Innehållsförteckning för April 2020 från Guns & Ammo

WHEN SHOOTING A PAPER TARGET AT DISTANCE, it can be difficult to tell whether or not your rounds hit without walking downrange to confirm. This problem is exacerbated in diminished light. Of course, flashlights can assist in illuminating the target before firing and examining the target afterword, but wouldn’t it be awesome to see the path of a bullet as it travels toward the target? Now, thanks to Streak Visual Ammunition, you can do just that without the dangers of using incendiary tracers. With Streak, an luminescent dot applied to the bullet’s base is illuminated by powder flash when fired. The result is a red streak that’s visible to anyone within 30-degrees of the shooter’s point of view. Not only is it fun, this ammunition can be beneficial from a…

ANYTIME THE TOPIC of deteriorating vision comes up, Guns & Ammo’s offices are flooded with letters and emails. This condition affects more of you than any other subject. Some suffer from astigmatism, cataracts, glaucoma, optic nerve and retinal disorders, macular degeneration, refractive errors and side effects from diabetes. We continue to research this issue as it applies to shooting, but a universal solution doesn’t exist. Many shooters experience difficulty aiming at around 40 years of age if nearsightedness has set in. Nearsighted shooters may be able to see up-close objects clearly but lose clarity at distances. Examining fellow shooters with nearsightedness revealed that many see clearly between a few inches beyond their nose to an average of 17 inches. To put nearsightedness in perspective, Guns & Ammo invited several test…

EVER HEAD OUT TO DO SOME SHOOTING and notice that your rifle’s point of impact is slightly different than your last range visit? It’s usually not a big difference, but it’s also not uncommon for the zero to wander anywhere from one-half to one-inch. I blamed the optic mounting system for this issue for years, as do many shooters I know. I figured the scope moved in the rings a tiny bit or the rings or base shifted some. While all those potential issues are somewhat valid (especially when using poorly made equipment), the far more likely scenario is the presence of parallax inside the scope. Any riflescope has two functional optical components: The eyepiece and everything else. The “everything else” is the scope forward of the power adjustment ring.…

I SAT BACK AND STARED as the tactical wizardry on TV was at its finest. It was a commercial for a light called the “Gladius.” This behemoth was really the first of its kind featuring a slightly protected tail cap that could be twisted from normal operation to strobe mode. The surprising thing about the commercial was the message: “If you use this strobing light against an aggressor, they will become disoriented and unable to continue their attack!” Wow . As a U.S. Army commando at the time, I had to try one. How easy would it be? I could fly across the world, kick in a terrorist’s door, set my light to the “makes bad guys quit” setting, and quickly get back to kissing ladies and babies. A couple…

Historical information for this article was largely sourced from Gurney Brown’s excellent book “Colt’s Python: King of the Seven Serpents.” Brown has written extensively on collectible Colt revolvers and this, his latest, is dedicated to the Python. This 304-page full-color coffee table-style treatise is a must-have for any Colt collector or Python enthusiast. It is loaded with facts regarding the Python’s history as well as its various models. High-quality photographs feature dozens of Pythons, each with its own Colt factory letter, are included along with historic catalog and marketing images. “Colt’s Python: King of the Seven Serpents” is available from various retailers starting at $64.95.…

“I must admit, I've never seen one quite like it . It has a lot of personality and I’m sure an interesting backstory.” MODEL 1903 SAVAGE RIFLE Q: Recently, I was able to talk my little brother into letting me have a gun that was passed down to us boys years after our father died, when we were old enough to appreciate it. What I know of this gun is a mix of what I learned when I was a kid and the research I did in anticipation of this letter. As the story goes, my dad traded an Army bayonet for it when he was a young man. Apparently, the other guy was eager to part with it because it was missing the magazine. My dad kept it, but…

I CAN HEAR IT NOW, “Another Gunsite article.” I’m sure Eric Poole will love the letters to the editor, but before you bang away on that keyboard, hear me out. Gunsite Academy has trained tens of thousands of people over the last 43 years, and they know a thing or two about how to maximize square-range training. But even Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper realized that this was limiting. There are several shoot houses on the Gunsite property, and force-on-force and simulator work comprises a great deal of the higher-level curriculum. That being said, there’s a huge square-range component that can’t be ignored and must be conducted efficiently. Whether you’re a Gunsite instructor or a local trainer putting your first class through, 3-D targets are great, as is putting t-shirts on…

IN THE SHOOTING WORLD, much has been said through the years about reloading. What load gives us the best performance, what bullet works the best for an application, and on and on. It’s not often we get an opportunity to visualize and verify or debunk what was an opinion or a hunch. Tom Beckstrand recently wrote about a test series that was done by Guns & Ammo TV at the New Mexico Tech-affiliated Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC). Beckstrand’s work centered on what happened when a bullet in flight struck a raindrop. As the resulting high-speed video showed, it blew away a lot of conjecture and opinion that has been around for a long time. Another test that was done during this time was an investigation with the…

MODULARITY makes the AR platform perfect for those who prefer to do things themselves. Real Avid’s AR15 Armorer’s Master Kit ($250, realavid.com) contains everything you need to build or personalize an AR. Inside are the punches and picks you’d expect to find, but even these details are optimized. The two-sided picks are made of plastic, meaning they won’t mar a gun’s finish. And like every tool in this kit, these tools snap into its own slot in the case. The 10-pin punch set features the typical assortment of tips and are organized in two plastic sleeves. The roll-pin starter features a flat side, enabling it to rest flush against the lower receiver when removing or installing the bolt catch. There’s a plastic non-marring punch, as well as plastic tweezers labeled…

Type: Recoil operated, semiautomatic Cartridge: 9mm Capacity: 8+1 rds. Overall Length: 6.9 in. Height: 4.88 in. Weight: 1 lb., 10 oz. Material: Stainless steel (slide assy.); scandium alloy (frame) Grip: Ergo 1911 XTRO Officer’s Trigger: 5 lbs., 5 oz. (tested) Safety: Manual lever, frame mounted, ambidextrous; grip safety lever Finish: Armornite (slide assy.); anodized (frame) Sights: Three-dot, drift adj.; steel MSRP: $1,350 Manufacturer: Smith & Wesson, 413-747-3317, smith-wesson.com…

ON FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2019, Ensign Joshua Kaleb Watson made his final trip home to Enterprise, Alabama. Thousands of local citizens stood in the cold rain to line the roadside where his procession traveled. They waved American flags and paid their respects to this young hero as he passed. The entire student body of his high school alma mater stood humbly and in silence as the white hearse drove slowly by the campus. Watson was a recent graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a flight school student at Pensacola Naval Air Station in the panhandle of Florida, two hours from his hometown. Tragically, he was one of three men murdered when a Saudi national who was training on the post opened fire inside a classroom. Mortally wounded by…