Indholdsfortegnelse for July 2021 i Gun Digest

There was a time when I owned a 1968 Camaro. Yes, “owned,” as in past tense. It was the daily driver of my uncle back in his youth, so there was a bit of sentimental value attached to the car, but not a lot. And, honestly, all I could see at that time was the rotting floorboards, rusting quarter panels … and the pieced-out engine in the trunk. Although I had very big ideas, the fact of the matter was that car required a lot of time and a lot of money to get reality to catch up to my dreams. At that point in my life, I needed a newer truck and cash to pay the daycare bills of the kids … so I traded her for a $1,200…

01 Bond Arms Rough Series Derringers With the charm of a riverboat gambler, derringer pistols have throwback appeal and practical backup gun applications. Particularly, Bond Arms Rough Series. Composed of the 2.5-inch barreled Roughneck, 3-inch barreled Rough N’ Rowdy and Grizzly, the pistols are no bigger than a minute. Yet, the stainless steel heaters offer modern defensive performance. The Roughneck packs the punch of 9mm, .357 Magnum/.38 Special or .45 ACP, while the Rough N’ Rowdy and Grizzly pitch both .45 LC and .410 shot. Across the board, the pistols are double-barreled, feature cross-bolt safeties and have all their edges smoothed for a clean draw. Need a touch of class? Check out the Grizzly, which wears attractive rosewood grips. MSRP: Roughneck $269; Rough N’ Rowdy and Grizzly $377 02 FireStick…

We should begin by explaining the name Schuetzen, because even though it’s also used in the United States for a particular type of target shooting, here it doesn’t mean quite the same thing. Properly, the word is Schützen, and it has a number of definitions, none of which really translate into English. For our purposes, we’ll call it marksmanship, and give it the common American spelling, “Schuetzen.” In Germany, Schuetzen is, or was, until 1935, the highly formalized sport of shooting offhand at a target 300 meters away, using iron sights, with a rifle designed specifically for that activity and useless for anything else. Like the highly specialized American trap gun, the German Schuetzen does only one thing, but it does it exceedingly well. It’s impossible to discuss Schuetzen competition,…

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Mannlicher stock on a rifle. Like the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray, redheads and chemistry, I just had to. Well, the problem with the Mannlicher stock was…. Mannlicher. The receiver design put me off with the split rear bridge. The butter-knife bolt handle was a hot mess. And all the non-euro Mannlicher-stocked rifles were either too expensive or not as elegant—or both. Then, Ruger came out with their M77 MkII in .275 Rigby. Actually, Lipsey’s did, as a special run just for them in .275 Rigby and marked as such. Now, the Ruger M77 in the MkII has been around since 1991. The original M77 came about back in the late 1960s, a product of Jim Sullivan, the AR-15 designer. The MkII changes…

The 9mm has become the de facto cartridge for concealed carry pistols. Anything smaller has been deemed too anemic for proper self-defense, and anything larger is difficult to conceal. Modern manufacturing improvements have allowed companies to finally start making auto-pistols as small as a .380—but with the same stopping power as a typical full-sized duty gun. Magazine capacity has also seen major improvements with the development of double-stack mags only slightly larger than single-stacks of previous generation CCW guns. Taurus is tackling this market with the new GX4. The gun ships with two flush-fitting 11-round magazines. Taurus also makes extended 13-rounders as well as an 11-rounder with a pinky extension floor plate, both provide the shooter with a more solid grip on the pistol. In both cases, it puts the…

HISTORICAL NOTES The .30-30 Winchester, or .30 WCF, was the first American small-bore, smokeless powder sporting cartridge. It was designed by Winchester and first marketed in early 1895 as one of the chamberings available for the Model 1894 lever-action rifle. The original loading used a 160-grain soft-point bullet and 30 grains of smokeless powder, thus the name .30-30 for a .30-caliber bullet and 30 grains of powder. It was adapted to the Winchester Model 54 bolt action, as well as various versions of the original 1894 action, such as the models 55 and 64. Marlin chambered it in the Model 1893 lever action, the improved Model 36 and the Model 336. At one time, the Savage Model 99 lever action was made in .30-30, and Savage also chambered the old…

There’s an old adage: “Three moves are as good as a fire.” Back when Ronald Reagan was president, I managed to get my hooks into a Dillon 550B. Since then, I’ve moved five times, and Dillon has updated the press they offer to a 550C. I’m pretty sure that when I first got the 550B, it came with spare parts of various items. Yeah, well, that was then. Just recently, I was loading up buckets of ammo for the upcoming pin shoot and my primer pickup tube began to not live up to its name. Not-pickup-tube was more like it. The plastic tip on the end had cracked, and the tension left in the section still working wasn’t enough to hold more than 30 or 40 primers in the tube.…

It’s been a running joke that, for years, Ol’ Grumpy Pants adamantly insisted the .308 Winchester was all the cartridge needed, and furthermore, that cartridge should be loaded with 165-grain bullets and driven by IMR4064 powder. I still have my father’s notes in his Sierra Bullets Reloading Manual from the early 1970s. Handwritten in the back of the book was: “For .308, best all-around powder is IMR4064.” That baby blue can was the only powder on the shelf—until I started to experiment with Hodgdon’s H380 and IMR 4320, garnering that look of disappointment from GP. When I insisted we try the then-new Varget from Hodgdon, he just shook his head and walked away. He still prefers to use the older powders, probably because he learned their attributes years ago, and…

They’re in every family. Guns that are maybe not all that special to their original owners, but guns that families cherish and hold onto. Forever. If, for no other reason, than to keep a loved one who has passed close to their hearts. If you spend time talking to any longtime gun owner, you can find a good gun story. It might be about their grandfather’s pistol that he took off a German during World War II, or maybe the revolver he carried during Prohibition when he was running moonshine. It might be a story about their father’s old Model 12 Winchester that he handled with the all the grace and skill of an artist’s paintbrush. Or, it could just be about an old Remington 22 rifle their uncle taught…

I live in one of those onerous corners of America, where the boot heel of tyranny has attempted to exert pressure. In short, my particular municipality took a crack at banning a host of firearms. This included, of course, the venerable AR-15 among other semi-auto carbines. Thankfully, the law was eventually rebuked by the state supreme court, but the situation did get me thinking … The times being what they are, what’s a passable stand-in for a semi-auto carbine? Not exactly the thought experiment most want to conduct, but an unfortunate one many citizens must ponder or at least should perchance the inmates ever end up running their particular asylum. As chances have it, some gunmakers appear sensitive to this very question and, for all intents and purposes, have concocted…

My education and adventures with the defensive handgun really began when I became a police officer almost 30 years ago. At that time, the most popular target used in law enforcement was the B27. The B27 target is a life-size black silhouette of a man, and inside the silhouette are five oval scoring rings. Typically, this target was used for qualification, but because police departments hate to spend money, it also became the de facto practice target. As I became involved in combat pistol competitions, I was introduced to the IPSC target. The common IPSC target is a cardboard target measuring 30 inches tall by 18 inches wide. It’s shaped to replicate a human torso and head, and it also has scoring rings—squares and rectangles—in the torso and head regions.…

I start every precision rifle class with my objectives. One of my bullet points reads: “To guide the student on their precision rifle journey.” Every sport or hobby is a journey; we start out as a curious party and, once we’re hooked, it becomes a divine quest for the Holy Grail of information and experience. I laugh when newer shooters call me an “OG” in this field. They’re right; I’m part of the original gangster squad who helped cultivate the sport as we see it today. Despite creating a bunch of forks in this precision rifle road, the journey has stayed relatively consistent. The common theme over the years—change—is our one constant in life. HUMBLE BEGINNINGS My personal journey began years ago in Connecticut, shooting a Crosman 760 air rifle.…

The early years of the Vietnam War saw the AR-15 as the Colt M16, a supposedly space-age rifle that rejected notions of wood and blued steel, and instead went for plastics and aluminum. It was the image of the new dawn, where Americans were graduating into a degree of combat lethality the likes of which had never been seen. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case in the field, and the use of the M16 in combat proved to be a faith-shaking experience. Where the American in WWII had a dependable, powerful and accurate rifle, the soldiers in Vietnam were left with rifles that fit none of those criteria. The M16 eventually became a mature system aft er much trial and error. It’s the progenitor of the most effective and common rifles…

We spotted the boar crossing a cut lane and immediately put on a stalk; he was worthy of attention. His profile alone indicated a good, mature hog, with no doubt he was a shooter, even at 200 yards. Turning the corner, we saw the boar run. I swung on his shoulder and broke the trigger as it crossed the vertical plane of his vitals. I heard the bullet strike, and despite the fact that the rains had just subsided, we found blood quickly. As it has done so many times over the last century, the .275 Rigby had done its job neatly and effectively. John Rigby & Company can trace its roots to Dublin, Ireland, in 1775, through to London, England, today; in spite of a short jaunt here in…

Most shooters believe the names of metallic rifle and pistol cartridges are true representations of caliber. The truth is that what cartridges are called is really nothing more than a name given to distinguish one from another. Remember your first day of school when the teacher asked everyone to stand up and say their name? This was for the purpose of identification, so that the teacher and all the students would know who was who. Odds are there were some kids who even had the same first name, so they had to be distinguished by their last name or even a nickname. When it comes to metallic rifle and pistol cartridges, it’s just like first grade. WHO’S ON FIRST? To illustrate how confusing these cartridge names can be, let’s start…