MARLIN 1895 .45-70 LEVER-ACTION | Still Viable for Defense or Hunting
The Springfield Trapdoor Cartridge Rifle and Carbine was produced for the military in 1873. It came chambered in an equally new, powerful cartridge. Commonly called .45-70 Government or simply .45-70, the actual nomenclature for the cartridge was .45-70-405. In order, the numbers stand for the caliber, how many grains of black powder is used and the weight of the bullet measured in grains. By the time of the Spanish American war in 1898 the Army [...]
WMD GUNS .300 BLACKOUT
The inimitable J.D. Jones while working under S.S.K. Industries (a company he started) invented the .300 Whisper caliber in 1992 as a wildcat cartridge. The parent case that J.D. Jones used to make the .300 Whisper was the .221 Remington Fireball necked up to accept .30 caliber bullets. The end [...]
DEFESIVE RIFLES LEVER GUN RESURGENCE | What Was Old Is New Again
If I were to pick one class of long guns as my favorite, it would have to be lever-action rifles. They can be chambered in everything from .22 Long Rifle up to Big Horn Amory’s 500 S&W Magnum. There is a caliber that is right for your purposes. To [...]
FIGHTING RIFLES | Ruger PC Carbine
Carbines that use the same ammunition as a pistol are nothing new, even semiautomatic carbines. The Marline Camp Carbine was introduced in 1985 and had a fair amount of success until in was discontinued in 1999. Two versions were available: the one chambered in .45 ACP used 1911 magazines [...]
PUTTING LEARNED SKILLS TO USE | Gunsight And Dunton Ranch
Back in the early 1970s Colonel Jeff Cooper started the American Pistol Institute, now known as Gunsite Academy. Today Gunsite is known worldwide for firearms training, from a quality facility with top notch instructors and staff. Some of the best warriors have attended and continue to train there. Recently [...]
AR MAGAZINES | The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
No matter how much money you spend on an AR, the fact is that if you want it to run reliably you must use quality magazines. Now this would seem common sense, but more often than not I have run across shooters using either old, worn out or cheap [...]
EIGHTY PERCENT LOWERS | Are They Worth The Trouble?
With all the media about the government trying to take out Second Amendment Rights away there has been increased interest in the eighty percent lower (EPL) receivers. The common thought behind the idea is if it is delivered without any Gun Control Act (GCA) paperwork then no one knows [...]
LOW POWERED VARIABLE OPTICS AND THE PATROL CARBINE
Over the last ten years or so, the use of low powered variable optics (LPVOs) on M4 carbines has become the standard set-up for most U.S. Special Operations forces and military units. LPVOs allow the user to have both near and far aiming capabilities via a turn of a [...]
INTERMEDIATE SNIPER WEAPONS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT
Comparisons are often drawn between law enforcement (LE) and military snipers. Law enforcement snipers are dealing with significantly shorter ranges compared to their military counterparts. Although trained to do rural operations, most law enforcement sniper ops are urban in nature. Law enforcement snipers operate almost exclusively with their tactical [...]
30 YEARS OF REFINEMENT | Barrett M107A1 .50 BMG
Many feel the utility of what Ronnie Barrett started in 1982 with his .50 BMG rifles has yet to completely evolve. The long range potential of the .50 BMG mated with a Barrett rifle is what many feel is the ultimate combination of rifle and cartridge. Barrett recently celebrated [...]
ALL AROUND UTILITY | Ruger’s .223 Gunsite Scout Rifle
I first fired the Ruger Gunsite Scout Rifle (GSR) chambered in .308 Winchester at a Ruger’s writer’s seminar at Gunsite shortly before it was officially introduced in 2011. It was love at first, er, shot, and I ended up buying the rifle I tested. Later that same year my grandson [...]
