DSB Scientific Ballistic Radio Transcripts

Announcer: The views and opinions expressed on this program do not necessarily reflect those of 55KRC The Talk Station and Clear Channel Worldwide.

Announcer: Welcome to Ballistic Radio, Cincinnati’s only gun talk show. Join Us. We’re going to explore the topic of firearms and your rights as a law abiding citizen. Ballistic Radio, brought to you by Kyle’s Gun Shop in Finneytown, your source for premium firearms and ammunition. Now here’s your host, John Johnston, on 55KRC The Talk Station.

John Good evening and welcome to Ballistic Radio brought to you by Kyle’s Gun Shop in Finneytown, your source for premium firearms and ammunition. I’m your host, John Johnston. As always, check us out at ballisticradio.com and facebook.com/ballisticradio.

Tonight’s guest is going to be Claude Werner of Firearm’s Safety Training, LLC. And I’m going to get into why that’s actually really cool for everybody in a second.

Just kind of a concept I wanted to talk about. You know, if I could make everyone carry a full size service pistol, and choose what caliber they carried and get ’em to carry “enough gun,” I would. But, I really think that’s kind of disingenuous of me to do that. Because what works for me is not going to work for everyone. And you know, there’s a lot of interest lately in small, for lack of a better term, sub-caliber pistols - things that are under .380, 9 mm.

And, you know, the reason why Claude is cool, well, there are multiple reasons why Claude is cool. But, the one we are going to be discussing this evening is the work he’s done with pocket pistols, specifically, you know, the sub-service caliber ones. His effectiveness at running them, just a lot of the research that’s he’d done as well, I think everyone’s going to be really interested in. It’s not going to be, you know, a “Tales from the Black Helicopter” type show tonight, though he could tell those stories if he wanted to.

But, it’s going to be - I’m going to try to focus a little bit more on what everyone around here is probably dealing with.

So, anyway, co-hosting with me tonight: Mr. Jim Beaty, Andy Ulrich. Gentlemen. How are you doing?

Jim Hey, John. Always good to be here.

John I’m always glad to have you here. Andy, how are you doing?

Andy Really good.

John Wow.

Jim Who could top that?

John No, I couldn’t. I really wish everyone could hear the conversations before the microphones get turned on. I’m trying not to laugh every single night.

So, anyway, why are pocket pistols frowned upon by a lot of the upper echelon trainers? A lot of trainers, but, you know, I’m going to leave out the middle to lower level trainers, not that their opinions are wrong, but they don’t necessarily have the experience to be driving the rest of the industry. I’m talking about, you know, the Tom Givens, and the Dave Spauldings and the Craig Douglases and, you know, those guys. And, I’m not speaking for any of them, but I just wanted to - the tier that I’m talking about. You see a lot of emphasis placed on minimum caliber, minimum size, minimum capacity. And I kind of wanted to examine why that is.

I’m going to talk about why I don’t like pocket pistols for probably the first part of the show, and then we’ll talk to Claude and he can tell everyone why I’m not exactly right.

So, and, you know, one of them is the caliber limitations: .22’s, .25’s, .32’s, the performance is not necessarily there compared to larger calibers. Would you say that’s accurate, Jim?

Jim I would agree and I would go beyond your common definition of performance as stopping power. Let’s talk about reliability. I mean, a rimfire as opposed to a center fire primed cartridge, you know.

John Right.

Jim Your .22 Long Rifle, for example. I mean, you’ve got just such a greater chance of a misfire or a non-fire.

John Right.

Andy Think about all the times you’ve shot a pistol and how many times your .22 has went “click.”

John Right. Exactly.

You know, that’s one reason. Obviously, if you need your gun, a click instead of a bang is probably a really, really bad feeling. I’ve not gotten to experience that one. Thank God. Or, whomever.

Jim It just becomes a really expensive club. Or, in the case of most of these pocket pistols, and inexpensive club.

John Yeah, well, whatever. You’ve got capacity limitations.

And going back to stopping power. That’s a different show entirely. I will say this, that if you shoot anyone in the right place, they tend to stop what they’re doing. But, is everyone capable of doing that under stress on demand? I’m probably not and I spend a lot of time doing this. A lot of other guys probably not as well. Some are. It just really depends.

But, ignoring that fact, you know, you’ve got capacity limitations. Whereas if you’ve got multiple attackers and you only have six rounds, well, okay, that could be a problem.

You hear the term inaccurate floated a lot, as far as these guns are not accurate. Well, that’s not exactly true. Now, there’s a difference between mechanical accuracy, which is mechanically what the pistol is capable of, and practical accuracy. You know, like a .38 J Frame. A lot of people say, “Oh, those are, you know, belly guns. You shove ’em up under somebody’s ribs and pull the trigger until it clicks.” Well, yeah, they’re good at that. I’ve shot ’em out to 75 yards and I’m not a good revolver shot at all. Some days I am, some days I’m not. But, I mean, you can do it. If you are practicing the proper technique, have a good sighting system. You know, it really depends. Mechanically, their capable of it.

Jim Sure.

John Now, practically, with a short sight radius and maybe a heavy, long trigger that not everyone tends to master, and, the big one, really poor sights on most small guns. Yeah, ok. It’s easy to miss with those.

Jim How about a grip that you can get a single finger on?

John Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, some of the small - I’ve got a relatively large hand, so some of the small guns is a one, one and a half finger affair.

I mean, even if it’s two, while it is the two fingers that you are doing most of your grip strength with anyway, it’s still not ideal. You know, the recoil can cause a flinch. There’s all sorts of - and obviously, the answer to that is training and I’m not saying it’s not. And that’s kind of what we’re going to be talking about with Claude. But, you know, I think everyone will admit that they’re not as easy to shoot as a larger pistol. I think that we can all agree on that.

Jim Seems reasonable.

John Yeah. Well, I try. I try very hard to be reasonable.

Now, one thing I will give them. If, if convenience is going to determine whether or not you carry a gun, they’re hard to beat. And that’s something that I think gets lost in the mix. I don’t have a problem carrying a larger firearm because I’ve invested in good gear to do it. And, it’s important to me that I carry larger firearm. So, hey, no big deal for me. But, if you are concerned about all sorts of different things, and the small gun is the only one that you are going to reliably carry, that’s where the pocket pistols come in. And that’s, you know, huge.

You know, rule number one of a gunfight is don’t get in a gunfight. Rule number two of a gunfight: have a gun. Well, obviously, the gun you have with you sure beats the gun that you leave at home because it was uncomfortable, or you were just running out. You know, I’m not going to discount that either.

It’s just - that’s kind of the sides of the issue, that I see them as. Obviously, everyone’s going to have differing points of view. And, that’s fine. When you get your own radio show, you can bring those up. But, as of right now, that’s kind of where I’m at. I’m kidding. I kid. I love all of you, and appreciate you listening.

Andy Liar.

John No. No, never.

Anyway, we’re going to talk with Claude Werner about pocket guns, their efficacy, just all that stuff. Right now, you’re listening to Ballistic Radio on 55KRC The Talk Station.

{break} 

John Welcome back to Ballistic Radio on 55KRC The Talk Station brought to you by Kyle’s Gun Shop in Finneytown your source for premium firearms and ammunition.

Right now, we’ve got Mr. Claude Werner holding on the line. I’m going to try to get him on right about now. Claude are you there?

Claude I am.

John Excellent. Thank-you very much for coming on the show this evening. I really, really appreciate it.

Claude Hey, my pleasure to be here.

John Well, so, I’m going to just jump right in. Do mind telling the listeners a little about your background and then we’ll get into the issues at hand.

Claude Well, I actually have kind of a dual background in that I spent a long time in the Army. I was a Special Forces Team Commander and Military Intelligence Officer and an Infantry Company Commander. And then eventually when I got out, I got into the commercial real estate business and I was the research director for three commercial real estate firms and eventually became the national director of real estate research for the accounting firm of Deloitte and Touche. So, I balanced those two things, those two very diverse backgrounds, in what I train and the way I look at things.

John Right.

Claude So, that definitely colors the way I look at it, because I think I’ve spent a lot more time, probably more time than any of my contemporary training colleagues, in the white collar environment.

John Right.

Claude And, I think that’s pretty important in the context of the everyday person’s life.

John Well, and it seems like, too, that’s something that gets lost sight of is, you know - I wear jeans and t-shirt pretty much everywhere I go and covered in tatoos, and I don’t really try to, you know, dress up, unless I’ve got somewhere I’m going. It’s easy for me to carry a gun. Well, that’s not the same for, you know, someone that has to wear a suit and tie every day of their lives.

Claude Exactly.

John So. Just to, and I know that we talked about this a little before the show, but I just, I wanted to cover it because I think that you get a lot of unfair attention based off of the amount of time you spend teaching the small guns. You’re not saying that they’re the best choice all the time. That’s not your position?

Claude No, no. Not at all. You know, and I freely admit that my bedside gun is a Beretta Vertec with a twenty round magazine and a light and a laser and night sights and that’s what I want.

John Right.

Claude You know, when size is not an issue, I absolutely think that you gain a lot more, at least in terms of reliability. You know, the term “powerful handgun” to me is an oxymoron. And, like you say: we won’t go into that right now.

Jim I was thinking, well, it’s kinda like military intelligence.

Claude Military Intelligence.

John Wow. It’s - you know, and I was told this, and I will clean this up for the airwaves. But, handguns are good for poking holes in things and rifles are good for tearing things up. And I omitted several phrases that make that better. But, anyway.

Claude My idea of a powerful small arm kind of starts at a belt fed GPMG.

John Yeah, exactly.

Claude And then it moves up to a 25 mm autocannon.

John Yeah.

Claude Then you are starting to talk about power.

John Exactly.

Claude Anything pathetic pop gun that you can hold in one hand -

John Not so much.

Claude - and fire it, is not powerful. That’s all.

John Right. And that’s, you know, and we’ll get into that another show.

Claude Exactly.

John But, I wanted to cover that, because, you know, obviously, I’ve run into - I think we travel in the same circles at this point - and, I hear a lot of interesting things, and I see a lot of the arguments that you have. And I think a lot of people are missing out on that small, little fact: you’re not saying that it’s the best choice, you’re just saying that it’s better than nothing, and a lot of times, nothing is the only other option.

Claude Exactly. And, that’s my biggest beef with the training community is that there’s so much stress on the full size service pistol, two spare magazines, a flashlight and a partridge in a pair tree, that what you end up having - especially in the case of smaller statured people - they just cannot carry that kind of equipment with them on a daily basis. They just can’t do it. Sorry, guys. You know, get over it.

So, as you mentioned earlier in the show, one of the prime rules in a gunfight is “have a gun.”

John Yeah.

Claude You know, so if we do things that discourage people from having guns, then, you know, how responsible is that is my question to the rest of the community.

John And that’s interesting that you bring that up. Do you think that a lot of times the decision that someone makes to carry or not carry is based off of the idea that if you’re going to carry, you’re going to carry a certain thing? I mean, do you think that in a round-a-bout way we sometimes encourage people to not carry a gun by encouraging them to carry the right gun?

Claude Yes. And I know you’re going to have William Aprill on the show in a few weeks.

John Yep.

Claude And you should - one of the questions you might ask William is his concept of “that’s not me.”

John Yeah.

Claude And, I’ll just leave it at that because he can address the issue much better than I can. But he told me about that and it immediately resonated with me.

John Yeah. I’m looking forward to that one. But, I try not to take away time from everyone’s shows.

Claude Sure.

John So, I want to give you the full, the full treatment here.

Do you think that - and going back to this - so, we’re saying that sometimes a small gun is what we are going to carry based off of multiple reasons. And I guess - you hear the term “non-permissive environment” and a lot of people assume that that is a legal thing. “Well, I’m not supposed to carry a gun here.” That’s a non-permissive environment. Do you actually find that to be the case anymore? Or?

Claude You know, that’s, that attitude is a holdover from, I don’t know, pre-1986 when it was much more difficult to get a license to carry a pistol. Nowadays, one of our prime non-permissive environments is the social, rather than the legal. For instance, somebody’s going to a birthday party and there’s a story that you and I had talked about this earlier.

John And we’ll get to that one later. But, yeah, like a birthday party.

Claude Something like that. And they say, “I don’t want to carry a gun to a birthday party,” and it’s not because they don’t want to carry a gun. It’s because they don’t want other people at the party to look at them sideways and say, “What are you weird? Why did you bring a gun to the birthday party?”

Well, it’s not the birthday party that we’re worried about. It’s getting to and from the birthday party that’s the important part. And so, if we discourage people from having their gun, well, you know, that’s a problem.

John Right.

Claude In my opinion.

John Yeah.

Claude So, that aspect of the social NPE is much more important now than it used to be. And, I think that sometimes we lose sight of that.

John Yeah. It’s definitely something that I hadn’t completely thought out.

So, going in a round-a-bout way, sort of back to that, if we are trying to avoid getting made, for lack of a better term, and we’ve decided to carry a small gun - now, I know a lot of folks, you see like five shot J Frame .38 calibers, you see .380’s, specifically lock breech .380’s, which for those that don’t care about gun nerd stuff, tend to recoil more than some other actions, you see small 9 mm’s. The problem with those, their not friendly to some people. Is that?

Claude Oh, absolutely. I’ve had this discussion on the range sometimes and especially with ladies. It’s a problem where the husband picks out the gun for her and he, you know, he’ll buy her an LCP or something like that. And, you know, that’s one reason why the LCP is one of the most popular guns in the country right now.

John Right.

Claude You know, you have to look at the BATF figures to figure that out. And then the woman will bring it to the range and she’ll fire two shots or maybe three. And, she goes, “This hurts me.”

And, you know, so, this goes back to this thing that you and I were talking about of should a man buy his wife’s shoes. Probably not.

John Right.

Claude And, similarly, should he then buy her something that is just as personal to her as her shoes, which is a gun. Because if it’s painful for her, she’s not going to want to shoot it.

John Right.

Claude And I think, you know, so that goes to that issue of -

John And that’s not even a female issue, either. I mean, I don’t particularly -

Claude No, it’s not.

John I don’t particularly like getting smacked in the hand with a baseball bat, which is what some of the small guns feel like.

Claude That’s absolutely true. They’re painful. You know, even those of us who shoot a lot will say, “You know, that’s about a thirty round practice gun and I’m done.”

John Right.

Claude And I’m not just done with that gun, I’m done for the day because now my hand hurts.

Andy How many of those guns to we have in our gun safes at the house? Quite a few.

John Most folks. That’s just something that you run into.

Now, going back to it. That’s not to say that a female can’t carry a firearm and shoot it effectively. Everyone’s obviously different. It’s a case by case thing. But -

Claude Sure. Absolutely.

John Something that I found interesting was - and I know this sounds simple, and I know that I’m not the only person that’s said it and I’m not even original in bringing it up - but, a miss with a more effective caliber does not beat a hit with a sub-optimal caliber.

Claude The number of incidents that I can demonstrate to you where, you know, a small caliber - there’s, there’s a dichotomy in the training community. We talk about that things take place, you know, three shots, three seconds, three yards. Or, you know, the 0-5 foot figure from the FBI that’s commonly parroted which is completely misinterpreted.

John Right.

Claude But, so we say that, and then we go, “But they’re hard to hit with.” Well, you know, come on. At 5 ft, how hard is it to hit with anything? You know, it’s not.

And so, then what you end up with is, you know, the small handgun that a person can shoot well and so therefore is confident with allows them to make that hit. And when I did my study about ten years ago of the Armed Citizen, frankly I was shocked when I came across - when I ran my numbers, and at that time, the data was better, frankly, than what it is now because of the copyright laws. .22’s and .25’s had a 30% one shot instant lethality. And I admit, I was shocked by that. I just hadn’t expected it at all.

In other words, that means that with a .22 at, you know, somewhat beyond arm’s length, the defender would shoot the agressor, the criminal, with one shot with a .22 and the criminal would drop dead on the spot.

John Right.

Claude 30% of the time.

John And, that’s not to say that - and that goes back to the whole shot placement thing. It’s not necessarily an indictment on other calibers or a ringing endorsement for those calibers. But, placement is key with anything, and if you are better able to - if due to your limitations or your situation, you are better able to place accurate hits with a .22 or a .25, that’s what matters.

Claude Absolutely.

John And, I think that a lot of folks - and, you know, I’m a fan of Gary Roberts’ work. For those that don’t know, he does a lot of ballistics testing for a lot of different people. He would argue, rightfully so, that the .22 is a ineffective round. But, it’s kinda like Claude just said. If you shoot someone in the right place with anything, and if you are accurate and confident with your gun, that’s what’s important.

Now, we’re going to talk about that a little bit more. Claude, if you don’t mind holding, when we get back, we’ll talk with you a little bit about that and also criminal surveillance. Why that effects that, us, and how we notice it. But right now, everyone’s listening to Ballistic Radio on 55KRC The Talk Station.

{break} 

John Welcome back to Ballistic Radio on 55KRC The Talk Station, brought to you by Kyle’s Gun Shop in Finneytown.

Ah, so. Right now, we’re talking to Claude Werner from Firearm Safety Training, LLC. No one on the line right now, so you can call us at 749-5500 or if you are out of the area, 1-800-823-8255. We’ll try and get to your calls at the end of the evening if you have any questions, comments, whichever. We’re talking about pocket guns, but honestly, I’ll talk to pretty much anyone.

So, anyway. Claude, are you still there?

Claude I’m still here.

John Excellent.

So, we were talking about pocket guns and caliber selection and all that. I want to get into avoiding crimes in the first place and sort of how that works. But, just real quick, and I think that this is a disconnect that occurs in - I’m stealing this idea from you, but I’ll let you expound on it - that there’s a difference between a civilian gun use vs a police or military gun use?

Claude Absolutely. You know, and in the, you know, in the military, we use the acronym MET-TC, which is basically just what’s your mission.

John Right.

Claude And, expounding on that. And, one of the things that I think sometimes we lose sight in the training community is the fact that the police mission is to close with and capture the criminal. And that puts the criminal in the position of being a cornered rat. Well, you know, and we say that, and it is commonly understood, cornered rats fight.

John Right.

Claude On the other hand, a private citizen’s mission, you know, your mission, my mission, is simply to force a break in contact of the criminal activity.

John Right.

Claude And, so what that does is, that puts the criminal in the position of being able to withdraw.

John Yeah.

Claude And no criminal goes out in the morning and says, “Gee, I hope I get into a gunfight with a private citizen today.”

John Right.

Claude You know, what they’re looking for is essentially someone who is unable to fight back that they can pull their predation on. And when it becomes obvious, and I say this from personal experience because I’ve had it happen to me twelve times as a private citizen, that when they realize the predation has gone south, they look at their watch and they go, “Oh, look at the time. I have to go now.”

John Right. And that’s what tends to happen in the typical situation. Now, obviously, if you’re one of the people that gets struck by lightning, you don’t sit to yourself and say, “Oh, I got struck by lightning. This was really odd.” You’re forced to deal with the situation. But, nine times out of ten, that’s what you see - is once -

Claude That’s right. Exactly.

John And, we can have an entirely different show about what is good enough. That’s something that goes around and around with all the people that talk about this: what is good enough? The answer is, you don’t know until you do it or don’t do it. But, anyway, like I said, different show.

Claude Right.

John So, back to what we should be talking about at this point.

Criminal surveillance. Can you talk about that real quick?

Claude Well, one of the things that I’ve observed and actually, you know, many of my colleagues observe it, too, but they don’t emphasize it enough in my opinion is the concept of staying out of trouble as opposed to getting out of trouble.

John Right.

Claude And, one of the things that criminals do is they conduct surveillance looking for targets of opportunity. And, that is something that people need to be aware of because there’s any number of incidents that are easily cited. You know, you and I have talked about the Petit family murders up in Connecticut -

John Right.

Claude -where the criminals essentially picked up on Mrs. Petit and her daughter at a grocery store, and followed her home, and then, you know, decided, “Oh, this is a good target” and came back and it was a heinous crime.

John Right. For those who are not familiar, that was the doctor in Connecticut. His wife and daughters were raped and murdered. They set the house on fire. He was beaten pretty badly, if I remember correctly.

Claude Yes.

John Managed to escape. You know, that’s something terrible.

Claude Yeah. It was a horrible crime. And, many crimes like that are preventable if the people who are subject to that surveillance just had a little bit of awareness. And this doesn’t have to be, you know, a CIA, FBI, DEA kind of, you know, operation. Because, frankly, you know, there’s a big difference between surveillance detection and what’s called counter-surveillance.

John That would be -

Claude Surveillance -

John That would be where like you’d sweep for bugs and things like that?

Claude Well, or sometimes in, especially in terms of cars, counter-surveillance is very aggressive and it tends to be violent. And, for the most part, tends to be illegal unless it’s conducted by the authorities.

John Right.

Claude So, private citizens don’t want to go there. Really, what they need to do is just be aware of their surroundings. And I use a thing called a checkpoint concept where I just say, you know, you’re going to turn three corners. And, if you turn three corners, and you see the same car behind you, don’t let that car follow you into your driveway.

John Right.

Claude As long as you’re in your car, they’re not going to try to run you off the road or things like that. That’s not the way economic predators work. So, as long as you just don’t stop in any place where they can then gain the upper hand on you, you’re pretty safe. If you drive to a hospital or firestation - I don’t generally advocate driving to police stations quite frankly -

John They’re empty.

Claude That’s right. Most police stations now are not manned all the time. So, unless you live in a very big city like New York or Chicago -

John Right.

Claude - the likelihood. Here in Atlanta, the zone headquarters near me, I went there one time to report a traffic accident, and it was padlocked.

John Yeah.

Claude Which surprised me. So, that idea of just being aware of when you might be surveilled, and it’s not necessarily the idea of that they have picked you out as a person.

John And sometimes they do, though. Right?

Claude Oh, absolutely.

John So, I’ll just try to get this in here since we’re starting to get a little long on this one. But, just, with the types of criminal surveillance you’ve run into three kinds as far as targeted, rolling and opportunistic.

Claude Hm Hmm.

John Okay. Targeted being - and we had Tom Givens on and he talked about a shop keeper he had where the wife ended up having to shoot a guy off of him that was trying to rob him. They had specifically targeted him because of what he did.

Claude Exactly. He was a shop keeper. They knew he had cash and they were waiting for him to come out.

John Right.

Now, you were talking earlier about a birthday party and not wanting to carry a gun there. Chuck Haggard, who has been on the show as well, he reported an incident where I guess it was two women coming back from a birthday party, and guys hopped out of a van and one of the women ended up dead. Well, she had a concealed carry permit but had left her gun at home.

Claude Exactly. Very sad.

John And it is, because she didn’t want to carry to a birthday party - didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. And then like you were - brought them up already the Petit family murders. Opportunistic. The wrong people saw the right people at the wrong moment and, just, it kind of went from there.

And I guess your position is that picking up on that early puts you at a much more advantageous point?

Claude Yes, that’s right. Then, then you’re in a position of not having to deal with it by using a countervailing force or form of violence.

John Right.

Claude Just the idea that you maintain your awareness, don’t let a situation get too bad and one of the things that I try to do in my training classes is tell people, “Get the family members involved.”

John Yeah.

Claude You know, the wife and your children. You can actually at some point use your children as essentially a security element for you. And just say, “I want you to be aware of this and that.” And obviously there’s a training - you know, and when I say training, that doesn’t necessarily mean come to training with Tom or myself, but just teaching your children, “Watch out for bad people when we’re around.”

John Right. Right. And that’s - that kind of goes back into the whole whether or not people accept that something bad can happen to them.

Claude That’s true.

John Which seems -

Claude which is a whole different discussion.

John Right. And also, too - and I want to be clear on this: you’re not - obviously, there’s certain situations where whether or not we notice them we can’t do very much about avoiding a conflict. Sometimes, they just find us. Right?

Claude Absolutely. You know, that - but it I think what is important for the average person to understand is that criminals don’t think the way we do. You know, they’re not - they don’t have the thought pattern of “I’m going to go someplace. I’m going to do something useful and then I’m going to come back home.”

John Yeah.

Claude Now, what criminals do is they’re wandering around essentially looking for trouble.

John Right.

Claude And, and if you happen to come within their radar, then,well, you’re that trouble.

John Exactly. And, I mean, that’s something we’ll be getting into with William Aprill when he’s on, actually.

But, it’s time for another commercial. We got one person holding on the line. But, if you would like to talk to us, give a call at 749-5500 or 1-800-823-TALK, T-A-L-K. Claude and I will be answering your questions after the break. Right now you’re listening to Ballistic Radio on 55KRC The Talk Station.

{break} 

John Welcome back to Ballistic Radio on 55KRC The Talk Station brought to you by Kyle’s Gun Shop in Finneytown, your source for premium firearms and ammunition.

We got a couple folks holding on the line, but if you would like to get in and have a question for us, 749-5500, 1-800-823-8255.

So, right now, we have Claude on the line. Claude, you’re still there, right?

Claude Still here.

John Excellent.

Claude does a lot of - very well known trainer does a lot of work with pocket pistols. Other things, too. But, I’d say that a lot of people know you for that. Wouldn’t you say, Claude?

Claude Yeah. I’m probably known as the “Snubby God.”

John Yeah.

Claude You know. And that’s probably what I’m best known for is my work with the snub nosed revolver.

John I will say that I’m jealous of the fact that you shoot a snub nosed revolver better than I shoot my full sized service pistol. It actually depresses me. A lot. But, maybe one day.

So, anyway. We’ve got a couple callers right now, Claude. We’ve got - do you mind taking a call or two?

Claude Oh, absolutely.

John And, we’ll see what we see.

We’ve got David from St. Bernard. David, are you there?

David Yes, sir. I enjoy your show very much. I have two quick questions for you.

John Sure.

David First question: My mom is older. She just had arm surgery. She’s 76. She can’t shoot a regular handgun anymore, so I got her a, well, I’ve had it, a Beretta Neos .22.

John Okay.

David And, I put hollow points in it and ten rounds, and she’s not going to have to reload. But, what’s your thoughts on a .22 Long Rifle with hollow points? I mean -

John Well -

David They’re going to go down if you put ten shots in ’em. I mean -

John Well -

David I know it’s not a .44, but.

John I wouldn’t make absolute statements as far as what will or what will not happen when you shoot someone. But -

David Correct.

John You’ve kind of answered your own question, there. Just because if that’s the only thing she can shoot, then that’s the only thing she can shoot.

David Okay.

John I don’t know about hollow points, necessarily. But, Claude, do you have a thought on hollow points or just round nosed lead in a .22?

Claude Well, actually, one of your co hosts earlier, John, had mentioned the issue of ignition reliability.

John Ah. That actually is a good point.

Claude And that’s the criterion that I use in choosing ammunition. Now, if you look at what smallbore rifle shooters, what they choose? They are fanatical about - because they are shooting, you know, in competition against a fixed time limit that have so many shots to fire. So, the ammunition that they choose is not the bulk ammunition that, you know, you buy at Walmart.

And so, what I tell people is search for premium, quality ammunition online.

John Right.

Claude Now, you know, you might pay - you end up paying five dollars for a box of fifty of it. Let’s say, the one that I use the most is Federal Premium High Velocity Target, so it’s a little more expensive.

John Right.

Claude How does that compare with centerfire ammunition? It’s still pretty cheap, but -

John The quality control is much higher than standard.

Claude It’s much higher. You know, the smallbore shooters will go through 5,000 rounds of that without an ignition failure.

John Yeah. And that’s actually something I hadn’t considered. So, that’s actually -

Claude So, to David I would say get the best quality ammo you have and that’s your criterion as opposed to whether it’s hollow points or not. You know, because you’re just punching a hole in the guy.

John Right. What’s your other question, David?

David My other question: I normally carry a Smith and Wesson +P, I think it’s a 642, the hammerless, the airweight. Or, I carry a .44 Special. But, honestly, they’re too much; they’re too big to carry. I wear shorts in the summer, you know, with a golf shirt. And, looking into the .380 LCP, or I really don’t care what brand. But one of the gun shops I went to said, “Well, you know, if I was - they’re wearing a leather coat and a heavy sweater in the winter time, you know, you’re probably not going to have much luck.” And I’m like, well, will you go put a leather coat on for me and let me shoot you. It’s like -

I guess, the big question is the ammo too? And, since you’re a smallbore, or a small gun, expert, is a .380 big enough?

Claude I have no problem with carrying a .380, David. And, once again, what I think is the important thing, is its functional reliability in your pistol. Now, John had mentioned earlier the fact that - and he’s absolutely right - that in some cases, small pistols are simply not as reliable as a larger pistol.

But, in many cases, what I find is that’s a balance of the gun and the ammunition. So, you may find that a small pistol might shoot one kind of ammo well and another you might have malfunctions or whatever. Well, then obviously the malfunctioning ammo is not what you want. You can practice with it, but that’s not your carry ammo.

So, once again, it’s your reliability that becomes the criterion, not, you know, the bullet performance.

John Right. And something else, too, I’ll get into just real quick, David. When you hear - when you hear about problems with .380, or you’ll hear the FBI standards brought up, which, without getting into a lot of detail, is a criteria that a bullet is supposed to meet to be suitable for law enforcement duty use. Now, all the rounds that I like will pass that standard.

The problem with .380, for some folks, is that the hollow points they make for .380 will not penetrate deeply enough if they expand. And, if they don’t expand, they act just like full metal jacket. Now, obviously, bullets do weird things all the time. And, I’m not saying 100% for certain what’s going to happen, but personally when I’ve carried a .380, and everyone’s got different priorities and different modes of dress, I’m not saying that you’re wrong, I’m just saying when I’ve done it, it’s been more as a back-up gun.

David Okay.

John But, when I’ve done it, I’ve carried full metal jacket. Generally, I like the Winchester White Box.

David Okay.

John Because it’s got a flat front.

David Right.

John If that will feed better - if that will feed in your gun, that, as opposed to having a round profile, that flat profile will cut tissue a little bit more.

David Okay.

John Adequately. Once again, it’s - at the end of the day, having the gun in the important part. Would I like to see you carrying a double stack 9 mm? Of course.

David Right.

John You know, but, just you’ve got the right idea just having something with you. So.

David Well, can you tell me - it’s not a high end gun, I know, but the LCP, I mean, I’m sure there’s, you know, better brands. Is that a decent gun?

John I mean, for what it is, it’s perfect.

David Okay.

John If yours works well, that’s all you need. I like the SIG 238 a little bit better just because it recoils less and it’s got very usable sights. That having been said -

David Okay. I haven’t bought one yet. I’m still looking.

John Yeah, well, the thing I’ll say is the SIG’s twice as expensive.

David Right.

John And, whether or not it’s better is just, you know -

David Okay.

Andy And, you’re going to have to put a little more effort into learning to run it.

John Yeah.

Andy Just a little bit. It’s a 1911 type platform.

David Oh, okay.

John Yeah. It’s not a pull-n-play sort of thing. But David, I appreciate you calling in tonight.

David Thank-you.

John Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

David Okay. Bye.

John Bye. So, yeah, anyway. That was David from St. Bernard. So, any more thoughts on that, Claude? I mean as far as -

Claude I agree what you said about the idea of if you’re going to use a full metal jacketed bullet, having that front, which is called the meplat, it tends to crush tissue a little bit more than a pure round nose. And, and so I think that’s a good recommendation on your part.

John Oh, well, thank-you. It’s nice when people agree with me. It doesn’t happen all the time.

Jim Not here.

Andy No, not at all.

John Not with these two sitting across from me.

The other thing, too, and it’s interesting, obviously, we brought up the Ruger LCP. There are other brands that I don’t necessarily care for, and I’m not going to call them out on the air. But, they might have a reputation for not working very well. If you get a copy, though, that works for you, and is reliable, that really is all that matters. Wouldn’t you say?

Claude Absolutely.

John And, that seems to be something else that a lot of people lose sight of. I will fully admit that I’m a gun snob. You know, but I’m carrying around $1200 worth of pistol on my belt, too, which is frankly unnecessary. It is. I could do pretty much the exact same thing with a four or five hundred dollar Glock.

Jim The gold inlays on the recoil spring - I don’t see it, John.

John Please.

Andy The Blaster 3000.

John Yeah, that’s it.

So, but I mean I think that’s something, too, that people lose sight of.

So, you travel around and do training, right Claude?

Claude I do.

John What do you have coming up next? Do you know off the top of your head?

Claude Well, I’m on hiatus for the summer, you know, just because it’s so hot in a lot of areas of the country. But, really what I’ve been focusing on a lot of is what I call distance training. In other words, trying to take, produce training products for people that - let’s say like David. How likely is it that he’ll be able to come to a class that I offer as opposed to if I can give him a practice program to use when he goes to the range. That goes a long way. And, I’ve been experimenting with that and so I put some training products up on my web site www.snubdvd.com. I’m hoping that I can get people to at least have a plan when they go to the range.

John Right. Right.

Claude As opposed to one of the things that I see people do.

John I’m actually going to cut you off, Claude, just because we’ve ran out time already.

Claude Okay.

John What’s your web site, one more time? Fast?

Claude www.snubdvd.com

John Thanks so much for coming on tonight, Claude.

Next week, we’re going to be talking to internationally know firearms and self defense instructor Massad Ayoob. Everyone should have heard of him. It’s going to be a really great show. Make sure you check us on ballisticradio.com and like our facebook page at facebook.com/ballisticradio. Thanks for listening everyone. See you next week at 7 pm right here on 55KRC The Talk Station.