Indholdsfortegnelse for July 2017 i Gun Digest

The AR platform is extremely versatile. It’s used by our military, to put game on the table and for law enforcement/defensive applications. The AR is also especially popular with the competitive crowd. Competition usually brings to mind runnin’, gunnin’ and rapidly engaging multiple targets. The first matches I ever shot with my AR – and still my favorite type of competition – are NRA High Power matches. Shooting at long distance in stationary positions at bull’s eye targets might not sound very exciting. But to do it well requires discipline and application of the fundamentals of marksmanship, and it helps with all your other shooting as well. Shootrite Firearms Academy (which I direct) runs a lot of carbine classes for civilians, law enforcement and other groups. A common issue with…

Sure, you can shoot your AR with iron sights. You might even hit your target. But why take chances? Why not top your favorite black rifle with a scope, a red dot sight or even a night vision sight — something that is designed to do exactly what you want it to do? The good news is that you’ve got lots of great choices. Whether you want a close-quarters sight that allows instant target acquisition or something that offers tack-driving precision at long ranges, there’s something out there just for you. 1 STYRKA S3 RED DOT A good, solid red dot sight at a good, solid price. That’s what you’ll get with Styrka’s S3. It’s packed with all the features you’d need in a red dot, including six brightness settings…

The 6.5 Creedmoor has taken the long-range world by storm over a relatively short period of time. Ammunition manufacturers have taken notice and are now producing high-quality factory ammunition for shooters seeking recreation as well as competition or hunting success. The flat trajectory, low recoil and high ballistic coefficients make the cartridge a natural for anyone wanting to stretch their limits. For a long while, this was a bolt-action-only affair. Enter Seekins Precision. Glen Seekins has been making great rifles in Lewiston, Idaho for many years. The company’s reputation for quality and accuracy are as strong as anything in the industry. Its SP10 was introduced a few years ago as a large-frame black rifle in .308. When Seekins started producing the SP10 in 6.5 Creedmoor, this writer had to take…

In the June issue, we discussed how gravity has the biggest effect on a bullet’s path and how the speed of a bullet has a direct effect on how much a bullet falls due to gravity. Hopefully, we dispelled the myth that a fast bullet somehow resists gravity. Instead, a fast bullet merely gets to the target faster and therefore has less time to fall. Also, the longer it takes for a bullet to reach a target, the more exponentially it falls. In an example we used, a bullet from my .308 Winchester only falls 4 inches between the 100- and 200-yard berms, but it falls almost 100 inches between the 900- and 1,000-yard berms. The bullet falls more when it’s farther away because it is traveling slower (it takes…

If there’s one thing I hate in life, it’s all the purchased items that I’ve got to assemble, configure, or, worst of all, consult the instructions about. IKEA be damned, I’m a fan of anything that requires little-to-no assembly, saves me time and allows me to enjoy the activity for which I obtained the item in the first place. It’s really no different when it comes to hunting — although I’m as big a fan as anyone of tinkering with my gear, I’d rather spend time actually hunting than trying to assemble, sight in and adjust the finely tuned components on a firearm. That’s where Yankee Hill Machine’s (YHM) new Hunt-Ready Carbine comes in handy. Chambered in several popular and effective hunting calibers — including 5.56mm, .300 BLK and 6.8…

At the 2017 SHOT Show, the shooting sports industry’s largest trade show, Nosler introduced its newest round, the 22 Nosler. Nosler claimed this new round was the fastest, most powerful .22-caliber centerfire round available that would reliably feed and function in the AR — capable of pushing a 55-grain Nosler Trophy Grade bullet at 3,350 feet per second (fps) from an AR-15 fitted with an 18-inch barrel, and a 77-grain Match Grade competition bullet at 2,950 fps. At nearly 300 fps faster than a standard .223 Remington/ 5.56 NATO, the 22 Nosler delivered 30-percent more energy than either round. A few months later, Noveske Rifleworks, of Grants Pass, Ore., and working in conjunction with Nosler, debuted a new version of its Varmageddon AR rifle, offering it in, yes, 22 Nosler.…

THE TURKISH CONNECTION At the 2017 SHOT Show, I ran into Jacob Herman from Century Arms. Century Arms is the importer of the Canik pistol: a semi-automatic, striker-fired handgun made in Turkey. Jacob insisted on sending me one to examine and insisted I would like it. Admittedly, I was not all that excited about the pistol, but Jacob is a good guy and I figured I owed him at least an honest review. When the pistol arrived, the more I fondled it—yes, gun writers like to fondle pistols—the more I liked it. After some research, I discovered XS Sights offers its Big Dot sights for the Canik, so I immediately ordered a set. So far I’ve pushed about 600 rounds through this pistol using various munitions, and I’ve yet to…

That amazing genius John M. Browning gave us many of America’s most revered firearms: several Winchester lever guns, Colt pistols like the 1911 and the first successful semi-auto shotgun, the Auto-5. Around 1920, he started making plans to design something not available to American shooters: a quality, affordable over/under shotgun, his last design and final legacy to the gun world. The side-by-side shotgun was still very popular at the time, but the over/under had never developed a large following in the U.S. Browning liked the over/under’s single sighting plane and was convinced American shooters would too, as the country was often called “a nation of riflemen.” The over/under was popular in Europe, where guns were custom made and expensive. Browning wasn’t just a great designer, but also a smart businessman.…

In the past several years, there has been a noticeable shift in how some AR platform rifles are being made. The shift is, in a sense, “back,” as in, back to an original concept. The AR, after all, was designed to be a lighter rifle. That might seem like a radical idea, given that I’ve hefted AR-15s, which were all of 9 pounds, unloaded, and AR-10s that could have doubled as free weights for arm curls. Yet, as designed over 50 years ago by Eugene Stoner, the AR platform was supposed to be a light and nimble rifle, easy to carry and quick to deploy. And those design parameters are what gun manufacturers like Bushmaster are getting back to — in Bushmaster’s case with the recent debut of its new…

Zeroing” the AR means adjusting the sights so your point of impact – where the bullet strikes the target – is the same as your point of aim – where you are holding the sights. There is a variety of methods or formulas for zeroing the AR. Instead of trying to use different size targets at various distances and flipping back and forth between one aperture and the other on the rear sight – as required by some methods – I prefer to use the simple technique described below. In my opinion, to get a “hard” zero with the AR you have to actually shoot it at the distance you’ve chosen for your zero, rather than simulate distance by using smaller targets. Once you’ve zeroed the AR, it’s time to…