Gun Digest February 2023

I was recently looking back on last year’s February issue, in which my First Shot editorial was titled “Trickle-Down Ammo-Nomics,” detailing my continued frustration with our collective inability to find ammo in any reasonable quantities. In the closing paragraph, I wrote, “I hope to hell I can look back a full year from now and write, ‘Well, that really sucked … and I’m glad it’s over.’” Well, it’s been a full year, and it’s finally over. Kinda. As I’m sure you’ve also noticed, I don’t hear the phrase “supply chain issues” near as often as I did 12 months ago, and I can go to most any place of business that sells ammo and find—more or less—what I’m looking for. That’s all good news. But holy Hanna has ammo gotten…

HISTORICAL NOTES In 2021, Winchester introduced the 6.8 Western cartridge as a collaborative effort between Winchester and Browning. The 6.8 Western was explicitly designed to handle long, high-BC bullets and was chambered in nine Model 70 and 14 XPR boltaction models, most with 24-inch barrels with 1:8 twists. Browning likewise chambered 21 X-Bolt rifles in the new round, some with 1:7.5-inch twists and 26-inch-long barrels. It’s hard to recall a larger roll-out of rifle models chambered in a new round. GENERAL COMMENTS With a maximum cartridge length of 2.995 inches, the 6.8 Western falls into the short-action-rifle realm. It’s designed to provide magnum power and accuracy in a short-action, non-belted cartridge. It deploys heavier bullet weights than 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5 PRC and .270 WSM, and it produces more energy than…

About 11 years ago, I met a young man in Texas who’d designed a minimalist holster. The heart of the design was a polymer rod that inserted into the handgun’s muzzle and a clip that allowed the handgun to be carried inside the waistband. It was revolutionary because it was incredibly small and lightweight, but also because it was caliber specific as opposed to gun specific. Some poo-pooed the concept because the trigger guard wasn’t covered, and later models addressed this. However, worn and used correctly, this was a non-issue. Justin Sitz with Versacarry took this unique gun-toting device and built a business around it. In essence, Sitz reached out and grabbed the American dream. Now, his Texas-based company employees 50 hard-working Americans, and they have vastly increased the types…

Are you prepared to use deadly force in selfdefense? Most armed citizens would reply in the affirmative, but I wonder if the average citizen has really worked out in his or her mind how an act of killing another, whether justified or not, will change their life. I came to grips with this issue in my early 20s when I first put a gun on my hip and started in the field of law enforcement. Thankfully, I was never forced to pull the trigger on a human being, although I did shoot up a ’76 Ford Pinto once (but that’s a story for another time). What allowed me the luxury to have made that decision at an early age was the knowledge that if I did have to do the…

When I was learning gunsmithing, there weren’t a lot of specialty tools to be bought. You had to make them. (Yes, I walked uphill through the snow barefoot to school. And back.) When the Glock came out, we all had to learn how to work on them with one hand, while holding it with the other. Well, no more: Midwest Industries has a new Glock maintenance block. I didn’t realize such a thing didn’t exist until one arrived, and then I thought, How had this not been made earlier? The answer was simple: We were used to working on Glock pistols, basically in our laps, all this time. So, what changed? Pistol-caliber carbines. Most of them are based on the AR-15, and a lot of those are designed to feed…

Each step in the process of reloading a metallic cartridge is important, from the proper sizing of the case, to seating your primer, to precisely weighing your powder charge. Seating the bullet into the case is the culmination of the reloading process; a crimp may be applied afterward, but that’s optional in some instances and often a rarity among the cartridges designed for long-range shooting. And, make no bones about it: Our bullets are getting longer, the ogives are growing sleeker and the older round-nose bullets are becoming increasingly diffcult to find. My first handloads were designed to feed my then-new Ruger Model 77 MK II in .308 Winchester. Because my dad—dear Ol’ Grumpy Pants—had been shooting his .308 Winchester since he came out of boot camp in 1968, there…