Innehållsförteckning för June 2021 från Gun Digest

I get questions all the time—all the time—that go something like, “What do you think about [insert name here] Precision,” or, “Have you shot the new AR from Something-Something Armament?” Now, make no mistake: The entire staff here at Gun Digest thrives by keeping our finger on the pulse of what’s new. After all, we know guns so you know guns. But, these days, keeping up with every boutique AR company shipping some derivative of America’s rifle out their doors is like trying to keep the dandelions off the lawn in the early spring … there’s a new one every time I turn around. But unlike those friggin’ flowery weeds, I’ll gladly tip my hat to every AR builder of every size, whether they’re cranking out guns by the thousands…

Ever notice that the AR-15 bolt has a great big, honking hole drilled right through it? And that hole has sharp edges that have to be carefully de-angled or it’s not fun to work with? If that edge gets nicked, the bolt will die and soon. Why do we use it? Because the government cast that design in stone back in 1968. If you stick with mil-spec, you stick with the bolt. But, should you? How about we improve that? HM Defense did just that. They took the simple measure of not drilling the hole all the way through. I know, simple, right? The HM Bolt simply has a blind hole for the cam pin. This does, of necessity, require a new cam pin—one short enough not to stop short…

Reloading rimfire cartridges has been off-limits for as long as I can remember, simply because the process would require priming your own cases. Well, I’ve found a neat system that allows you to reload both .22 Long Rifle and .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire: The Sharpshooter 22LR Reloader Kit. The kit ($74.95 retail) comes in a neat package, complete with all the tools needed, and they offer their Prime-All priming compound (sold separately at $19.95) to reprime the spent cases. The kit includes a two-cavity bullet mold—that same mold is used as a crimping tool—rim cleaner, rim packer, powder dipper, neat little powder funnel and eye dropper, used in the priming process. This system allows the user to take spent cases from the firearm from which they were fired and bring…

Like it or not, not all AR-15s are created equal. Some rifle manufacturers are content with putting out guns that are just good enough to have the misleading “mil-spec” marketing label slapped on them. Consumers sometimes read that as some mark of quality, but the truth is that the mil-spec claim is nothing more than a flashy way of saying, “This might work with other mil-spec things.” The reality is, few manufacturers build their M4-like carbines to a standard even remotely close to the actual military specification for the M4A1, MIL-DTL-71186B. Fewer still will take the rifle to the next level of hard-use performance. The boys at Sons of Liberty Gun Works (SOLGW) make that list. As much as I want to gush about my personal M4-76 rifle, the story…

The M16/AR15 was originally chambered for the .223 Remington (1962), and since then that cartridge has become the patriarch of several very useful cartridges that are also AR-15 compatible. Metallic rifle cartridges come in families. In the .30-06 family, you have the .270 Winchester and .280 Remington. In the .308 Winchester family, you have the .243 Winchester and 7mm-08 Remington. Though the .223 Remington now has its own family, it was based on the .222 Remington (1950), which was a proprietary cartridge, meaning it wasn’t based on another SAAMI-approved cartridge. If you want an AR-15 that’s multi-cartridge compatible, it makes sense to choose cartridges from the same family. This will allow a conversion with nothing but a barrel or barreled upper receiver. Since the cartridges all come from the same…

There are quite a few old wives’ tales (or old range officer gimmicks) concerning how to deal with the buildup of heat in a firearm. In fact, heat buildup and its corresponding dissipation is the greatest issue that gun designs face in terms of the effects it produces physically within and how that energy leaves externally. Related to this, of course, is how the shooter interacts with this heat as it bleeds off. THE IMPACT OF HEAT Heat is an unavoidable factor in the use of firearms. What’s not understood so well is the relationship heat has on a given type of gun, and not all heat is generated from the same sources. The main cause of heat buildup in a gun is friction—not explosions. The high pressure generated by…

HISTORICAL NOTES The.450 Bushmaster's parent cartridge is the.45 Professional, a rifle/cartridge conversion developed by Tim LeGendre of LeMag Firearms LLC, and licensed to Bushmaster Firearms International for production and distribution. LeGendre still retains ownership. The.450 Bushmaster is designed to be used in the standard M16/AR-15 platform, using five-round magazines. Bushmaster asked Hornady to produce the.45 Professional ammunition for this project, and Hornady agreed. Hornady wanted the.45 Professional shortened to accommodate its 250-grain pointed SST bullet. Hornady asked Bushmaster for the change (1.771 inches to the now standard 1.7 inches), and Bushmaster asked LeGendre to sign off on that change, which he did. Bushmaster eventually wanted a name change, and LeGendre agreed to that, too. Thus, the popular.450 Bushmaster. Based on a concept by Col. Jeff “Thumper” Cooper, the goal was…

There’s a movement afoot in the precision rifle world—a return to “the fighting rifleman,” for lack of a better term. The feeling around the water cooler is we’ve taken a turn away from the practical and more toward the engineering side. If this sounds familiar, it should; it’s called “benchrest shooting.” When I arrived at Rifles Only in South Texas in 2002, it was the top spot for precision rifle training and competition. The focus mimicked the military in many ways and promoted finding your targets, determining the range and then engaging that target with a limited number of shots. Jacob Bynum, considered prone the rare shot, so the idea was to train people to adapt to the situation; the term alternate positions was born. Rifles Only were full-time training…

I’m so accustomed with Mr. Murphy and his Law that I swear we’re somehow related. This concept has been affirmed time and time again throughout my life, especially in those situations where what would normally be an easy fix is rendered unfixable. I like rifles that are nearly indestructible, sturdy boots of stout construction, rugged riflescopes and mounts and rings that won’t let me down. I’ve had bunches over the years, and all have their good and bad points. There are all sorts of mounting systems constructed of different materials and in a multitude of conformations. What may be ideal for the target shooter could quite possibly be unacceptable for the mountain hunter, or what works perfectly on a light-recoiling varmint rifle will fall to pieces on a dangerous game…

WARNING CALL BEFORE YOU DRIVE TO ANY SHOW PROMOTERS CANCEL SHOWS AND FREQUENTLY CHANGE DATES AND LOCATIONS CONFIRM BEFORE YOU TRAVEL DUE TO THE CANCELLING AND REBOOKING OF SHOWS THAT HAS TAKEN PLACE BECAUSE OF COVID-19 PLEASE CALL OR CHECK THE WEBSITE OF THE SHOW PRIOR TO TRAVELING TO THE SHOW. SHOWDEX Listings are grouped according to state. Bold headlines show the name of all states in which gun shows have been reported to us. These headlines are arranged according to the full spelling of state names. Under each headline, shows scheduled for a particular state are listed by date, postal abbreviation, city, and site. For more information, see our regular SHOW LISTINGS section. KANSAS Oct 9-10 KS, park city. Chisholm Trail Antique Gun Assoc. Gun Show. Hartman Arena, 8151…

I recently decided to learn to shoot with my left hand. Now, I’m right-handed and by “learning to shoot with my left hand,” I don’t mean support-hand shooting; I wanted to learn to shoot with my left hand like it was my dominate hand. The reasons for this were practical and educational, and I’ll address them in later columns. For now, what I want to talk about is the frustration those who are left-handed undoubtedly encounter when looking for carry gear. The pistol I wanted to work with was the very popular Sig Sauer P320, outfitted with a reflex sight. You’d think if you could find a left-handed holster for any handgun, you’d be able to find one for that one. I reached out to all my usual holster sources…

01 Rock River Arms Light Predator2L Rifle Pure tactical? Perish the thought. The AR-15 is more than accomplished in the field, a legitimate tool for taking everything from deer on down. With this in mind, Rock River Arms’ Fred Eichler Series Light Predator2L is a welcome addition for anyone in the market for a light rifle tuned to perfection. Named after Fred Eichler, the 16-inch fluted barrel rifle has all the accouterments to get coyotes howling. This includes the versatile .223 Wylde chamber that accepts both .223 Remington and 5.56 NATO rounds, a smooth two-stage match-grade trigger and RRA’s Fred Eichler Series Muzzle Brake to control muzzle lift. Topping it all off is a lightweight carbon-fiber handguard that not only shaves weight but catches eyes with its unique coyote paw-print…

There are more options out there than ever before when it comes to triggers. There’s so much variety, in fact, that it’s easy to get lost in the minutia of just what you’re getting for the money. To make things easier and less triggering, let’s take a look at just what you get for your hard-earned dollars these days. TRIGGER BASICS The gun, as we know it, is a tube that launches a projectile. The rest is essentially human interface with said pipe. The earliest notions of a gun were just that: a metal pipe or tube attached to a stock ignited by a lit piece of fuse. That fuse was originally carried separately, but eventually more advanced means of ignition were used; arguably, the earliest was the matchlock. This…

As a company, Q LLC hasn’t been around that long, but it has gained a significant and loyal following in its waxing years due in equal parts to its spirited founder, Kevin Brittingham, and truly imaginative products. Nothing in the Q stable has a generic, alphanumeric name: the Jumbo Shrimp suppressor, Cherry Bomb brake and the subject of our prose, the Fix. WHAT’S IN A NAME I spoke with one of Q’s design engineers, Drew Mills, who started with the company just after it opened and is one of the people responsible for the Fix rifle. Mills told me the reason they called it the Fix was that it was short, sweet and not like anything else out there as far as model numbers. The Fix is the only one…

Ever wonder just how big a bullet we can hurl out of the standard AR-15 package? Well, Marty Ter Weeme was at a backyard barbecue a couple of decades ago with some guys who can’t put on their résumés where they’ve been and what they’ve done. You know, the lads who now sport beards, go to dusty places and bring surprises to the miscreants they meet. The question arose because those present had experience at shooting people and weren’t entirely happy with the results they were getting from the M855. CALL ME THUMPER The requirements were simple: It had to be an upper, or a rebuild, that’d work on a standard AR-15/M16/M4 lower. It had to use standard AR-15 magazines. And it had to hit like a sledgehammer. Since the…

We all know that guy who cleans his gun after every range trip, and we also know that guy who has never cleaned his gun. Neither are right or wrong but one thing we should all agree on is cleaning your silencer is unneeded, right? Well, sort of. Here we dive into some best practices about silencer maintenance, dos and don’ts, and the reasons behind them. Silencers are becoming very common place in today’s firearms industry and rightfully so. Everyone should want less sound, improved ballistics and to look cooler. The market is larger than ever before, and the number of cans is staggering. So, once you pay your $200 and wait your four to 15 months, how do you keep that silencer in tip-top shape? The best way to…