Innehållsförteckning för February 2024 från Gun Digest

Sometimes, it’s challenging to sit in my editorial chair and not become completely jaded. This time of year, largely anchored by SHOT Show, is when the majority of manufacturers dump a host of “new” products into the marketplace because, well, new products are what keep the lights on—and it’s what you and I have come to expect as consumers. The problem is, especially in an economy such as the one we’re experiencing now, most of these new drops are less than revolutionary: line extensions, new colors, addition of a threaded muzzle, you name it. And that’s where it’s easy to become jaded and difficult to show excitement when a marketing manager calls me up to hype their new offerings. But luckily for you and me, this trend isn’t universal: There…

01 Alpha Titan Suppressor Line Unless you’re still packing a flintlock as your main shooting iron, the rise of suppressors in recent years most likely hasn’t escaped your notice. While a difficult niche to truly innovate in, Alpha Silencers has done a pretty solid job. The Titan series combines two of the most demanded features—aside from sound and recoil suppression—shooters have sought: weight savings and reduced back pressure. To the former, the user-serviceable cans are constructed with rugged titanium, considerably cutting down on overall mass. The latter is hastened on by Alpha’s flow-through baffle design, pushing the expanding gases forward, thus mitigating undesirable gases in a shooter’s face. The line is composed of five suppressors—A22 (rimfire), Titan 223, Titan 30, Titan 9 and Titan 45. MSRP: Starting at $500 02…

The Trailblazer Pivot, a blowback PCC chambered in 9mm, is not your usual carbine. Some ideas are so clever you’ve just got to nod and go, “I’m on board with that.” The Pivot is a solution to compact storage that does not use any other usual methods. Usually, to make a long-gun more compact, several things must be done: shorten the barrel, shorten the stock, fold it, make it a takedown or, my least-favorite, make it a bullpup. Shortening the barrel makes it an NFA item, shortening the stock makes it usable only by short people, folding and takedown bring mechanical problems with them, and, as for bullpups, the less we discuss them, the better. The Pivot uses none of those. Instead, the upper receiver rotates on the lower receiver,…

HISTORICAL NOTES Introduced in late 2017, Hornady’s 6.5 Precision Rifle Cartridge (PRC) was designed to be accurate, shoot flat and shoot long from a compact case utilizing moderate powder charges. The 6.5 PRC produces high velocities for target shooting with performance well beyond 1,000 yards. The round enters a suddenly crowded field of similarly dimensioned cartridges, including the 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5x55 Swede, .260 Remington, 6.5x57mm, 6.5-284 Norma, 6.5-06, 6.5 Remington Magnum and .264 Winchester Magnum, to name a few. Obviously, 6.5 designates the bore diameter, which, technically is 0.2559 inch in diameter, but this new round fires 0.264-inch-diameter bullets, as do the other 6.5mm cartridges. It was created by necking down the .300 Ruger Compact Magnum case, which, if naming conventions for similar neck-downs were followed, it could have been…

If you want to get opinions on rifles, go to a deer hunting camp. As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in a deer camp at the Lowrance Ranch in Truscott, Texas. This is mostly flat, open country, and you’d expect those who live, work and hunt this ground to be partial to a bolt-action rifle chambered for a flat-shooting cartridge. Given that, you might be surprised what the ranch hands there said about the Marlin Dark Series 1895 when I showed them a picture of it. I limited these deer hunting cowboys to a one-word description of the Dark Series 1895. One old timer, who’d just showed me a photo of his pride and joy lever gun—a Winchester Model 71 chambered in 348 Winchester—described it as the “terminator.” Another ranch…

In conversation, you’ll find that people have a rather rigid idea of just how much “modern” can go into a gun … or what accessories could or should go on a rifle to make it suitable for a given task. There tends to be an idea of “this is a hunting rifle, this is a target rifle, and this is a sniper rifle” among most riflemen. Today, all the lines are functionally non-existent. That might hurt to hear, but it’s true. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been told that it isn’t fair to the deer to use what I have, but as I will soon address, everything I’m using has been done before: We’re just now seeing better ways to interface these otherwise disparate species of…

I have a new gun belt, and I really like it. But first, I want to talk a bit about this new world we’re currently living in. Back in 1993 when I was a young patrol officer, I was recruited to cover the firearms law portion of a concealed carry class that was frequently taught in the city where I worked. The lead instructor had graduated from Massad Ayoob’s Lethal Force Institute and was well versed in the application of a handgun for self-defense. Part of the course dealt with what I categorized as “not doing stupid things that could increase your exposure to situations where your life might be jeopardized,” or where you might have to use your handgun. This included not hanging around in dark alleys, parking in…

There seems to be no limit to the number of variants that can be extrapolated upon using the classic Remington 700 screw spacing. In the past decade, countless actions by dozens of companies, big and small, have introduced their own spin on making a turnbolt action that feeds from AICS mags. The short-action bolt gun is dominant in America and, as a result, there’s a race to make what could be the best one at the best price. Indeed, in our era, we have seen the actions—not completed rifles—run up a bill in excess of $1,500 … and sometimes even more. Factoring in barrels, stocks, optics and accessories, you can rack up a build easily exceeding $10,000 for a slight edge in performance against other high rollers (you can at…

As father/son relationships go, Dad’s and mine lasted 64 years. We shared a lifetime of hunting, shooting, reloading and “accumulating” all kinds of firearms, including rifles, shotguns and handguns. We shot them all, reloaded for most of them and added to the trove periodically when our finances aligned with our desires. And sometimes, when they didn’t. The story of Dad’s last gun is a puzzle that, once assembled, was the sum of our knowledge and wisdom, somewhat belated, with a seemingly contradictory outcome if viewed after the fact. It’s a story best told from the beginning. From my early teens, hardly a day went by when my father and I didn’t discuss, fantasize and argue (sometimes heatedly) about the merits of one gun versus another. My poor mother bemoaned the…

The 1911 will never go out of style, but the classic singlestack varieties are lacking in capacity and features … at least by modern standards. Hence the current popularity of the 9mm doublestack 1911, especially those sporting things like optics-ready slides and accessory rails. Jacob Grey is the latest company to announce its own spin on this concept in the form of the exceptionally attractive TWC 9. The frame and grip of the TWC 9 are made of billet 7075 aluminum, and the pistol has a stainless-steel 4.25-inch bull barrel, with a 1:10 twist and a Nowlin ramp. Jacob Grey says that the CNC-machined billet aluminum frame and grip result in a very tight and smooth pistol while also providing good structural integrity and reducing the overall weight. Other features…