The Newhall Incident
California recently honored the four officers murdered in the Newhall shooting. Here's an excellent write-up:
California recently honored the four officers murdered in the Newhall shooting. Here's an excellent write-up:
eastern hunting and shooting
Somebody probably knows why the Brits stuck to revolver in the years leading up to WWII, and even, perhaps, why they liked such pea-dunkler cartridges.
It is interesting to note that the British apparently believe that the power of a handgun should be governed as much by the ability of the average soldier to handle the cartridge as anything else. They insist that the handgun is a short-range arm to be used with speed and so adopted a cartridge like the S&W .28 Regular and loaded it with a 200 grain bullet…. The idea that a handgun is essentially a short-range arm is not at all new, even in military circles, but we seem to have attempted to increase the range beyond the practical limit with such cartridges as the .45 Automatic, with the result that the gun is decidedly difficult for the average man to shoot well.
The Enfield was primarily designed to permit quick pointing and rapid snap shooting, since it was thought (and future events showed the quality of the thought) that the main use of a service handgun was for combat work; the general balance of the Enfield was designed to help the average man to instinctively point, and hit, his opponent. The authorities … wanted a pistol which, in the hands of the average soldier armed with it, was capable of being pointed at, and hitting, a man in the least possible time.
The light weight and less recoil…[of the Enfield] … resulted in the average man putting up far better performance than he did with the heavy caliber weapon, and after a little practice it was good to see how these men so rapidly brought their guns into play, and with instinctive pointing sense and quickness on the trigger, secured hits on man-sized targets at anything up to 15 yards. And it was later proved a hundred-fold that the 200-grain bullet moving at a velocity of about 650 fps had quite an effective stopping power when compared with the heavier calibred brethren.
And once again I say that I would infinitely prefer to have my old S&W than any automatic pistol, the much over-rated Walthers and Lugers included, for a combat weapon.