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flechero wrote: ↑Wed Oct 30, 2019 1:04 pm

K-Texas wrote: ↑Wed Oct 30, 2019 12:38 pm

The Annoyed Man wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 5:18 pm Dude's posts are longer than my own. Sumpin' ain’t right here.

Since my screen name is not Dude, I must wonder if you intended a slight insult. In my lexicon, a DUDE is a guy who dresses and tries to act like a cowboy even though he may have never sat a horse, and less likely to have ever been on a cattle drive. Myself, I could sit a horse in my pre-puberty years and in my adventurous early to mid 20s I was on a good many cattle drives out of San Angelo. A little more expedient than the 19th century kind as it involved covering most states west of the Mississippi while the cattle were driven to their destination by 18-wheel truck

Not that TAM needs me to speak for him- but you clearly mistook his post.

I'm sure TAM wasn't being ugly- if he were, you'd not have to wonder. It's just that we rib him for being so long winded and he finally had someone to pass that on to. [clearly joking] And just so you know- "Dude" in the last 30 years has evolved into a positive slang term. (more often meaning friend, compadre or buddy)

Thanks, and you’re right. I wasn’t trying to be ugly. "Dude" for me is the same as saying "that guy", or "hey, man". I don’t know how old K-Texas is, but I’m 67, and I came up surfing SoCal beaches in the 1960s. Back then, we used "dude" to express all kinds of meanings, but almost never as an insult.



As flechero pointed out, I’ve taken some friendly ribbing over the years for the length of some of my posts. So when I say "Dude's [as in, "this guy's"] posts are longer than my own. Sumpin' ain’t right here. ", that’s a joke that pokes fun at myself.....and maybe you too a little bit, the same way that others poke fun at me. I certainly didn’t mean it as an insult.

Dude's posts are longer than my own. Sumpin' ain’t right here.

So far, I haven’t been able to get anybody to volunteer to step in front of any load I’ve ever carried, so that I can get some kind of real world idea of its effectiveness. Maybe I’m not asking right.

And I don’t really care enough to go buy ballistics gelatin and shoot holes in all my old blue jeans to conduct my own tests and find out.

So I do what smart shoppers everywhere do....I do my research by reading articles, watching videos of other people's tests, and talking with others who been down that particular investigatory trail, and then I add it all up and see if what they all say makes sense to me. Then I go buy some of that ammo and run it through my carry gun to see (1) if it feeds reliably, and (2) if it groups reasonably accurately.

I have the capacity to handload my pistol ammo, but I don’t bother. I have a single stage press, and it’s just a lot easier to buy 9mm by the 1000 round box. I reload for .308 and .223/5.56, and will soon begin reloading for .30-30. But for my pistols, I just don’t bother. I carried HST in my .45s when I carried them. I carry 135 grain +P Hornady Critical Duty FTX in my 9mm Glocks. And I carry 125 grain Hornady Critical Defense FTX in my .357 Magnum revolvers.

Regarding Paul Harrell, he does reload some of his rifle ammo....or at least, he used to. One thing he DOES do—which so far as I can tell, you do NOT—is that he frequently states and restates that these are his opinions, that work for him, with his guns, and he explains why. He doesn’t very often make blanket statements that cavalierly dismiss the reasoning of other people ... as long as they actually reasoned...and he also doesn't call out and disparage the work of other testers/writers. He also frequently ends his demonstrations of performance/accuracy with "You be the judge".

I haven’t always agreed with some of his conclusions. For instance, I remain convinced that a suppressed AR15 SBR loaded with 55 grain soft points is a better home defense choice—FOR ME—than a 12 gauge shotgun, which Harrel says is the superior choice....FOR HIM. But I also recognize that a LOT of people put their faith in the shotgun, and have done so for as long as there’s been shotguns. There must be something to it. So I won’t ridicule or be dismissive of someone's choice to rely on a shotgun instead of an AR. Another example....I carry what he would term "hyper ammo" (or whatever he called it), instead of the plain old cheap Remington JHPs. Yeah, it costs more; but it also gives me more confidence in its performance—especially when it’s backed up by the research I did before deciding to try some of it in my gun.

There are humble experts, and then there are arrogant experts. Both may have something to offer, but I know to which ones I pay attention, and those to which I do not.