Handgun Myths/Rumors/ Urban Legends

Guns will blow up a car's gas tank everytime, but won't penetrate the door the good guy is using for "cover".

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Also overturned couches, kitchen tables and refrigerator doors are good cover indoors.

In the old days of non-arcing, stand alone TV episodes, a shoulder was not an important muskuloskeletal joint with arteries and nerves, but more of a ballistic meat block. Getting shot added dramatic tension, but you wanted all the standard players back to form for the next show. Plus, people were much tougher back then (I mean the 1950's and 60's). How else do you explain bullet-bras and girdles? Okay, maybe only the women were tougher.

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After watching years of Gunsmoke, I wondered why Marshall Dillon's arms had not fallen off.

I was at a gun show and watched a gun shop owner tell a customer that he couldn't use a pre ban hi cap mag in the post ban P89 he had just purchased.

Take off your shoes beatledog, for you are trodding on sacred ground.

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I know; I get a lot of blowback on this point. But that doesn't make it less a myth. After all, there's an element of the sacred to all myths.

Hit a man in the thumb with a .45 round and it will knock him off his feet.

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Had that one from an Expert Genius signing up at the gun club last week; except it was the pinkie finger. But we took his money anyhow.


There is some misinformation on the gunboards, too.
The French Arcane (and GTV) bullets that I have seen were bare copper.
The US made KTW armor piercing bullets were indeed Teflon coated. Nothing to do with the gun barrel, the first and second generation KTWs had copper half jackets to take the rifling, it was meant to increase penetration. Whether it did is debatable, but the intent was clear.

Anybody here ever actually fire a Black Talon into soft medium?
I have and the jacket really does peel back, split, and buckle into sharp points.
Will that hurt your giblets more than the irregular expanded mushroom of other brands?
Probably not, but it LOOKS wicked and it IS prickly to handle.

Old (19th century) instructions for the management of single action revolvers called for the use of the safety notch after loading six cartridges.

All guns make a random clicky safety-esque cocking noise when drawn.

People getting knocked down or flying backwards when shot.

Magazine springs will "take a set" if left loaded.

All American males are inherently accurate and knowledgeable with guns.

Women, especially petite women, should have tiny guns for self defense.

"I only need *X* because my *X* will be at *X* distance with *X* rounds fired."

"I prefer *X* so anything else is inferior!"



I'd compare a High-Point to a Yugo. Not a Ford Focus?

My favorite is the one where your home defense shotgun needs a nine shot tube and a side-saddle with six more shells. As though the bad guy is going to keep advancing on you after you touch off the first shot.

that if you decide to carry a .25, you should file the front sight off. That way it won't hurt so much when it gets shoved up your butt.

OptimusPrime said:

That someone would rather be shot with a .45 while wearing a bulletproof vest rather than a .22.

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I would rather be shot with a .45 while wearing a vest, than be shot with a .22 without one.

Yes, but note the "until." If there is a legitimate until, there cannot be an always.

Since there are times when you can accurately say "this gun is now unloaded," then the statement "All guns are always loaded" has to be false.

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I agree, I hate the statement "all guns are always loaded". It's dumb.

Recoil movement of a gun/slide starts only after the bullet has left the barrel.

Claims that recoil energy of a certain gun is directed directly backward, or partially upward, or just somewhere. Energy is a scalar, it has no direction. Anyone claiming otherwise is better to start re-writing some fundamental physics laws. Ironically, just about any other quantity that can be used to describe aspects of recoil - motion, velocity, momentum, force, impulse, rotation, torque and angular momentum - are vectors and have direction.

Bad follow-through will make your bullets hit the target sideways.

The smaller and finer sights your handgun has, the better you can hit the center of a bullseye.

Comrade Mike said:

Black talon is still sold. It's the same bullet recoated and renamed. I can't remember the name of the ammunition right now to save my life. It's that early onset Alzheimer's getting to me.

My favorite handgun myth is that you can shoot someone wearing a bullet proof vest and they won't even feel it

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Winchester Ranger T

shafter said:

I agree, I hate the statement "all guns are always loaded". It's dumb.

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It is treat all guns as if they were loaded. Don't be pointing at people etc.

I’m not sure this counts as a myth but I was watching The Patriot Games today and in the Scene right before the attack on “Lord Snowden” the terrorists are sitting in a car in broad daylight loading magazines. Really? They didn’t have enough fore thought to load at least the magazines before they left home?

This instance is an extension of the myth that no one carries their weapon with a round in the chamber.

I especially like the scenes where the bad guy points what is apparently a functionally empty pistol at someone to intimidate them and then, to show he’s “serious”, rack the slide and chamber a round.

I also like the way the cops (in some shows) all stop and chamber a round before kicking in the bad guy’s door with the SWAT team

My favorites are bullet setback and over penetration. Bullet setback is something caused by all the new shooters playing with their gun too much. Also there is proof on YouTube that pushing the bullet down as far as it goes and shooting makes no difference not even in sound. A complete miss should be worried about, not over penetration of which I have never known of but one case and that was at very close range and two people died of one shot and that was of all things a.380. So there is another myth for you. The .380 does not have enough power for self defense.
Another one that amazes me is the special names and gimmicks of watered down ammo that the manufactures hype and sell as SD ammo to all the newbies. Critical Defense and Gaurd Dog come to mind. Soft shooting is not what should be worried about other than plinking ammo. What on earth make people think that SD ammo should be something different than LE ammo. Should it be needed I want the best there is when my life is in danger. There is so much false BS being spread around I hope you do start telling people the truth. All of the self proclaimed over night experts really worry me.

Friday Night Special

"Assault rifle".

To own a firearm you must to be a militia member. The Constitution says so.

If you are serious about defending yourself, you must carry cocked and locked.

In a defensive carry weapon hollow points indicate evil intent.

If you want to trust your gun, shoot some off the chart handloads and see if it cracks.

MIM parts are to be avoided like the plague.

To learn shooting with a scope, one is required to master the iron sights.

If I dress in camo and tactical for the shooting range, I will not be mistaken for a newbie.

Jude Law is what a Russian peasant soldier would look and act like.

The Mosin rifles were deliberately sighted to hit high, so you aim at the belt buckle and deliver a head shot.

Krinkov is what Russians call their SBR's.

An AR15 with the largest number of attachments is the winning ticket. Including a bayonet, in case the ammo runs out.

A cheaper scope with a higher magnification is the best buy.

Made in Germany = Excellent.

Made entirely in one building = Excellent.

If the gun blasts don't bother your ears, you are protected.

It is treat all guns as if they were loaded.

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That I agree with, provided we recognize that sometimes a gun really is unloaded and that we must acknowledge the fact in order to do certain tasks involving them. Of course, we must also follow the other three rules as best is feasible regardless. But Cooper phrased it the way I stated: "All guns are always loaded."

And here's another myth: The 357Sig is hard to reload. I grant it's a little tricky compared to other pistol rounds, but if you treat it like a bottleneck rifle round and make careful bullet choices, it's very doable.

del

People trying to tell me that my Makarovs, my CZ vz.82, and my Radom P64 CZAK are "obsolete", "out-of-date", and/or "underpowered". To those people I say TTTHHHPPPFFFTTT!!!

"Handgun Myths/Rumors/ Urban Legends"

Is it true that there is a place in a man's head, that if you shoot it, it will blow up?



TCB

YZ said:

Too bad Cooper is not here to defend himself against beatledog.

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Do you believe Cooper's rules need to be defended? If they are the unassailable gospel, as many claim, they should stand on their own.

beatledog simply asserts, correctly, that Cooper's rule "all guns are always loaded" is demonstrably false. I can go to my safe this minute and find a dozen guns that are absolutely positively truly not loaded. I can pull the trigger and they will not go off because they are not loaded.

Mainsail said:

My favorite is the one where your home defense shotgun needs a nine shot tube and a side-saddle with six more shells. As though the bad guy is going to keep advancing on you after you touch off the first shot.

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My favorite is when people are willing to bet their lives that they'll only need one shot to scare off an attacker.

Ouch. I didn't really want this. Okay, Jeff Cooper was speaking to the uninitiated, unlike yourselves. Made it simple for them to get started somewhere.
He was not infallible. He was opinionated to a fault, an iconoclast in his own right, a conspiracy theorist and a blunt social commentator. I did learn something from him. My guns are "always loaded".

no matter how sure we ALL are that the weapon is "unloaded" if you point it at me we have a problem.

We all agree on that, bk42261. I'd feel the same if someone intentionally or blatantly muzzled me. But to think anyone can go through life doing all the things we do with firearms without ever briefly and/or inadvertently muzzling anyone, ever...now there's a myth of epic proportions.

I think the whole not having to aim a shotgun thing is one that sticks out in addition to others posted on here.

Oh yeah, the whole pistols suck and they're only good for fighting your way back to your rifle/shotgun is bull crap. Yes a rifle/shotgun is a better option, but very few folks carry a rifle/shotgun in their car and if they did encounter an issue, they need to use that handgun and get out of harms way, not grabbing your long gun and going back into the thick of it. For LEO's I can understand it somewhat better, but I think the phrase is ridiculous. For civilians, most don't have a rifle/shotgun accessible so it's their handgun and whatever reloads they have on them.

It kinda always irked me when some say the 10mm is like a .41 Magnum, which is total horse hockey. That's about all I can think of right now.