friends,
i am gonna post some "shoot to destruction" videos, showing ar-15's and ak-47's firing full automatics being fired. generally speaking, the guns go to about 8 minutes of fire, and then suffer failures of one sort or another. the guns, which are generally described as firing 600 rounds a minute, are actually capable of firing about 100 rounds sustained fire, over a period of minutes.
follows a letter to a friend.--
c:
an ar-15, shot to barrel burst. about 9 minutes of full auto fire, app. 830 rounds fired in that time.
c:
an ak-47, fired to failure, the barrel drooping. 265 rounds fired, in about 3 minutes or so.
rebuild the ak-47, give in another try.
this ak47 failed at about 8 or 9 minutes, 895 rounds fired. the barrel drooped, pulled the gas block crooked, and the gas system would not function any longer, locking up the action.
another ar-15 fired to failure, 833 rounds. about 9 minutes
what you should take away from this. much is made about the firing rate of auto weapons, in the neighborhood of 6 or 700 rounds a minute. yet these rifles, fired as fast as possible with magazines on a table and at the ready, could only fire at an effective rate of about 100 rounds a minute. the fact is, they have to be reloaded magazine by magazine, and that takes time. lots of time.
just watch.
and, that effective rate of about 100 rounds a minute was enough to cook all of them. the american ar-15, and the soviet ak-47, all get extremely hot when fired at that rate. american steel, russian steel, .... , it all gets hot when exposed on a continuous basis to the combustion of gun powder. watch the ejection ports .... they are filled with flame. think of the barrel, which contains the flame at 50 to 60,000 lbs of pressure.
you will notice that the guy doing this was wearing eye protection (he sure as hell was after the ar-15 barrel blew up!!!), and he was wearing heavy welders gloves. and, if you will notice, after about a minute or two, he was not handling the rifles by the fore-end grips, but was holding it with the trigger guard grip and the front of the receiver or the magazine.
they get hot. the ak-47 caught on fire.
our man in las vegas. our man in las vegas had a couple minutes per gun where he could fire and handle it. then, he had to replace it, just to hang onto it. even doing so, having to change magazines and all that, he had about 100 rounds a minute for effective fire. just shooting it as fast as he could.
aimed fire. you will notice that the shooting here was not done looking through the sights on the gun. it was not aimed fire. you will also note that aimed fire in any fully auto weapon is very problematic. it is just not gonna happen. you wanna aim, you gotta stop firing for a bit. the most effective fire with a fully automatic weapon is in short bursts: in the military, machine gunners usually fire about 7 or 8 round bursts, not a whole lot more.
this calls into question a single gun/shooter scenario. i just don't think a single shooter was responsible for the las vegas shootings. even changing weapons to try and mitigate the matter of heat, it would not be possible for him to have fired continuously. and, even at maximum speed, not much more than 100 rounds a minute, or perhaps more.
to my mind, there was more than one shooter, perhaps as many as 3 or 4.
well see as this gets investigated.
john jay @ 10/2/2017
When I watched the video this morning I had two thoughts: 1) yep, that's automatic fire alright, but fired carelessly in one long long burst, and 2) that's a damn slow rate of fire for an actual machine gun.
Now the news is saying he had a couple of bump fire stock devices, along with 19 guns in the room plus tons of ammo.
You can get 100rnd drum mags for an AR or an AK. Bump fire one off, and the gun is red hot. Swap the stock gizmo to a cold gun with a new drum, lather rinse repeat. Is there a skill to using them? Does it takes lots of practice to master? I don't know.
This is one damn strange case. The guy seems like Mr. Normal, retired and well off. And suddenly all this, 19 guns, 1000s of rounds, another house full of weapons plus ammonium nitrate fertilizer bombs? WTF???
Yes, he could be the biggest patsy in history. Or a perfect psycho who prepped for this for years.
Posted by: Drew458 | October 02, 2017 at 06:58 PM
And I mean years. How far ahead was that concert planned? How far ahead did he have to book that swank corner suite for the whole 3-4 day festival weekend?
How long does it take to acquire dozens of rifles and mountains of ammo and NOT draw notice to yourself?
Good grief, it must have taken him a dozen trips just to haul his crap up to the hotel room.
This whole thing smells.
Posted by: Drew458 | October 02, 2017 at 07:02 PM
drew:
i've posted again, arguing that he had to have had spotters to help in this, just to manage target acquisition in a crowd of 22,000 people.
and, you raise a subject that i've been cogitating over for a couple hours. the talking heads say that he had 23 guns in the room where his dead body was found.
how do you sneak 23 guns into a hotel room without staff & security noticing it? i mean, it is hard to stick 23 guns under the bed, especially when the hotel maid is making the bed every day.
and, in a las vegas hotel, the elevators are gonna be loaded with people 24/7 .
yes, it stinks.
john
Posted by: john jay | October 02, 2017 at 09:05 PM
p.s. and, as you note, sneaking a couple thousand rounds of ammo in, especially for a scoped high powered rifle (of which there were some, i understand from news sources) is also no mean feat.
easier for confederates to share the burden here, on the same floor, and then bring the stuff in bit by bit just before the operation is launched.
and, as regards being a patsy. when the confederates saw the possee closing in, they killed him, nice and thoroughly, to tidy up, before they got the hell out of dodge.
Posted by: john jay | October 02, 2017 at 09:08 PM
yes. yes, yes to all.
he was the patsy.
who ran it? to my mind, it is soros, or it is isis.
Posted by: jj | October 03, 2017 at 07:05 AM
I am inclined to agree, but am trying not to put on the tinfoil hat, because to wear it means accepting that certain groups or government factions are willing to commit mass murder to push their agenda. That "country music = Republicans therefore it's fine to kill them" thing that oozed out of CBS and social media may be very telling. Nearly as bad, or even worse, We the People will NEVER get the real facts from gov or media, only the "approved" story, filtered by layers of operatives and message massagers. Which means we are living in the Matrix, and that is an upsetting and depressing thing to fully admit. It's all InSoc and the Ministry of (today's) Truth. No thanks.
Posted by: Drew458 | October 03, 2017 at 07:50 AM