My Gun Room Takes Shape
 

I moved into my first house on the first of the month (down payment saved from my tour in Afghanistan - thank you, Queen Elizabeth II!), and today finished most of the work on my gun room - had to repaint it, hang some blinds find time to move all my guns in, install the hangers for the muzzle loaders (actually some unusually sturdy coat hooks, $5 each from Home Depot). All that's left is some peg board for bayonets and holsters, and I'm thinking a converted spice rack for my cartridge collection!

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Please tell me that PTRD isn't live.

No can do.

Canadian gun laws are a hell of a lot looser than I ever imagined. Nicely done.

Don't know about any other states, but I know Commiefornia's ban on big bore rifles is due to the police being afraid we gun owners are going to start shooting their helicopters out of the sky at random. :rolleyes:

Nice. What are the wall guns, Brown Bess, Springfield 1863 and a Snider-Enfield? I have to admit I was initially a bit confused about the stuff in there when you were thanking QEII, I though you were in Britain until I saw you were in Canada. Are gun safes mandatory there or is it personal choice?

Nice!


I'm pretty sure that I have the exact same Stack-On safe that you do.

Pretty much correct! India Pattern Brown Bess, Springfield 1861 and a Snider Enfield Mk.I**. The cabinets aren't mandatory for long guns but for handguns yes. Well, thats an oversimplification but it'll do. The PTRD is legally the same as a hunting rifle. Being 7' long and 40 lbs it's not all that useful to a criminal.

Congrats on both the house and the gun room, Nyles! I can't wait to see what it looks like when it's totally finished.

I just had deja vu. Don't you mention this every time we have a topic where the subject of big-bore rifles comes up? (and I think you've said elsewhere that the movie "S.W.A.T." is to blame)

Probably. It's the most ridiculous reason ever to ban something. To make it even more laughable, the state had police officers on commercials lecturing about how these .50 caliber "assault rifle" rounds can punch through a car door, while conveniently leaving out the fact that even a tiny .22LR (along with a myriad of other pistol cartridges including, but not limited to, the extremely common 9mm) can do the same thing.

Are there any recorded instances of .50 cal rifles shooting down choppers ANYWHERE? I know the CIA sent some to A-stan in the 80's to shoot down Hinds, but did it ever work? And I know insurgents had .50 cal rifles in Iraq, but I don't remember reading about any choppers being shot down by them. You have armed men with access to .50 cal rifles in A-stan, Iraq, Mexico and Colombia going against people with helicopters, and I don't recall any shootdowns. Am I missing something?

So back to the collection: do you actually shoot the PTRD?

No recorded shoot downs that I know of. A civilian or police helicopter isn't going to be very tolerant of holes being poked in it regardless of the caliber, but I find it doubtful that one could have an easy time downing a flying tank like a Hind or Apache with a 50. I don't know about the former's armor rating, but I know the fuselage of the latter can withstand a hit from a projectile up to 23mm.

I think that 23mm number only applies to the rotor blades (and possible the cockpit tub), most of the helicopter is only rated to 12.7mm, whilst I think the cockpit itself will only stand up to 7.62mm (although there are sliding boron carbide shields that can be brought forward for additional protection).

Barrett thought it was possible to shoot helicopters down with a high caliber rifle, that is the role that the M82A2 was originally designed for (hence how it is designed to be shoulder fired and as standard used a 1x red dot sight). Regardless of whether it is realistically practical, if it was to happen in a war zone insurgents wouldn't be targeting Apaches, they would be going for "soft" transport helicopters as they are coming in for a landing, potentially killing dozens of people rather than the two in an Apache.

As a matter of fact, I finally shot my PTRD for the first time last month. I was using somewhat reduced charge reloads using plain lead softpoint bullets (just, you know, 14.5mm). Here's the video:

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And here's what it did to 1 1/2" steel plate:

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How much does 14.5mm cost?

Were you using a reduced load because of the lead bullets? I heard that you can't use lead bullets with full loads because they fall apart, is this true? The person who told me this said he used to make his owns bullet for reloading out of solid brass that he turned down on a lathe.

Very nice Nyles. You're ready for the Zombies.

I actually didn't load them myself, they came with the gun. I assume they used a reduced charge due to the lead bullets, but also to reduce recoil. In spite of the huge blast it's actually not unpleasant to shoot. Which was nice since I brought out my 110lb young lady friend who actually took a turn with it.

14.5mm ammo hasn't been available in Canada in about 6 years, but when it was it was selling for about $30-$40 a round, which was actually about the time the PTRDs disappeared off the market (there was an import of about 100 of them 8ish years ago). Probably more now that those of us with PTRDs (and even a few PTRS rifles made it in in the same import) are getting desperate for ammo!

I snapped some pictures of other stuff from my new house that IMFDB might find interesting, even if only loosely gun related.

My Afghan war rug, purchased at the market in Kandahar. I think almost everyone that did a tour there brought one of these back.
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Bookshelf in my dining area, containing among other things my gun library.
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My collection of WW2 Canadian regimental cap badges, hanging in the living room:
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After buying a proper safe for my handguns, which had the added bonus of freeing up space in my old Sentry cabinets so I can lock up my ammo, I finally completed my gun room to my liking. So, without further ado, I present the Guntorium:

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More to follow on the next page...

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Nice, Nyles.

Henry Bowman would be impressed with your 14.5mm, and I too have a similar Afghan rug.