Innehållsförteckning för October 2017 från Gun Digest

KIMBER SUBALPINE RIFLE $1,701 Billed by Kimber as possibly the world’s best production elk rifle, the Subalpine is built on Kimber’s respected 84M action with its Mauser-style claw extractor. The stock is made of a reinforced carbon fiber material and comes wrapped in GORE’s Optifade Subalpine camo pattern, hence the rifle’s name. Available in potent hunting calibers such as .308 Win., .30-06, .300 Win. Mag and others, and touting a 3- to 3.5-pound trigger, the Subalpine is ready to handle all manner of big game. FEDERAL PREMIUM TROPHY BONDED TIP BULLETS $30-35/50-COUNT Federal’s famed Trophy Bonded Tip bullet has long been a high-quality design for bringing down big game, and now the manufacturer is offering it as a component for reloaders. The Trophy Bonded Tip bullets offer a blend of…

All parents are proud of their children — with good cause — but few cartridges have the brood of offspring that the .30-06 does, save perhaps the .375 H&H Magnum. Just think about the immediate children of the Springfield: the .270 Winchester, the .25-06 Remington, the .280 Remington, the .35 Whelen and the .338-06 A-Square, just to mention the commercially produced lineup. There are those other children who’ve stayed out of the limelight (commercially, that is), which include the 6.5-06 and the twins, the .375 and .400 Whelen. I’ve read of wildcats as small as .22 caliber based on the ’06 case; well, I believe you get the point. Hell, even the .308 Winchester can trace its lineage back to the .30-06, so you’d call them cousins, but the .243…

Some hunters think the .223 Remington is too small of a caliber, without enough bullet weight, for deer. I’d classify those folks as fools. Some hunters think the .223 Remington is only legal for deer hunting in a few states. Those folks are just wrong. Dozens of deer I’ve taken or seen cleanly killed with a .223 Remington stand as evidence of its capabilities, and the hunting regulations of all 50 states prove its lawfulness. When proper bullets are used, the .223 Remington is more than adequate for any whitetail or mule deer out to the other side of 100 yards. What type bullets are we talking about? With the .223 Remington, the tough bullets come into their own because the cartridge pushes them fast. Remington’s new HTP Copper load…

“However, here’s one rule the hunter should remember in choosing his big game rifle: It should be adequately powerful for the largest game he is apt to encounter under the most unfavorable conditions.” In a certain cemetery in British Columbia lie the remains of a hunter who took great pride in going after Canadian grizzly bears with a .22 High Power Savage using a 70-gr. bullet. It was his boast that he had killed 11 of the great predators with that little cartridge and that light bullet. The twelfth grizzly killed him. The .22 High Power isn’t a bad woodchuck rifle, but by no means should it be used on grizzlies. Our Canadian hunter paid the price for using the wrong big game rifle, but it was rather a high…

Most Americans know Marcus Luttrell through Lone Survivor, Luttrell’s autobiographical book about his time as a Navy SEAL, and which was later made into the movie of the same name starring Mark Wahl-berg. The central action of the book and the movie concerns Operation Red Wings, a mission by Luttrell and three other SEALS to find a top Taliban leader in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush in June of 2005. Unfortunately, Red Wings did not go as planned, with Luttrell and his compatriots fighting a running battle against Taliban guerillas well before they found their intended target. Greatly outnumbered, the SEALS were killed one by one, except for Luttrell, who escaped by falling down the side of a mountain, literally, and was found and given sanctuary by a local Afghan villager. When…

LEGISLATION UPDATE The Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act, known also as the SHARE Act, has been introduced in the 115th Congress. Representative Jeff Duncan (R-SC) introduced the bill, which has a goal of reducing onerous regulations on U.S. sportsmen, enhancing and improving access to public lands and making the process of purchasing firearm suppressors easier. Versions of this bill were introduced previously in 2015 and 2016, where they were passed in the House but allowed to die in the Senate; however, this time Republican majorities exist in both the House and Senate, and the Hearing Protection Act has been folded into the SHARE Act. For those who don’t know, the Hearing Protection Act essentially removes some of the regulations restricting suppressor ownership, namely that they be treated as a…

CONCEALMENT The International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) requires shooters to use concealment garments when shooting stages. With many states now allowing open carry, why should they still require this? I asked the question to Joyce Wilson, the current IDPA President. “Unless I’m in a setting where I know my chances of being involved in a situation are slim, like at the local feed store, I’m going to wear something over my firearm,” Wilson said. “I don’t necessarily want anyone to know I’m carrying a firearm and I don’t want to be targeted by the bad guy. So, I practice like I might need that skill. In this case, it’s being able to smoothly sweep away a garment to get to my gun as quickly as possible.” Though maybe not the…

When it comes to playing with different cartridges, I’m like a little kid on Christmas Eve; I love the subtle nuances of each different development, and to be honest, there are only a few that make me wrinkle my nose. I’ve been privileged enough to spend a considerable amount of time with more than a few of them, either through handloading ammunition for them or taking them afield, sometimes to the more remote destinations on earth. But, just as with your favorite foods or music, you’ll often come back to that which has become an old standby, the one you know will work in any situation. The .30-06 Springfield is just that. It’s been with us since 1906 and has seen two World Wars and numerous bloody conflicts just as…

The .250 Savage Project started, as so many great ideas begin, with a conversation around a reloading bench some 15 years ago. Stan Warren and I were talking reloading, firearms, powders, bullets and calibers — the usual stuff — when we happened upon the .250 Savage. What piqued my interest was when Stan said it was noted as the first commercial cartridge to exceed 3,000 fps, hence its other moniker: the 250-3000. Logically, to the dog-eared copy of Cartridges of the World we went. It must’ve been about the 7th edition, maybe earlier … so it’s obviously been a while since this project got started. The first thing I noted, as I read the Historical Notes, was that the caliber “was introduced by Savage Arms Company as a high-velocity round…

For years, many waterfowl and upland-bird hunting rituals were passed down through generations. Fathers gave decoys to their sons. Old-timers bequeathed wool hunting coats to grandchildren. And season after season, semi-automatic shotguns would jam in the field — likely at the worst possible moments. Even some of the all-time great autoloaders sometimes failed to feed or eject, especially if the owner hadn’t cleaned the gun properly. And that annoying tendency was no secret. “It used to be if you were a waterfowl hunter 30 years ago and you wanted something reliable, you used a pump,” said George Thompson, director of product management for Benelli. “None of the semi-autos could hold up in those harsh environments.” But today’s scene is different. Thanks to technological advances, modern semi-auto shotguns are far more…

In the waning years of the 19th century, Colt was the first American gun manufacturer to take the semi-auto pistol seriously. The revolver was king — both single- and double-action variants — and civilian, law enforcement and military shooters of the day had not yet accepted the concept of the new “automatics.” Colt’s management believed that when the designs of semi-autos were perfected and could be counted on to function reliably, the world of handgunning would be changed forever. The legendary gunsmith and inventor John M. Browning had designed several single-shot and repeating rifles in the 1880s and 1890s, some for his own company and some for Winchester, including several of that company’s most famous lever actions. Browning was also interested in the idea of self-loading firearms and, as early…

Just as the cartridge itself is incredibly versatile, so is its reloading potential. The .30-06 might be the cartridge that can use the widest variety of powders; I’ve personally used powders as fast as IMR3031, and as slow as Reloder 25, and just about everything in between. IMR4350 is a good all-around powder, as is IMR 4064, depending on the bullet style and weight. The ’06 runs on a standard large rifle primer; I’ve had my best results with the Federal Gold Medal Match GM210M. I keep my cases trimmed to the SAAMI-specified length of 2.494 inches to keep things uniform, and as the case offers good neck tension, I rarely — if ever — crimp my cases. All that versatility — in both powder choice and bullet type —…

Call them black rifles, ARs or modern sporting rifles. Call them anything you want, but don’t call the latest round of AR platform guns unsuitable for hunting. Thanks to a growing demand for accurate, reliable, high-quality and diverse semi-auto rifles, gun manufacturers are producing some of the finest hunting tools available today … in the AR platform. Whether you prefer to pop prairie dogs at long ranges, thin out hogs on the Back 40 or hunt deer, bears or even elk, there’s a modern sporting rifle just for you. Some are stripped down and affordable for everyone. Others are customized with the highest quality components. The good news is that with all these options available, you can readily find one that’s almost built custom for your needs. Colt Trooper Patrol…

Not many shooters had ever heard of Nighthawk Custom when it began making 1911 pistols in 2004. Started by four individuals, more than a decade later it now employs about 65 people and specializes not only in custom 1911s, but also in fighting shotguns, and most recently in revolvers. It produced a few models of a freakishly accurate bolt-action rifle for a short while but discontinued that line, resulting in a sharp increase in the value of those previously purchased. But Nighthawk has always made high-end 1911s, and one of the most recent additions to the line is the Border Special, which was designed by Jim Wilson, a retired peace officer with nearly 30 years of experience and who also served as the Sheriff of Crockett County, Texas. Wilson has…