or let a quality custom loader like Superior Ammunition do the loading to your specifications. The most important component for dangerous game is the bullet, which should be a heavy premium with modern controlled expansion characteristics unheard-of in 1922. It wasn’t until the late ‘40s that John Nosler began to penetrate the mist surrounding that new planet, thus initiating a voyage of discovery that has improved the terminal performance of every big-game cartridge in the world. Gunwriters have generally approved of the .35 Whelen over the years, though they’ve always been reticent about breaking the news to their readers that there’s a whole world of over-30-caliber cartridges out there. Most writers of the deer-hunting persuasion have seen the .35 Whelen as nothing more than a big deer cartridge, an outsize 30-06 suitable mainly for “brush busting,” something you can shoot your whitetail with when he’s standing behind a tree. This limited view of the cartridge by myopic gunwriters has done more to divert The Colonel’s potentially powerful flow into the mainstream of American cartridges than anything else. Jack O’Connor, the recoil-allergic smallbore maven who, with a straight face, recommended the .270 for grizzly bear, admitted to Elmer Keith confidant Truman Fowler that he planned to take a .350 Remington Magnum to India for tiger, though I don’t know if he actually made that trip. Elmer Keith himself used the .35 Whelen for big bull elk on the Idaho-Montana border. When Jeff Cooper decided that his .308 Scout Rifle needed a big brother to take on African game, especially and specifically the lion, he nominated the .350 Remington Magnum because it matched .35 Whelen ballistics in a short action which he wanted for his ideal seven-pound rifle. When Steyr went into production on the “Lion Scout” they developed the .376 Steyr cartridge instead, same ballistics as the .35/.350 with a .375” diameter bullet. Their reasoning was that several African countries had mandated an arbitrary minimum .375 caliber for thick-skinned dangerous game -– not lions and leopards, mind you, but elephant, buffalo and rhino -– which gives you an idea of how they thought the Austrian version of the .35 Whelen might appropriately be used. I am not alone in declaring the .35 Whelen the best all-around rifle cartridge ever invented in America. The statement can be extended to include the .350 Remington Magnum, same capabilities in a different package. The statement does not apply to factory rifles chambered in either round. Whelen and Howe envisioned the .35 Whelen as a rifle capable of dropping very large or very dangerous game, calling for a barrel with a 1-in-12” rifling twist to stabilize heavy bullets up to 300 grains. Such a rifle would naturally be built on an appropriate dangerous-game action –- that is, first and foremost, a Mauser ’98 type with controlled-round-feed including a self-locking spring steel extractor. Remington and Ruger, the only factories to manufacture .35 Whelens and .350 Remington Magnums, set this vision aside and adopted the view of the aforementioned gunwriters who labeled The Colonel a brush-busting deer rifle. They built their guns accordingly. Barrels with a 1-in-16” rifling twist ideal for lighter bullets of 225 grains and under, push-feed actions, configured in lightweight rifles and carbines whose short American-style stocks gave full vent to the Whelen’s recoil which was considerably more than that to which smallbore shooters had grown accustomed and come to expect. There was, and is, nothing wrong with these Remingtons and Rugers, in either .35 Whelen or .350 Remington Magnum, for use on non-dangerous game. To quote gunwriter Chuck Hawks, referring to Remington’s commercial loading of a 200-grain Core-Lokt bullet at 2,600 fps, “I have witnessed this load simply flatten big black bears, wild hogs, zebras and wildebeest in their tracks. It will also make the largest of whitetails crumple.” None of those animals has a reputation for striking first and asking questions later. I don’t think factory rifles to date have fairly and completely represented The Colonel. I think they represent The Colonel’s less ambitious cousin who lives on a small farm in Pennsylvania. Recent report from an American hunter in Zimbabwe: “After the shot the big male leopard moved about 15 yards up a small embankment into heavy bush and high grass. We found him dead. The bullet went through his left shoulder, destroying everything in between and exiting on the far side. ... It was very exciting to see a pride of lions approaching our bait. The 250-grain Nosler hit in the left shoulder and exited after penetrating diagonally through the animal. ... On this safari, five animals were taken with seven shots fired. ... My experience with this cartridge indicated to me that the .35 Whelen with appropriate bullets is a very fine choice for hunting in Zimbabwe.” With the proliferation of new big-game hunting cartridges of all shapes and sizes over the last few years, along with the rebirth of the great English and German classics, does The Colonel, an octogenarian surviving in relative obscurity, still have a future? Are the claws of the leopard as relentless as always? Do men still dream of lions? POSTED BY ROBERT BOATMAN AT 7:51 AM 6 COMMENTS:LINKS TO THIS POST Home

On Friday September 28 and Saturday-Sunday September 29-30 we will be offering the 1 day HITS Rifle and Close Range Gunfighting 2 classes in the Chattanooga area. This is a great opportunity to get our 1 day rifle class and our flagship pistol class all in one 3 day weekend ! You can take either class separately or both together for a discount. On Friday Sept 28..... Combat Rifle Marksmanship September 28, 2018 Price:$200 Chattanooga, Tennessee Instructor: Randy Harris In this class you will learn how to fire an accurate shot with your semi auto military assault rifle. All types and calibers are welcome (AR-15, AK-47s, UZI, HK, etc.). You will learn all the basics of riflery from zeriong, the essential elements of insuring an accurate shot, as well as using ground and cover to enhance your effect downrange. This course is perfect for the new rifle owner, or as a tune up for an experienced rifleman. CLASS AND RANGE DETAILS DURATION: 1 Day TIME: 9:00AM to 5:00PM AMMUNITION: Approximately 150 rounds (Minimum) RANGE & GEAR REQUIREMENTS: Rifle, sling, at least 2 magazines if using a semi-automatic, manner to carry extra ammo, pistol, holster and range safety gear. Also Helpful Bring spare clothing appropriate for the weather, including a hat, sunscreen, and bug repellent. Plan to bring lunch, snacks, and water (min 1 gallon per person) for the entire day unless driving to lunch is a viable option from the range location. Bring allergy medication (if needed), a chair (if you prefer), note taking supplies, and a boo boo kit (band aids, gauze pads, antiseptic wipes, antibiotic ointment and tape). You may wish to bring pads such as knee pads, elbow pads, and gloves if the class lends itself to that. For more info and to register.....https://suarezinternational.com/hits-3-combat-rifle-marksmanship-september-28-2018-chattanooga-tn/ [BOLD]AND THEN ON SATURDAY AND SUNDAY[/BOLD] CLOSE RANGE GUNFIGHTING September 29-30, 2018 Price: $350 Chattanooga, Tennessee Instructor: Randy Harris This is our flagship course and goes as far as you can safely go on a square range with live-fire pistols. The dynamic curriculum surpasses the traditional handgun methods commonly taught in most institutions and focuses of the use of the pistol in aggressive close range applications likely in individual civilian street encounters. The class begins with a tune-up of the fundamentals, then we progress quickly to new skills such as Proactive and Reactive Manipulations, Shooting While Moving Off The X, Reality-Based Multiple Hostiles Engagement, 360 degree CQB Movement, Danger-Close Fighting, Bilateral Shooting, 360 degree After Action Assessment Methods, and Integrating the Flashlight and Other Tools into the Firing Platform. This is the life-saving material that is often ignored in many other programs. In two days, you will receive more information than most armed professionals ever get! We must point out that THIS COURSE IS NOT FOR THE NOVICE SHOOTER. If you have not received basic instruction, or have a question about your skill level, please call us first. CLASS AND RANGE DETAILS DURATION: 2 days TIME: 9:00AM to 5:00PM AMMUNITION: Approximately 500 rounds (Minimum) RANGE & GEAR REQUIREMENTS: Modern defensive pistol and a holster specifically made for that pistol and designed to be worn on the belt. Three (3) magazines and magazine pouch, a belt of the same width as the belt loops for the holster and magazine pouches, and range safety gear (eye protection, and ear protection). Bring your flashlights for the low light module. Also Helpful Bring spare clothing appropriate for the weather, including a hat, sunscreen, and bug repellent. Plan to bring lunch, snacks, and water (min 1 gallon per person) for the entire day unless driving to lunch is a viable option from the range location. Bring allergy medication (if needed), a chair (if you prefer), note taking supplies, and a boo boo kit (band aids, gauze pads, antiseptic wipes, antibiotic ointment and tape). You may wish to bring pads such as knee pads, elbow pads, and gloves if the class lends itself to that. For more info and to register.....https://suarezinternational.com/crg-2-close-range-gunfighting-september-29-30-2018-chattanooga-tn/........

Just one week to go! There are still time to get your deposits in !

Quick tie in to the Shooters Nation Podcast where we discussed Low Light issues.....

This one is just about 3 weeks to go!

OK guys and gals this one is coming up TOMORROW!!!!!! So grab your pistol rifle and shotgun and come on out! Now, I have been asked if you don't have a rifle or a shotgun can you still participate? YES. If you JUST want to shoot pistol that is fine. If you JUST want to shoot pistol and rifle OR shotgun but not the other that is fine too. And if you need a loaner shotgun or rifle we can hook you up there too. So we can definitely hook you up. I'll have a Scattergun Technologies Remington 870 Border Patrol and a Colt 6721 with Aimpoint as loaners (or maybe even my Steyr AUG if you'd rather shoot it). If you want to use the loaner guns you just need to bring the ammo (50 rds of brass cased 223/556 for rifle - no steel case ammo in my gun please -and 11 slugs and 5 rds of 00 buck for shotgun)

We are only about 3 weeks out on this one!

Reminder on ammo counts...it is 250 pistol, 50 rifle and for the shotgun it is 11 slugs and 5 buckshot. That IS correct 11 slugs and 5 buckshot.

Thanks but if you're going to guerilla market in my thread at least do it in a current thread. This class was 2 years ago....

REMINDER! This one is coming up in TWO WEEKS !

The only PERFECT guy got nailed to a cross 2000 years ago so lets keep things in perspective....Kavanaugh will be FAR more pro 2A than Merrick Garland ever would have been... even if Kavanaugh did irk me with his views on Obamacare and NSA meta data gathering. If the worst thing that happens is he FOLLOWS THE CONSTITUTION then I'll take that.

This one is getting closer....

No worries Tiff, but as we all know on the web we just have to be careful that people don’t see a “snapshot in time “and make invalid assumptions based on something they don’t have any first hand knowledge of. But having said that , I’m glad you got the shot of “Hi I’m Randy and I’m going to gut punch you”.

Lee thinking to himself...."Hmm I might now be reconsidering volunteering for this....." As Mike Swisher thinks.... "Finally...at least it's not me this time that he's "demonstrating" on ".....

Well with a name like Cruel what did you expect? Okay now in all seriousness....Just a quick reminder for those who didn't go back and read the earlier posts in the thread and have no clue for the context... this was NOT in anyway unsafe. It is NOT a live gun . I repeat it was NOT a live gun. It is a Glock 17R (https://us.glock.com/products/model/g17r) which is Glock's non firing trigger resetting training pistol that allows you to cycle dummy rounds through the action, insert and eject magazines, and get multi round dry fire without having to cycle the action each time. But it CAN NOT fire live rounds. And this was a controlled environment with several extremely well trained and accomplished instructors monitoring the environment for safety. This was at the Rangemaster Tactical Conference in a class I was teaching called Point Blank Pistol Skills. Lee was assisting along with Mike Swisher and Adam Gochenour (also in the video) and Scott Stewart who is not visible in the video. The point of that particular exhibition was that pushing an auto pistol into your opponent in a clinch can cause the gun to be knocked out of battery and then not be able to fire. Not a good thing when fighting for your life. You can also end up hitting them hard enough to induce a malfunction. Also not good when fighting for your life. IIRC we also did a demo of me pushing it into him and the trigger not "clicking" because the slide was pushed out of battery. While this looks dangerous it is ALL safe because it is a training pistol that by design can not fire live ammo because there is no hole in the breech face for the firing pin to hit a primer. It is essentially a "blue gun" with moving parts. So don't read anything more into the video than what it is ...It is one experienced professional instructor with a NON FIRING TRAINING PISTOL demonstrating with another experienced professional instructor why in a fight for your life at touching distance you don't want to shove the gun into your opponent....while yet another experienced professional instructor watches for potential safety issues...while yet 2 more instructors also monitor the environment for safety. Just wanted to clear that up for those who have only been exposed to basic NRA safety protocols and might jump to conclusions that are not valid conclusions to jump to after seeing a 3 second "snapshot in time " of a longer demonstration and lecture. No instructors, students, or animals were harmed in the delivery of the lecture or in the taking of the pics that led to the making of the video. Some people may have gotten their feelings hurt...but there were no physical injuries.

Reminder !!! This class is coming up in about a month. The opportunity to actually train in low light does not present itself often so don't miss out on this chance!

Just a quick reminder....everyone is welcome to this! You don't have to be an alumni to attend this. And with it priced essentially the same as a handgun carry permit class it is a great value. So come on out and take advantage of a chance to shoot the FBI, ATF, and LAPD Swat quals plus the rifle and shotgun quals ...and time permitting maybe the Air Marshal Qualification. Hope to see you there!

Coming up TOMORROW!

TN / GA / AL Suarez Training Group! On Saturday July 28 we will hold our July meeting for the TN/GA/AL Regional Suarez Int Training Group! Subject: ARE YOU QUALIFIED? Instructor: Tier 1 Suarez Int Staff Instructor Randy Harris Location: The usual place- Phillips/Edwards Farm 763 County Rd 332 Pisgah AL 35765 Time: 9AM CENTRAL time - 3PM CENTRAL time Price: $80 - pay at class cash or check. What you need to bring: Pistol, pistol magazines and at least 250 rounds of pistol ammo. Revolvers are welcome if you want to party like it is 1899. Also a Rifle with 50 rounds and shotgun with 11 slugs and 5 rounds of 00 Buckshot if you choose to do the FBI Rifle and Shotgun qualifications. We will shoot several police and federal agency qualification courses. We will shoot the FBI Pistol Qual, the ATF Pistol Qual, LAPD SWAT Pistol Qual and then the FBI Rifle and FBI Shotgun qual courses. I will also keep records of these (if you are happy with your scores) for future reference and use . This will serve to get your shooting prowess on record in case it is ever needed in the future in some legal matter. This is also something your church might like to have for their records if you are a member of a church security team. As far as the courts are concerned if it isn't documented it didn't happen so this is an opportunity to get some official scores on paper in case you ever need them . Not only that but it will be a good day of shooting some somewhat challenging courses.

I'm hoping for a red tsunami ....

If Trump can replace those 2 with Gorsuch type constructionists then that will go a long way toward keeping this country from spiraling into a "liberal utopia" like the UK...or France....

Which makes the midterms critical.....if the Dems retake the Senate they will do what McConnell did to Garland by refusing to hold confirmation hearings and waiting for the 2020 presidential election. IF this is true about Kennedy then Trump better have a replacement already queued up ready to go for confirmation and they'd better get that confirmation done before the midterms...just in case that blue wave materializes....

And John's a solid dude too. I met him at the Rangemaster Instructor Reunion in Athens GA a couple of weeks back and on a personal level I like him a lot. And appropriately enough for this thread he carried a HK VP9 with Red Dot. At the Reunion he did a presentation on the 21 things he has learned from watching all those gunfights on video and while it is "common sense" it was good to see someone who has done the research validate that.

Reminder that this is coming up SATURDAY!!!!!