Four Annoying Gun Myths - with Bloke on the Range 

"We two distinguished gents would like to hire a hotel room for a couple of hours. Please take our camera and whiskey up for us. Now, is the bed comfy?"

Somewhere, there is a video of two experts discussing alcohol myths and sampling some guns.

You guys should have been smoking a good cigar.......you could have titled it "Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms".

"you just fired 8 rds of 30-06, anyone close enough to hear the ping is already @$&#king deaf"

My father-in-law who is 93 was at Monte Casino for 4 months at the front line. He said in that time he saw exactly one German soldier for about 3 seconds. He said he took a shot at him at maybe 250 yards and has no idea if he came close to hitting him. He said the German artillery always seemed to have a pretty good idea where he was though! Real life ain't like the movies.

The Bloke actually had a bottle of water, but, by the time Ian had poured it, it turned to scotch.

2 dudes chllin on a white bed half a foot apart cause their quite intrigued by the misinformation of roy dunlap.

At roughly 27 minutes you can hear the ker-ching of the camera's dead battery ejecting. Either that or an empty whisky glass banged against a helmet.

If someone is reporting that his M1 'ca-chinged', and the enemy rushed him, obviously the enemy didn't get him. Military records contain very few reports written by dead men.

Ian (and Bloke), Thanks for the shout out! It's greatly appreciated. Cheers.

For the M1 pick myth it's one of those things "the enemy always seems to pop up when I'm out of ammo" but doesn't remember all the times the enemy pops up when he's not out of ammo, a sorta hyper-awareness. Kinda the same thought process of Murphy law. And then having this ping sound you can blame it on other then just randomly happening, and if it doesn't you can fall back to the thinking of "maybe they didn't hear it that time" it's the perfect myth really and can't be disproved really until someone is down range from a M1 garand. And the one that where we couldn't really ask them cause they where the enemy.

My father fought on both fronts, East and West, and he remembered that once first fighting the American they were just OVERWHELMED by US long-range firepower, that this was a whole new ballgame for them (compared to Russian charging at point-blank range with PPsH41/PPS43s), and this was a total SHOCK to him to discover a horde of ´gun crazy´ Americans with M1 Garands just unloading on his company from over 200 meters. The majority of this fire missed, because these were rather green troops, but still they had to reconfigure and reinvent their own tactics to handle American infantry assault. He was actually very positive about the M1 Garand as a weapon, stating it was accurate if handled right, fired fast and this was something new.... Not a word about the *ping* noise, from a German veteran, they didn´t even notice... So much for Myth no.1! Myth no.2: Also thought somebody cocked up Vickers and Bren somewhere on the road. But nice to hear about that group-zeroing being done in the Wehrmacht, explains some pictures I´ve seen of my father´s induction/training, where the very cocky/dangerous looking Leutnant was looking along over their shoulders, and the their M98k´s were al on a wooden pedestal, thanks for explaining that! Btw, about the MG42: he would be in agreeing with that the MG42 was ´cheapie´ compared to the MG34, he was non-stop complaining about having to give up their MG34s for 42s. He cited a lack of accuracy and logistical nightmare as the reasons for not liking it, and the fact it had no single-shot mode. They used MG42s mostly at near point-blank range, just holding their fire until a squad of Russians turned the corner and than *Kookook! Look who´s here?* kinda thing. In German it´s called ´Schweige MG´ or ´Silent MG´ that lies in ambush where there´s no cover, apparently (I learned rather recent, should go read up more on it). Myth no.3: I see no reason to assume that any of the German vets I heard their stories (from a truck driver driving up ammo to a Untersturmfuhrer with Panzergrenadiers) that their fear for being shot at >200 meters by Russian snipers was unfounded. But ofc, these guys were employed in droves, the majority had sights, so we can argue about that one all day... Fact is a lot of these night-time encounter stories ended with ´and than his brains were spread all over my uniform´. On the other hand, also surfaced the fact they didn´t even try to match this performance with a Mauser 98 and iron-sights, except as suppressing fire in hopes of getting the guy away from them. That´s why they had this extreme light-discipline, like covering their headlights and such, and this didn´t get much better once slowly units got transferred towards the Western Front from mid-44 onward. There they had to contend with ´gun-crazy, trigger-happy horde´ of Americans (pun intended there, no hostility) equipped with M1 Garands popping away at everything that moved + fighter-bombers circling overhead by the dozens. And for some reason, despite everything, and his access to SMGs, pistols, whatever for the taking, he only took his father´s artillery Luger and Mauser 98 in combat from day 1 in 1941 to the bitter end, because it was 100% reliable, packed a heavy round, and he preferred that over seeing another dead greenhorn with an MP40 that jammed (they jammed A LOT under field conditions). So battlefield versus range-shooting is a huge, huge difference. PS. He had no eardrums anymore, today people complain about my loud voice, because I always had to shout so he could hear me, and the other way around too :-) Fantastic video!

From Lindybeige to Forgotten Weapons. My youtube has come full circle again.

I like how Clint Smith addressed the issue of the M1 ping. "You just fired eight rounds of 3006, everybody's deaf!!!"

When two guys filming themselves on a bed in a hotelroom having fun. A video I truly enjoyed watching.

Ian mentioned "better controls" in manufacturing. I was disappointed to notice nobody seems to mention just *how* much better the controls are, with *just* the availability of more accurate (control) scales, telling the operator where the tools are. Even using old ww2 machines with modern *analog* scales I am able to exceed .0002 of an inch in accuracy, even though the original equipment could only go down to .002 A power of ten in difference is *extraordinary* and I am using cheap analog units (because my equipment is set up in a garage and temperature swings prevent me from going tighter, I digress) Numerical control existed in ww2. Adding a computer today (cnc = computer numerical control) isn't why controls are so much better. Its the better, more precise, more accurate and *cheaper* ability to measure, verify and zero. In a word. Control. As a machinist; I think that mention from Ian was spectacularly cool, and well stated! Phenomenal for a man drinking.

I feel that the T.V. show weaponalogy is responsible for reinforcing misinformation in the general public.

Ian doesn't drink his scotch, it all gets absorbed into his mustache

So this is what a sleepover at Ian's looks like. "never have i ever said my gun is too accurate"

LMG is too accurate... Thanks, as a former M249 gunner, I now have a brain tumor.

So Ian and Mr.Regular need to get together and review a obscure car, drive it to a field and blow it up with a obscure heavy machine gun.

Sneaky LIndyBeige

Some times I think the ping rumor was put out to confuse the enemy so they would try to listen for it.

The book being shown at 6:50, 'Ordnance Went Up Front', was part of a number of books published in 1998 by Palladium Press for The Firearms Classic Library collection and marketed by the NRA. By the way, the USMC had 3 BAR's per squad not because of their unreliability. It was because a Marine infantry squad consists of three fire teams of four men each, an AR man, an assistant AR man, a rifle man, and a fire team leader. So with three fire teams, you have three BAR's.

Caught this early on Bloke's channel, glad you guys covered the mad minute.

we NEED a vid of Ian playing the bagpipes in a kilt

35:00, This is making me think of the 8" targets at the range I fire at. I could see the one at 200 yards, but I didn't know there were 8" targets at the 250, 300, 350, 400, and 450 yard 18" targets as well until over half a year later when I was tasked to go out there and paint them. I thought they were just shadows from rocks or the sage brush. Of course, now I know they're there, I can see them, but the one at 450 is so tiny when looking down my A3 style irons (well, A3 rear, and Magpul MBUS Pro up front), that it's smaller than the tip of my front post. Shooting from the bench with a bipod and irons, I can hit the 8" at 450 yards about 40% of the time, the most consecutive hits I've had was 3, just using 55gr 5.56x45mm NATO M193 ball ammo by Magtech. I doubt I'd be even half as accurate if that target were shooting back.

This was an awesome video! We totally need a round 2 of this.

26:00 love the intermission music Monty Python for the win.

To be fair, a post war survey about a life threatening problem was not a good methodology, since people who really suffered from the problem were dead. I think a better source of information actually be on the enemy side, who could presumably took advantages of the problem if there was one.

I watched until the end. I'm am the most firearm-ignorant element on this side of the known universe, but I had a seriously groovy time listening to you. Good rhythm. And the subject is very glamorous, especially for a Dutch resident who will on average never see a real gun in his lifetime. I admit, I've been following Ian for a while now, because I like his narratives. Good voice too. Anyway, thanks for this guy's. And more of it please. I'm not kidding. You truly have therapeutic value.

Video games always get a bad rap for spreading gun myths but really it was the history channel.

If you're with a squad of guys in ww2 with m1 garands and 1 ping goes off, there's still like 11 or more guys with loaded rifles!

Everyone is talking about getting an anti-gun propaganda ad before the video. Must be a U.S. thing, I never get gun related ads. I feel left out...

I think the first myth became prevalent because it leads to the absolutely wonderful pun of "...this, of course, being the first recorded instance of soldiers being killed by bad ping" or similar statements.

This video is a pure joy. Two knowledgeable men discussing (over a glass of scotch) their subject, with reason and enthusiasm. My respect to your phenomenal knowledge and ability to impart it to us. Power to your elbow's!!

We are only one degree of Kevin bacon from a Lindybeige, Forgotten Weapons crossover.

Love the Monty Python "Intermission".

I really enjoy these formats where multiple bloggers share the stage and compare notes. Fantastic! I would like to let them know how much more interesting it is have to the different perspectives.

This might as well be the most insightful and beautiful video about guns on the internet. Please do that again some time

My father kept saying action movies unrealistically depicted grenades as having a timed fuse, while real grenades explode on impact. I was confused. I eventually figured out the branch he served with 30 years ago excplusively uses impact grenades to this day.

Interesting story on the lines of the acceptance of "combat accuracy". So my dad had always been an accuracy snob. His only center-fire rifle for years was a Remington 700 ADL in .243 Win. that he has developed a pet handload that groups .4 MOA all day long and routinely bust 1 qt oil jugs at 500 yds. He bought his first AR last year and spent around $700 on a cheaper lower quality version. Called me after shooting it and told me it was trash. I asked him why and he was throwing a fit that he could not get better than 4 MOA. I told him that's about the best he could expect out if that brand and that the distance from his front room to the garage door was still only 40 yards that he would still have a large margin of error for a man that it did not matter which eye he put the round in, just aim at his shirt button and shoot till he stops moving. He seemed to get it at that point that it was not necessary for it's intended purpose.

“Whatever happens, we have got, *The Maxim gun,* and they have not.”-Hilaire Belloc, “The Modern Traveller” (1898)

You guys should do something like this more often, loved the information you brought forward.

I remember in high school I saw the myth about the m1 garand clipazine on either the military channel or the history channel. I remember talking about it to people. Then years later in life I found a 1943 m1 garand and shot it on the range. Then i realized the gun was so damn loud I could only hear the ping after it had already been ejected, bounced off of the rifle, and hit the concrete.

Ian and Bloke with a cameo by Lindybeige. Wow, this video was a great one.

Awesome video gentlemen! We need more single malt gun discussions. Watched through to the end :)

4:44 There’s actually a scene in The Great Raid where a platoon leader has his Tommy gun jam on him when attempting to fire at a IJA soldier rushing towards his firing position. He alerted his buddy beside him with a Garand, which proceeded to empty his remaining 3 shots into this poor sod. As the guy with the Garand ducks back to reload, the platoon leader finished clearing his jam, got back up and resumed firing.

nice lindybeige cameo

My favorite bit I heard recently was "He was in hydrostatic shock when he got to the hospital"... Uhm...

I stumbled upon this channel by accident and I'm not really into guns but this guy knows his stuff so well and is so interesting to listen to that I just kept watching. Eventually this video popped up and wow! That was really good content, subscribed.

Another great Q&A video. Ian and The Bloke are so spot on about giving praise to the Britishmuzzleloaders channel. I do think that when it comes to Enfields (and Mausers, and Tikka T3s too!), the RifleChair is also music to our ears.

I live in a state where certain legislators had to be informed that AR-15's do not in fact fire 30,000 round a second and that chainsaw attachments do not exist outside gears of war. You can imagine how absurd our gun laws are.

Haha the alligator crawl Monty Python intermission music. Fascinating discussion, though! More of these when you're able!

Why have I not seen this yet? Great topics guys. This stuff irks many of us. Thank you.

Great collab! Please more of you two in the future!

"What is it with Canadians and Kilts" I din't know either but we have more highland regiments than Scotland. I miss my kilt and the free Haggis.

"We're running a bit long here..." I could enjoy an entire evening of this. I'll even bring the Scotch!

This video is interesting and pleasant. Drinking and chatting about guns with you two must be a blast.

Please make more videos like this. This video was awesome, thanks for making it.

Very cool and entertaining video. I had to suffer so much misinformation when I was an infantryman told to me by senior NCOs that ought to have known better. But you guys mentioned it several times. The average Soldier regardless of the nation he serves with likely has little to no shooting experience prior to enlisting and what he knows while he is on active duty is only specifics on the particular weapons that he is issued. The public perception of " this guy knows what he is talking about because he was a Ranger, Marine, SEAL... etc, does not actually reflect reality. Bloke, you got a new subscriber

So, funny story. My grandfather qualified with a broomstick. When he trained, there were two rifles and maybe a hundred or two rounds. For the entire unit. They marched with broomsticks and he never qualified with a handgun. "And," he said, "we won that war."

This Video in the Dialogue Style really benefits from both of you having great chemistry together.

Wow, that’s cool that you added the Lindybeige clip. Another gentleman that I enjoy!

The Marine Corps also has a tradition of marksmanship. When I was qualifying, before the days of the reflex site, I could hit 7 of 10 shots at a b-mod (torso and head) target with my M16A2 iron sights from the 500 yard line firing in the prone position. I could hit 10 of 10 at the 200 yard rapiid fire with a magazine change. I was slighty better than average for my unit.

Who actually thinks you could hear the ching sound the M1 makes when the empty clip gets ejected? Well... I know that quite a lot of people think the noise from someone firing a gun in a RU-vid video is close to reality. But it is in fact much louder, it even gave me a headache while wearing ear protection when we got ambushed during my deployment in afghanistan. So I dont think you can actually time your attack based on that ching sound considering the noise and chaos that is going on during a firefight.

That was a wonderful bit of vicarious geeking. It does not surprise me at all that Ian plays the pipes.

Very cool stuff! I had not heard some of these myths.

So, you're suggesting that my inability to ride a unicycle backwards over railroad tracks while plinking aspirin tablets off fence posts at 650 yards (or meters) isn't a reflection of my inability as a man or a sign of my weak character?

I'll never understand how the mythos of the "M1 Ping costing soldiers lives" ever got started. The average firearm creates noise around 140 Decibels (the universal measurement of how loud something is), this is equivalent to standing within 100 feet of a jet engine igniting. Now imagine firing your weapon in anger for more than 30 seconds at a time, your hearing is next to if not completely shot and you expect me to believe someone's going to hear that when they can barely understand the commands of the NCO next to them let alone their comrades beside them over the heat of battle??

Outstanding stuff.

If travel ever opens back up I don't think I'm the only one who'd love to see you guys do a topical video like this again.

I was in the US Navy in the late 1970's, my total firearms training was 21 rounds from a single shot 22 LR rifle and 5 rounds from a 1911. There was no requirement to hit any sort of target, in fact the only requirement was to get the rounds to fire from the weapon.

I have heard the Bren myth from an actual 1950s Bren gunner. Amazingly.

More content like this please Ian, whiskey with a Brit. Informative and nice and chilled conversation. Thumbs up

Great show guys!

1:48 "Heeeeeello I'm Bloke on the Range. I beat it to death so you don't have to."

Most popular gun myth in Poland is: Every gun once a year shoots by itself.

I absolutely love the use of the same intermission music as Monty Python.

Very enjoyable and informative!

You seem to have forgotten the Marine Corps at Bella Wood, they opened fire at 800 yards shocked the Germans when people started falling, trained out to 500 yards and I’m sure the old Marines did too, two things are taken very seriously in boot camp, marching ( close order drill) , and marksmanship,you spend one whole snapping in ( practicing shooting positions and trigger management) and in Vietnam there is a verifiable account of a Marine ( who shot expert) killing a three man crew of a RPD at over 650 yards when M16s would’ not reach, this was a regular rifle ( iron sights)

Now I had to have the intermission theme playing in a loop in the background through the entire video. :3c

12:33 nice to see lindybeige in this video, wasn't quite expecting it but it's a pleasant and welcome surprise!

It was an interesting video, Yes, I did watch the whole thing guys. I hadn't even heard a couple of the myths, but I had head about the M1 Garand part, and it always struck me as an odd one. Glad to know I was right and it was a box of road apples. :) Keep up the great work, love watching your vids on various and sundry.

I first heard of the "ping" myth from my grandfather, a First Sergeant with the First Cavalry Division who saw action from July 1950 to July 1951. His description of it has a few caveats to the one here. (Please read them all before slamming me, because the last one is important.) 1. The empty clip thrown to the ground was not meant to copy the "ping" of the M-1 Garand ejecting the clip, but rather...the clip (or the metal magazine of any other infantry weapon the US was using in Korea) hitting the ground. 2. They only used the technique in groups of two or three, in combat situations within 50 yards, and where both sides were using suppressing fire from cover. In other words, relatively static combat where one side puts rounds down range then the other side does, but neither is precisely sure where the other is. 3. You had to fire 4-6 shots each in your fire team before throwing them, while the other fire teams in the squad took up new positions...so regular US infantry practice at the time. 4. By the time his unit was using the tactic, they were facing Chinese units that had either used captured US M-1 Garands or had been issued them during the Chinese Civil War...so they knew, and were used to, the gun. 5. The tactic was used to get the enemy to either move from their cover or pop up to return fire, allowing other members of your unit to catch them in the open or, more likely, locate the enemy and call in supporting fire like mortars (my grandfather was a platoon communications officer, so maybe a bias), while still ensuring you had a few bullets left in case you saw him. 6. My grandfather was a smart cookie for an uneducated farm boy, so he wondered whether the throwing of clips was not so much a sound trick for the enemy or a coordination trick for the friendly soldiers, and the sudden ceasing of fire was the thing that got the enemy to expose themselves.

The first time that I heard of the 'ping' myth of the M1 was in 'Warlord' comic back in the 1970s. So some people believe comic books are documentaries!

Really enjoyed this one.

I love the quick Lindybeige cameo...three RU-vid legends all in one video

Just two Bros getting drunk on a bed talking about guns. LOVE IT

16:04 [Lindybeige angry noises]

an hour and ten mins of two guys talking about four gun myths....... awesome !!!

Thank you Ian for recommending Bloke on the ranges channel. He's got great content.

After watching your intermission, I’m waiting to see if the guys who do your credits will be sacked midway through

Before hearing protection became common, soldiers going through basic and even just normal people who grew up shooting would almost certainly have temporary or permanent hearing damage. In an actual battle with grenades, artillery and bombs dropped from planes and tanks revving their engines and thousands of people firing at once nobody could hear a ping. The thing with "too accurate" is hilarious - like booze too tasty or a painting too beautiful.

Over my years in the military, and Civilian Marksmanship Program competitive shooting, I have run into all of the myths you discussed, and many more. Funny how they start, and no matter how often you disprove them, they persist.

I love blokes video on the m1 ping. Great stuff

Re: the mad minute, a weird thing I found using the....wrong guns, basically, is that if you fire a wrong-handed bolt action rifle, you can actually fire loads faster, if less accurately, by just keeping your other hand on the bolt.

I don't pretend to know anything about this business, but surely if 'the enemy learned' to listen out for this ping, there'd be as much documentation of Axis veterans instructing their new guys as there is allied documentation, no?

Well that was great video. 3 great guys who educate viewers.

I enjoyed your knowledge and presentation with this bloke. your both are way smart when it comes to firearms. I love firearms to my detriment. Enjoyed this video.