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Professionally Cleaning Your Firearm

2010-11-29T15:44:00.000-08:00

Use of firearms isn’t limited to nice and tidy indoor ranges. Firearms are often needed in extreme conditions, from dry, dusty, sandy environments, to wet or muddy environments. We’ve already written about the proper care and use of your firearms in the field, but it is just as important to keep them clean and prepared for such use.

A gun vise or cleaning station such as this can make the cleaning process much easier.

Basic Cleaning Procedure
The general procedure for cleaning a firearm is to:

Disassemble the firearm
Remove carbon fouling and any debris that may have found its way into the firearm
Inspect the firearm for loose screws or bolts, broken pieces, excessive wear, and for any cracks or deformities
Remove lead or copper fouling (depending on what ammunition you are shooting)
Rinse out any corrosive salts (if shooting corrosive ammunition).
Dry thoroughly
Lubricate the firearm at appropriate locations to levels appropriate for the conditions that you are in

That’s pretty much it – but lets break this down to the details.

Breakdown and Initial Carbon Removal
Latex or other protective gloves will protect your hands from harsh solvents, and protect your pistol or rifle from harmful oils from your skin. Obviously you will need to field strip your firearm, but it is generally not necessary and is, in fact, inadvisable to disassemble it any more than your manufacturer recommends. Once the firearm is disassembled, you will need a quality solvent and toothbrush or other nylon cleaning brush to remove all carbon fouling from the outside of the frame and barrel, as well as from all of the smaller parts you have.

Cleaning the Barrel
Next, we focus on the barrel. It is important to always clean the barrel from the breech end, not the muzzle end. Cleaning from the muzzle side without using a muzzle protector can damage the crown of the muzzle. Any nicks or scratches, no matter how small, in the muzzle crown can dramatically affect the accuracy of your firearm. Always use a high-quality cleaning rod made from brass, carbon fiber, or some other non-marring material.

Cleaning Carbon Fouling From The Bore
Begin by attaching a brass jag of the proper size to the end of your cleaning rod and soaking a bore patch in solvent. We recommend CLP or Bore Scrubber as your initial carbon solvent. Bore Scrubber has the advantage of cleaning out copper fouling as well as carbon fouling. Poke the sharp poker on the jag through the center of the bore patch and run it from the breech end to the muzzle end. When it comes out of the muzzle end, you should be able to just pull back the rod and the fouled bore patch should fall off the end of the jag. Do this two or three times to thoroughly coat the bore, and then wait a few minutes to allow the solvent to work on the carbon build up. Use a properly sized bronze brush attached to your cleaning rod to scrub out the bore and remove the loosened carbon fouling. Once you’ve scrubbed loose the fouling, you can use an aerosol spray solvent like Gun Scrubber to blast out the remaining particles.

Copper Fouling
If you are shooting copper jacketed bullets and did not previously use Bore Scrubber as your powder solvent, you will need to use a copper solvent to remove the build up of copper fouling. I prefer the old tried and true Tetra Gun for removing copper fouling, although others such as Kleen Bore, Copper Cutter will work as well. Let the copper solvent soak in the bore for a while to allow it to do its job. It is important to use a nylon brush when scrubbing out copper fouling, as the copper solvent will eat up your copper and brass brushes.

While you are letting the copper solvent soak, it’s a good time to inspect your firearm for loose parts or excessive wear. Look for bright spots in the metal that would indicate fresh wear. Check for any cracks or distortion of the metal. Finding areas of excessive wear will allow you to stay ahead of the maintenance curve and help you avoid having your firearm break on you when you need it the most.

Once the copper solvent has had time to do its job, take a nylon brush attached to your cleaning rod and scrub out the copper fouling. Run a couple of dry patches through next. The patches will likely come out with a blue streak. Continue running dry patches until they come out pretty much clean (they don’t need to be spotless – even precision rifles are designed to run with some fouling, and excessive cleaning can hurt the accuracy of the bore.) Follow that up with a blast of aerosol Gun Scrubber and a couple of CLP soaked patches to remove any remaining copper solvent and residue. Finally, run a dry patch or two to soak up any remaining fluid in the bore.

Corrosive Ammunition?
If you have been shooting corrosive ammunition, now is the time to clean out any remaining salts from the bore and action (how do you know if you have corrosive ammunition? Click here to find out.) The best and easiest way is to simply rinse the gun and bore with hot water. Some carbon and copper solvents will also remove corrosive salts, but if you don’t have a water-based solvent, you will still need to rinse the gun thoroughly with hot water. Because the water is hot, it should evaporate and dry easily, but just for good measure take your can of Gun Scrubber and give the tight spots and action a good blast to get rid of any water left in the nooks and crannies of your firearm.

Proper Lubrication
At this point, your gun is pretty much as clean as it can get. While it may be clean, it is not protected. All of those solvents we used to remove the carbon and copper fouling also removed much of the protective oils and films on your gun. Because of this, we need to apply a thin film of lubricant, not just to ensure the smooth action of your firearm, but also to protect the metal surfaces from rust or corrosion. Lets start with the bore. Take a couple of patches that are saturated (not dripping, but well-coated) with lubricant such as Hoppes Elite Gun Oil or Remington Moisture Guard and run them down the bore to give it a thin film of protective oil. Next, take a q-tip that has been oiled and lubricate your firearm per the manufacturers instructions. If you are in a dry, dusty environment, a dry lube may allow more reliable functioning of your firearm than an oil.

Don’t neglect any magazines. Disassemble them and apply a thin light film of dry lube to make sure the springs and follower work smoothly without binding. We recommend using a dry lube such as Hoppes Dri-Lube or Moly Lube Dry Film to help keep dirt and dust from accumulating in the magazine.

Finishing Up
Finally, reassemble your firearm and wipe down all external surfaces with a silicone impregnated cloth. If you have a precision rifle that needs a bore to be fouled, you will need to clean your firearm at the range where you can fire one or two fouling shots prior to storing your firearm.

Rock Island Auction: Behind the Scenes

2010-11-26T15:43:00.000-08:00

Rock Island Auction Company’s Premiere Auction running December 3rd-5th will feature this rare 1799 flintlock pistol.

Rock Island Auction Company is one of the largest auction houses in the world specializing in firearms, blades, and militaria. Created by Patrick Hogan in 1993, Rock Island Auction Company has grown every year since its inception.

We had the opportunity recently to speak with Vice President Judy Voss and Executive Director Laurence Thomson about the history behind the largest firearm auction house in the United States and what goes into putting on their Premiere auctions which feature more than 2700 lots.

Cheaper Than Dirt: We’re talking today with Judy Voss and Laurence Thomson from Rock Island Auction Company. To start out Judy, let’s talk a bit about your background with Patrick Hogan, President of Rock Island Auction Company, and how you and he came to be involved with collector’s firearms.
Judy Voss: Well, Pat started out with gas stations. He came down here from Chicago and opened a Shell gas station. With that he opened up more gas stations and began renting videos out of those and then we opened many video stores. That’s when I came on board, he needed a marketing and advertising person.
Our management office for that business had property open next to it. The gentleman who ended up wanting to build next to it was Richard Ellis. He is well known as one of the top firearm experts in the country, if not the world. That’s how we got interested in collecting firearms was when he met Richard, who moved in right next door to use when we were still into gas stations and videos and photo processing. That’s how his collecting interest got piqued.
Because we were doing photo processing, Richard was in the process of possibly doing a book on Lugers at that time. They needed to have some photography done and get it published. Pat being the entrepreneur he was got involved.
Cheaper Than Dirt: Pat had a custom photography company at that point then?
Judy Voss: Right, he had a company called Event Photography, so we handled that part of it too. We had a little bit of everything going on and that worked out. From there, they went out west and worked with Little John’s and helped him to produce a catalog for his auction.
Cheaper Than Dirt: We spoke to Little John a while ago about what goes into producing those catalogs. Obviously with the background that Mr. Hogan and yourself had with custom photography went a long way towards producing a rich and detailed catalog of these collector’s firearms. Tell what goes into creating one of those catalogs.
Judy Voss: Well, that’s where Laurence comes into that too. He’s heavily into the operations of the catalog. That’s kind of where I started on that end with Pat as far as moving into the auction part of it I did a lot of the catalog design. It’s very detailed. We’ve made it more of a manufacturing process on getting it done as far as the photography and the descriptions and so on. We’ve really worked hard on the photography. We run a couple of shifts per day just to get it done, and when you do five catalogs a year with three of them being Premier, it’s a process of working with the photography and trying to capture the item in it’s truest form. Laurence schedules a lot of our photographers and works very closely with them in achieving that.
Cheaper Than Dirt: How many lots do you have in an average Premier auction?
Laurence Thomson: 2700 has been the goal. It can range plus or minus 50, but 2700 is the goal we’ve set out. It works out well to have that many over a 3-day period.
Cheaper Than Dirt: How do you come across that many lots? Are most of these firearms brought to you by the consignors or do you actively seek out pieces for the auction?
Laurence Thomson: We do it all. People call us with estate consignments, we deal a lot with that. Some people just want to narrow down their collection or the area that they collect in so we’ll go pick up their collections. People pass away and we’ll go and pick up items from them. We go to gun shows and we’ll do a lot of promotion about what we have coming up in upcoming events and auctions. People then see how professional we are and the amount of work that goes into producing the catalogs and then feel that they can entrust their collection or consignment to us. So, we get a lot there, but then some people will just come by and set up appointments to have their items appraised for auction, which we do free of charge, and again they decide at that point that they’re going to consign items. Sometimes we’ve been dealing with these people for 5-10 years and then other times they are new customers who have just walked in off of the street. It’s a great range of areas that we get the guns coming in from.
Judy Voss: There is a lot of advertising. In almost every ad that we run we talk about seeking consignments. Internet presence is definitely very valuable. Every type of marketing tool you can have, every mailer we send out talks about consigning. It is competitive, and you have to be out there and continually let them know that you’re here.
Cheaper Than Dirt: So, if somebody inherits a firearm or discovers one left by a loved one who has passed on, how can they determine whether or not it is a collectible or not?
Judy Voss: They can send us a list. We can determine a lot from a list if it is comprehensive. Or they can send us photos. We can also go out and look at it if it’s worth the time. For some smaller collections it’s just not feasible to travel across the country, but we can do a lot from photos and from a list.
They can also bring them in. Many people prefer to come in person and be here to see how it all goes down.
Cheaper Than Dirt: How should someone who may not have any particular knowledge of antique and collectible firearms care for a piece that they may inherit or otherwise come into in order to preserve it and maintain its value?
Laurence Thomson: A lot of guns have to be looked after on a regular basis. They need to be oiled down and wiped down any time they are handled. The oils from human hands can over a period of time rust the guns if they are not cared for properly. A lot of large collections are wiped down and looked after and kept in a carefully controlled environment with correct humidity levels. If things are too dry or too moist, especially older wooden guns or ones with a wood case, they can sometimes warp or bend.
It’s really knowing about the firearms and caring for them in that way, how to handle them, how to store them, and what humidity levels to keep them at.
Judy Voss: That’s one reason that, as some people get older and they have these large collections, they find they just can’t tend to them anymore. It can be a full time job. If you have several hundred pieces you can’t tend to all of them the way they need to be tended to. There are several collectors who are wealthy enough that they have somebody on staff that takes care of their collection, but some older gentlemen who find that they no longer have the time, strength, or health to care for, or who don’t have anybody to leave them to, decide to sell.
Cheaper Than Dirt: It does take a lot to properly care for these firearm, to keep them preserved, and in some cases to keep them in display conditions. Rock Island is unique in that you have your own climate controlled facility where you not only store the firearms prior to auction, but you also have them all on display.
Judy Voss: That’s correct. There are very few of us in this industry who have invested in a facility at the size that is needed in order to display them properly at auction.
Right now we have about 23,000 square feet, and we’ve outgrown this already. We are moving after the 1st of the year in to an 80,000+ square foot facility where we’ll have our own auction hall. Right now we shift and move as the event comes up. All of our production area, we utilize the auction hall right now for production and for description writing and photography, as well as the preview hall. When we move, the auction hall itself will always be standing as is, as will the preview hall. We’ll then have a separate area for production, so there won’t be so much shifting and moving and it won’t be so labor intensive.
When we came into this facility it was a lot bigger than where we came from, but we’ve outgrown it. Still, when you attend one of our auctions, the setup is more like a museum type display. The nice thing about it is that, unlike a museum, you can actually handle the firearms and look at them. In a museum of course you can’t.
Cheaper Than Dirt: Having the ability to handle and closely inspect the firearms helps to increase the value that is actually realized when the hammer falls on each lot won’t it?
Judy Voss: Absolutely, and you’re able to handle pieces of history. You can never do that anywhere else. I’ve had clients say it’s like a revolving museum where there’s always something new, but you can actually touch it and enjoy it and say that you were a part of history for a weekend.
Cheaper Than Dirt: It has to take an enormous amount of logistics to handle the more than 13,000 firearms every year.
Judy Voss: 13,000-15,000. I’d say we’re closer to 15,000. It’s a challenge, especially during the Regional sales. We might sell 2,100 lots, but there are closer to 5,000 individual pieces because there are often multiple pieces in a given lot. It’s a challenge for those guys who lay out that floor. I’m amazed that they can make it all fit and layout and make it accessible to the clients in the fashion that they do. It’s quite a puzzle.
Cheaper Than Dirt: With that many firearms, is it difficult to find enough buyers to bid up the price to where it should be? Do you ever have lots that just don’t sell?
Judy Voss: No, we routinely get a 97% sell through rate. That’s very common for us, but on a Regional we’ll see a 99% sell through rate. At a Premier we’ll fluctuate between 96%-97%, it’s always right around there. We’re very good at selling items. A lot of that is because we don’t encourage reserves. We want the buyers to know that they can buy. Some of our competitors will see 20% of their stuff not sell because they do put on a lot of reserves. We really like the buyer to know it is the real deal here. They have the opportunity to buy. They’re not bidding against the house.
Cheaper Than Dirt: With no reserve, how do you protect consignors who might bring in a precious heirloom, hoping to get top dollar for it? It seems that it must be a delicate balance.
Judy Voss: Well, it’s not that we won’t put a reserve on an item in a situation like that, but it will be reasonable and discussed with the consignor up front. It’s not going to be so high that an item won’t sell. If you put it too high it will scare off buyers, but if you put it at the appropriate level to prevent a “fire sale” the consignor is happy and it has a good chance of selling.
We “Sell the Sizzle”. You’ll see that we have more in depth descriptions, we have more pictures and photos and we point out items with provenance, and I think that makes a difference and helps the items achieve the prices that they do and gives us a high sell through rate.
Laurence Thomson: In the past we found a gun that came in with some pretty interesting history but the dates did not tie up to when the gun was made. Of course with something like that you cannot attribute it to the gun any longer and, if it’s something that we find out not to be true, we then have to break it to the consignor that that really wasn’t the case and sometimes then the gun really isn’t worth as much. A lot of the information comes from the consignors, but with some of the high profile guns our specialists who’ve been in the industry for so long are able to recognize where these guns have come from and know a great deal of history about them as well.
Cheaper Than Dirt: Speaking of the rich history many of these guns have, tell us about some of the more well known and famous firearms you’ve auctioned off in the past.
Laurence Thomson: I probably think the last auction with a lot of enjoyment was the Singer 1911A1 that was sold, a pistol that generated a fabulous amount of energy and buzz in the room. The people who consigned it were here also and they got to live through the event. That was one of the most memorable for me and I think for a lot of the staff. It sold for $166,000 and set a new record. We had the previous world record at $80,000 so this was quite remarkable.
Now in this auction coming up December 3rd 4th and 5th we have the serial number 1 Singer 1911, so it will be interesting to see how much that one goes for. Years ago we sold the Tears of Gettysburg. That was an amazing gun, I think it had 12 animal heads engraved on it, each with a tear, which is indicative of a Gustav Young engraving. There was a lot of research that went into that one. That has been pictured and described in a few books. That brought some very good money and it’s a great collectible piece.
Again, these types of things that are purchased are going to go into someone’s collection and I don’t know if, in my lifetime or somebody else’s lifetime, anyone will ever be able to see them again. That’s where they’ll stay for the next 40-60 years or more, and if they come up for auction again that’s great, but they may get passed down to someone in the family. It really is working with history.
Cheaper Than Dirt: It really is exciting to talk about these exceedingly rare one of a kind firearms, but I think it’s important to point out that not all of the collector’s firearms auctioned off reach these rarefied prices. Many are quite affordable and it’s possible for a beginning collector to pick up a nice specimen for just a thousand dollars or so.
Judy Voss: Absolutely. We have firearms for every level of collector. Clearly in the Regional sales they are down there in the $700-$800 level and then many in the Premier sales realize prices of $1500 and on up. There is just a huge range from $700 on up to half a million dollars.
We’ve had these pieces attributed to Generals and Captains, and even some pieces attributed to the infamous Hitler. We’ve had Ulysses S. Grant’s sword and it is just so neat to be able to get a hold of anything historical that we’ve sold.
Laurence Thomson: Yes, auctions are always about finding two interested parties. Obviously withthe Singer that we spoke about we had more than two interested parties, but that’s what it takes to attain those higher prices.
Cheaper Than Dirt: Of course it’s always exciting to be there on the floor when a bidding war like that breaks out.
Judy Voss: Absolutely. Anyone can come see and share the excitement too. It’s a public auction, all we require is a photo ID to get in the door.
Cheaper Than Dirt: And if someone does decide they want to participate in the bidding, how do they become a qualified bidder?
Judy Voss: If they’ve been with us before they’re already qualified. That’s done. If they are a first time bidder we want to verify that they are qualified with a valid credit card with which they can put 15% of their maximum bid down, or they can provide a bank letter or references from other auction houses. We just need to know that they’re serious.
Bidders can submit absentee bids on our website. We also work with ProxyBid and ICollector and they can bid live with those sites during the auction. We also offer telephone bidding here as well. We have upwards of 25 phone banks going on here during the auction where representatives from here are handling their bids live over the phone.
Cheaper Than Dirt: It sounds like quite the production. How much planning an manpower goes into putting on each auction?
Judy Voss: In fact December 1st, right before this auction, the catalog is due at the publishers for the next Regional auction. Right now we’ve got people out there describing the Regional sale catalog and we’ve got people taking in guns for the next Premiere auction as we speak.
It can be labor intensive, I’ve got to have a minimum of 25 people manning the phone banks, we have a concession stand that has to be manned, we have to have people in the office putting in the sealed bids as they come in every day, downloading all of the sealed bids off of the website. We have people answering the phones in response to inquiries. There have to be people handling bidders checking in and others out on the floor because we have a huge hall where we have maybe 12-15 people assisting bidders with inventory. Then, as the items sell, we have people who have to deliver the goods out to what we call “checkout shipping”. Then somewhere along the line people are invoicing too. We also have people recording each sale, and of course the auctioneers, let’s not forget about them.
Cheaper Than Dirt: Now your next auction is the Premier Collector’s Firearm Auction coming up December 3rd, 4th, and 5th. What are some of the top lots that we can look forward to seeing at this event?
Judy Voss: Well we’re really hoping that the Buntline takes off. It’s on the front cover of our catalog. I’d love to see the Mac Arthur jacket do well. I think that is just a really unique piece. It was actually one of his bomber jackets and I just think it’s great. It’s a very unique piece. I think it’s estimated way low at $100,000-$125,000.
We have the second installment of the Ashby Military Collection. Military pieces have been very hot for several years now. We have another great grouping of European Arms. We’ve got 250 Winchesters and December is always great for selling Colts.
What else do we have Laurence?
Laurence Thomson: We have in this auction coming up some timelines” as we like to call them, like the very first Colt ever made. There are a couple of serial number 1 firearms in this auction. A lot of these guns should be in museums. It’s going to be very interesting to see what collection they end up invested in. We have one gun, it’s a cased pair attributed to Daniel O’Connor of Ireland. The history that goes along with these pistols is fantastic. The guns themselves are pieces of art in outstanding condition, but the fact that they belonged to him really puts them into a whole new realm. Those guns are for the right kind of collector, someone more akin to a historian than a collector is going to be interested in those guns. The guns are great so you’re going to have some people interested in that, but you’re also going to have people interested in the history of the firearms.
Cheaper Than Dirt: Where is the auction December 3rd-5th taking place?
Judy Voss: It’s at our facility. We’re not a roaming auction house. The auction will take place here in Moline Illinois at 4507 49th Avenue. We do a full day preview starting on Thursday December 2nd and then Friday Saturday and Sunday is the auction itself. We always start the sale at 10am and you can preview in the morning before we start.
We make things very comfortable for bidders here with a full concession stand, hotels only 5 minutes away and the airport just 5 minutes away. We make it a real pleasure to be here.
Cheaper Than Dirt: I want to thank you both for taking the time to talk to us about the auction and what goes into putting on each event, as well as your helpful information on how our readers can get started collecting antique firearms.
Judy Voss: It’s been our pleasure.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T15:42:00.000-08:00

Gunk from the inside of a Para LTC 9mm

Today, at the Shooter’s Log, I’d like to ask what you’re thankful for. If you’re taking a break from turkey and family to read this, I’ll tell you what I’m thankful for right now: guns that work. The picture to the left is from the inside of my ParaUSA LTC 9mm. After checking my logs, that gun has had over 10,000 rounds fired through it since the last cleaning, and you can clearly tell from the amount of gunk and carbon fouling built up in the gun. One of the wonders of modern firearms is the amount of abuse they can take without going down; and while ejection on the gun was starting to get a little spotty, it was still running 158 grain Fiocchi 9mm ammo without any problems.

So gun nuts, on Thanksgiving what modern innovation are you thankful for today?

Oh, and for those of you that were concerned, yes the 1911 is clean now. Happy Thanksgiving from your friends at Gun Nuts Media and Cheaper than Dirt!

Fall Tactics For Getting Your Gobbler

2010-11-24T15:40:00.000-08:00

The turkey’s instinct to flock together in the autumn can help you to locate and bag your fall gobbler.

It’s a bit late to head out if you’re planning on putting a wild-harvested turkey on your table this Thanksgiving, but Turkey season stretches through January in much of the United States, giving you plenty of time still left to head out and bag a gobbler. While some people prefer the stealth and skill it takes to call in a big tom during the spring, others like the excitement of hunting these wily birds in the fall.

Tactics for hunting a fall turkey vary, but one of the more popular methods involves locating a flock of gobblers and then scattering them and calling them back. It sounds crazy, but it’s crazy enough that it actually works. I’ll admit, the first time my hunting buddy spotted a flock of toms and handed me his shotgun before taking off whooping and hollering at them, I thought he’d lost his mind. Surely there was no way on God’s green earth that those turkeys were going to come back.

After I caught up with him, he explained that the flocking urges of turkeys in the fall is very strong, and that a scattered flock would respond to calls in an attempt to regroup. Reluctantly I settled in to wait for the dust to settle. After about 30 minutes he began a string of “Kee-Kee-Kee” calls followed up with some yelps on his friction slate caller. Imagine my surprise when he was answered by a few yelps about 50 yards away.

Gradually I began to hear the distinct crunch of bird feet on dry leaves littering the forest floor as a few scattered toms returned to where the flock had broken up. Sure enough, a wary tom poked his head cautiously around a tree not 20 yards away. My hunting buddy nudged me and motioned for me to take the shot.

Slowly I raised my Remington 11-87 and peered through the scope. The shot was good. I had just bagged my first turkey and done so using, to my mind, less than conventional methods. The lesson here? Never underestimate the powerful instincts that guide these birds. Study them for long enough and you can learn what you need to have a successful hunt. My hunting buddy’s crazy tactic of scattering the birds forces their instinct to flock together to drive them back to where the flock last was.

Gun School Gear

2010-11-23T15:38:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, I was at Insights Training Center again, this time for their Intensive Handgun Skills class. I’ll have a full write up on the class after Thanksgiving, for now though I want to talk about the gear you see at gun school. First off, there are the guns you see – with the most common example being Glocks of various flavors. The instructors at Insights tend to favor the Glock 19, much like Jeff Cooper and the Gunsite staff favored the 1911. The Glock 19 represents an excellent combat handgun, and is large enough to be comfortable to shoot for an extended class and yet still be a gun that you’ll actually carry on a regular basis. As a general rule, taking a Glock to gun school is probably a good idea if you don’t want to deal with your handgun going down during class.

Insights instructor runs a Glock 17 with Heinie Straight-8 sights

The guns I saw at Intensive Handgun Skills represented a pretty good distribution of products; obviously the ubiquitous Glocks in a variety of calibers but other brands and manufacturers were represented as well. There were two Sigs, a pair of HKs, one M&P and one Ruger SR40, the latter being my personal gun. The SR40 ran very well for those curious about how it would hold up to a high round count, firing exactly 1402 rounds of .40 S&W ammo without a single malfunction. The Ruger wasn’t the only gun to be malfunction-free – most of the firearms, even the shooter running the CZ-75 compact experienced zero problems with their guns. Only a few guns ran in to issues during the class, and from what I observed most of the issues were operator induced and not mechanical failures on the part of the gun. So when it comes to the gun for gun school, make sure you bring a good one. Your gun needs to run for the duration of class, because time spent off the line fixing your gun is time that you’re not learning, and that means that you’re not getting the best value for your money.

A Kramer leather holster is an excellent choice for a class

The same goes for your holster as well. This is going to be the primary storage system for your gun during class, which means it needs to be a good, quality rig that’s not going to fall apart after 300 draws. I generally don’t like leather holsters for class, although if you have a properly made leather holster, it won’t be a problem. A good holster for a class needs to be something that you can draw and re-holster in one-handed, at no time should you have to use your non-dominant hand to assist in the re-holstering process. The Blackhawk SERPA line of holsters are an excellent “starter” holster to my mind, combining the retention of a leather holster with the ease of use of a kydex holster. When used properly, the SERPA also helps the shooter think about their draw stroke instead of just ripping the gun out of the holster. At the Insights class, every type of holster was well-represented. There were some excellent leather holsters from Galco, polymer holsters from Comp-Tac and Blade-Tech, the Kramer holster pictured above, and of course there were several shooters using the Blackhawk SERPA system as well.

Ultimately, any gear you take to a gun school class needs to be durable and reliable. The point of paying money to get quality training is to improve your skill as a shooter, and if you spend the majority of your class time off the line trying to fix your broken gun, holster, mag pouches, or other types of gear then you’re not getting the best benefit for your training dollar. But put a reliable gun in a quality holster, and you’re going to get a good value for your experience, and come out of the class a better shooter.

Top Ten Skills To Survive The End Of The World As We Know It

2010-11-18T15:36:00.000-08:00

A lot of discussion about survival, preparedness, and TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) focuses on what items to squirrel away in the basement pending some catastrophe. It’s a good idea – having a well stocked larder and some vital tools and equipment socked away is a fine way to prepare.

But those are finite resources, and eventually will be depleted, if they’re not outright destroyed by what catastrophe precipitates their need. I want to focus today on skills. As the saying goes: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Having supplies is nice, but it is far better to know how to make your own.

An oft used quote in the preparedness community comes from Robert Henlein’s Time Enough for Love where he writes:

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

That’s a good start. But in order to do well in scenarios bandied about in the preparedness community, a competent man will need to know much more. Here then is my list of the Top Ten Skills to Survive The End Of The World As We Know It.

Medical Skills – Everyone who is interested in preparedness should already know CPR and basic first aid. If you don’t, the Red Cross offers classes that are free, or discounted. We even have videos that teach the most basic first aid. But basic CPR and first aid is just the beginning. You should also take advanced first responder classes as time and finances allow. Even better are some of the survival medicine classes which offer critical skills needed to stabilize a trauma victim when access to a hospital is days or weeks away. Hands on training is always the best, but if you’re unable to find a class near you it’s possible to learn many advanced skills for combat first aid such as treating gunshot wounds and other trauma. Don’t neglect natural medicines, as pharmacies may not always be there when you need them, and even if they are, the drugs you need may be unavailable or prohibitively expensive. Most drugs are found naturally and can be used successfully in a number of situations.
Advanced Gardening, Irrigation, and Farming The world population is continuously growing, and the demand for food never ceases. Indeed, world hunger is making headlines with more and more frequency. It seems inevitable that the era when we could to walk into a supermarket and find cheap, affordable, and abundant food is coming to an end. It then becomes imperative that the competent man (or woman) should be able to successfully grow food on a small lot. Advanced gardening techniques such as hydroponics allow an enormous amount of food to be grown in a very small area. Hydroponics does require a significant investment in equipment, and electrical power is usually required as well, so other gardening and even farming techniques are necessary to produce crops from arable land. Other farming skills such as animal husbandry will come in handy for raising small animals such as chickens, goats, sheep and other livestock. You should also learn basic care and first aid for small farm animals.
Hunting, Fishing, and Trapping Hunting, fishing and trapping are all excellent ways to put protein on the table. Contrary to what many in the preparedness community say, the woods will not instantly be depopulated of small and medium game, nor the lakes and streams devoid of fish. Knowing how to hunt, fish, and trap using snares, dead-falls, trot lines, gill-nets, and other techniques can be an incredibly effective way to keep meat on the menu.
Food Processing, Preservation, and Storage It’s harvest time in the garden, and you’ve got a freshly killed deer; now what? Knowing how to properly process wild game is a vitally important skill that many lack. What’s more, safe preservation and storage are critically important. Failing to properly preserve your food can be deadly, as bacteria, parasites, and fungus infest anything that has been poorly preserved. Learn how to dry fruits and meats, how to salt and smoke meats, proper pickling techniques, and how to jar and can food with and without a pressure cooker. Food storage is just as important as food processing. It’s not difficult to learn either. In just a few hours you can learn how to safely keep food for long term storage.
Self Defense and Firearms Use When seconds count, the police are just minutes away. It’s foreseeable that this response time will only get worse in a TEOTWAWKI scenario. Learn the basics of self defense and the effective use of a pistol, rifle, and shotgun. We carry a wide selection of Army Field Manuals that can help you learn the basics of self defense and firearm use.
Gunsmithing If you own a firearm, you will need spare parts and the skills and knowledge to repair it. There is no guarantee that parts will be available in the future, and there may not be any competent gunsmiths available. This means that you will need to have the skills and know-how to be able to service your own firearm and repair it should it become inoperable.
Business, Accounting, and Bartering Just because the end of the world has happened doesn’t mean that the rules of business, accounting, and bartering have changed. A gold backed currency may no longer exist, but other currencies will quickly replace it. It may be fuel, it may be bullets, it could even be buttons or c lamshells, but knowing basic business, accounting, and bartering skills will allow you to function well no matter what the economy is like.
Basic Electronics and Wiring The electrical grid may be down, but that doesn’t mean that electricity isn’t still around. Wind and solar power are becoming more and more available, and of course there are always fuel powered generators. If you’re prepared, you probably have deep cycle batteries and a solar or generator setup already. But did you know the small amount of power generated from your setup is more than enough to kill a man? Knowing basic electronics and wiring isn’t just useful to provide electricity and power for your home, but is critical from a safety standpoint.
Basic Carpentry Basic carpentry is an essential skill that everyone should know. Having a basic skill-set in carpentry will allow you to not only repair broken furniture and cabinetry, but also repair minor structural components of your home. This valuable skill can also provide you with an additional means of income as you become more proficient. Advanced carpentry can be even more useful if you learn how to take harvested wood from trees and finish it into usable planks and boards.
Auto Mechanics I singled out auto mechanics for our last skill, not because I think that there will be a need for auto mechanics in the future, but because it the skills of a capable auto mechanic are useful in a number of other areas. Auto mechanics is a complex field involving plumbing, electrical work, internal combustion, as well as basic mechanics. Learning how to wrench on your own engine also teaches you how to work with machine parts and tools with strict tolerances.

This list is by no means comprehensive, but it does give a brief idea of the basic skills and knowledge needed to be self sufficient in a world where easy access to food, tools, and repair facilities is not available. Have a few ideas that you feel should be included? Let us know in the comment section!

Firearm Identification and Values

2010-11-17T15:35:00.000-08:00

Attending auctions such as Rock Island Auction’s Premier Collector’s Firearm Auction is an excellent way to learn about firearm valuation.

One of the most frequent questions we receive is someone asking what their gun is, or what it’s worth. Although I really enjoy trying to help folks w/ antique gun questions, business has to take first priority, and I regrettably find that I often don‘t have the time to do research on email questions of this type. I will do appraisals of collections for hire. This page will give you some ideas on how to identify your gun and find out what it might be worth..

HOW TO ASK – You need to provide enough info to identify & estimate the value of the gun you’re asking about. Be sure your GUN IS UNLOADED first. Here is a basic list of what to include:

TYPE – Long gun or hand gun? Is it a muzzleloader or does it take shells? If it’s a handgun, is it a revolver (with a rotating cylinder holding the rounds) or an autopistol (with a removable magazine)? If a long gun, is it a shotgun or rifle?
ACTION – What type of action does it have – single shot, break-open, double barrel, bolt action, pump action, lever action, revolver, semi-auto, other? Double or single action? Exposed hammer or hammerless? If revolver, solid frame, tip-up, top-break, or swingout cylinder?
CALIBER – sometimes this is marked. Otherwise, give an approx. measurement of bore diameter
MEASUREMENTS – barrel length, overall length.
MARKINGS – if you know the make & model, say so. Either way, list ALL markings on the gun.
CONDITION – After you know WHAT it is, the biggest factor in value is the CONDITION of the gun. Differences in condition can EASILY halve or double the value of a gun. This is a somewhat technical evaluation, and if you’re not familiar with guns, you probably won’t be able to do it, and should ask help. There are two systems commonly used.

The NRA CONDITION STANDARDS rate modern guns as New, Excellent, Very Good, Good or Fair, and antique guns as Excellent, Fine, Very Good, Good, Fair, and Poor. Each condition rating has a specific definition (you can find these defined in Blue Book of Gun Values).

The PERCENTAGE SYSTEM rates the percent of original finish remaining on the gun, 100% to 0%.

Refinishing a collectible gun or modifying it or customizing it or over-cleaning it nearly always lowers the value. NEVER take it upon yourself to clean up an old gun unless you know what you’re doing. I’ve seen folks buff a $2,000 gun into a $200 junker!

REFERENCE BOOKS – Most value questions can be answered by the major price guides -

Blue Book of Gun Values by Fjestad, uses the percentage system, good for modern guns, no pictures.

Standard Catalog of Firearms by Schwing, uses “Excellent” through “Fair” rating system, lots of photos, good all around guide, but BEWARE that their “condition definitions” for antique guns are radically different from the widely accepted NRA antique condition definitions!

Flayderman’s Guide to Antique American Arms – absolutely the best for antique American arms.

R.L. Wilson’s Official Guide – can be helpful for oddball guns not listed in the others.

Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson – by Jim Supica (that’s me) & Richard Nahas. With no false modesty, the best price guide for S&W’s.

Remember that these list RETAIL prices. Expect a dealer to offer you 40% to 70% of these if he’s buying for resale.

Most of these are $30 each, and available at major bookstores, most libraries, or at Amazon.com

SOME SPECIFIC GUN VALUES -

There are some types of older guns that tend not to bring much money (as guns go). While there are always exceptions, here are some of the types that tend to bring less than folks often hope -

Most single barrel break-open shotguns.- (except for fine trap guns), most bring $25-$75
Most top-break or solid frame .32 & .38 DA revolvers by firms like H&R, Iver Johnson, US Revolver, Secret Service Special, Hopkins & Allen, Forehand etc. Most bring $40 to $125. A truly “as new” gun in the original box can bring more. Top-breaks by S&W can bring more, and large frame .44 & .45 caliber S&W top-breaks can be very valuable. Foreign copies of S&W’s do not bring nearly as much as original S&W’s.
Many (but not all) double barrel shotguns w/ damascus barrels have relatively low values. Damascus barrels have a “twist” or “laminated” pattern in the steel, and are generally unsafe to shoot with modern ammunition. They are primarily “wall hangers” or “decorators”. About 95% of these will retail in the $100 to $300 range. This range includes most well-worn, plain grade double barrel muzzle-loading shotguns, as well as those which break open to take shotshells.

Those double damascus shotguns which will bring more have one or more of the following factors -

Famous maker (such as Purdey, LC Smith, Parker, Greener, W&C Scott, etc.)
High grade of gun. Nearly all the best makers offered several “grades” of guns. The better grades included fine engraving, select fancy wood, special features, etc.
Excellent original condition (never refinished or over cleaned, barrels never cut, no rubber recoil pad installed)

A double barrel damascus shotgun with all three of these factors can be worth many thousands $$$.

Most mass-produced reproduction blackpowder (muzzle-loader) guns do not bring a great deal. It’s not uncommon to mistake a modern reproduction of an antique pattern gun for an original. If a gun is marked “For Black Powder Only”, it is reproduction. Usually, if it’s marked “Made in (name of country)” it’s a reproduction. Many Italian made reproduction cap and ball firearms retail used in the $40 to $150 range. Some of the better reproductions, such as those by Colt, Ruger, or Thompson Center, might tend to retail more in the $100 to $350 range. Some rare hand made reproduction Kentucky rifles by famous individual gunsmiths can bring much more, but can be slow to sell.
Recently imported military surplus rifles. Again, there are numerous exceptions, but many “import marked” bolt action type non-US military rifles in well-used condition (esp. w/ “mismatched” serial numbers) will retail in the $50 to $200 range. Ones that seem to be especially cheap right now include most English, Turkish, Chinese, and Spanish bolt actions (some of these are caliber conversions which are unsafe to fire.)
TRADE NAME GUNS – These are guns which were made by various manufacturers for large distributors or mail order or hardware stores. The manufacturers would put any name the wholesaler wanted on these. This started back in the 1800′s (see damascus doubles above) and continued through the 1960′s for Sears & Wards. Folks are sometimes disappointed, since they find a gun with an odd name on it, and assume that it must be rare, and if rare, must be valuable. Not so. Trade name guns have little collector interest, and are valued primarily as shooters. Many of these were made by good manufacturers and make fine shooters – they just don’t usually have collector value. Most trade name .22 rifles will retail between $40 to $100. Trade name pump shotguns will retail in the $60 to $150 range. See above for trade name single barrel & double barrel shotguns.
COMMEMORATIVES – Most guns increase in value over the years (after an initial depreciation when the first few years). One group of guns that have not performed as well as others are COMMEMORATIVES. To get top value, a commemorative must be absolutely unfired w/ the original box & all papers. Even so, they can be very tough to sell, and some are worth less now than when purchased years ago. Especially weak performers have been commemoratives created by firms such as Franklin Mint, American Historical Society, etc. Most better price guides list retail values for commemoratives which were offered by the actual manufacturer (most notably, Colt & Winchester.) They can be slow to sell if you’re trying to get “book value” or close to it.
CUSTOM GUNS – Also, it is very hard to get your money back out of CUSTOM GUNS. Often, customization reduces collector interest, and most shooters will not pay full cost of someone else’s personal mods. This is especially true of SPORTERIZED MILITARY RIFLES. Usually, a military rifle will be worth more in it’s original configuration than if someone has extensively modified it for sporting use.

There are some types of guns which are worth watching for, as they nearly always have good collector value. A listing here will be woefully incomplete, but some of the many major collecting fields include Colt percussion revolvers, Colt Single Action Armys, pre-1964 Winchesters, Lugers & other early auto pistols in nice original condition, large frame S&W top-breaks, US military arms, original percussion & flintlock rifles, fine double shotguns, etc, etc., etc. There are generally collectors for specific rare guns by any of the better quality manufacturers. Among those, often WWII or earlier guns bring a premium, and pre-1898 “antique” guns may bring an even larger premium.

Training "Do's" and Don'ts"

2010-11-16T15:33:00.000-08:00

As you all know by now, I’ve come on board with Cheaper Than Dirt to do a little shooting, a little writing, and to continue the mission of Gun Nuts Media to promote and enhance the shooting sports. I’m really excited about the opportunity to work with Cheaper than Dirt, as they’ve shown a great commitment to the shooting sports and IDPA in particular and I hope to help with that.

For my very first post, I want to talk about what you should and shouldn’t do at your first handgun course. For a lot of new shooters out there, the decision to take a General handgun course, such at the General Defensive Handgun class offered by Insights Training Center in Bellevue, Washington is a big step, as they’ve made the realization that they want or need to be more proficient with their carry firearm than they can get by just plinking targets at the range. This is a good thing, so in the hope of supporting that training decision we’re going to offer some helpful tips on some handy guidelines for having a good training experience your first time out.

The first thing to bear in mind is that a class like a General Defensive Handgun class or Gunsite’s 250 class isn’t going to make you a High Speed Low Drag Tier Zero Operator. They’re not designed to do that. There are classes higher up the skill level chain that can teach you a lot of the skills used by elite military and law enforcement units, however a basic defensive handgun class has a very specific purpose in mind; to make you more effective at using your concealed carry firearm if you ever find yourself in the middle of a defensive shooting.

At the left, Insights Training Center instructor Tracy Roberts demonstrates the modern isosceles stance used in their classes, which brings us to the first thing to bring to gun school: an open mind. If you’ve already had training, or “have always done it this way”, don’t let that interfere with your ability to try new things. If you open yourself up to new techniques, you might find out that something works better than the way you had previously been shooting, and that’s always a good thing.

Now, while bringing an open mind is a great first step, there are a few other things that you’ll need as well – not the least of which is a basic understanding of how your firearm works and how to handle it safely. An intro defensive firearms course presupposes that you are already conversant with the basic function of your weapon – if you have never fired your gun before or aren’t familiar with how it functions, a basic “intro to firearms course” or some private training time with a qualified NRA instructor would be a better fit. However, if you’re past the “introductory” skill level and want to step it up, then you’re the right candidate for a basic “defensive” firearms class.

Speaking of guns, that’s another good item to bring – a gun. But not just any old gun you have laying around, but a functional, reliable firearm that’s going to get you through a 400-600 round class without inflicting abuse on you as the shooter. A great example is the Ruger SR9 (and by extension the SR40). I shot the SR9c, the compact version through a defensive handgun course recently with zero malfunctions or issues through the pistol.

The final important item to bring to your gun class is a good holster and magazine pouches. Holsters are important, as your gun is going to spend a lot of time coming in and out of the holster, which means that you’re going to want a good, reliable rig. I personally prefer outside the waistband holsters made of kydex from companies like Comp-Tac and Blade-Tech for my training holsters, as they’re going to provide the highest level of comfort for the training experience.

But again, all gear issues aside, the most important thing to bring is an open mind. If you approach all training as an opportunity to learn and improve yourself as a shooter, you’ll always stand to benefit from it.

Caleb Giddings Joins Team Cheaper Than Dirt!

2010-11-15T15:32:00.000-08:00

We’re proud to announce today our sponsorship of well known IDPA competitor Caleb Giddings.

Caleb Giddings made a name for himself with his performances shooting Enhanced Service Revolver in IDPA competition as well as his 2010 appearance as a contestant on the History Channel’s reality TV show “Top Shot”. Caleb comes to Cheaper Than Dirt! from the National Rifle Association where he worked as an election coordinator. Caleb has been shooting since he was 8 years old. It was in the US Coast Guard Academy on the collegiate pistol team where he first found that he had more than just a knack for shooting. As a bull’s-eye pistol shooter Caleb laid the foundation for his move into action pistol shooting. His performances at area and national matches regularly place him with some of the best shooters in the nation.

Among his peers Caleb is considered to be a major up-and-coming competitor. He was the 2009 IDPA Indiana State Champion and has the potential to make a serious showing at the 2011 IDPA Nationals. When asked about the partnership Caleb had this to say: “I’m proud to be sponsored by Cheaper than Dirt! Their commitment to supporting the shooting sports at both the local and the national level is fantastic. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to spread that support to both new and experienced shooters!”

Giddings will be doing more than just letting his shooting performance do the talking. In addition to being a talented shooter he is also a published writer for Shooting Illustrated and other major publications. Readers of this blog can look forward to feature articles from Caleb with shooting tips, firearm reviews, as well as ammunition testing and evaluation.

Caleb went on to discuss upcoming ammunition reviews: “Testing ammo is an opportunity that has me fired up. For competitive shooters, hunters, and concealed carry permit holders it’s extremely important that the ammunition you choose for the job be able to deliver the right performance. Whether it’s making a clean kill on a game animal, making the perfect hit on the x-ring, or protecting your family, I’m thrilled to be testing ammunition from Cheaper Than Dirt and helping the shooting community to make informed decisions about their ammo.”

Please join us in welcoming Caleb to Team Cheaper Than Dirt!

Military Snowshoe Assembly and Use

2010-11-15T15:30:00.000-08:00

The toe strap installed by itself.

The heel binding installed by itself.

The heel and toe bindings installed together.

Strapping in the toes.

The bindings correctly installed and ready for use.

Snowshoe in use showing proper binding range of motion.

We got a great deal on these lightweight military-surplus magnesium snowshoes, but before you head off on an exciting winter adventure you'll need to make sure that the bindings included with the snowshoes are properly installed. Though it can seem intimidating when you're staring at a tangle of webbing and latches, the actual installation process is easy and straightforward.

First, take the shorter of the two strap sizes, the toe straps, and string them through the webbing just behind the toe gap as indicated in the photo to the left. Next, take the larger of the straps and lay it out flat. These ankle straps are secured to the snowshoes by way of two straps that thread through the snowshoe webbing on either side of the toe strap. These straps are threaded through and then looped back through the locking ratchet.

At this point, you are ready to strap your boots into the bindings. With the ankle strap (the rear strap) laid out to the rear, place your foot onto the snowshoe and fasten the toe strap over your foot using by threading the strap through the locking ratchet. Next, pull the rear strap up to the rear of your ankle and then wrap it around your ankle and fasten it though the locking ratchet.

Tighten down the toe and ankle straps until they are snug but not so tight that they inhibit movement of blood flow. Adjust the length of the ankle strap for your foot size by loosening or tightening the ankle straps where they attach on either side of the toe strap.

Check for proper movement as indicated by the lowermost image on the left. The heel of your foot should be able to pivot up with the heel strap while your toes pivot down through the toe gap. Perform the above binding installation process and verify proper range of motion on your other foot, and you're ready to go!

For even more information on the proper use of these snowshoes, we're including the following excerpt from the Army Field Manual 31-70

Section IV. MILITARY SNOWSHOEING
4-36. Purpose and Scope
a. Snowshoes are individual aids for oversnow movement. Like skis, they provide flotation in snow and are useful for cross-country marches and other activities which require movement in snow-covered terrain.

b. The snowshoe is an oval or elongated frame braced with two of three crosspieces and the inclosed space filled with a web lacing. A binding or harness attached to the webbing secures the wearer's foot to the snowshoe. Flotation is provided by the webbing, which is closely laced and prevents the snowshoe from sinking too deeply into the snow when weight is placed upon it. Depth and consistency of snow will determine the amount of support obtained on the snow cover and the rate of movement.

c. Snowshoes are particularly useful for individuals working in confined areas such as bivouac sites and supply dumps, for drivers of various types of vehicles, gun crews, cooks, mechanics, and for similar occupations where aids to movement in snow are necessary. Transporting, carrying, and storing snowshoes is relatively easy due to their size and weight. Maintenance requirements are generally negligible and little skill is required to become proficient on snowshoes. However, the requirement for physical conditioning is as great, or greater, as that needed for skiing. The use of snowshoes when pulling and carrying heavy loads is particularly practical, as the hands and arms remain free. On steep slopes, however, the use of snowshoes is considerably limited because traction becomes negligible and the snowshoe will slide, causing loss of footing. Generally, the rate of movement in any type of terrain is slow because snowshoes will not glide over the snow. The gliding properties of the ski are not obtained with the snowshoes; this adversely affects the amount of time and energy spent in movement. In deep snow the trailbreaker must be changed frequently. Especially when wet, snow tends to stick to the webbing, thereby adding weight to the snowshoe.

d. There are three types of standard issue snowshoes: the trail, the bearpaw, and the magnesium. They can be used with all types of winter footgear. The trail snowshoe weighs approximately 6.5 pounds, the bearpaw, 5.5 pounds and the magnesium, 4.6 pounds.

(1) Trail. The trail-type snowshoe is long, with a rather narrow body and upturned toes (fig. 4-29). The two ends of the frame connect and extend tail-like to the rear. The turned-up toe has a tendency to ride over the snow and other minor obstacles. The excellent flotation provided by its large surfaces makes the trail snowshoe best for cross-country marches, deep snow conditions, and trailbreaking.

(2) Bearpaw. This type of snowshoe is short, wide, and oval in shape, with no frame extension (fig. 4-30). The bearpaw snowshoe is preferable to the trail type for close work with weapons and vehicles, in heavy brush, and in other confined areas. Carrying or storing is also easier.

(3) Magnesium. The magnesium snowshoe is the lightest and most durable of the three types (fig. 4-31). The snowshoe has a magnesium frame with the center section made of steel, nylon-coated wire. The magnesium snowshoe is 17.70 cm (approx 7") shorter than the standard wooden trail snowshoe but is 9.50 cm (approx 4") wider giving it approximately the same flotation characteristics.

e. The trail and bearpaw snowshoes have their own individual bindings, however, the, "Binding, Snowshoe, Bearpaw and Trail Type" has been developed for use on all three types. This binding consists generally of a toe strap and a heel and instep strap. The straps are made of nylon and are secured by keepers and cam lever quick-release buckles. The method of securing the binding to the magnesium snowshoe is snown in figure 4-32.

4-37. Care and Storage of Snowshoes
a. Care. Snowshoes must always be kept in good condition. Frequent checks are necessary, particularly of webbing and binding, because individual strands may be ripped or worn out. Repairs must be made immediately, otherwise the webbing will loosen and start to unravel. If unvarnished, the rawhide webbing on wooden snowshoes will absorb moisture, stretch and turn white, particularly in wet snow. It should be dried out slowly, avoiding direct flames, and be revarnished at the first opportunity. Wooden frames may fray from hard wear and should be sanded and varnished. When needed, other minor repairs should be made as soon as practicable. When snow cover is shallow, care must be taken not to step on small tree stumps, branches, or other obstacles, since the webbing may be broken or damaged. Stepping into water is to be avoided; the water will freeze and snow will stick to it. When not in use in the field, snowshoes are placed in temporary racks, hung in trees, or placed upright in the snow. They should be kept away from open fires and out of reach of rodents.

b. Storage. In off-seasons, wooden snowshoes are stored in a dry, well-ventilated place so that the rawhide will not mildew or rot and the frames warp. Each snowshoe is closely checked for possible damage, repaired if needed, and revarnished. As in the field, snowshoes are protected against damage and from rodents. Magnesium snowshoes are cleaned and repainted if necessary. Webbing is examined and repaired or replaced if needed.

4-38. Snowshoe Technique
a. A striding technique is used for movement with snowshoes. In taking a stride, the toe of the snowshoe is lifted upward, to clear the snow, and thrusted forward. Energy is conserved by lifting it no higher than is necessary to clear the snow and slide the tail over it. If the front of the snowshoe catches, the foot is pulled back to free it and then lifted before proceeding with the stride. The best and least fatiguing method in travel is a lose-kneed rocking gait in a normal rhythmic stride. Care is taken not to step on or catch the other snowshoe.

b. On gentle slopes, ascent is made by climbing straight upward. Traction is generally very poor on hard-packed or crusty snow. Steeper terrain is ascended by traversing and packing a trail similar to a shelf across it. When climbing, the snowshoe is placed as horizontally as possible in the snow. On hard snow, the snowshoe is placed flat on the surface with the toe of the upper one diagonally uphill to get more traction. In the event the snow is sufficiently hard-frozen to support the weight of a person, it is generally better to remove the snowshoes and proceed temporarily on foot. In turning around, the best method is to swing the leg up and turn in the new direction, as in making a kick turn on skis (fig. 4-33).

c. Obstacles such as logs, tree stumps, ditches and small streams should be stepped over. Care must be taken not to place too much strain on the snowshoe ends by bridging a gap, since the frame may break. In shallow snow there is danger of catching and tearing the webbing on tree stumps or snags which are only sightly covered. Wet snow will frequently ball up under the feet, interfering with comfortable walking. This snow should be knocked off with a stick or pole as soon as possible. Although ski poles are generally not used in snowshoeing, one or two poles are desirable when carrying heavy loads, especially in mountainous terrain. The bindings must not be fastened too tightly or circulation will be cut off, and frostbite may occur. During halts, bindings should be checked for fit and possible readjustment.

4-39. Training
Snowshoe training requires little technical skill. However, emphasis must be placed on the physical conditioning of the individual and the development of muscles which are seldom used in ordinary marching. The technique, as such, can be learned in a few periods of instruction. Stiffness and soreness of muscles are to be expected at first. The initial training should be gradual with regard to loads carried and distances covered. It should be progressive, with ample time allowed for the individual to acquire physical proficiency, gradually increasing the distance covered and weight carried or pulled. Overcoming obstacles such as dense brush, fallen timber, and ditches should be emphasized during training. Trailbreaking, with frequent change of lead man, should also be stressed. Snowshoe training can be accomplished concurrently with other training requiring individual cross-country movement.

Remington's Response To CNBC

2010-11-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

Recently, CNBC put out a hit piece accusing Remington of knowingly producing faulty rifles. The reporting portrayed the Remington Model 700 rifle as unsafe in any hands and blamed Remington for deaths and injuries that could have easily been avoided had the users followed proper muzzle discipline.

After contacting all the agencies in the CNBC piece, Remington has taken the time to respond to the baseless allegations leveled by the media:

Recently CNBC produced an “expose” claiming that the trigger mechanism of the Model 700 rifle has a deadly design flaw. This claim is demonstrably false. Remington stands fully behind the safety and reliability of the Model 700 rifle. Whether by our hunters, target shooters, law enforcement officers, or military forces, the Model 700 has been put to the test billions of times under the most grueling and challenging conditions. The rifle’s performance over the last five decades has led to its well-deserved reputation as the finest and most-trusted bolt action rifle in the world.

Supported by trial lawyers and a hired expert, CNBC sensationalizes tragic shooting accidents and takes decades-old documents out of context to smear Remington, its employees, and the iconic Model 700. Clearly, CNBC had no interest in providing a fair and accurate history of the Model 700. Rather, CNBC turned a blind eye to the multitude of facts – both provided by Remington and otherwise readily available –in order to demonize another member of the firearms industry.

Set forth below are Remington’s itemized responses to many of the allegations made by CNBC. Remington provides these responses, with facts, as a service to its valued customers, its loyal employees, and the shooting public.

Allegation Fact
The Model 700 rifle is prone to firing without the trigger being pulled because of a design defect in the Walker trigger mechanism. Both Remington and experts hired by plaintiff attorneys have conducted testing on guns returned from the field, which were alleged to have fired without a trigger pull, and neither has ever been able to duplicate such an event on guns which had been properly maintained and which had not been altered after sale.

Mr. Belk, a paid plaintiffs’ expert, was given extensive air time by CNBC to espouse his theory that the Remington 700 is defective because the trigger “connector” supposedly allows debris to interfere with the trigger mechanism (the “debris theory”). In statements made under oath, however, Mr. Belk has demonstrated the implausibility of the theory upon which he and CNBC rely.

• He admitted he has never found debris or contaminants to
be interfering with the trigger and connector in a Model 700
rifle he had examined.

• He admitted that he has never attempted to duplicate his
“debris theory” because the possibility of producing such an
inadvertent firing is simply too remote.

• He admitted that accidental discharges can and do occur as
a result of unknowing inadvertent trigger pulls, and that
many use these excuses to avoid embarrassment or blame.

The shooting accidents featured in the CNBC program involved circumstances where the Remington Model 700 rifle fired without a trigger pull. Whenever a firearm is not handled properly, tragic accidents can occur. Each of the tragic and emotional personal injury and death cases cited by CNBC involved a breach of one or
more important gun safety rules.

• Failure to keep the rifle pointed in a safe direction
• Failure to properly maintain the rifle
• Altering the rifle’s trigger mechanism
• Failure to have the safety engaged when not actively
engaged in firing the rifle

BARBER ACCIDENT
The Barber rifle had been modified in multiple ways and poorly maintained (rusted action). Even so, in testing by experts for both Remington and the Barber family, the Barber rifle would fire only by pulling the trigger while the safety was in the fire position.

JORDAN ACCIDENT
Mr. Jordan’s Model 700 rifle, which CNBC alleged fired without a trigger pull, resulting in the accidental shooting of his wife, had a modified trigger. According to police reports, Mr. Jordan was carrying the rifle on a sling, and as it slipped off his shoulder, the gun discharged, striking Mrs. Jordan nearby. Mr. Jordan acknowledged that the gun’s safety was in the “fire” position and also asked investigators, “do you think it could be possibly [sic] that I hit the trigger with my thumb or finger when I was reaching for the rifle?”

ANDERSON ACCIDENT
Serious gun handling errors led to the tragic death of Kathy Anderson, another case featured on the program. The account provided by CNBC and the Andersons’ attorney, Robert Chaffin – that the rifle fired when the owner was unloading his rifle in another room, and the bullet went through the wall – is unambiguously contradicted by police reports. Those reports clearly state that the shooting occurred when the owner was showing the loaded rifle to a 14-year-old boy in a room
of people, including Mrs. Anderson. Testing by Remington and plaintiffs’ experts verified that the firearm would only discharge when the trigger was pulled with the safety in the “fire” position.

RAMBO ACCIDENT
Mr. Jay Rambo has a lawsuit pending against Remington. According to the allegations of the complaint, his father, Dale Rambo, was in the process of loading his rifle when the rifle fired. Because there is pending litigation in this matter Remington will not comment other than to note that its formal response to the lawsuit includes the allegation that the senior Mr. Rambo’s careless and negligent handling of the rifle “was a direct and proximate cause” of his son’s injuries.
Military and police agencies have had issues with Model 700s. U.S. MARINE CORPS CNBC extracted portions of Marine Corps incident reports in an attempt to support its allegation that rifles were experiencing firing without trigger pulls. CNBC left out the facts that the Marine Corps found that the firearms in question had been improperly altered and that Marines had coded both of their incident reports “U” for “Misuse of Item” as opposed to finding the gun at fault. After its investigation, the Marine Corps revised its training and maintenance manual to limit alteration of the fire control.

PORTLAND, MAINE POLICE DEPARTMENT
CNBC showed a five second video of a rifle discharging when the bolt is touched by a man dressed in camouflage fatigues with his identity blocked. CNBC did not provide
any information as to where the video was taken, who the shooter was, and most importantly, the condition of the gun. Remington has initiated contact with the Portland police department to inquire about the alleged problems and gain access to the guns and the officers.

U.S. BORDER PATROL
Remington representatives spoke with a Border Patrol official familiar with the CNBC allegation that Border Patrol officers had experienced misfires. The Border Control official advised Remington that the rifles had been improperly altered. The Border Patrol continues to utilize Walker fire controls in their Remington sniper rifles.

U.S. MILITARY
The Model 700 continues to be the firearm of choice for elite shooters from America’s military and law enforcement communities, and has been the platform for the United States Marine Corps and U.S. Army sniper weapon systems for over two decades.
A multitude of historical documents show that a defect
in the design of the Model 700 trigger mechanism causes accidental discharges. During CNBC’s program, portions of some isolated internal documents, going back as far as 1946, on a variety of topics, were mixed-and-matched by CNBC with other documents on unrelated topics to lead the viewer to false impressions.
As the documents clearly demonstrate, both “tricking” and the “screwdriver” test refer to contrived, intentional manipulations of the trigger, not an unintended discharge
as alleged in the CNBC program.

As explained in a 1979 Remington document, “tricking” required the user to first intentionally place the safety between the “safe” and the “fire” positions, then pull the trigger, then push the safety the remainder of the way forward to the “fire” position. If the firing pin released, the rifle was said to have failed the trick test. None of the events alleged to be involved in any of the shooting accidents featured in the CNBC program involved tricking. In addition, even the contrived “tricking” condition only applied to the estimated 1 percent of Model 700 rifles manufactured before 1975, not to any rifles made thereafter as was put forth by CNBC.

CNBC also inappropriately relied upon 60-year-old documents created during the developmental and pilot testing phase for its proposition that the Remington 700 Walker trigger mechanism is unsafe. To the contrary, these documents underscore Remington’s long-standing commitment to safety through its program of pre-production testing of its products.
Jack Belk – Presented as the “Plaintiff Expert” Mr. Belk, a paid plaintiffs’ expert, has made numerous statements under oath that demonstrate the implausibility of the allegations made throughout the CNBC program:

• Mr. Belk testified under oath that he has never been able to duplicate an accidental discharge of a Model 700 without a trigger pull in any of the accident guns he has examined.

• Mr. Belk has testified that he has never found debris or contaminants to be interfering with the trigger and connector in a Model 700 rifle he had examined.

• Despite his reliance on this theory as being the cause for accidental fires, Mr. Belk has testified that he has never attempted to duplicate his debris theory because the
possibility of producing such an inadvertent firing is simply too remote.

• Mr. Belk has testified that he has no criticism of the design of the Model 700’s manual safety mechanism.

• Mr. Belk has testified that accidental discharges can and do occur as a result of unknowing inadvertent trigger pulls, and that many use these excuses to avoid embarrassment or blame.

• Mr. Belk’s focus has been in attempting to advance his “debris theory,” a focus that he has not limited to the Walker trigger mechanism. Mr. Belk, as a paid plaintiff’s
expert, has also advanced this theory against other gun manufacturers.
Roger James – Presented as the “Remington Insider” As the alleged “Remington Insider” Roger James has testified in open court, he last worked for Remington in 1993.

Mr. James never worked in the manufacturing or production of firearms; rather, he was employed in Remington’s ammunition plant. In 1997, Mr. James was hired by plaintiffs’ attorneys to testify in two cases involving Remington shotguns and one involving a semi-automatic rifle.

Testifying in those cases under oath, he was specifically asked whether he had “any recollection of ever hearing anyone at Remington discuss alleged accidental discharges involving bolt-action rifles.” His answer was, “No, sir.”
“The complaints stack up in the 1970s after Remington recalls a similar rifle, the 600, over inadvertent discharges. But the company decides not to recall the more popular 700.” The trigger mechanism of the Model 600 rifle at the time
of the recall was different than the Model 700 rifle’s trigger mechanism. In fact, when Remington recalled the Model 600 rifle, it replaced Model 600 trigger mechanisms with Model 700 trigger mechanisms.
The 2007 X-Mark Pro is “exactly the same mechanism” that Mike Walker proposed in 1948. Remington has an extensive and ongoing research and development program across all of its product lines, and continuously introduces new and updated products. Remington introduced the X-Mark Pro trigger mechanism in 2007. The X-Mark Pro trigger mechanism has a one-piece trigger without a connector. Like the Walker trigger mechanism, the X-Mark Pro is a safe and reliable high performance system. Remington continues to utilize the Walker trigger mechanism in rifles sold to the U.S. military
and for use in certain custom rifles as requested by our customers.

The 1948 design shown by CNBC is very dissimilar to the X-Mark Pro and, in fact, was not even Mr. Walker’s, but that of another Remington engineer.

CNBC also did not note that Mr. Walker’s 1948 proposal would have left the connector in place, or that when Mr. Walker designed the Model 700 in the early 1960s, he maintained the connector and incorporated a sear blocking safety mechanism, consistent with prior designs.
Instead of changing its guns, Remington changed its message to the public and developed the Ten Commandments of Firearms Safety with giant public relations firm Hill & Knowlton. Remington firmly stands behind the importance of gun safety and has actively supported and promoted safe gun handling practices and other safety initiatives for decades. Remington did not, however, develop the Ten Commandments of Firearms Safety. According to the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute (SAAMI), the Ten Commandments of Firearms Safety have been in existence since the 1920s.
“Every case is settled with a confidentiality agreement that prevents you from talking about it.” Confidentiality agreements are a very common practice in civil litigation, and it is often the plaintiffs who want such a provision. In fact, when the Barber case was “satisfactorily resolved” in 2002, a confidentiality provision was included in the agreement at Mr. Barber’s request.

Cheaper Than Dirt! Joins The 3-Gun Nation

2010-11-04T12:57:00.000-07:00

The practical shooting sports have recently become mainstream with a number of reality TV shows and magazine style television shows promoting the various shooting sports. One of these new shows is 3-Gun Nation, which airs weekly episodes on Versus. 3-Gun Nation follows competitive shooters as they engage courses of fire using pistols, shotguns, and rifles in a timed event. Winners are awarded prize money at the end of each competition.

3-gun is an action shooting competition where competitors run a course of fire that has them engaging targets with pistol, shotgun, and rifle at distances from 5 yards all the way out to 300 yards for the longest rifle shots. Scores are based on time, with missed shots giving an additional time penalty from 5 to 15 seconds. Internet based firearm and ammunition retailer Cheaper Than Dirt! recently became the newest member of the 3-Gun Nation when they picked up commercial sponsorship of the 2010 and 2011 season.

"We love to support the shooting sports and always like to get more people out participating," said Cheaper Than Dirt's Chief Operating Officer Roberta Wilson. "Cheaper Than Dirt can help viewers interested in getting started in 3-Gun competitions with our broad selection of discount ammunition, firearms, and accessories, as well as our helpful online community forum. We also have a club and shooting competition search engine located right on our website that helps our customers find a 3-gun organization or event in their area."

Filming for 3-Gun Nation takes place at major 3-gun matches across the nation, including DPMS sponsored Superstition Mountain match, Blue Ridge 3-gun hosted by Sabre Defense, FNH USA Midwest, the MGM Ironman and the JP Enterprises Rocky Mountain 3-gun match. Competitors earn points at these competitions which are used to calculate the top 50 participants who are allowed the chance to win it all at the season finale 3-Gun Championship held in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Each qualifying match, as well as the championship, culminates in a "heads-up" style one-on-one competition with the top two competitors competing on identical side by side courses in a drag race to see who will take home the grand prize. The winner of the final one-on-one elimination takes home a $5,000 prize at each regular season match while the winner of the 3-Gun Championship walks away with a $25,000 prize. Last year the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit’s Daniel Horner took home top honors, winning the $25,000 grand prize, which brought his season winnings to a cool $30,000.

Executive Producer Pete Brown had this to say about 3-Gun Nation TV:

"Anybody who signs up and shoots any of the matches on our tour can get into our shoot-off. You can walk in off the street, shoot the match, and if you are in the top 8 from that match, you're in. There is no Hollywood here, it is 100% raw unfiltered competition. You show up, bring your A-Game and you can win. With 3-Gun TV we're really able to capture the essence of the sport. If you flip on the TV and you see 3-Gun Nation, you won't want to change the channel."

Country music star Mark Wills and Chad Adams are your hosts every week as they walk you through the competition and give you insights, tips, and tricks when they interview the competitors and manufacturers. Watch the newest episode of 3-Gun Nation when it airs Monday at 7am Eastern. The 2011 Season will air Saturday mornings at 9am Eastern.

Emergency Water Sources and Water Storage

2010-11-04T12:55:00.000-07:00

Water. Besides clean air, it’s the most important thing that you need to live. 4 minutes without air. 4 days without water. 4 weeks without food. That’s how long you can survive without these basic necessities. Because water is so important for survival, it is worth taking some time to evaluate your emergency water storage and usage plans.

First, take into account how much water storage capacity you currently have on hand. Include your bathtubs, sinks, hot water heaters, laundry machine, even the tank above your commode can serve as an emergency water supply. Add in any improvised water storage containers that are able to contain safe drinking water. When an emergency is imminent, you will often have a few minutes to fill up improvised water storage units such as the bathtubs, sinks, and clothes washing machine. To improve water cleanliness, bladders such as the Water Bob can be placed in your bathtub. Large water bladders such as this provide an air-free sealed container that keeps out dust and other particulates that can cause the water to turn sour over time. Smaller containers like this 5 gallon water bladder are more convenient than a large barrel or water bladder and have a carry handle that makes them easy to transport. Pre-fill these water bladders and store them in your freezer so that the next time a disaster strikes you will have plenty of water. The frozen jug can be used to keep food cold, and as it melts you will have fresh cold drinking water when you need it.

If an emergency is imminent, it is usually prudent to turn off the water supply to your house (unless supplied by a well). Public water supplies can be contaminated by either flooding or prolonged power outage. If this happens, your water supply could also become quickly contaminated. After shutting off the water you can recover the water held in your plumbing lines by opening the faucet with the highest elevation (usually a shower on the second floor) and then collecting the water by turning on the spigot or faucet at the lowest elevation and collecting that water in a clean storage container. Make sure you have sufficient containers, as the average household plumbing can contain as much as 10 gallons of water, possibly more in larger homes. In some cases water heaters located in an attic or second floor may also back-flow (siphon) into the plumbing and be able to be collected at the lowest spigot. If this is a possibility disconnect the hot water supply valve or turn off your water heater and let it cool (about 4 hours) before draining it into your water storage containers prior to draining the household plumbing lines.

Even if your house is served by a well instead, it’s still a good idea to fill up bathtubs and other water containers since the electricity that powers your well pump may not be available when an emergency strikes. An alternative is to have a generator or other power backup that you can use to power your well.

In some cases, with water taken from a container whose cleanliness is questionable or scavenged from a foreign source for example, you will need to treat the water to kill off any microorganisms that may be there. A personal water purification bottle such as the Katadyn MyBottle can be used to purify water consumed on an individual bases. Each filter will last for approximately 30 days of continual use for a person consuming an average of 3 quarts of water a day. Alternatively, water purification tablets can be used, but it should be noted that while these tablets do kill microorganisms they do not eliminate harmful chemicals. Water should never be consumed from a container that once held any sort of chemical, petroleum product, or cleaning supply.

Most people don’t realize how much water storage they actually have on hand. Even the most spartan economy apartment has 10 gallons or more of water storage just in the plumbing fixtures such as sinks and toilets. Add in a little bit of planning by keeping some additional water storage systems on hand in case of emergency and you should be able to store plenty of water to weather the storm.

For more information on emergency water filters, see our article on Water Purification

What Is The 3-Gun Nation?

2010-11-02T13:25:00.000-07:00

3-Gun competition is one of the fastest growing action shooting sports, and one of the first to get it’s own dedicated television coverage. 3-Gun Nation TV with hosts Mark Wills and Chad Adams is the hottest new show on the Versus channel. 3-Gun challenges shooters to engage courses of fire using a mix of rifle, shotgun, and pistol, with the goal to get the fastest time through the course with no penalties. The courses are challenging and include a combination of cardboard, clay, and steel targets, including targets that move and aerial targets that must be hit with a shotgun.

Cheaper Than Dirt! recently joined the 3-Gun Nation as a sponsor for the remaining 2010 and upcoming 2011 season. Pete Brown, Executive Producer of 3-Gun Nation TV, was gracious enough to sit down with us and talk about these 3-gun competitions and what the 3-Gun Nation TV Championship Series adds to the competition.

What is the 3-Gun Nation? 3-Gun Nation is a tournament series completely dedicated to 3-gun. What we do is we draw points from previously established matches. Last season we had 5 matches on our tour. At each one of the matches on the tour competitors accrue points in the series that count towards qualifying them for our championship.
Basically last year our series comprised of Superstition Mountain, MGM Ironman, Rocky Mountain, FNH Midwest, and the Blue Ridge Mountain 3-gun. All of the shooters that competed at each of those matches had match points tabulated to count towards our overall series. At the end of the season we had our championship where we took the competitors three best scores from the 5 matches in our series – and that gave us our top shooters that qualified for our championship.
At the end of the year we tabulate all of the data, and last year we cut off at 50. We took the top 50 and had a 1 day match in Las Vegas with 4 stages of fire and the top 16 from those 4 stages of fire went into the head-to-head 16 man elimination shoot-off in Vegas for a $25,000 grand prize from Leupold, $10,000 from U.S. P.A.L.M and $5,000 from Timney Triggers. The event, as with everything so far, has been 100% supported companies within our industry.
How do you go about selecting the competitors? Can anybody be a competitor on 3-Gun Nation? Absolutely, anybody who signs up and shoots any of the matches on our tour can get into our shoot-off. You can walk in off the street, shoot the match, and if you are in the top 8 from that match, you’re in.
This isn’t like your typical reality TV show then where producers audition shooters with a casting call, there’s no drama, it’s all about how well you can shoot? There is no Hollywood here, it is 100% raw unfiltered competition. You show up, bring your A-Game and you can win.
Last season we had 5 matches and our championship. To get into the championship you had to shoot a minimum of 3 of those matches. We take 3 scores out of the 5 matches to get the total score for the season. If you shot all 5 matches on the tour, you could have 2 bad matches and drop those points. We only take your top 3 best scores. But you have to shoot a minimum of 3 matches.
At the end of the year we tabulate all of the data, and last year we cut off at 50. We took the top 50 and had a 1 day match in Las Vegas with 4 stages of fire and the top 16 from those 4 stages of fire went into the head-to-head 16 man elimination shoot-off in Vegas for the $25,000 grand prize.
What does the schedule this year look like? The 2011 3-Gun Nation Season is a bit larger than the 2010 season, consisting of 7 qualifying events along with the 3-Gun Nation Championship. However, like last year, only 5 of the events will feature a $5,000 shoot-off. Also, just like last year, you will need to shoot at least 3 qualifiers to have enough scores to make our championship. We have simply expanded the number of matches available as qualifiers.
(Bold matches are TV events featuring a shoot off and the $5,000 prize – 5 qualifiers; 1 championship)
Ft. Benning 3-Gun (December 2-5, 2011)
3-Gun Points: YES
3-Gun Shoot Off: YES
3GN TV Event:YES
Superstition Mountain 3-Gun (March 25-27, 2011)
3GN POINTS: YES
3GN SHOOT OFF: NO
3GN TV EVENT: YES (Segments Only – Not full episode; no 3GN shoot-off)
Blue Ridge Mountain 3-Gun (April 29 – May 1, 2011)
3-Gun Points: YES
3-Gun Shoot Off: YES
3GN TV Event:YES
MGM Iron Man (June 9-11, 2011)
3-Gun Points: YES
3-Gun Shoot Off: YES
3GN TV Event:YES
Ozark 3-Gun (September)
3-Gun Points: YES
3-Gun Shoot Off: NO
3-Gun TV Event: YES (Segments Only – Not full episode; no 3GN shoot-off)
Rocky Mountain 3-Gun (August 4-6, 2011)
3-Gun Points: YES
3-Gun Shoot Off: YES
3GN TV Event:YES
USPSA Multi-Gun Nationals (DATE: TBD/October)
3-Gun Points: YES
3-Gun Shoot Off: YES
3GN TV Event:YES
3-Gun Nation Championship (DATE: TBD)
3-Gun Shoot Off: YES
3GN TV Event:YES
Let’s talk about the 3-Gun Nation hosts, you’ve got Mark Wills who is a well known singer and Chad Adams co-hosting. Tell me a bit about your hosts. First of all Mark Wills just brings his personality and his love of the shooting sports. He is a famous country singer who also happens to be a firearms proponent and enthusiast. He actually got started in pistol, shot Bianchi, and learned of 3-Gun and then learned what we were doing and wanted to be involved. When we heard that he was interested in what we were doing, obviously that was a no-brainer for us. He is just a great personality on camera and is a great promoter of the sport. He sorta represents the everyday shooter, the everyday guy who is learning what 3-Gun is and how much fun the competitive shooting sports are in general. He hosts special segments on our show where he goes and trains with different people in the industry that can pass along some knowledge to those people who might take an interest in shooting a match, whether it is 3-gun or pistol or shotgun. He breaks it down for the people who aren’t necessarily high-speed top level shooters. My partner Chad Adams reports from all the matches, interviews competitors and hosts our shoot-off. He brings several years of firearm industry experience to the table, as well as a career in firearm journalism. He really identifies with the shooters and what they are doing, and the equipment they are using. This past season was the first time he ever MC’d a live event. Superstition was our first match, he went out there in front of the crowd and made it happen, I was nervous for him! He really makes the shoot-off entertaining. He does a fantastic job.
You bring up an important point about the importance of bringing the shooting sports back into mainstream media and getting the public educated about our sport and the industry. The number one motivation for us is to expose the sport of 3-Gun to the world. The first time I ever saw a 3-Gun match it really just jumped out at me and hit me in the face. I could not believe that it was such an unknown sport. If there is ever a shooting sport that can reach out to the mainstream and intrigue the everyday viewer, it’s 3-Gun.
There is athleticism, there’s speed, there’s long distance rifle shooting, there’s running and gunning high-speed pistol and shotgun shooting, it has it all. Every stage is different. I don’t think it’s what people really think of when they think of a shooting match. To me, 3-Gun is the equivalent of the X-Games of shooting. What we’re trying to do is take 3-Gun and not only raise awareness but also help it grow and bring in new shooters.
The guys who are in 3-Gun are really passionate about it. This is a great opportunity to take the shooting sports to a level that no one has ever seen before.
With 3-Gun TV we’re really able to capture the essence of the sport. If you flip on the TV and you see 3-Gun Nation, you won’t want to change the channel. We’re out to grow the sport of 3-Gun, and we’re out to do it by producing the best TV show we possibly can and grow our web presence to draw interest.
Where do you see the future of 3-Gun and all of the action shooting sports heading? This year there’s going to be a fresh crop of 3-Gun matches popping up all over the place. People are talking about new matches and there are many segments of the firearms industry that really want to get involved. The more that the industry gets involved with the sport, whether it’s with 3-Gun Nation or not, the more we’ll see an increase in the number and frequency of matches across the country.
What I see is more matches popping up in more places and it being more accessible to folks outside the core group of dedicated shooters. Our goal is to help facilitate that in any way that we can and to be the number one resource for 3-gun competition, whether it’s finding a local match in your area or helping to facilitate local matches and getting new shooters involved.
How important is it that we encourage the next generation of shooters to get started in 3-gun? That’s a big thing that we want to do. We are trying to involve the youth and what we’d like to see is companies within the industry step forward and help us sponsor a division for the youth. How cool would it be to have 2 or 4 of the top youth competitors from the match go into a heads-up competition? If we had a new sponsored division for the junior shooters I think it would result in a grass roots level surge in popularity of the sport and begin to bring a lot more participants.
In this day and age of iPods and video games and all of the things that grab our kids attention, it can be incredibly hard to get the youth out of the house and into the discipline and challenge of the action shooting sports. We’re trying to make the sport entertaining enough that the kids want to get outside with their parents or a responsible adult and learn the basics of firearm safety and learn how to shoot quickly, accurately, and safely. With the right positive support, I think we’ll see more kids want to get out and participate in the sport instead of playing a video game.
There are 3 things, if you follow the rules of firearm safety, regardless if you’re on the range at a 3-gun match or if you’re hunting a whitetail deer from a tree stand, the firearm safety rules remain the same. The fundamental common sense rules of firearm handling apply in all aspects 3-Gun as they do in any shooting sport or activity. With the proper guidance and proper mentoring, it can be a great sport for adults and youths alike.
3-Gun Nation TV also has some great educational segments where viewers can learn tips and tricks to improve their skills. We do, you know we want to show how accessible the sport is. People see great shooters like Taran Butler and Bruce Piatt and Jerry Miculek and think that it’s not even worth going out and practicing or competing. But if you watch the show and you see Mark Wills out there, you see how much fun it is. Mark shot Blue Ridge and he had a blast. One of the things that you don’t see in the show, because we just don’t have the time to show it, is that there were like 300 shooters at that match, and of course they’re not all top level contenders. There are prize tables with over $200,000 worth of merchandise on them and you don’t have to land in the top 10 to take home some great prizes. I’ve heard of matches where you could shoot and come in 30th place and still walk home with a new rifle from the prize table. I’m not a great shooter and even I could get 30th place. Just because you see Taran Butler going a million miles an hour on a 3-gun stage doesn’t mean that the next guy has to go that fast. Chances are, if you go at the speed your skill allows, you’re going to do well and end up getting a great prize even if you finish 30th.
The other great thing is that guys like Kurt Miller or Bruce Piatt will probably hang around after the stage and help out that guy shoot that stage and give him some great tips and tricks. That’s the great thing about these top level competitors is that they’re all great guys and really friendly, willing to help out new shooters. Some of these guys you see on television, they hang around and if they see a new shooter come in to shoot a match, they’re going to do whatever they can to help him or her enjoy the match.
So, these guys we see on TV aren’t your typical superstars- No! They’re not. They will go out of their way to help a guy to shoot better because they want to see that guy enjoy the sport. Let’s face it. The more people who are enjoying the sport, the better it is for everyone.
How do you respond to critics who say that sports like 3-gun should be banned, that it’s not a sport that we should be promoting? It’s unfortunate. I think it’s unfortunate because those same people, if they met the people in our industry and took a step outside of their comfort zone and got to know the sport a bit better, I think you’d see a 180 degree turn around in their opinion.
We will continue to show how safe the sport is, and how much fun it is.
I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to us today and I can’t wait to see the next season. When can we expect to see the next season start? The 2011 TV season premieres Saturday, July 30th at 7:30 am

The 2010 3-Gun Nation TV series is currently airing on Versus Monday at 7:30am Eastern and Thursdays at 3pm Eastern.

Basic Rules of Firearm Safety

2010-10-29T09:51:00.001-07:00

This article covers basic firearm safety when working with or around firearms, but don’t forget other safety aspects such as safe and secure firearm storage.

Recently firearm safety has been a topic of much discussion across the internet, in part due to the recent press that Remington has received regarding people injured when a rifle discharged while pointed in an unsafe direction. When working with or around firearms, safety should be at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

Colonel Jeff Cooper first codified the “Four Rules of Firearm Safety” which follow:

Rule 1 : All guns are always loaded
Rule 2: Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy
Rule 3: Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target
Rule 4: Be sure of your target

These rules have been amended and modified over the years, but the principle remains the same. Let’s go over them one by one and discuss what they mean and their importance.

Rule 1 : All guns are always loaded This is probably one of the most controversial rules, as it is obvious that there are obviously times when firearm are not loaded. Some people have modified this rule to read “Treat all guns as if they are loaded” or even “Always know the condition of your firearm.” However you choose to word it, the principle remains the same: Treat a firearm with the respect it deserves, assuming it is loaded until proven and verified otherwise, and furthermore, always respect others around you by acknowledging that they probably do not know whether a firearm is loaded or not.

Rule 2: Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy Along with Rule 3, this is one of the most important rules. Abide by this rule, and even if you ignore the other rules, the chances of something getting injured, hurt, or destroyed are much diminished. Almost every injury or death that has ever resulted from the accidental discharge of a firearm could have been avoided if the muzzle had been pointed in a safe direction. What is a safe direction? Generally, a firearm muzzle should be pointed towards the ground, downrange, or at a minimum away from where people are. Some say that it is safe to point a muzzle towards the sky or ceiling, such as when carrying a slung rifle or shotgun, and in general this is true. But always remember that what goes up always comes back down, and when a firearm is discharged into the air it is possible that someone could be killed or injured or property destroyed when the projectile lands.

Rule 3: Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target This rule, along with Rule 2, is one of the most important rules of firearm safety. Keep your finger off the trigger and out of the trigger guard. I’m going to repeat this once more: Keep your finger off the trigger and out of the trigger guard until you are ready to fire. Though the possibility exists, the chances of a firearm going off without the trigger being pulled are astronomically slim. The number one reason a firearm discharges is because the trigger was pulled. By following this one simple rule you can virtually eliminate the chance that your firearm will discharge when you did not intend it to.

Rule 4: Be sure of your target Many people modify this rule to read “Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.” Why is this so important? It’s very important because you are responsible for every bullet fired by a gun that you are in control of until that bullet comes to a stop. Bullets do not always stop after they hit your target. You may be sure that your target is a deer, but do you know what lies beyond the deer? Even if you land a solid hit on your target it is not only possible but likely, especially when hunting, that your bullet will continue down range for a considerable distance until gravity eventually pulls it down to earth. If you are firing against an earthen berm or other backstop, you need to know that it will reliably stop the rounds you fire into it. Know your firearm, know where it is aimed, know what your target is, and what lies beyond your target.

These are the four basic rules of firearm safety. This article covers basic firearm safety when working with or around firearms, but don’t forget other safety aspects such as safe and secure firearm storage. It is your responsibility as a gun owner to handle firearms in a safe manner, but you also will need to keep your firearms stored safely and securely. In an upcoming article we’ll discuss ways to securely store your pistols and long arms.

CNBC Attacks The Remington 700

2010-10-29T09:39:00.000-07:00

First produced in 1962, more than 5 million Remington 700 rifles have been sold. It’s currently available in more than 900 different configurations across 40 different calibers. With numbers like these, it’s easy to see how the Remington 700 has become the most popular rifle in the world. Sniper versions of the rifle are in use by police forces throughout the world as well as highly customized versions in use by the US Army and Marine Corps.

In 1962 Remington redesigned the action of the Model 700 to be able to be easily mass produced at a low cost. In the past, crafting a precision rifle action required a significant amount of hand finishing. In 1964, following Remington’s lead, Winchester made the mistake of changing the trigger on their Model 70. This mistake allowed Remington to dominate the rifle market. Serious rifle shooters who had been happy with the older Model 70 trigger found the newly designed action to be lacking in precision and crispness. The Remington Model 700 by comparison used a floating trigger design that maintained the crisp feel that traditional shooters loved.

The Remington 700 trigger is also easy to adjust. The fact that anyone with a few tools and a bit of knowledge could adjust the trigger themselves is a two edged sword. Straight from the factory, the Remington 700 comes with a trigger pull of about 5 lbs. Many find this to be too heavy and set about reducing the trigger pull to 3 lbs. or less. The problem here is that if not done properly or set too light, the modified trigger can cause accidental discharges.

It’s interesting to note that there are a total of 75 lawsuits filed alleging that a Remington 700 rifle had without the trigger being pulled. Even if true, by the numbers, that means that 0.0015% of all of the rifles produced over the years have had a problem. Put another way, 99.9985% of all of the Model 700 rifles produced DO NOT have a faulty trigger. Are numbers like these indicative of an inherent design flaw? One would suspect that if there was a design flaw that it would be found in every Remington Model 700, or at least a more than 75.

This quote is telling:

“Both Remington and experts hired by plaintiff attorneys have conducted testing on guns returned from the field which were alleged to have fired without a trigger pull,” Remington’s statement says, “and neither has ever been able to duplicate such an event on guns which had been properly maintained and which had not been altered after sale.”

So, despite claims that the situation is easily duplicated, and despite hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on experts, nobody has EVER been able to cause a Remington 700 to fire without the trigger being pulled.

One of the experts featured on the CNBC show, one H.J. Belk, claims that the Walker system is unsafe even if it never malfunctions, and that the fact none of the experts have been able to duplicate the claims doesn’t mean that the trigger doesn’t have a design flaw. The analogy he uses is that “The fact that the plane you’re flying in has not crashed is no evidence that crashes don’t occur.” Which while true, is really not applicable to the allegations made about the Walker trigger.

Every trigger design, and in fact every mechanical device, can fail if not properly maintained. If you neglect the brakes on your car, they may work fine for a while, but eventually they will fail and you could be killed in a crash. Does this mean that they are defective? Of course not, and to say such a thing would be preposterous. Some of the tests Mr. Belk discusses to determine if your rifle is unsafe rely on the trigger being damaged or parts being pushed out of alignment. Could you get the trigger to malfunction in this manner? It’s quite possible for any device to operate in undesired ways if it is damaged or out of spec due to neglect or poor maintenance. Keeping the action clean and free of debris is probably the best way to ensure any trigger functions as designed.

Let’s go back to gun safety 101 here: Colonel Jeff Cooper’s second rule of firearm safety is “Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destory!” Without fail, each and every one of the injuries or deaths that happened in the cases where a Remington 700 discharged happened because the rifle was not pointed in a safe direction. The fact is, accidents can and do happen. People make mistakes all the time- it’s one of the hallmarks of being human. By observing Cooper’s 4 rules of firearm safety if you make a mistake while handling a firearm the chances of killing or injuring someone are much reduced.

It should be noted that Remington no longer utilizes the old Walker trigger system that was criticized by CNBC. Beginning in 2006 Remington stopped making Model 700 rifles with the Walker trigger system and instead had all of their new 700s made with their X-Mark Pro Trigger system. This is not necessarily because of a defect in the Walker trigger. Improvements in machining and industrial design have simply allowed Remington to produce an even better trigger at an even lower cost than before.

With proper care and maintenance, the older Remington 700s with the Walker trigger system are no less safe than any other trigger design. More importantly, with proper muzzle discipline and by following the other rules of firearm safety, even if your firearm discharges through human error or mechanical failure, you can ensure that no one is hurt or killed.

Caring For Your Historic Firearm

2010-10-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

Many of our customers have very old firearms that they inherit from loved ones. A common question we get is, “How do I care for my antique firearm?” Our interview with John Gangel last week was quite enlightening, and he shared with us some fantastic tips on storing and caring for antique firearms.

We also found a fantastic guide to firearm preservation from the Springfield National Historic Site and National Park Service (courtesy of Say Uncle) that has a very good overview on caring for your antique firearm.

Preserving Your Antique Arms Collection
The following are very conservative guidelines to help you care for a collection that you wish to preserve for as long as possible and will never be fired. Methods recommended here may not be the most efficient. What may work beautifully in one situation can be a disaster in another. The following advice is limited in scope and cannot cover every possible situation.
A. Preventive Care
1. Environment ·
Avoid dramatic swings in relative humidity (RH). Try to keep stable between 40 and 50%.
Consistency is more important than precise maintenance of a specific RH reading.
RH control is most critical because of an unusual physical property of wood called anisotropy. Wood cells expand or contract very differently in response to changes in relative humidity — depending on their specific grain orientation (axial, transverse, or radial) in the log from which they came. Large swings in RH can result in cracks caused by compression-set shrinkage.
If humidity remains fairly constant, changes in temperature make little difference to either metal or wood – better to concentrate on controlling relative humidity. A rapid rise in indoor temperature can pull the moisture out of the environment (including your artifact), causing a drop in RH. Cell shrinkage and cracking or splitting can occur.
2. Handling
Wear gloves when handling your collection. No protective coating – appropriate for conserving an artifact — (see below) can stand up for long against repeated bare-handed handling. Best thing is to always wear gloves. Nitrile examination gloves are recommended when cleaning and coating your collection. Once an item has been coated, wear plain cotton gloves.
3. Housekeeping
Keep dust-free. Dust can trap moisture increasing the likelihood of corrosion occurring.
Do not use commercial dust cloths. They often leave an oil film behind. Oil films trap dust. Dust traps and collects water vapor in the air.
When dusting, use a soft cotton cloth very lightly dampened with water
Without moisture, dust merely gets shoved around and will not be picked up.
Do not use alcohol of any kind when dusting or cleaning a stock. It can skin or strip an historic finish.
Dry immediately with a clean cloth.
Never use liquid or spray dusting products. Most leave mineral oil behind, which traps dust. Dust traps and collects moisture. Starting to see a pattern?
4. Storage / Display
Narrow hooks or loops of wire should not be used to support collection pieces either in storage or on display. The weight of most long arms on such devices is sufficient to result in indentations in their stock at the points of contact.
Use broad, padded supports. We use thin sheets of a closed-cell Polyethylene foam material to pad our display fixtures.
To avoid mold and mildew during long-term storage — avoid at least two of the three conditions known to promote bloom outbreaks:
elevated temperature
still air, and
elevated humidity.
B. Cleaning and Coating Historic Firearms
1. Cleaning Wood Stocks
Separate wooden and metal parts. They are cleaned and coated differently.
Unless absolutely necessary, leave unfinished interior wooden surfaces alone.
Clean exterior of stock as follows:
Use a few drops of a mild detergent in a gallon of warm, distilled water, applied with a slightly damp soft cloth, and rinsed with clean cloths dampened with distilled water.
Dry with soft cloths immediately after rinsing.
Clean again with mineral spirits, using a soft cloth to apply. Work in fresh air or a well-ventilated area.
Avoid using “oil soaps” as they can becaustic and may damage an historic oiled surface.
2. Cleaning Barrels and Other Metal Parts. Please note: It is essential to practice any new technique on a sacrificial piece first, before applying it to something irreplaceable.
Use nylon or animal-bristle bore brushes. Wherever possible, avoid using brass or steel brushes. Such hard materials can scratch, but also might (under certain conditions) cause galvanic (bi-metallic) corrosion (specifically when using a copper-alloy brush on ferrous metals) by leaving a slight metallic smear behind.
Use mineral spirits to soften accretions. Work in fresh air or well-ventilated area. Are there other solvents that are “stronger”? Yes, but they are difficult to work with safely.
Swab clean with a cloth patch.
Use only extremely fine abrasives such as oil-free 0000 steel wool . Use only if absolutely necessary to remove stubborn rust deposits or other accretions. Work slowly and watch constantly for any changes to the surface. There is always an element of risk in such work. If you are at all uncertain, hire a conservator before causing irreversible damage.
When cleaning brass parts, never use products that contain ammonia. Ammonia can damage old copper alloy materials by corroding them from the inside out. In addition, such products may include abrasives which may prove too harsh. Elbow grease and mineral spirits should be tried first. If something slightly stronger is needed, try applying small amounts of wet tooth powder with a cotton swab and rinse with water.
A general comment about commercial rust removers. The problem is that most rust removers can’t tell the difference between iron oxide and iron metal, and will leave an etched surface even where there is no rust. Some products seem to come close. Often they require extremely close attention and precision – too much for most of us.
Most surface rust can be removed by first lubricating the area with a light penetrating oil and cleaving it off with a sharp scalpel held at a very low angle to the metal. It requires close attention, a steady hand, and some patience, but if you are careful, you will probably get most – if not all – of the surface rust off without leaving a scratch. There is always an element of risk in such work. If you are at all uncertain, hire a conservator before causing irreversible damage. When done, remove any remaining oil with mineral spirits.
3. Disassembly and Reassembly
If you are organized and systematic — you should be able to safely disassemble and reassemble most firearms successfully.
Probe the floor of every external screw slot with a sharp point held at a very low angle. It’s amazing how much dirt can be packed into a “clean-looking” slot. All foreign matter must be removed for the screwdriver to do its best, safest work. .
A good selection of screwdrivers is a must. Their tips must be matched perfectly to each slot in order to maximize the area of mechanical contact. Taking this precaution will minimize slippage and the scratching and scarring that can result. The internal shapes of screw slots have changed a lot since their invention and screwdriver tips often have to be ground or filed in order to get a good match. Keep this in mind when regrinding a screwdriver’s tip.
There are many publications that offer exploded drawings and disassembly/reassembly tips.
4. Coating Stocks
Wood is neither thirsty nor hungry. It is usually covered by a finish which may have become corrupted in some way, making it look “dry.” The wood beneath the finish does not need to be “fed”, (despite what wood-care product commercials may claim).
Never put oil of any kind on an historic finish. There may well be unintended but permanently damaging consequences to ignoring this advice.
A cautionary word about linseed oil.
Linseed oil takes forever to dry and will trap dust. (It will not stop water penetration either).
When linseed oil oxidizes, its molecules cross-link with one another, making it increasingly more difficult to remove as time passes.
Oxidized linseed oil (linoleic acid) eventually becomes linoxin, better-known commercially as Linoleum! Repeated, or seasonal, applications eventually develop into a surface that can look like very dark brown alligator skin, and can become almost impossible to remove.
Applying a modern finish over an equivalent historic finish can forever confuse the finish “history” of a stock by making it difficult, if not impossible, to tell what (if anything) is original, and what is a restoration material – even with an analytical microscope. Therefore, you would not want to touch up, say, a shellac finish with shellac. Use paste waxes only: i.e., carnauba-based furniture waxes on wood stocks. Avoid wax mixtures which include a high percentage of bee’s wax. They are not especially harmful, but are relatively soft (fingerprint easily) and can be slightly acidic.
5. Coating Metals (this advice is strictly for guns which have been “retired” from use and will never be fired.)
Avoid using oils. They are not the best material for long-term protection of collection pieces as they trap dust and dirt, eventually break down and have to be periodically replaced. A high-quality light oil is fine for maintaining a gun you still shoot, though.
Use a microcrystalline wax as a protective coating. They are practically inert, remaining stable for a very long time. Apply and buff out with a soft cloth or brush – inside and out.
Brass parts can also be coated with wax such as an acrylic spray lacquer because it is easily removed with solvents but bonds especially well to copper-alloy metals, and will withstand more abuse and last longer than wax.
6. Minor Stock Repairs
If a split or detached piece of a stock must be repaired, use an adhesive that is both strong and reversible (i.e. can be safely removed at any time in the future). There is only one: traditional hide glue.
Do not proceed if there is evidence that the damaged site has been previously repaired. In this case, consult a conservator.
Unless you work with hide glue every day – make it up fresh in small amounts as needed. It doesn’t take long to prepare and it will do a better job than using old glue. Hot hide glue is preferable to liquid hide glue as it is less affected by humidity.
Dampen the area to be glued with hot water. Blot the area and wait a few minutes. Then apply hot glue to both surfaces with a brush and clamp immediately. An appropriate clamp can be as simple as a few pieces of masking tape, rubber bands, bicycle tire strips, or small padded weights. Use the least force needed to do the job.
Clamps can usually be removed in a few hours, but it takes at least 24 hours for the repair to fully harden. · Excess glue can be removed with a lint-free cloth dampened with hot water. The best time to do this is usually right after removing clamps.
7. If you still need help
Seek the services of a professional conservator.
Contact the American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works (AIC) for a referral.
There are few, if any, conservators who treat nothing but firearms. Look for an “Objects” Conservator with experience working with metal and the other materials (wood, celluloid, leather, etc.) that are part of your artifact.

John Gangel on Collector Grade Firearms

2010-10-22T14:00:00.001-07:00

To say that John Gangel man is a wealth of knowledge would be a massive understatement. Mr. Gangel has been collecting antique firearms for the better part of 50 years and knows the industry inside and out. He was gracious enough to speak at length with us about his background in firearms and give us some insights into fine gun and antique firearm collecting.

When did you first get started collecting firearms? Well, I got interested in firearms in the late 1960s actually. I had a few guns before that, but in the late 1960s I got interested in antique firearms and basically pursued that end and I've been with it ever since.

Tell us a bit about your first collectors piece. What was the first gun you ever truly fell in love with? Oh, well my first decent guns were when I had a little moving business. I was in my teens and I traded a move to an elderly lady. I moved her household and traded her for a few old Winchesters and found out that Winchesters sold pretty good. I started concentrating and buying and selling antique guns and that was in about 1969 or 1970.

The first gun I really fell in love with I would say was serial number 1 Texas Paterson which was the first Colt that was ever made and I had it in my collection from 1975 to 1993.

Obviously it took a number of years for you to acquire your knowledge of antique firearms. Did you attend a lot of auctions or did you work inside the industry to gain that knowledge? Yes, all of the above. Basically I traveled to gun shows for many years. I worked in the firearm business. My first business partner was a man named Moe Gruensky at the Musket and Saber in Costa Mesa and I started with him full time in 1969. In 1974 I opened a place called the Antique Arms Locker in Pasadena and in 1975 I opened a business called The Arms Cellar and I had that both of those places from 1975 until early 1990s.

I went into business with a gentleman named Bob Ells from Ells Fargo in 1974 and I was with him until 1979. At one time I had three gun shops in Southern California, one antique and two modern.

So you were doing business in California this entire time? I've been in business in California since 1969.

Tell me a bit about working in that atmosphere. California is not exactly friendly toward gun shops and firearm dealers, even if they do deal in antiques. It definitely is difficult. You have to pay attention and you have to dot the i's and cross the t's and if it's any fun it's not legal in California if it's a gun.

We had a lady come in this morning with a paratrooper carbine that was mint and original and hard to find and I had to tell her that "you can't sell it and you have to take the stock off the gun. It's OK to have the gun and it's OK to have the stock but you can't have the stock on the gun because it's an assault rifle."

She asked "Why is that?" and I had to tell her "That's the way they say it is."

So you were collecting these fine guns for some time before opening up Little John's Auction Service. Well, you know I was selling guns professionally as a dealer and we opened up Little John's Auction Service in 1978 and I've been auctioning fine firearms since then.

...and of course at some point you branched out into other non-firearm collectibles and antiques as well. Yes. Basically I've always concurrently dealt in paintings, fine arts, and antiques. The last 5 years I've moved my book of business in that field over to Prescott Arizona and I'm affiliated with Reata Pass Auctions which is run by my daughter Gabrielle, she's second generation. She sells a lot of the cars, antiques, fine art and antique furniture, porcelain collectibles and that sort of thing. I refer that business to her. I still have one auction a year here locally in Orange County which is my Christmas sale where I sell jewelry and antiques and other related items in what we'd call a "Collector's Auction" and we have one of those every year in December.

That keeps you on a pretty busy schedule then- We do 5 auctions a year and we have a gallery where we have private customers we sell to on a private basis. And then I travel to gun shows also. We kind of do it all.

You probably have to start working on the next auction as soon as the hammer falls on the last item then. That's exactly right. We're cataloging and taking consignments for our December sale right now.

How do you assemble all of these guns into lots and into a complete auction? Do you seek out the items or do consignees basically find you when they have a piece they want to sell? Basically, word of mouth is my best form of advertisement. A lot of other guys will advertise in the Wall Street Journal and other national magazines, but if they haven't heard of me in 40 years of doing business they've been living under a rock. I'm the auctioneer for the Colt Collector's Association, I'm the auctioneer for Winchester Collector's Organization, I'm the judge and the Winchester show and I'm the judge at the Colt show. I'm the auctioneer at Texas Gun Collectors and I'm the judge at Texas Gun Collectors. Pretty much I'm well known in the auction business.

I would definitely agree with that. In fact, let's talk about one of the many guns that became associated with your name. Back in 2003 you auctioned off a very famous gun, the one used to kill Jesse James. Yes, that's definitely one of the more famous guns. You know, it got national attention. It was well documented and so it did get a lot of play. I think when I sold Houston's Bowie knife and way back when I sold the Museum of Rock & Roll I probably got as much national attention, but that one really seemed to go around with the gun collectors.

It truly resonated, especially with the final price of $350,000 that it finally hammered away at. It's got to be exciting for you as an auctioneer to see these prices realized. Tell us a bit about how important the role of the auctioneer is in getting that price. Well, you know my advantage over the other guys is that I actually know what I'm selling. Most auctioneers are selling bushels of wheat and corn the day before and they don't really know one gun from the other. It's a big help for me when I'm actually auctioning the item off I actually know something about history, know the gun, normally know the guy who's going to buy it and know the guy it came from. Basically when I was able to sell the Houston Bowie knife for close to $400,000 what the difference was was knowing the history of the item and knowing how to make the history work in a short space of time in order to sell it.

The history is incredibly important when selling any antique. In the auction business you refer to it as provenance. How do you go about authenticating the provenance of these antiques? Well, it's a process basically. Sometimes you just can't, but I have a person on staff here whose name is John Robinson who is a retired Chief of the Sheriff's Department and is a good investigator and he's a collector himself of historic arms. The two of us investigate things quite diligently before we try to sell them because if we don't believe it we don't put it in our catalog.

You know, I'm very careful with how I word things and I'm very careful about how I describe things. Sometimes you just have to say that it's a story based on something Uncle Ed told Aunt Edna, and that has somewhat of a value but you have to tie it in.

There's a very interesting gun in this auction which I really like and Mr. Robinson really likes, and it's a shotgun that belonged to Jeff Milton, who was a famous Texas Ranger and a famous lawman. The provenance and history on it is really great. It came out of the collection of a man named John Wilson. John Wilson was a big collector who collected historic arms in the very early days. He was from New Mexico and Texas and had ranches in both New Mexico and Texas. He knew a lot of the very early collectors. His father and grandfather were collectors. His father actually knew Pancho Villa personally and basically almost anything from his collection that has that kind of history is really well received.

This shotgun is particularly interesting in that there is a letter from a man named Fallis who was a border patrol supervising agent in the area of Tucson and Jeff Milton worked for him, and it tells the story of how Jeff Milton gave him this gun. It's a nice story and it's good documentation that it came from Wilson and Fallis and these people existed and you can prove that. But what really authenticates it is that there are unpublished photographs of Milton with Fallis and then the one that really drives it home is the one of Milton sitting at the dinner table with Fallis and his wife. This was in his later years and he's sitting at the dinner table with them in their home and then there is a newspaper article during the same period of time that tells about Jeff Milton eating dinner with them in the home that was written in Tucson and was an interview with the wife in the 1940s telling about Jeff Milton.

That's the kind of thing you hope to get, you like to get, and you wish everything had. It's all a process of basically being able to prove these things. You have to prove them. You can't always prove them beyond any doubt but you have to basically establish a circumstantial and likely case. In the case of this Milton gun it's pretty hard to improve upon. You can't get much better than that.

There is also a companion revolver that goes with that shotgun, a Jeff Milton Colt Army Special. Right. It did come from the same place but see that won't bring a huge price because it isn't as well documented. It basically came along with the other gun, but that's all.

How do you make the decision what collections to break up into separate lots and what items to sell together as a set? Well you have to review it and you have to discuss it. Basically I get a second opinion, and I didn't think that the second piece was really important to the first piece. I didn't feel that it helped it that much, so I decided to separate it and sell it separately because the provenance and documentation on that is not as exacting as the other piece. It doesn't say that he used it, he had it and it's likely a gun that he picked up in his travels but not one likely that he used.

The history of these guns is really so important, and I think you'd agree that that is really what collectors are looking for is to own a piece of history. That's correct for a lot of collectors. Some collectors really don't care. The history collectors are into the history and then there are other guys who are into variations. Collecting is a broad myriad of many types of collectors. Some people could care less about history, they don't care.

Speaking of guns without much history, you've got one firearm in this auction that has never been used at all, a 1854 Volcanic carbine rifle that is still new in the box. It is, and it's in it's original box and it's the only one known to exist in this condition. Interestingly enough I thought that that gun had crossed my path years ago, but I couldn't remember it and an old time local collector here whose name is Doug Minnick, he's the maven of Winchester people here in the Southern California area. He was collecting fine Winchesters basically before I was born. I knew him very well. He was acquiring some very good Winchesters in the late '50s and early '60s and he was acquiring them mostly from a guy named Elmer Taylor, and Elmer Taylor had been collecting since the '40s and '50s. We both thought that Elmer Taylor had had this gun and we didn't think there was another one, but couldn't prove it. As it turns out I traced the ownership through about 6 owners over the last almost 50 years and sure enough it had been Elmer Taylors about 40 or 50 years ago.

You mentioned earlier that you got started collecting when you were a teen, and we've been discussing some of the more rare and higher priced firearms, but there are actually some inexpensive bargains to be found at your auction as well. Tell me a bit about them. Matter of fact there are a couple of pocket models in this auction that are inscribed from the Civil War that are really neat guns that have quite rare inscriptions on them and they are very historic and interesting and can be had for a few thousand dollars. And these guns are neat! I read the description of some of them 4 and 5 times and really liked them. There are a lot of other things that aren't terribly expensive that have a lot of history with them. Some of these dueling pistols, for goodness sake, the history on some of those dueling pistols is incredible.

So what you're saying is that anybody can get started collecting for less than the price of a modern rifle. Well, that's something that's really interesting. I know some guys who are spending $3000, $4000, even $5000 for a shooting gun that isn't anything special. Some of the high end shotguns cost $100,000 and more. You can really buy nice antique guns that have some history with them starting at about $400 or $500. It doesn't seem like an incredible amount of money.

For example, Philadelphia Derringers. Philadelphia Derringers have such intriguing history in America. One was used to kill Abraham Lincoln, they were used all during the frontier period and the Civil War period. They have tremendous association to San Francisco and the Barbary Coast and the Western Frontier, '49 and gold miners...

They're the American classic gun, the Derringer pistol, and you can still buy a nice Derringer for $1,500 and you can buy a very nice Derringer for $3,500 and you can buy a great one for $5,000. You know, we have 20 of them in this sale and I've been telling some of my customers that I think that Philadelphia Derringers are incredibly cheap and incredibly interesting. Especially when they have San Francisco Agent's marks on them, that means that they were sold here during the gold rush.

We see these prices vary greatly from year to year. How much of that is driven by buyer interest in a particular model? Well, we've had some price surges over the years that have leveled out. The most notable of what you're talking about is Henry rifles. Henry rifles went through the roof when [the movie] Dances With Wolves came out, and you know they've been going well for about 15 years. They finally got so expensive that they started to level out and have probably gone back down 10%. That was just a lot of hype I would say.

Colt single actions, high end engraved Colt single actions were being pushed very hard for the last about 10 years by about 3-4 very wealthy collectors. They started buying the late engraved single actions for as much as the early engraved single actions, and that was a phenomenon.

I was actually the first one to do it. I sold a late engraved single action for $125,000. It was made in the 1930s, and previous to that no one had seen a 1930s engraved single action break $50,000, or even $30,000. What that was was a couple of wealthy collectors who decided they were going to buy all of the mint engraved single actions that they could. They didn't care if they were 1937, 1930, or 1870, which they were wrong about.

What happened was that the market was pushed by these three guys, then one of the guys died, another guy quit collecting, another one passed away, and another guy got enough. So, the result of that was that whole bunch of them came up in an auction back east and most of them didn't even sell for half of what they had brought because that was a market that was being overly inflated by a few collectors. And you have to watch that. We haven't seen that dramatic of a thing in many years, and when we see that kind of dramatic uprise in things, like the real estate bubble, it is usually followed by a fall.

Presumably a shrewd collector who wanted to scoop up a good bargain on an antique firearm could do a little bit of learning and find out what is going on in the industry and hunt for some great deals. You're 100% right. I was just in Texas, and a very shrewd old buyer who's been at it for 40 years named Dr. Nick Shannon, who's been kind of the go-to guy for the last 40 years when you had a good engraved single action, was out of it for 3-4 years. He was a seller, and now that the prices have adjusted to where he feels comfortable and the prices are in his price range he's very shrewdly buying some.

That is one interesting thing about the collectors market and auctions in general is how the prices are set solely by how much one person desires something. There's no inherent value in the item itself. You know I often have testified and told people that there really isn't any price on unique history. It's just a willing buyer and a willing seller. I talked to a man once who bought a painting for a world record price that was five times what a painting of that type might bring and I asked him what made it worth that type of money.

He told me "It isn't worth anything. It doesn't have anything to do with worth. I'm a business man and what my accountants define as "worth" is how much there is for a return on an investment that I'm buying. There's no guaranteed return on [the painting as an] investment, there's no formula that I can factor. This is just a situation that this is how much money it costs for me to own this, and I have the money, so that's how much I'll pay for it. The fact that I paid five times the high that anyone felt this artist would bring has nothing to do with reality, it's just the price of ownership."

So, it all comes down to how much you're willing to pay to own a piece of history. That's it. There's no value on unique history. It's willing buyer and willing seller.

How does one participate in one of these auctions? I'm in Texas and not going to be able to travel to California for this auction, what options are there if another reader sees an item that they want to bid on? Well there are several ways. Most people will get a catalog, which we are very liberal in giving away. If a person requests a catalog and is a member of any club we send it to them for cost, and don't even charge them for the catalog in most cases. Our catalog is also online and we have online bidding through 3 or 4 providers like ProxyBid.com and iCollector.com etc. They can bid online through those forms of bidding or they can bid by phone or they can bid by sealed bid. We take sealed bids, phone bids, and internet bids.

Then we have a live group of people who generally show up. We have a huge crowd at our auctions, 500 bidders usually at a sale like this. Our auctions are held at a place called the Phoenix Club, which is the oldest German Club in Southern California and was started by the original immigrants to Anaheim. It's a beautiful club that has the best beer and German food, a very nice facility. We have the auctions at that location and they're very well attended. It's a fun deal.

Of course you don't have to be a bidder to attend do you? I just had a couple of guys in here today and I gave them a catalog and they were kind of apologetic and said "Well, we're not really buyers,"

And I said "Listen, one of the things I enjoy is that this is a hands-on museum. I like collectors who come out, look at the catalog and keep the catalog."

At this auction there were 1,600 guns that the guy had never seen. There are almost 150 dueling pistols. There are probably only 300-350 American dueling pistols in the United States of America by his estimate and mine. That's almost half that exist, and by far the best collection. Then the memorabilia is fantastic, letters written by Jackson about his duel is the only one in private hands, and other supporting documents are incredibly great. You couldn't go to any museum in the United States of America and see anything like this.

You bring up an interesting point on how educational these auctions can be. So many people these days aren't familiar with the history of our nation. Well, I'm trying to pass it on to other collectors and I have a vested interest, besides money, I like to start collectors. I like collectors, and I am a collector. I'm not in this solely for the money. You know I really enjoy collecting, that's why I'm in a lot of clubs. I donate a lot of money and a lot of time to helping most of the major clubs in the United States such as the NRA, the Texas Gun Collectors, the Colt Collectors Association and the Winchester Collectors Association, because I want to see collecting go on. It is a fraternity, I'm aware of that, and what I try to do particularly in my catalog is have a research quality catalog.

I think that that's very important. I look at a lot of gun catalogs and basically the descriptions are terrible. They bear no resemblance to the gun whatsoever. They're done by people who aren't gun people, have no appreciation of history, and don't understand what they sell. I think if you read my catalog, after reading it you could say basically that the person who wrote this knows what he's looking at and knows about history.

What can we do to encourage the next generation of, not just collectors, but firearm enthusiasts? Give them books and catalogs and tell them to read, because once they read the story of America and once they see the American firearms and once they get that bug of reading the history, like I have a book on the life of Robert Hall who is one of the great Texas Rangers. I've had probably more Texas Ranger stuff than almost anyone. I've owned Ben McCulloch's gun, I've owned some of the best Texas Rangers stuff there are. I sold Houston's Bowie knife. I was able to buy a frontiersman's outfit that was Robert Hall's, who was one of the great early Texas Rangers along with a powder horn that was presented to him by Sam Houston. It's documented by a book written on his life in the 1890s where it is pictured. It's one of the best things I've ever owned. I just displayed it in Texas.

What was so much fun for me, and a bunch of other people, I had never read this book on Robert Hall and I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable party, not an expert on the Texas Rangers, but a very knowledgeable party. I've read hundreds of books on the Texas Rangers and by buying this outfit and the horn I also got the book with it and there was a completely new dimension to the Texas Rangers written by a man in the 1890s who was right there. There was a lot of information in there that I hadn't previously known, and there's a great little anecdotal story in there about how Hall and Bigfoot Wallace were invited at the 50 year Centennial of Texas in 1886. In 1886 the Texans started having appreciation for their history because it was 50 years since the Texas Revolution and they had a big series of shindigs, events and things and they invited Wallace and Hall to this big event.

They showed up there and they were dressed like frontiersmen and everyone was really enthusiastic about hearing them speak. The announcer asked them to say a few words and give a speech and they looked at each other and said "We can't speak, we're not professional speakers" and the announcer asked them "Well, what can you do?" and they replied "Go get a couple of fiddlers, we're going to show you how we dance."

So, they went and got a couple of fiddlers and they told them that on the frontier they learned to dance from the Indians and that the guys on the frontier would dance like the old frontiersmen at the rendezvous in the hills. So they got out and they had this big shindig and they had thousands of people cheering. To this day this is remembered as these guys doing this hoe-down with fiddles playing and entertaining thousands of people at the Centennial of Texas. It's just a great story.

Tell me about some of the guns that you've had that you didn't have a complete history on that later turned out to have a rich and surprising story behind them. There is one in particular right off the top of my head was a Texas Paterson that had belonged to a Texas Ranger named Lowe. There are only a couple of Texas Patersons that are dedicated to Texas Rangers and this one was in really poor condition. It was probably the poorest condition Texas Paterson that I ever had, but it had absolutely impeccable history as belonging to a Ranger named Lowe.

I had it for a little while until one of my friends talked me out of it. I really did a little bit of research, not too much, and I sold it to a guy who was a great researcher. I was out driving in Texas and for some reason had decided to pull over at this historical marker out in the boonies on the east side of Texas heading into Louisiana. As I pulled in I saw "Grave site of a Texas Ranger" and it was Lowe's grave site.

It told the whole story of about him and how he'd been a pioneer in the area and how he'd been an Indian fighter and so on and so forth. So I called the friend of mine who I sold this to and told him "Look, I found Lowe".

We had known a little bit about him, but not very much, but there was the whole story and it was just by luck that I pulled into his resting place just because I saw a historical marker.

You really do have a wealth of knowledge on these firearms and their history... You know, I write a book every time I do a catalog. My latest catalog was about 360,000 words. A pocket book that you buy in the airport is generally 60,000-90,000 words. That's basically 3-3.5 books here and I'm going to do another one in May of next year. My books are my catalogs.

It must be difficult to condense such rich histories down into a small paragraph or two. Well, my editor is my wife. A lot of it ends up on the cutting room floor if it becomes too long winded. Sometimes you have a tendency to over prevaricate.

Much of the provenance and authentication materials, letters and such, get sold with the firearm. We're very conscious with trying to keep the provenance. As I said, I've got a researcher on staff who is much more diligent about it than I am. He's written a lot of articles for magazines and he's a collector. His job is to help me with the provenance and help me to maintain the paperwork and provenance. For this auction we have 5 or 6 huge boxes filled with history and provenance that go with the Orbello collection.

It's very important to keep that all, and I think most collectors that are out there realize that I am really cognizant of keeping the history and provenance with the material and I really make an effort to really stay with it. Unfortunately sometimes I've been in to some collections where collectors got old or they got a little bit sloppy when they got sick and some paperwork got discarded here or there.

In some cases it just becomes too voluminous. I was just taking care of Tom Seymour's estate and Tom Seymour started collecting in the 1950s and collected for 50 years and he never threw anything away. It was thousands of pieces of paper. It was a truckload of research and basically we just took about the last 10 boxes and just auctioned it off at the Texas Gun Collectors show and one fellow decided that it was going to be his job to go through all of this and try to get it to the right people. He'd maintain it until he could find some people who could sift through it and basically try to get it to people who knew about it, because some of it was important.

That's a very good point about what happens when people come into this by inheriting an existing collection, or even just a few antique firearms. So many people don't know how to maintain these collections or care for the firearms, I'm sure you've had some heart wrenching experiences coming across an exquisite piece that was "cleaned up". I've had some bad experiences like that. We had a local gun smith here, and I won't use his name, but he was a local gunsmith and he knew nothing about antique guns. All he cared about was trying to make a few hundred dollars on every gun that walked in his store.

I had appraised a very fine Kentucky rifle for a woman in a retirement community that was made by Albright. Albright was a man who carved stocks on Kentucky rifles very beautifully with animals in high relief. It's very rare, and he was as good a carver as some of the European carvers of the 18th and 19th century. It was a beautiful gun and was in untouched original condition.

I had a close friend whose name is Walter O'Connor who is probably the premier expert on early Americana. In my opinion he is since Bill Guthman died. Walter and I were willing to pay for the gun at the time, and this was many years ago, $25,000. We're going back probably 20 years here. We told the lady all this and left her with an offer and about 7 years go by and I happened to go into this gun shop in Souther California and hanging on the wall was a Kentucky rifle. I asked them to take it down and they took it down and I recognized it instantly as the Albright Kentucky rifle that I had appraised.

There aren't very many of them and this one had a carving of a deer jumping over a log on the left side. The gun had been completely refinished and sanded down to where the carving was indistinct, where you could barely make out where the carving had originally been. The gun had been completely shined to a high finish. The metal had been refinished and the brass had been polished. The name was ground almost off. It looked like a brand new reproduction and the guy who showed it to me was so proud of his work he said "Yeah, I told the lady that this will bring $30,000 now that I've cleaned all of the crap off of it," and I was ejected from the place for telling him that he took a great treasure and turned it into nothing. It wasn't worth $3,000 after what he did to it.

If somebody does inherit a collectors piece, an antique gun, or even just an older firearm they feel may be worth something, how do they properly care for it? Restoration is restoration, but most people who repair guns are not qualified to be restorers. A general rule of thumb is never to do too much, and in most cases do nothing. Myself personally, when I get guns I do almost no restoration because everyone has a different idea of restoration. I just make them work.

Collectors love and will pay for original dirt. Patina is very important. What is patina? Patina is essentially original dirt. People really like the original dirt on a gun.

That rust and corrosion are often what give a gun its character. Still, it's not like we want to encourage more rust or damage. What precautions should a collector take to preserve their firearms? Guns love good oil. With all of the synthetic products that we wrap these guns in, you go and buy a boot or a case for a gun and it has a synthetic interior when you put some of these new products on the guns they can react with the linings of these cases and cause pitting and rust.

I have guns I paid a million dollars for and I've handled the finest guns in the world. The best way is to just oil it and wrap it in a cotton T-shirt, towel, or sock. I have guns that I put away 25 years ago and they're still perfect wrapped in a cotton towel. You just take them, unwrap them and oil them once or twice a year and they're perfect.

There's a terrible story about Frank Singer, who was one of the biggest collectors in America, and he went and bought some of this fancy oil and put his guns in these sheepskin lined boots and there was a reaction between the oil and the sheepskin because of the humidity in the safe where they were stored and it did $500,000 worth of damage to his fine Colt collection. He was insured and he proved it in a court of law that the chemical reaction occurred.

Well, I appreciate the time you've taken to talk to us today. You're a wealth of information. What I'm here for is to learn more. Every auction I do, I learn more. This auction was fantastic for me because I learned more about dueling pistols. I thought I knew a lot until I had this collection and met the man who collected it. He spent 40 years learning it and now I've spent 4 or 5 months learning it and it's really been a joy in my opinion just to handle this merchandise.

One of the important thing in collecting is to get a couple of good mentors. There are people in the business who are very knowledgeable. A guy starting out alone should always get a second or third opinion and the older guys who have been collecting a long time will always help the younger guys.

Join a collectors club or collectors association. If you live in Texas, join the Texas Gun Collectors Association, it's the best collectors club in the country. I've been a member for 40 years and there isn't a better group of guys. The show is a hoot and the guys are great.

John Gangel is the owner of Little John's Auction Service and his next auction is October 27th-28th in Orange California. You can browse through the listings in the up coming auction here on the Shooter's Log where we've broken the lots into three groups: Lots 1-450, Lots 451-900, and Lot 901-1500b.

The Hunting Knife

2010-10-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

Master Hunter skinning knife from Cold Steel

During deer season there is one tool that is nearly as important as your rifle or bow when it comes to harvesting that trophy buck. While a rifle or bow are critical tools for making the shot, the real work begins after the shot. Once you’ve located your downed quarry, only one tool will do the work you need and it’s one that many hunters overlook: the hunting knife.

The first step after locating your prey and confirming that it is dead is to field dress the animal. Having a good well-balanced hunting knife with a well honed edge is critical here. Without a very sharp knife you can easily damage the meat with rough tearing cuts. A dull knife requires more effort to use making it more likely that the knife could slip and puncture the gut and have the contents spill out into the body cavity. It’s important to note that bigger is not better when it comes to skinning knives. Properly field dressing and skinning a deer is a delicate process and being able to maintain precise control of a sharp blade is very important. A bigger knife simply becomes unwieldy. A good skinning knife should have a blade measuring 3″-5″ in length with the knife not exceeding 12″ in overall length.

Case Folding Skinner

The hunting knife is a multipurpose tool. Though primarily intended for use skinning and butchering game animals, it can be pressed into service as a machete or hatchet. Most people think of the traditional Bowie knife as a hunting knife, but more modern drop blade designs have taken it’s place. The first evolution of the Bowie knife was the clip-point blade. Designed for better piercing as opposed to slicing, the clip point is not particularly suited for processing meat, though it will work in a pinch.

The Wyoming Knife

The drop point blade has a spine that also drops down to meet the edge at the point, but unlike the clip point the curve is convex. More versatile than the clip point, drop point blades are usually thicker and stronger than the clip point and this gives the user enhanced control and precision when making a cut.

The skinning blade is generally broader and more curved than a drop point blade, although either style can be used for skinning game and animals. The skinning blade is designed so that it will not pierce or tear the meat while you are skinning the animal. Using a highly swept blade allows the modern skinner to easily separate flesh from skin. Though intended primarily for flaying, a dedicated skinning knife can also perform other tasks such as cleaning and gutting as well or better than a drop point.

A gut hook, while not strictly necessary, can also make opening up the body cavity much easier while reducing the risk of puncturing the gut itself. Gut hooks cannot be sharpened with a traditional whetstone and must instead be kept keen with a thin round file.

Folding skinners are much more convenient to carry around, but usually don’t have the wider curved blade found on most fixed blade skinners.

For the ultimate in skinning knives, look no further than the razor sharp Wyoming knife. Fitted with a single dual edged scalpel blade, this knife easily slices through the toughest hides. The integral gut hook makes it very fast and easy to field dress your deer in record time. The convenient carrying case included with the knife can be attached to your belt for easy access when you need it and an include sheath keeps the finely honed blade protected.

The Wyoming knife is not designed to be sharpened. Instead it relies upon razor sharp scalpel-like blades that can be replaced when dull. When it comes time, blade replacement is quickly accomplished by simply removing the single screw holding the blade in place, pulling out the old blade and inserting the new one. The Wyoming knife is truly a specialized tool and is not well suited for any other task, so if you choose to carry this knife it should only be in addition to a more traditional hunting knife.

Regardless of what style hunting knife you choose, it should always be well cared for. Frequent cleaning and oiling will prevent dullness from corrosion while honing the blade will increase the length of time between necessary sharpening. Unlike sharpening, honing doesn’t actually remove any material from the edge. Instead it merely straightens and aligns the thin metal on a microscopic level.

For more information on caring for your hunting knife, see our articles on sharpening and honing a blade.

Guide to Buying Eye Protection/Shooting Glasses

2010-10-20T16:36:00.000-07:00

A beginner shooter needs to have some very basic equipment to start shooting. Shooting glasses and hearing protection are second to ammo and a gun! Outdoor and indoor ranges absolutely require you to wear both. Even if you are shooting on your own land, you should not go without ear or eye protection.

A good place to start is to look for glasses that meet ANSI Z87 +1 standards. The American National Standards Institute defines those as:

Provide protection
Be comfortable
Fit securely
Be capable of being disinfected
Be durable
Fit over prescription eyewear

Further, there are extra features you should look for in quality eye protection. The glasses should have side shields. The frames should be made of nylon, rubber or propionate to hold their shape and will not break. To make the frames even more durable, look for a frame that has spring hinges. Wraparound temples keep your glasses in place during recoil and most importantly the lenses should be impact-resistant plastic or polycarbonate which is less likely to break and be more scratch-resistant.

Lens color is another important factor to look at when choosing your glasses. Each lens color has pros and cons for each different shooting condition. Therefore, you might want to choose a pair with interchangeable lenses or pick out a few different pairs, depending on where you shoot most often. Don’t forget to check to see if the lenses you are buying provide UV protection, especially if you shoot outside.

Smoke/gray lenses are most effective in bright sunlight because they block glare. However, they are not effective in the woods or other shady areas. These are best suited for outdoor range shooting.

Vermilion lenses (red) give you a better view of light-colored targets against a dark background. These would be best for hunting.

Amber/brown lenses block blue light which are good for a cloudy day.

Yellow/orange lenses contrast, block haze and blue light, and enhance the color orange. The brighter yellow the lenses are, the better for shooting at night time. These lenses are best for outdoor shooting.

Ice lenses show true color.

Copper lenses are a good all-purpose choice. They are good for use during cloudy conditions or in bright sunshine.

Mirror and Polarized lenses reduce glare. Polarized lenses are better than mirrored lenses and they are especially good for dawn or dusk shooting.

Indoor/Outdoor lenses are clear with mirror-coating. The coating reflects light and reduces glare.

Choosing a Handgun Caliber

2010-10-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

The .32 NAA cartridge is a decent performing round, but isn’t always easy to find on store shelves.

I’m going to open up a can of worms on this topic. There is perhaps no more effective way to stir up debate than to bring up the topic of handgun calibers.

First, let’s dispel a few myths: There is no such thing as a “man stopper” or a handgun caliber that is capable a “one shot stop”. Compared to their larger rifle caliber brethren, all handgun rounds seem puny and underpowered. That’s primarily because the handgun itself is a compromise between portability and power. The reason military forces don’t equip their soldiers with handguns as a primary weapon is because they’re just not as effective at quickly stopping an attacker as a rifle is.

How does one decide what caliber to get a handgun in? Dave Sevigny said it best when he told us to “just get the biggest caliber you can hit with or the one you’re most comfortable with.” Why the emphasis on size? Because when it comes to a handgun caliber you need every bit of performance you can get.

Still, there is always the trade-off of size vs. concealability and portability. Few people would recommend carrying a small pocket pistol chambered in .357 Magnum. While such guns exist, they are difficult to shoot well and usually only hold 5 rounds or less. Neither is a soft shooting .32 ACP caliber pistol with a 20 round capacity necessarily appropriate. A handgun is always a compromise, which is why you should choose based on ergonomics and the firearm’s intended role first (home defense vs. concealed carry) and decide on a caliber second.

The Bersa Thunder .380 Concealed Carry pistol is reliable, soft shooting, and easily to conceal.

Consider these things when choosing a handgun caliber:

How comfortable is it to shoot in my pistol? Most pistols are available in a variety of calibers. Once you’ve decided what model pistol you want, try shooting it in the various calibers. A small handgun such as a Glock 26 firing a 9mm may be uncomfortable for some shooters while a larger handgun such as a Glock 20 firing a massive 10mm cartridge may be easily tamed in larger hands. Like Dave said: choose the largest caliber you can comfortably shoot.

Can I afford to practice regularly with this caliber? Larger caliber ammunition is generally more expensive than smaller caliber ammunition, so you will need to add this cost difference into the equation. If you choose a larger caliber such as .357 Magnum or .45 ACP make sure that you can find ammunition that is inexpensive enough to allow you to practice regularly.

Is it a “standard” caliber? Some calibers are simply more abundant and easier to find than others. Before you buy that pistol chambered in .45 GAP or 7.62 Tokarev, consider how easy (or difficult) it is to find a box of cartridges in that caliber. When the ammunition shortage hit a few years ago we saw everything dry up, and the unusual calibers disappeared just as fast as the more common 9mm, but these oddball cartridges were replaced on the shelves much more slowly than the more common calibers.

Terminal Ballistics When it comes to a handgun, the last thing to look at is the actual performance of the round. Colonel Jeff Cooper once said about the little .25 ACP “If you must carry a .25 ACP caliber pistol, do not load it. For if you load it, you might use it. And if you shoot somebody with it, and they find out about it, they’re likely to be very upset with you.” While a gun chambered in 25 ACP beats the heck out of not having a gun at all, it’s simply not adequate at stopping a determined attacker. A .22LR may meet all of our criteria listed above, being cheap, comfortable, and abundant, but it too lacks adequate stopping power. For most handguns .380 ACP should generally be the minimum caliber you choose. It seems like every firearm manufacturer is producing small .380 pocket pistols these days, but if you can comfortably conceal and shoot a larger caliber handgun, bigger is always better. If it meets the criteria listed above and you can accurately shoot it, choose a pistol chambered in .45 ACP, .40 S&W, or .357 Magnum for a revolver.

Despite what anyone tells you, there is no magic number, no special caliber that will reliably stop a determined attacker. Find a pistol that fits you and your needs, whether for concealed carry or home defense, and then get it in the largest caliber you can comfortably shoot. Don’t worry about ammunition capacity, but instead practice and focus on getting accurate shots.

Picking a Fighting Optic

2010-10-18T14:41:00.000-07:00

Eotech 557.AR223 HWS Rifle Sight

Whether mounting it on your home defense weapon, outfitting a SHTF rifle, or building a duty gun, choosing the right optic can make a difference in the effectiveness of your long gun. There is no room for compromise when it comes to purchasing an optic that your life or the lives of your loved ones may be dependant upon. If an optic is out of reach of your budget, it may be time to rethink your budget priorities (or time to get a job delivering pizzas). There are basically two choices when it comes to picking an optic: magnified traditional scopes or red dot sights (RDS).

To Magnify or Not

The ability to make precision hits on small or moving targets several hundred yards away will probably not be needed by most people. But if the need is there, nothing beats a variable power scope with an illuminated reticle. These scopes are usually compact and on the low end of the magnification as close to one power as possible. Most have a mil-dot or a reticle designed for close in engagements. These scopes allow the shooter to dial the scope up to the higher magnification needed for long range shooting and dial the scope back to engage nearby targets using the illuminated reticle as a RDS. Scopes such as these include the Leupold Mark 4 MR/T M2 Riflescope and the Leupold Mark 4 CQ/T Riflescope. Another option is a fixed power scope with an miniature RDS mounted on it. This provides the shooter with the option of quick acquisition close range sighting with the RDS, and the precision for longer range shooting with the fixed-power scope, although it does add bulk and weight to your weapon system.

The Aimpoint CompM4

The Ubiquitous RDS

Professionals know that the red dot sight (RDS) almost universally lets the shooter engage targets faster and with more precision. The RDS is also easier to learn to shoot with when compared to the traditional iron sights. When you speak of quality red dot sights, the industry standard is Aimpoint. Adopted by the U.S. Army as the M68 CCO the Aimpoint CompM2 is rugged and features a 10,000 hour extended battery life. Replacing the CompM2 as the M68 CCO is the Aimpoint CompM4which adds improved energy efficiency with 80,000 hours battery life and the integral mount base screws directly into the sight – no separate sight ring is required. The newest RDS that is causing a stir is the Aimpoint Micro H-1. With typical Aimpoint strength and battery life while weighing in at only three ounces the Micro series is light enough to be used anywhere you might need an RDS.

3X magnifier made by Aimpoint

The Magnified RDS

As was mentioned earlier the option of having a traditional magnified scope with an attached mini red dot sight (MRDS) has been field and battle tested with very positive results. Another application developed from battle is mounting a magnifier behind an RDS. This magnifier is simply that, devoid of reticles or adjustments, its only job to increase the usable distance of the RDS. The most efficient way to mount this to the weapon behind the RDS is some sort of quick detach mount to allow the use of the RDS by itself. There is the Aimpoint Twist Mount and EOTech and others make flip to side mounts (FTS).

Mounts

Your weapons system is only as good as its weakest link, weather that is magazines, ammunition, or you, the shooter. When it comes to your fighting rifle do not let your weakest link become the mount for your optics. Skimping on this would completely undermine the idea of a solid optic for your fighting gun. For magnified optics some of the best scope mounts are the one piece mounts from companies like GG&G such as the AC-30. The other option for mounting a traditional or tactical magnified scope on your fighting gun is simple quality rings from companies like Leupold and Warne. For attaching a 30mm RDS the Aimpoint QRP is hard to beat and GG&G is one of many manufacturers that offer an Aimpoint Cantilever Ring mount for those that need to mount a 30mm RDS further forward.

Conclusion

No matter which optic you choose, remember to practice, practice, and practice some more with your entire weapons system. This practice will ensure your ability to deliver shots on targets and determine any weaknesses with your weapons system, not to mention the benefits that practice has on your confidence, confidence that you may find useful some dark day.

Firearm Engraving

2010-10-15T14:39:00.000-07:00

Originally published in Insights, NRA’s magazine for young shooters.

What in the world could make a gun worth more than a new car? Or more than a new house for that matter? In most cases, when a gun is hammered “sold” for five or six figures at one of the high-end auction houses, part of the answer is “engraving”. If that’s the case, how come that engraved commemorative you saw at the last gun show was offered for less than a standard model? To explain this situation, let’s take a look at the history of firearms engraving, and the market for old and new engraved guns today.

Origins of engraving – The origin of decorated arms is lost in the mists of pre-history. The role of man’s earliest weapons in providing food and insuring his survival made them some of the earliest and most important tools. The impulse to decorate and personalize them must have accounted for some of humankind’s first artistic endeavors.

As societies and technology evolved, the bond between art and arms logically continued. Whether for king or tribal chieftain, weaponry represented the means to acquiring and holding political power, and the enhancement of these to suit the status of the owner was a given. What are a scepter and crown, if not vestigial arm and armor?

Whatever the origins, by the time the first firearms were developed, the tradition of decorating arms had long been established. The earliest matchlocks were mostly more or less issue military tools, and hence not often decorated. However as wheellocks and then flintlocks evolved some of the best artistic efforts of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries were applied to them. A strong firearms engraving tradition grew in Europe, with German, French and British styles evolving. The French engraved arms of the Louis XIII and XIV era are still justly famous as masterpieces.

Before the industrial revolution and efficient mass production utilizing interchangeable parts, each gun was hand made individually. During this flintlock and early percussion era, the vast majority of firearms included some sort of decoration. Usually this took the form of engraving designs, patterns, or images directly on the metal of the lock, barrel and hardware, along with carving and possibly inlaying the wood of the stock. Only military issue weapons of the era tended to lack this type of embellishment, and even these can often be found with an individuals initials carved into the stock or scratched into the metal, probably during the long nights encamped.

In America of the 1800′s the production of firearms represented the cutting edge of evolving technology and art. As Eli Whitney introduced mass production techniques, Whitney firearms were among the first products so made.

When Samuel Colt introduced the first perfected repeating firearms, his percussion revolvers, he also continued the tradition of decorated arms by rolling various scenes onto the cylinders, including a dragoon battle, a naval engagement, and a stagecoach holdup son various models. In addition to these standard mass produced scenes, Colt also offered individually engraved pieces, either custom ordered or made by Colt for presentation to prominent individuals to promote the firm’s wares.

Golden age – The second half of the 19th century, from just before the Civil War to the turn of the century, is considered the “Golden Age” of firearms engraving. During this period, nearly all the major gun manufacturers offered fancy engraved firearms for their well-heeled or more discerning customers, with Colt, Winchester, and Smith & Wesson particularly utilizing the services of the great master engravers of the era.

This is when the distinctly American style of engraving came into it’s own. It evolved from the Germanic vine scroll style brought to this country by the great masters of the era — Louis D. Nimschke, Gustave Young (Jung), and Conrad Ulrich. The style incorporated larger, more flowing scrollwork, and came to be most associated with Nimschke. Today, it is often called “Nimschke style” or “New York style” engraving. The next generation of great engravers included the sons of Young, the sons and grandsons of Ulrich, and Cuno Helfricht, along with many other master engravers.

Some of the driving forces behind this artistic explosion were the practice of giving “presentation” arms, and the great national and international expositions of the era. During and after the Civil War, it was customary to express appreciation to civic or military leaders, or to a valued business associate or loved family member, by giving a specially prepared firearm. While this often involved a simple inscription of the recipient’s and possibly giver’s names, it sometimes included extensive decoration. The great expositions were “fairs” where various manufacturers would display their wares, and the arms makers vied with each other to produce the most strikingly eye-catching artworks.

Recent history – Firearms engraving declined during the first half of the 20th century, although it was kept alive by such great engravers as R.J. Kornbrath. However, the years following WWII saw a resurgence of the interest in engraving — both contemporary work and collectible classic firearms art.

In the 1960′s and 70′s, there was a trend of mass-produced decorated firearms, probably most notably the many “commemoratives” marketed by Colt and Winchester. Rather than individual hand-crafted pieces, thousands of identically decorated guns would be sold commemorating an individual, event, or even a general “concept”, such as “Antlered Game”. During this period, various organizations such as Ducks Unlimited or various law enforcement agencies would also commission special limited runs of mass produced decorated firearms.

The 80′s and 90′s has seen a resurgence of truly exceptional engraving work. The custom departments at Smith & Wesson and Colt, along with several gifted engravers in America and Europe are currently producing pieces that rival and possibly surpass the “Golden Age” masterpieces.

Engraved Firearms Today – Given this rich history, and the undeniable timeless appeal of decorated arms, how does one establish a value for an engraved gun? Let’s take a look at some of the choices.

Commemoratives — These tend to be valued for their scarcity as collectibles or for their general eye appeal. If individual hand engraved guns are considered and evaluated as unique works of art, these mass produced pieces are perhaps more similar to limited edition prints of artwork or other items intentionally made to be collectibles, such as limited edition Christmas ornaments. The various price guides such as Blue Book of Gun Values or Standard Catalog of Firearms provide a good indication of the retail price of these arms. Generally, the fewer produced, the older the commemorative, and the more attractive the decoration, the greater the value.

To command close to full “book” value, a commemorative type arm must be in “new in the box” condition — definitely unfired and preferably without the action having ever been worked. (Due to manufacturing tolerances, such actions as rotating the cylinder of a revolver or working the lever of a rifle can create minute scratches in the finish that will reduce the desirability of a collectible commemorative). Once a commemorative has been fired, it’s value begins to rapidly decline towards that of a standard non-decorated example of the same model. A commemorative that shows extensive wear will often actually bring less than a plain model with similar wear.

Although the interest in this commemoratives declined in the 1970′s and 1980′s, probably due to over-production, the market shows some signs of renewed interest.

Inscribed pieces — A gun which has no decoration other than an individual’s name or other inscription may bring more or less than a similar gun without any special marking. There are two factors that will determine the value — historical significance and authenticity.

Of these, authenticity of the inscription will make or break the piece. Unfortunately, out and out fraudulent inscribed guns are not that uncommon. Often, the documentation accompanying the piece and providing some “provenance” of the authenticity of the inscription will be a deciding factor.

Once determined to be authentic, the premium that an inscribed piece brings will be determined by it’s historical significance. As can be imagined a modern gun that just has “someone else’s name” on it will generally be less desirable for a shooter than a plain one, and may be worth less because of the inscription. On the other hand, authentic inscribed guns which can be proven to have been owned by a famous individual can bring astronomical prices for the history they embody.

Any authentic inscription over 100 years old will generally add some interest and value to a gun.

Modern engraved guns — Engraved firearms have to be evaluated as individual works of art. Some of the factors that must be considered include skill of workmanship, extent of coverage, artistic appeal, and uniqueness. Factory engraving will bring a premium over engraving of unknown origin. Sparse coverage brings less than full coverage.

For example, S&W offers three standard levels of engraving – “C” is 1/3 coverage, with recent pricing ranging in the $800 to $1250 range, depending on the size of the gun (this is the engraving charge, which does not include the base price of the gun). “B” engraving is 2/3 coverage and runs in the $1300 to $1500 range, while full coverage “A” engraving runs around $1,400 to $1,900.

Colt’s custom engraving runs the other way – “A” engraving is the least coverage, running up to “D” grade full coverage. Colt also offers varying qualities of engraving – Standard, Expert, and Master. According to Blue Book of Gun Values, recent pricing for top of the line “Master” grade engraving, signed by the master engraver, on a Colt Single Action Army was $1,163 for A; $2,324 for B; $3,487 for C; and $4,647 for D.

These values are for standard scrollwork patterns. Special jobs requiring artistic talent in the development of a unique design can run considerably more.

A major determining factor on non-factory engraved guns is the reputation and skill of the engraver. As with other artists, the acknowledged masters of the form will bring substantial premiums over unknown engravers. When dealing with an unknown engraver, the quality of the work will determine value. Finest engraving is always done with hand tools — chisel and hammer. Crudely done engraving can actually lessen the value of a firearm.

Antique engraving – Older engraving is valued in a similar way to modern engraving — the artistic quality, extent of coverage, and the reputation of the engraver are of most importance. However, most 19th century engraving was not signed by the engraver, and attribution to a particular hand is much more art than science, and that art mastered by only a few.

Fortunately, factory records for firms such as Winchester, Colt, and S&W are intact and originality of engraving on a particular serial numbered gun can often be determined by a search of the records. On the other hand, much 19th century engraving was ordered by the distributors, such as giant M.W. Robinson, rather than the manufacturers. Sometimes, a factory notation that a gun was shipped to a distributor “soft” or “in the white” indicates that the gun was intended to be engraved. Some of the finest engraved guns were commissioned by distributors or even individual owners. When considering paying a premium for old engraving, it’s a good idea to get an expert opinion on the authenticity and quality.

Ultimately, it comes down to individual taste. Most shooters and firearms enthusists find that sooner or later they get the hankering for a “fancy” gun. Even individuals who may not be interested in guns can appreciate the artistry of a beautifully engraved guns.

More information — The recently published book Steel Canvas by R. L. Wilson features an outstanding and interesting discussion of arms engraving along with beautiful photographs of some of the finest firearms ever made. Earlier works by the same author include Winchester Engraving, Colt Engraving, and Nimschke’s pattern book published as L.D. Nimschke, Firearms Engraver. Firearms Engraving as Decorative Art by Frederic Harris provides an interesting discussion of the origins of engraving motif’s in oriental art along with a theory of identifying individual engravers by a detailed study of their cutting style.

Pocket .380 Pistols

2010-10-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

They’re one of the hottest items in the gun industry today. As more and more states pass laws allowing the concealed carry of a pistol, millions of people have sought out this firearm. Lightweight and easily concealed, they are still powerful enough to stop a determined attacker.

I speak of course about the pocket .380 pistol. Lambasted in the past as a “Saturday Night Special” these inexpensive yet easily concealable shooters are perfect for the law abiding gun owner who seeks a convenient concealed carry pistol. Their small size makes wardrobe selection easy. Many people find that the double action polymer framed models are so light and slim that they can be simply slipped into a pocket sans holster.

Often considered to be a weak and underpowered cartridge, the .380 ACP caliber round is definitely lacking the knock-down power found in a larger cartridge like the .45 ACP or .40 S&W. With proper shot placement however, it is still possible to stop an attacker with one or more shots of .380. With shot placement being so important with a caliber of this size, it’s difficult to consider a pocket sized .380 pistol with a short barrel and equally short sight radius anything but a point blank distance firearm. This is not to say that you cannot employ one at a distance, only that they are much more difficult to aim properly at long ranges, particularly given the heavy double action trigger found on most of these guns.

Here we evaluate the most popular of these tiny shooters and lay out the facts on each one. Whether you are looking for an ultralight polymer framed pistol or a more traditional but still easily pocketable Bersa or Walther, you’re sure to find a .380 that suits you.

Based off of the PPK, the Walther PPK/S was one of the original pocket .380 pistols.

Walther PPK and PPK/S Easily recognizable as one of the preferred pistols of James Bond, the Walther PPK and it’s slightly larger cousin, the PPK/S, are both easily concealable pocket .380s. The smooth rounded slide and frame make it easy to slip this small handgun into a pocket or draw it quickly without snagging.

Based off of the PPK, the PPK/S was designed after the Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed in the US, forcing Walther to design a slightly heavier pistol in order to be in compliance with the “sporting” requirements of GCA-68. In order to continue being able to import the pistol, Walther took the frame of the PP pistol and paired it up with the PPK slide and barrel to create a pistol weighing 1.5 ounces more and carried one more round of ammunition.

Later, in 1978, Walther licensed production of the original PPK in the United States to Smith & Wesson who added a slightly longer grip tang to protect the shooter’s hand from slide bite.

Bersa Thunder The Bersa Thunder is another one of the original pocket .380 pistols. Though it has an all metal frame, the Bersa Thunder in .380weighs in at just over a pound. It has a number of features normally only found on larger handguns such as a loaded chamber indicator and slide lock. The slightly larger grip also allows it to carry an extra round, giving it a capacity of 7+1 compared to the 6+1 found on most pocket .380 pistols.

Taurus 738 TCP Announced in 2009 and released for sale in 2010, the Taurus 738 TCP is the Brazilian gun manufacturer’s entry into the pocket .380 market. With a slim single stack grip and lightweight polymer frame, the 738 is comparable to Kel-Tec’s P-3AT and Ruger’s LCP. Unlike the P-3AT and LCP, the 738 has a last round hold-open feature so that the slide is locked back on an empty magazine. Taurus also added another feature normally only found on larger pistols: a loaded chamber indicator can be found just above the extractor.

Kel-Tec P-3AT Kel-Tec set the standard a number of years ago for ultra-light polymer framed pocket pistols with their P-32 pistol. Later, Kel-Tec engineers created the P-3AT, a pistol that is the same size as the P-32 but chambered in the significantly more powerful .380 ACP. This tiny shooter was a runaway success, so much so that retailers still have difficulty keeping it in stock.

Based off of the Kel-Tec P3AT, the Ruger LCP is a slim and easily concealable pocket .380.

Ruger LCP Ruger took Kel-Tec’s P-3AT “Keep it Simple” design and took it a step further by adding a slide lock lever. While the slide does not lock back after the last shot, the slide lock lever makes performing administrative tasks on the pistol much easier (clearing a jam or showing clear for an RO). Affectionately called the “Elsie Pea” by aficionados, the Ruger LCP has quickly gained a devoted following.

Sig P238 and Colt Mustang The Colt Mustang was a small .380 pocket pistol manufactured from 1986-1997. Ironically right as Colt ceased production of their small shooter concealed carry pistols began to see a rise in popularity. With the Mustang no longer in production prices for the Colt .380 jumped dramatically with some selling for as much as 2-3 times as much as the original MSRP. In 2009 Sig Sauer began producing their own Colt Mustang inspired design and rebranded it as the P238. Essentially a small 1911 platform pistol, the Sig P238 and the Colt Mustang are both single action pistols with a frame mounted safety. Designed to be carried “cocked and locked” with the hammer back and the safety engaged, many people dismiss the design as practical for pocket carry. With a good fitting pocket holster however, this pistol can be safely carried without concern.

On most pocket .380 pistols, the sights, or lack thereof, leave much to be desired. When Sig began the design process on their P238 one of the first things they added was a decent set of combat sights. You can even find models available with Tritium night sights which help immensely in low-light situations.

Kahr P380 The Kahr P380 is essentially a slightly smaller version of their much loved 9mm PM9. Another double action pocket .380, the Kahr P380 features a wider trigger which helps smooth out the double action pull. Small .380 caliber pocket pistols are not known for being forgiving to shoot or easily controllable, but Kahr put aggressive texturing on the grip of the little pistol give the user better control under even the hottest +P loads. Like the Sig, the Kahr P380 is available with Tritium night sights which are highly recommended.

Smith & Wesson Bodyguard .380 The Smith & Wesson Bodyguard .380 is one of the newest .380 pocket pistols to hit the market. First shown at the 2010 SHOT show, both it and it’s companion .38 Special revolver feature integral laser aiming systems. The Smith & Wesson Bodyguard has all of the controls found on a full size semiautomatic, including a safety, slide lock and release, and a generously large take-down lever. One of problems other ultra-slim .380 pistols exhibit is difficulty in field stripping due to the close fit of the take-down pin. With the large take-down lever on the Bodyguard, field stripping is very fast and extremely easy.

Pocket .380 Pistols	Weight	Capacity	Barrel Length	Overall Length	Width	Height	Action	Frame	Price as of Oct. 2010
Walther PPK/S	22.4 ounces	7+1	3.35″	6.1″	0.98″	4.3″	DA/SA	Steel	$509.31
Walther PPK	20.8 ounces	6+1	3.35″	6.1″	0.98″	3.8″	DA/SA	Steel	$509.31
Bersa Thunder .380	23 ounces	7+1	3.5″	6.6″	1.4″	4.75″	DA/SA	Aluminum	$239.80
Sig P238	15.2 ounces	6+1	2.7″	5.5″	1.1″	3.9″	SA	Aluminum	$561.66
Kahr P380	9.9 ounces	6+1	2.5″	4.9″	0.75″	3.9″	DAO	Polymer	$522.11
Kel-Tec P3AT	8.3 ounces	6+1	2.75″	5.2″	0.77″	3.5″	DAO	Polymer	$228.67
Ruger LCP	9.4 ounces	6+1	2.75″	5.16″	0.82″	3.6″	DA0	Polymer	$272.47
Smith & Wesson Bodyguard	11.85 ounces	6+1	2.75″	5.25″	0.75″	4.1″	DAO	Polymer	$427.84
Taurus 738 TCP	10.2 ounces	6+1	3.3″	5.25″	0.75″	4.1″	DAO	Polymer	$250.16

Many people dismiss the pocket .380 pistol as inaccurate and underpowered. While I won’t contest the fact that it is indeed less accurate and less powerful than a full sized service pistol in a caliber that begins with “.4″ it bears repeating that the pistol you have is always better than one left at home. The new line of pocket sized .380 automatic pistols being produced are reliable and easily concealed no matter what your wardrobe. If the thought of lugging around a couple of pounds of full sized or even compact defensive pistol is off-putting to you, consider downsizing. You can get an easily concealable pistol for much less than $300 and have the peace of mind of being able to be armed everywhere the law allows.

Care and Feeding of Your Firearm

2010-10-12T16:49:00.000-07:00

Learn to use a quality cleaning kit to ensure a long life for your firearm

Perhaps you’ve finally decided to purchase your first firearm, or perhaps you’re simply adding a new gun to your collection. Either way, now that you’re home with your new purchase, it’s time to go over a few things to make sure that you know the proper way to take care of this precision tool.

No matter how long you’ve owned firearms or how experienced you are with them, it’s always good to touch on the basics from time to time. Follow these tips to ensure that all of your firearms have a long and failure-free life.

Learn the proper way to field strip your firearm. I can’t stress this enough. Unless you are able to properly field strip your firearm, you will not be able to properly clean and lubricate it. Read the firearm manual that came with your gun and learn how to safely disassemble it.

Keep your firearm properly lubricated. Your firearm owner’s manual should contain information on the correct lubrication points of your gun as well as how much and what type of oil to use.

Read the owner’s manual. If you haven’t figured it out by now, the owner’s manual that came with your firearm has lots of good information in it. Read it!

Store in a cool dry place. Always keep your firearm stored in a cool dry place. Heat and humidity are the bane of modern firearms. By storing your guns in a cool dry place you will help to prevent damage from rust caused by moisture or cracking and delamination of the stock. It is recommended that you also store your firearms with a dessicant to ensure that the ambient humidity level remains low.

Store firearms unloaded and secured. Firearms should always be stored unloaded and locked up away from children or other unauthorized individuals. Remember that it is your responsibility to keep firearms out of the hands of children.

Regularly take your firearms out of storage for inspection and cleaning. Just because a firearm hasn’t been used doesn’t mean that it doesn’t need to be inspected and cleaned or re-oiled. Over time, a light rust preventing oil coating will evaporate or slowly flow down and eventually off of your stored firearms. You should regularly take out your firearms at least one a year, inspect them for rust or corrosion, clean them if necessary, and then relubricate them.

Wipe down firearms that are carried frequently. Your concealed carry pistol should be given extra care. It is constantly exposed to heat, rain, sweat, lint, dirt, and dust, and your life may depend on it functioning correctly at a critical moment. For this reason, make sure to wipe off your concealed carry pistol every night with a silicon impregnated cloth. This drives off corrosive oils and moisture and prevents rust. Check for the collection of lint and dirt in the cracks and crevices of your pistol and gently wipe them out with a lightly oiled cotton swab.

The AR-15 Platform As A Hunting Rifle

2010-10-08T09:27:00.001-07:00

It’s hard to say where the trend started. Perhaps some Vietnam veteren in the deep south struggling with a feral hog invasion decided the best way to eliminate the varmints was the AR-15 he picked up after returning from the jungle. Maybe it was a rancher out in Midwest who liked the flat shooting 40 grain round for taking out coyotes. Wherever it began, it started a years long transition from traditional wooden stocked bolt action hunting rifles to the eventual production of Remington’s R-25 AR-platform rifle chambered in anything from .243 to .308 Winchester.

Now, before you dismiss the traditional 5.56mm/.223 caliber AR-15 rifle as a viable hunting weapon, lets go over some ballistics first. I know many will dismiss this rifle/caliber combination as a “poodle shooter” unsuitable for use in a war zone, much less as a hunting rifle for use on medium game, but let’s look at what the numbers say, starting with one of the most popular deer cartridges in the Unites States, the .30-30. Traditionally, the .30-30 used cast lead bullets with most weighing in around 160 grains. Though it was one of the first cartridges designed from the ground up to use smokeless powder, black powder was simply more available at the time and was commonly used when the .30-30 was introduced. Sitting atop a compressed load of FFF black powder the muzzle velocity of a 160 grain cast lead bullet was only around 1,600 feet per second, giving it a muzzle energy of just under 1,000 ft-lbs. While this performance pales in comparison to a modern smokeless powder propelled .30-30 bullet, it was more than adequate to take down what amounts to probably millions of deer over the decades. Moving on to the modern version of the .30-30 round we find that using smokeless powders a somewhat lighter 130 grain copper jacketed round nose flat point bullet is easily propelled to a muzzle velocity of 2,500 feet per second which results in a muzzle energy just a hair under 1,800 ft-lbs: much more than the older blackpowder version.

How does this traditional deer cartridge stack up against 5.56mm/.223 caliber ammunition? In fact, they are surprisingly similar. A standard 62 grain FMJBT round fired at 3,050 feet per second has a muzzle energy of 1,300 ft-lbs., more than our traditional 160 grain black powder propelled bullet but slightly less than a modern 130 grain smokeless propelled .30-06 bullet. Still, that gives the 5.56/.223 round more than enough energy to drop a good sized mule deer.

“But…” I hear you cry, “The .223 round has far too much penetration, it will just shoot through and through without doing much damage.”

Not quite. It’s true that the standard M855 round used by our military does have some overpenetration issues due to variations in the neck length, but heavier 69 and 75 grain hollow point or OTM bullets (both of which should easily by stabilized by most 1:9-1:7 twist barrels) have superb performance and fragmentation in less than 12 inches of ballistic gel. While ballistic gel is not a direct substitute for a deer, it does serve to give us a rough estimation of the round’s performance on a game animal. This evidence, when coupled with the thousands of anecdotes from wild boar and deer hunters who swear by the .223 AR-15 rifle/cartridge combination, should be more than enough to prove the viability of the .223 cartridge as medium game ammunition.

But, for those of you who still feel the need to step up to a larger caliber, there are plenty of AR-15 platform rifles out there chambered in calibers such as 6.8 SPC, 6.5 Creedmoor, .243 Winchester, .308 Winchester, and even 7mm-08. DPMS and Remington, both owned by parent company Freedom Group, have a line of rifles dedicated to these larger calibers. From DPMS we have the LR-308 platform and from Remington the R-15 and R-25 rifle, both dedicated hunting rifles available with a camouflage finish.

While the larger caliber AR rifles were initially dismissed by many traditional hunters as “overkill” or “not suitable for hunting” it didn’t take long for many to realize that there simply isn’t much difference between aRemington 750 or Browning BAR and an R-25 or LR-308 chambered in .308 Winchester. While some will undoubtedly prefer the traditional look of a walnut stock or the increased precision of a bolt action, it appears that the AR platform is here to stay as a viable option for small, medium, and with the .308 or 7mm-08 chambered R-25 large or dangerous game such as moose or bear.

The modularity of the AR platform makes it able to be quickly swapped over from an iron sighted .458 SOCOM brush gun to a scoped 6.8 SPC caliber rifle capable of much longer shots. No other rifle platform demonstrates such versatility. Combine this with the wide availability of aftermarket parts, and you can build an AR rifle to fill just about any role you can conceive of.

Kel-Tec Update on PMR-30 Production

2010-10-06T09:26:00.000-07:00

Everyone seems to be clamoring to get their hands on this little pistol, but they’re virtually no where to be found. Kel-Tec sent us a new update this morning letting us know that production numbers are up and they are quickly moving into full production.

Production is coming along nicely. Batch numbers are increasing every week and we are pretty confident that we can finally hit that full production mark this month as planned, so you will finally see the PMR-30 become more and more available.
You should have already seen them become somewhat more available than they were when we first released them.
The bottleneck part right now are barrels. We get the barrel blanks from an outside supplier, but shortly we will be making our own blanks, speeding the process up even more.

Fans of suppressed .22 pistols will be happy to know that Kel-Tec also plans on offering a .22LR conversion kit for the PMR-30, along with a threaded barrel.

We won’t be doing a whole PMR-30 .22LR version, just a conversion kit. No ETA on that. Same for the threaded barrel. We have working prototypes, but we want to focus on getting the PMR-30 production on lock before we start working on accessories.

For those unfamiliar with the platform, the PMR-30 is Kel-Tec’s newest semiautomatic pistol chambered in .22 WMR. It can carry a whopping 30 rounds in a single magazine, making it extremely popular as a trail gun in areas of the country that don’t harbor native bears.

PMR-30 Specifications
Caliber: .22 Magnum (.22WMR)
Barrel length 4.3”
Length: 7.9”
Height: 5.8”
Grip Width: 1.1”
Max width, across safety levers: 1.3”
Magazine capacity: 30 rounds
Trigger pull: 3.5 to 5 lbs
Weight (no mag): 13.6 oz.
Muzzle Velocity (40 gr): 1230 fps

Click here to purchase your own PMR-30 or to receive an update when they are back in stock.

DefenseReview.com Exclusive on the Colt Modular Carbine (CMC) CM901 Multi-Caliber Rifle

2010-10-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

Much noise has been made over the past few years about the integration of a multi-caliber AR style platform to the US armed forces. The FN SCAR (in 5.56 NATO and 7.62 NATO) and the Bushmaster ACR (in 5.56 NATO and 6.8 SPC) have both been tossed around as multi-caliber replacements for the M4/M16 currently in use. Now Colt has introduced their solution with the CM901 Colt Modular Carbine and DefenseReview.com was lucky enough to get an exclusive look at this new rifle.

“Modular” and “multi-caliber” are actually understatements, since the CM901 is, hands, down, the most versatile battle rifle/assault rifle we’ve ever seen in both respects. The heart of this versatility lies in the combination of the patent-pending AR (AR-10/AR-15)-format “universal” multi-caliber lower receiver and conversion system and Colt Defense’s various AR operating systems and uppers, which allows the end-user to configure the gun in so many mission-specific ways, it’s almost mind-boggling. The CM901 provides a truly sumptuous feast of versatility with regard to configuration options.
1) The Colt CM901 Modular Carbine is a select-fire AR (AR-10/AR-15)-platform weapon, so it will immediately look, feel, handle, and shoot in a way that’s immediately familiar to all military end-users, including general infantry personnel. It also benefits from the AR platform’s now legendary ergonomics/usernomics.
2) The CM901 multi-caliber battle carbine can be configured in any/every caliber between 7.62×51mm NATO (7.62mm NATO)/.308 Win. and 5.56×45mm NATO (5.56mm NATO)/.223 Rem., including 6.8 SPC (6.8×43mm SPC) and 6.5 Grendel, depending on what U.S. military end-users require. To switch from 7.62mm to 5.56mm, just push out the two receiver pins, take the 7.62×51mm upper module off, slap the 5.56mm upper module on, push the two receiver pins back in, and you’re good to go.
3) The CM901 universal lower receiver will accept any/all legacy MILSPEC 5.56mm NATO AR rifle/carbine/SBR upper receivers already in the U.S. military inventory, including the, Colt M4/M4A1 Carbine 14.5″ AR carbine , M4 Commando 11.5″ AR SBR, MK18/CQBR (Close Quarters Battle Receiver) 10.3″ AR SBR, and M16A3/A4 20″ DGI rifle uppers. The CM901 lower will also accept the Colt LE6940 16″ monolithic upper and Colt LE6920 16″ M4/M4A1 Carbine-type uppers. Thus, 5.56mm barrel length is determined by whatever AR upper you want to use.

And later:

5) The CM901 sports fully ambidextrous controls a.k.a. “full ambi controls”, including ambidextrous safety/selector switch, bolt catch hold-open/release lever, and magazine release button.
6) The CM901 when configured for .308 Win utilizes the MagPul 20LR 7.62 magazine. The weapon will also accept the SR25/M100 7.62mm magazine. The weapon when configured for 5.56mm will accept all “MILSPEC” 5.56mm magazines.

These are just a few excerpts. For the full text and all the details about the Colt CM901, head on over to the Defense Review article located here.

October E-Postal Match

2010-10-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

The September E-Postal match deadline has been extended through this weekend, and the October E-Postal match is already up and running so you can download and print out both targets and shoot two matches at the range this weekend. US Citizen from the Traction Control blog is hosting this month's E-Postal match.

Read the rules and download this month's target below:

October’s e-Postal Match is up at Traction Control.

This month is Circles.

The target target22 circles x20 is here.

Fire 20 Rounds – unsupported – at a distance of 7 yards (21 feet) – shots touching the center dots score 3X, 1 X for circle hits.

(Max score 60 per target).

Enter with name (to be posted) and firearm details (type, caliber, distance) to accompany your entry. One entry per shooter, per gun. You can enter with as many guns as you want!

Scan or photo your targets and send to USCitizen@Well-RegulatedMilitia.org to be posted in the final scores by midnight on October 31, 2010!

Happy Halloween!

Classes:

1. Rimfire

a. optics

b. no optics

2. Centerfire

a. optics

b. no optics

To even the scoring, for optical sights vs. no optics – i.e., iron sights, scores from the optics classes will be reduced by 20%.

Good luck and Shoot safe!

And remember to send your targets in by midnight on Halloween night!

We Talk To Phil Strader at the IDPA Nationals in Tulsa Oklahoma

2010-09-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

Phil Strader got his start with firearms when he first hired on as a police officer in Danville Virginia. After seeing a video of action pistol shooter Jerry Barnhart, Phil decided that if he was to take his responsibilities as a law enforcement officer seriously, he would have to practice more and improve his gun handling skills.

Thus began his path toward becoming a world renowned action pistol shooter and professional firearms instructor. Phil Strader is now a Smith & Wesson sponsored shooter and regularly competes in IPSC and IDPA. When he's not participating in action pistol competitions, Phil runs his own military and law enforcement training company Straighter Solutions.

We had the chance to catch up with Phil at the IDPA National Championship competition held last week at the US Shooting Academy in Tulsa Oklahoma and talked with him for a bit about his move to the Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm Pro.

Let's talk about the equipment you're using today. What did you bring with you? I'm shooting in the SSP (Stock Service Pistol) class, and I'm shooting a literally stock M&P Pro with just some Warren Tactical Sights and some grip tape on it and that's it.

No trigger job, nothing special, just as it comes out of the box? Completely stock.

Why did you choose the M&P 9mm? The 9mm Pro just feels better. It's more balanced. I had a 9mm Standard, a 4", before but the 5" just gives me better balance, better recovery on target, and the gun just seems to track and shoot better in my experience.

What do you think of the match so far? It's a good match you know. It's my first and only IDPA match of the year, so it's trigger time for me to get ready for nationals next year. They always do a great job here. These guys, they know how to run a club and the stages are great.

They're doing a good job, and this gets me some time behind the gun because I just got this gun two weeks ago. I'm trying to get some trigger work on it because my old gun had a trigger job on it, but this one doesn't and I'm trying to get used to that.

What other matches are you shooting this year? I just shot the 3-gun Nationals, I shot the Steel Challenge, the Steel Nationals, Bianchi Cup, I'm going to the USPSA back to back Nationals next week, I do some 3-gunning here and there, I'm going to the Fort Benning 3-gun match this year, the IPSC Nationals in South Carolina, so I'm very involved with USPSA and IPSC. I'm getting ready for Greece next year and the World Shoot.

How have you done so far this year? It's a learning curve, I've had to change equipment, but I think I'm going to do fine. I was an STI shooter before, and the M&P is a much different kind of gun. It's definitely tough getting used to, but I think by Nationals I'll be tuned in and ready to go.

Are you training any differently for IDPA than you do for a Steel Challenge? Well, first to say I train for IDPA would be quite a step in the wrong direction. I think I mentally prepare for IDPA differently because it's more about everything else and the shooting is just kinda incidental. The targets are close, it's pretty easy, but you've got to be mentally prepared to deal with all the different idiosyncrasies with the rules and that sort of thing.

My preparation for something like Steel Challenge is all repetitive. Shooting, shooting, shooting, and here it's more mental.

How many rounds do you usually shoot a month? Typically, what is this, September? This month, sadly I have shot about 700 rounds. I don't shoot a lot, I'm a dry fire guy.

I average 500-1000 rounds per month, depending on what match is coming up. My budget and my family life just doesn't allow me to shoot as much as I would like to. It's nice to be close to a range like this, but I do a lot of mental visualization, I do a lot of gun manipulation, stuff I can do at home like dry fire. It's just always seemed to work for me. I just kinda know what the gun looks like when it's going off and I don't have to shoot a lot of rounds to confirm it, although I'd like to. It just doesn't work out usually. Family stuff comes first and shooting second.

When you're not on the professional shooting circuit, what else are you doing? I'm actually self employed, I own Straighter Solutions. It's basically a training company. I travel all over the country and teach people to shoot, either competitively or LE/Military Tactical, 3-gun, rifle, whatever. If a bullet comes out of it I teach it. I'm just doing a lot of instruction there, I've got three classes scheduled in the next month and a half, so it's going pretty well.

What got you started in shooting? I was a police officer in Southern Virginia, and I was an OK shooter. I was a cop, I thought I was the best shooter. I was the best shooter in my class which means I was the best shooter in the world, right? Then somebody showed me a video of Jerry Barnhart shooting a stage and it was just unbelievable to me to see how fast he could shoot.

Instantly, I asked the guy showing me the video "What police department does he work for?" because I automatically assumed that all good shooters were cops. That's just the way it is, right? Turns out he was an electrician, and that got me a little concerned that an electrician could shoot that good and I'm suppposed to be a cop protecting the public and I shoot so much worse. I decided to start shooting competitively for training purposes. I just kinda got good at it and over the course of a month or two as I got pretty good I decided to do it competitively.

Are there any other sponsors or anyone else you want to mention? Well, I've got a lot of great sponsors, but Smith & Wesson, they take care of me. Accurate Iron is my gunsmith, luckily he doesn't have to do a whole lot because I only shoot stock guns, but he does all of my 1911 work. Warren sights obviously, they're all I use on all my guns if it's iron sights. Schuemann barrels, and... [glances at shirt] Who else do I got on there? Oh yeah, Speed Shooter Specialties. They deal with all the Smith & Wesson aftermarket stuff. And Straighter Solutions, obviously I'm self-sponsored because it's my business.

Everyone is really good, but these are the guys who have been with me since the beginning and I stay loyal to those guys. They're very supportive.

Phil Strader makes his home in the Tulsa suburb of Owasso Oklahoma with his wife and children.

Photos From IDPA Nationals

2010-09-27T13:37:00.000-07:00

We're still going through all of the video and photos taken over the weekend at the IDPA Nationals held at the USSA shooting center in Northeast Oklahoma. Here's a few to whet your appetite while we compile and edit the video. As always, click on any image to enlarge.

The Cheaper Than Dirt! Warrior truck made it's debut appearance at the IDPA Nationals in Tulsa Oklahoma

Tori Nonaka poses atop the CTD Warrior Truck

There were a number of demonstrations, including this incredibly loud recoilless rifle. You can't see it in the photo, but there is a pond not too far behind the shooter and your could see the blast wave kick up waves across the surface of the pond.

L & L brought out their full-boogie machine guns.

Randi Rogers shoots from atop the CTD Warrior truck at stage 14 "Who let the dogs out?"

The IDPA Team from Italy... Proof IDPA truly is an international sport!

10 Tips For A Successful Duck Hunt

2010-09-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

Cold fronts have begun to sweep across much of the United States, bringing migrating waterfowl with them. Nothing gets a dedicated duck hunter's blood going so early in the morning like a flock of ducks coming in on short final. Duck season is still a few weeks away for most of the US, but now is the time to prepare for upcoming hunts.

Follow these 10 helpful tips to be successful on your next duck hunt.

1) Plan your hunt
This sounds simple, but so many hunters neglect to plan their hunt. Check the weather forecast so you know which direction the wind will be blowing from. Take the time to scout the area and see where the ducks are actually landing. Some hunting areas are too far to drive out and scout before you hunt, but with the internet distance isn't an issue. Fire up your favorite mapping website and scout from the air.

2) Pattern your gun before the hunt
Shotgun loads can be very finicky. Make sure that the ammunition you are shooting matches up to your gun and choke by patterning it before the hunt. You'll want to test the loads at 10 yards, to make sure it opens up fast enough, and again at 40 yards to see that it's still tight enough for longer shots. If the pattern isn't right, try a different load or switch your choke.

3) Practice with your dog
Man's best friend can get out of shape in between active hunting seasons. Make sure your retriever is up to the task by working out a couple of times a week before the season gets going.

4) Maintain your gear
There's no better way to sabotage your hunt than to ignore your gear until you're out trying to set everything up in the pre-dawn darkness. Don't wait until you get out to the field to find out that you've got damaged decoys, that your weights and cords resemble a tangled plate of spaghetti, or that the battery on your boat motor is dead. At least a week before your hunt you need to go over all of your equipment and ensure that it's clean and functional.

5) Eliminate shine
While you're maintaining your gear, keep an eye out for any shiny spots on your duck boat. It could be nothing more than a scratch allowing the aluminum hull to peek through, but that's all it takes for a sharp eyed duck to decide to land elsewhere. I like to carry a can or two of matte black or brown
paint to touch up spots like that.

6) Set your decoys correctly
There is no surefire pattern to use when setting decoys, but some hunters insist on using the "tried and true" J and U patterns. The pattern you use should be dictated by the wind and the layout of your hunting area. Be willing to change things up a bit, which brings me to my next point:

7) If it's not working, change something
When the ducks are just circling once or twice and flying on, settling 100 yards away, or flaring off just before they come in range, you need to change your setup. Don't be afraid to break cover and reset your decoys, move the blind to a better location, or touch up the camouflage on your boat. Waterfowl are sharp eyed creatures and will abort landing at the first sign of danger.

8) Have someone experienced calling the shots
Nothing irritates a group of hunters faster than someone who calls the shots poorly. It's tough some times to make the call when the ducks are at the exact distance you need them to be to get more than one shot off. Make sure you've got an experienced hunter who knows exactly when to shout "Take 'em!"

9) Don't overcall
Occasionally you'll need to call a lot to bring in the flocks, but more often than not I've found that calling intermittently with more variety works the best. When in doubt, call a little less.

10) Camouflage camouflage camouflage
Make sure that the camo you wear and use on the blind matches your environment. Realtree Hardwood camo is going to stick out like a sore thumb amongst the reeds of a duck pond. Take a lesson from what snipers do and turn your boat into a giant ghillie suit by tying on reeds, grasses and other foliage from your hunting area.

Joyce Wilson Takes Us Behind The Scenes at IDPA Nationals

2010-09-20T16:03:00.000-07:00

It's nearly the end of September, which means that the season is quickly drawing to a close for many competitive shooting organizations. In fact, the IDPA National Championship is being held this week just outside Tulsa Oklahoma. Two hundred and fifty shooters from 8 nations will converge on the Unites States Shooting Academy, one of the finest training facilities in the central US.

We recently had the opportunity to speak with Joyce Wilson, Executive Director and Treasurer of IDPA to find out about her background in the shooting sports. Along the way we gained an insiders perspective into the history of IDPA and got an exclusive behind the scenes look at what goes on in putting on one of the largest action pistol shooting events in the United States.

How did you first get started with firearms? Actually, I didn't have any experience as a child and didn't grow up around them. My dad had some rifles and stuff like that but he'd never taken me out shooting or anything along that nature. In kind of an interesting way, my background in firearms started with a bad divorce. I went through a bad separation and felt like I needed to get a concealed carry permit. Not that I ever had to use it or anything like that, but I took a concealed carry class where I was living in West Virginia at the time. I got real interested in shooting, but IDPA wasn't actually formed at that point, so I started with a bit of USPSA.

Your interest in firearms has always been from a personal defense standpoint? You never had any interest in competitive shooting before that? Right, I just didn't grow up around competition.

Did you know Bill Wilson or Ken Hackathorn before getting involved in IDPA? No, I didn't. I didn't know anything about either one of them. I had met Ken shortly after they started IDPA simply because of his involvement in USPSA. I knew of Bill only because of the gun shop and obviously was a big fan of "The best firearms in the world" but I had no idea I would ever get to meet him.

What brought about the genesis of IDPA? Well, Bill got started in USPSA, but as the rules when on and time went by Bill and others decided that they wanted a practical shooting sport and talked to USPSA about starting a practical class. When it became apparent that the other USPSA board members had no interest in a practical class Bill and John and Ken decided "Well, we're just going do it on our own". Bill used his contacts in the industry to line up sponsors and organize things and soon had extraordinary success. The sport grew to 15,000 members in the US and 49 different countries.

Wow, that's incredible growth. Why did you make the decision to move from USPSA over to IDPA? Well, USPSA is a lot of fun, but the classification system is kinda cumbersome. Plus, while I enjoyed the game aspect of USPSA I had gotten my concealed carry permit, taken LFI-I from Massad Ayoob, and IDPA was just a natural fit. It was a lot easier to get involved in than USPSA. You could just pick up any gun and a mag pouch and you could shoot a match. With USPSA you needed the right pouch, the right holster, a tricked out gun, lots and lots of ammunition and even more money. At the time, it was just easier to shoot IDPA.

IDPA Executive Director and Treasurer Joyce Wilson in an undated photo.
There was initially some bad blood and negative reactions when IDPA was first started. Do you think any of this came about from those in the industry who felt it was "safer" politically to focus on action pistol shooting as just a sport and not a self defense oriented activity? I don't think that it was so much that aspect of it, I think it was more that some of them just didn't get along with Bill and Ken and the guys. There was a lot of animosity between both sports, and I know even when I first started with IDPA back in 2000 there were some who referred to IDPA as "I Don't Practice Anymore".

As far as I can tell all of that is gone now. Eventually we were basically able to just reopen the lines of communication and we worked real hard to both support each other. We always are in contact to make sure that our major matches don't conflict.

Let's talk about your upcoming National Match this week in Tulsa Oklahoma at the United States Shooting Academy. IDPA is primarily made up of local organizations, correct? Correct.

Do you have qualifiers or area matches leading up to Nationals? We've got lots of different area matches. Many states organize state championships and often times a few conjoining states will join together for an area match. We have required people now to shoot two area sanctioned matches before they apply to compete at Nationals.

How do you select the ranges where Nationals are held each year? We try to move the match around some, but there are only so many ranges that meet the criteria we need to hold the National Championships. They need a number of pistol bays, usually 8 or more, they need to have facilities for scorers and nearby hotels. They also need to be near a major, at least a regional, airport so that competitors can travel to the match.

It doesn't sound like there are many ranges that can meet all of those requirements. Right, exactly and sometimes we have to compromise. We're always looking for new ranges. We put out feelers in the Tactical Journal and the IDPA website asking if anybody knows of a range that they'd like to see the Nationals at to holler at us. It really helps to have a fairly good sized local club on the ground at that range, simply because we need a core group that can help us with logistics like lunches and port-a-pottys for instance. But yes, we're always looking for new places as well.

Tell us a little bit about the USSA range in Tulsa where you'll be holding Nationals this week. We've got 18 stages in the National Match setup on 9 bays. I think we've got 2 or 3 expo bays set up. That range is just gorgeous. It's huge, I don't think we even use half of it. I know they've got the whole steel challenge set up on one set of bays, and then we use like 9 of their pistol bays, and I think they've still got 3 or 4 more. They've got I don't know how many rifle bays. They've got a 360° bay and just beautiful facilities.

What I would call the "clubhouse" which is actually their headquarters is just a beautiful office building that has classroom space that we use for scoring and they've got a wonderful pro shop set up out there as well. Their staff is just wonderful to work with. We love going over there. This will be the second year that we've been there and it just makes it so easy to go there and put this match on.

It sounds like quite the production. How much time and effort goes in to putting on an event this big? It's basically a year long project. The crunch time is probably the last three months before the match, with the last 4 or 5 weeks really being the super-crunch time. We start literally the day after the match is over making sure that we've got a range for next year, where it's going to be, the format of the match, making sure we've got a match director picked out, and basically starting the whole process over.

The logistics have to be a major hurdle as well. You've got competitors coming in from across the globe and have to arrange shipping and receiving for firearms and ammunition too. Right. We actually have competitors coming in from 7 or 8 foreign countries this year. They can't all bring ammo so we arrange to get them ammo or for them to be able to purchase ammo. Even a lot of the local United States shooters that are flying in that don't want to carry ammo because it's just such a pain in the butt to carry ammo and firearms and all that on commercial airlines anymore. They'll pre ship their stuff in as well.

There are just lots and lots of little details to cover, and I'm so so lucky I've got a wonderful staff here at headquarters. They've been doing this for a while and now it just happens and that's way cool.

Of course, something like this could never be pulled off without all of the sponsors. Tell us a bit about all of the sponsors you've got this year and how critical their participation is. Oh absolutely. We've got I don't know how many sponsors all together this year and I don't want to name a bunch of names because I don't have a listing of them in front of me.

Let me throw a couple out there, we've got Smith & Wesson as a major sponsor this year- Smith & Wesson is always a huge sponsor...

...and the National Shooting Sports Foundation- Always a huge sponsor, and we're really pleased to see you guys as sponsors this year, that's going to be awesome.

Yes, we'll have a team out there debuting our brand new Cheaper Than Dirt! Warrior Truck set up as part of one of the stages this year. Tell me a bit about the competition and some of the top level shooters we can expect to see make a showing at the match. That's awesome, you know there will be lots of great shooters out there as well this year. We've got a lot of sponsored shooters in the match that I know of, just because I know them personally, but there are lots and lots of talent coming up and there is a lot of undiscovered talent out there.

If I can kinda digress for a bit, that's something interesting about the sport as well. The sport is now 13 almost 14 years old and it's interesting to see how much the level of competency has come up in those years. At the first 2 or 3 Nationals it was really something to have 10 or 15 Master Class shooters. I'm not sure we're not a little top heavy on Master Class shooters this year. I'm thinking that we've got somewhere between 80 and 100, which is huge, and what that tells me is that the sport is maturing and that people's skill level has come up so much. We actually really need to re-look at our classification process, which is something that we're doing.

Speaking of up and coming shooters, does IDPA have a Junior's program? We don't have specifically a Junior's program, which is something that we've kicked around and that we need to do. I know that USPSA has a very active Junior's program. We do recognize a High Junior Shooter at the Nationals, but as far as a mentor program or something like that, we really leave that up to the individual clubs. It's difficult enough for some of the clubs to even just host a match once a month, and to keep adding things on to them to be another requirement makes it even more difficult.

So, we are still looking at a Junior program, but the other aspect is that we just don't have a lot of staff here at IDPA headquarters. There's basically just 4 of us. To add more programs means that we have to add more staff, and potentially means that membership fees have to go up. That's something that we don't really want to do in this economic environment, and we haven't had as much interest in a Junior's program. It's kinda one of those things where the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and until we get more members saying "Hey, I know lots of kids that want to shoot," I just don't see that big of a demand for it at this point.

Still, we've seen the growth of Junior Shooters in USPSA and I think we're seeing more and more come over to IDPA for a change of pace. It's hard to know specifically. We're seeing obviously an increase in membership, but it's difficult to delineate exactly where those people are coming from. I would suspect, possibly because of the increase in competency that yeah, we're seeing some cross over from USPSA and even some cross over from Cowboy Action.

The good thing is that we all try to work together in the industry, and therefore we encourage our shooters to go shoot other disciplines and hopefully the other disciplines encourage their members to do the same.

Image courtesy ActionShootingMall.com
We've really seen, especially recently, that when we do pull together as an industry that we can accomplish incredible things. Exactly, and at this point in time with the political climate, we have got to pull together. Not only the shooting sports but the hunting side and everybody interested in self defense.

For those who can't make it to Nationals you had an IDPA Postal Match last year. Are you doing that again this year? As far as I know, we are. I'd have to double check, that was Robert. He pretty much handles my day-to-day stuff as far as the practical match goes. The Postal Match has gone really well in the past couple of years.

Last year ya'll had over 2,000 entries right? Right. To me, I think that's just neat. It's kind of like a National Match for those who can't make it.

Of course, shooters who want to compete can always just find a local club in their area. Absolutely.

How does one go about finding a local club? The easiest way to find a local club is to just go to our website. Click on your state and look and see what's available. We've got all of the clubs listed along with the club contacts. A lot of the clubs even have their own websites so that you can easily go on and click on that club's website and find out when they shoot and who you need to talk to. You can always call IDPA headquarters too (870-545-3886). We're more than happy to answer questions about where you can go shoot.

Now, on the off chance that somebody can't find a club in their area, how would they go about starting up their own local IDPA club? Well, the first thing they need to do is they need to contact their Area Coordinator and make sure that they've got a Safety Officer class under their belt because all of our club contacts need to be Safety Officer's as well and have taken the class. They don't need to be a Safety Officer Instructor, but they need to have the Safety Officer status. Then they can contact us and we can provide them with the necessary materials and any help that they need in getting the club set up.

I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with us today and we can't wait to see you at the National Match and see what the competition has in store for us. Great, I sure appreciate it. It's been a pleasure talking with you too and I certainly appreciate your support of IDPA.

Joyce Wilson lives in North West Arkansas with her husband Bill Wilson of Wilson Combat.

Long Range Pistol Shooting

2010-09-17T16:01:00.000-07:00

Lining up a 300 yard pistol shot with a 1911, you can just barely make out the targets at the berm.

Yesterday we posed a question on Facebook asking our fans how far the longest pistol shot they'd ever made was. The answers ranged from a mere 25 yards, the standard distance at many pistol ranges, to shots in excess of 250 yards. One thing that surprised me however is how many people refused to believe that you could actually hit a target over 100 yards away. Believe it or not, the full sized pistol you own is probably capable of shots out to 200 yards.

At a recent 3-gun match here locally there was a pistol stage with full sized silhouette targets set out to distances as far as 80 yards. Needless to say, many competitors had great difficulty landing hits on these targets. I've practiced on half sized silhouettes up to 50 yards away, but the additional 30 yards for the longest target on that stage gave me fits. Still, I've personally witnessed a number of shooters hit a man sized target consistently at distances up to 200 yards away with a 1911 chambered in .45 ACP.

A typical 1911 zeroed at 7 yards has a drop of only 1.7 inches at 50 and a mere 14 inches at 100 yards. Things get a bit more interesting when the distance is increased past 100 yards however. At 150 yards the bullet drop has increased to more than 40 inches, and at 200 yards a 230 grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of 900 feet per second will have dropped a whopping 81.4 inches. Which begs the question: how can anyone reliably make a shot with a pistol over 200 yards?

Scribing the front sight of a magnum revolver with a ramped front sight is an excellent way to get on target past 200 yards.

First of all, it helps to have a pistol that shoots a fast bullet. .357 Sig and .40 S&W both are fairly flat shooting rounds, but for the ultimate in long range pistol shooting you'll need a Magnum cartridge such as .357, .44, .500 S&W or .50 AE. Still, the amount of holdover necessary to land a good hit can difficult to estimate on the fly. There is however an solution for aiming such shots. It's not possible on all pistols, but by holding a scribed front sight up far above the rear, you can get the proper hold for a long range pistol shot. Ideal shooting positions are supine (leaning back as if in a recliner, this pose is well known to silhouette shooters) and prone.

Even without a powerful magnum or a tall ramped front sight, it's possible to get hits consistently with your standard service pistol. I took my .45 ACP 1911 with stock GI sights out to the range to demonstrate this after failing to hit the 80 yard silhouette at the 3-gun match last week. To start with, I calculated the ballistics mentioned above for my load.

Beginning at 50 yards, I held just a hair high and, shooting prone, was able to land all 7 shots on the target in a tight 3" group. Moving back to 100 yards the target looked much smaller on my front sight, but by holding on the head of the silhouette I was able to consistently drop the rounds into the torso. Things got more interesting at 200 yards however, and I was glad to have an earthen backstop so I could see the splash of my misses. Using these clues, I managed to walk the rounds onto the target in short order and figure out the proper hold.

Now that I knew the amount of hold necessary for that distance, I went ahead and tried to make the shot off hand. I won't lie, only 3 of the 7 rounds hit the target. But given that distance, I felt pretty happy knowing that I could engage a 200 yard target with my pistol and still land hits at all.

What's the point here? The point is shooting is 90% mental. Most people don't even realize that a pistol can be a viable weapon when a rifle is not available, and of those who may know such shots are possible most will never practice with their own handguns. The point here is that if you know your gun and you practice with it, you too can land hits on a target 200 yards away. Heck, with the right caliber, such as a .357 or .44 Magnum revolver, hitting targets at 300, 400, and even 600 yards is possible.

Elmer Keith, father of the famous .357 and .44 Magnum told one such tale of hunting deer at over 500 yards with a .357 revolver. Many chalked his tale up to nothing but a bit of "Hunter's Hyperbole" but Keith stood by his claims, and I for one believe the tale. Here's his story:

Paul Kriley and I hunted up Clear Creek on the right side where it is partly open bunch grass meadows and partly patches of timber. We hunted all day, and although we saw several does at 80-90 yards, one at 60, that I could have killed. We passed them up, as I wanted a buck. Toward evening we topped out on a ridge. There was a swale between us and another small ridge on the side of the mountain slope about 300-400 yards away. Beyond that, out on the open sidehill, no doubt on account of the cougar, were about 20 mule deer, feeding. Two big bucks were in the band, and some lesser ones, the rest were does and long fawns. As it was getting late and the last day of the season, I wanted one of those bucks for meat. Being a half-mile away, I told Paul, “Take the .300 Magnum and duck back through this swale to that next ridge and that should put you within about 500 yards of them. I’ll stay here (the deer had seen us), let them watch me for a decoy.” Paul said, “You take the rifle.”
“I said, how is it sighted?”
He said, “one inch high at a hundred yards.” I told him to go ahead because I wouldn’t know where to hold it. I always sighted a .300 Magnum 3 inches high at a hundred and I wouldn’t know where to hold it at 500.
I said, “You go ahead and kill the biggest buck in the bunch for me.” Paul took off, went across the swale and climbed the ridge, laid down and crawled up to the top. He shot. The lower of the two bucks, which he later said was the biggest one, dropped and rolled down the mountain. I then took off across the swale to join him. Just before I climbed up the ridge to where he was lying, he started shooting again.

When I came up on top, the band of deer was pretty well long gone. They’d gone out to the next ridge top, turned up it slightly and went over. But the old buck was up following their trail, one front leg a-swinging. Paul had hit it. I asked Paul, “Is there any harm in me getting into this show?” He said, “No, go ahead.”

I had to lay down prone, because if I crawled over the hill to assume my old backside positioning, then the blast of his gun would be right in my ear. Shooting prone with a .44 Magnum is something I don’t like at all. The concussion is terrific. It will just about bust your ear drums every time. At any rate Paul shot and missed. I held all of the front sight up, or practically all of it, and perched the running deer on top of the front sight and squeezed one off. Paul said, “I saw it through my scope. It hit in the mud and snow right below him.” There was possibly six inches of wet snow, with muddy ground underneath. I told him “I won’t be low the next shot.” Paul shot again and missed with his .300 Magnum. The next time I held all of the front sight up and a bit of the ramp, just perched the deer on top. After the shot the gun came down out of recoil and the bullet had evidently landed. The buck made a high buck-jump, swapped ends, and came back toward us, shaking his head. I told Paul I must have hit a horn. I asked him to let the buck come back until he was right on us if he would, let him come as close as he would and I’d jump up and kill him. When he came back to where Paul had first rolled him, out about 500 yards, Paul said, “I could hit him now, I think.”

“Well,” I said, “I don’t like to see a deer run on three legs. Go ahead.” He shot again and missed. The buck swapped ends and turned around and went back right over the same trail. Paul said, “I’m out of ammunition. Empty.” I told him to reload, duck back out of sight, go on around the hill and head the old buck off, and I’d chase him on around. Paul took off on a run to go around this bunch-grass hill and get up above the buck and on top. He was young, husky, and could run like a deer himself. I got on the old buck again with all of the front sight and a trifle of the ramp up. Just as I was going to squeeze it off when he got to the ridge, he turned up it just as the band of deer had done. So I moved the sight picture in front of him and shot. After an interval he went down and out of sight. I didn’t think anything of it, thought he had just tipped over the ridge. It took me about half an hour to get across. When I got over there to the ridge, I saw where he’d rolled down the hill about fifty yards, bleeding badly, and then he’d gotten up and walked from the tracks to the ridge in front of us. There were a few pine trees down below, so I cut across to intercept his tracks. I could see he was bleeding out both sides.

Just before I got to the top of the ridge, I heard a shot up above me and then another shot, and I yelled and asked if it was Paul. He answered. I asked, “Did you get him?” He said, “Yes, he’s down there by that big pine tree below you. Climb a little higher and you can see him.” Paul came down and we went down to the buck. Paul said the buck was walking along all humped up very slowly. He held back of the shoulders as he was quartering away. The first shot went between his forelegs and threw up snow. Then he said the buck turned a little more away from him and he held higher and dropped him. Finally we parted the hair in the right flank and found where the 180-grain needle-pointed Remington spitzer had gone in. Later I determined it blew up and lodged in the left shoulder. At any rate I looked his horns over, trying to see where I’d hit a horn. No sign of it. Finally I found a bullet hole back of the right jaw and it came out of the top of his nose. That was the shot I’d hit him with out at 600 yards. Then Paul said, “Who shot him through the lungs broadside? I didn’t, never had that kind of shot at all.” There was an entrance hole fairly high on the right side of the rib cage just under the spine and an exit just about three or four inches lower on the other side. The deer had been approximately the same elevation as I was when I fired that last shot at him. We dressed him, drug him down the trail on Clear Creek, hung him up, and went on down to the ranch. The next day a man named Posy and I came back with a pack horse, loaded him and took him in. I took a few pictures of him hanging in the woodshed along with the Smith & Wesson .44 Mag.

I took him home and hung him up in the garage. About ten days later my son Ted came home from college and I told him, “Ted, go out and skin that big buck and get us some chops. They should be well-ripened and about right for dinner tonight.” After awhile Ted came in and he laid the part jacket of a Remington bullet on the table beside me and he said, “Dad, I found this right beside the exit hole on the left side of that buck’s ribs.” Then I knew that I had hit him at that long range two out of four times. I believe I missed the first shot, we didn’t see it at all, and it was on the second that Paul said he saw snow and mud fly up at his heels. I wrote it up and I’ve been called a liar ever since, but Paul Kriley is still alive and able to vouch for the facts.

Elmer Keith

Defensive Handgun Loads

2010-09-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

When choosing a load for self defense, there are several things that are more important than the actual load in the gun that should be addressed. Reliability is the most important factor in deciding on what load to put in your gun. A gun that will not reliably feed your chosen defensive round is useless as a defensive tool. Choose a round that feeds reliably in your gun and test it out extensively. Shot placement is still far more important than the load you choose. A hit in the vitals will do far more damage than a miss with the latest and greatest bullet design. The third tier of choosing what to put in your gun is actually wading through the choices out there to find an acceptable defensive load for your specific application. An acceptable defensive load is one where the bullet penetrates far enough to do damage when it comes in contact with tissue, but not so far as to over-penetrate without transferring its energy to the tissue. An acceptable defensive load will also ideally feature the greatest achievable spreading out (mushrooming) of the bullet for that specific caliber. For the sake of this article, we will be using the FBI standards of 12 inches of penetration of ballistic gelatin and expansion to the largest diameter possible in order to cause the largest possible wound channel. A standard which most experts support wholeheartedly.

The .22 Long Rifle is one of the most popular cartridge in the world and one of the most popular chamberings for a pocket pistol or revolver. The most important consideration in picking which .22LR load is the reliability of this notoriously finicky round in your gun. Some semi-automatic handguns do not work well with standard velocity ammo and some do not like the high-velocity loads. Luckily, the low cost of this round will allow you to practice enough to ensure you have chosen a compatible load, and perhaps as important, allow you (the shooter) to hone your skills with your handgun, ensuring adequate shot placement when the need arises. Barrel length also may play a role in ammunition selection. The popular CCI Quik-Shok 32-grain copper-plated hollow point round is a good choice in short (2 inches) barreled guns, but may expand and fail to penetrate when fired from a longer barrel. Conversely, the Remington Yellowjacket with its non-expanding 36-grain truncated cone bullet is probably a good choice for those with longer barrels as it creates a larger diameter permanent cavity than a lead round nose bullet design. So the picking of a defensive .22LR round is fairly simple: 1. Find a load that you and your gun like. 2. Practice, practice, practice, practice!

The popular .380ACP round brings a bit more firepower to the table, but the drawbacks to most defensive bullet designs in this chambering are the lack of expansion with penetration. Most experts will advise sticking with a quality FMJ loading such as Remington's Express 95-grain or Federal's American Eagle 95-grain , however, some will recommend the Cor-Bon DPX 80 grain bullet load as a quality, expanding defensive round.

The .38 Special has an interesting problem of being offered in revolvers of many different barrel lengths, which makes choosing a load more difficult. A solid, acceptable choice that meets our standards for any revolver from snub-nosed to target length, is Speer's 135-grain+P Gold Dot load. This load is specifically designed with snub-nosed revolvers in mind, so be careful to ensure that your gun is rated for the higher pressure +P cartridge. Cor-Bon's DPX 110-grain standard pressure offering with a solid copper, lead-free bullet is another good performer out of snub-nosed .38 specials. In revolvers with barrels over four inches, Remington's Classic Express +P with 158-grain lead hollow point bullet, this "FBI load" is a tried and true choice.

Stepping up to the 9mm brings true defensive firepower into the picture, with many acceptable defensive designs and loadings. For this Winchester Ranger SXT pretty much sets the standard with a proven record along side the heavier 147-grain SXT in a sub-sonic standard-pressure load. If you have a short-barrel, consider the 124-grain Speer Gold Dot for your compact 9mm.

The .40S&W is currently the most popular police duty round, which means there are plenty of excellent defensive loads to pick from that meet the standards of a good defensive load. Cor-Bon's 140-grain utilizes the Barnes all-copper DPX bullet, and the 165-grain is another design from Speer's Gold Dot line. If you have a compact pistol with a shorter barrel, you might pick Speer's 180-grain, as it was designed with shorter barrels in mind.

As for .45ACP, good defensive loads that meet the previously mentioned FBI standard are, once again, Cor-Bon's 185-grain and 200-grain Hornady XTP for your 5-inch or longer .45ACP. For your four-inch or shorter barrel, utilize Speer's 230-grain Lawman.

Whichever round you choose, remember to test it out in your gun to ensure reliability and maintain your proficiency level to ensure proper shot placement, should the need arise.

Hunting Ross' and Snow Geese

2010-09-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

You'll need to lead by as much as 5' to land a solid hit on a crossing goose.

Goose season is fast approaching and soon thousands of hunters will take to the field to bag as many snow geese as possible during this year's Special Conservation Order. The exact dates vary from state to state, but most areas have taken off restrictions on the number of geese that can be taken and in some areas allowed hunters to use unplugged shotguns and electronic callers.

In 1999, the Arctic Tundra Habitat Emergency Conservation Act was passed due to massive overpopulations of Snow and Ross' Geese that were damaging the arctic tundra. "The overabundance of light geese is harming their fragile arctic breeding habitat," according to H. Dale Hall, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He continued, "The damage to the habitat is, in turn, harming the health of the light geese and other bird species that depend on the tundra habitat. Returning the light goose population to sustainable levels is necessary to protect this delicate habitat, and every species dependent on it."

Many hunters are taking advantage of this opportunity to fill up their freezer with tasty geese during this year's Special Conservation Order. Here are some tips to make sure you're able to fill your limit on light geese this year.

When choosing camouflage, make sure the pattern matches where you'll be hunting.

Lead your target: I can't emphasize this enough. The biggest mistake most novice wing shooters make is not leading their target enough. A standard load of #2 shot traveling at 1450 feet per second takes 0.085 seconds to travel 40 yards. In that small amount of time, a goose flying at 40 mph travels nearly 5 feet!

Lead below landing geese: Landing geese may appear to be hovering, but remember that if they were not moving they'd simply fall out of the sky! For geese landing, lead in the direction of travel and slightly below the goose.

Match your choke to your ammunition: It's very important to match your choke to your shot, and now is the time to do so before the season gets really going. I like to bring a variety of ammunition to the range with me and try the different brands in my Improved, Modified, and Full choke tubes. If you're shooting steel, make sure that your choke tube is steel rated. Usually, you’ll want to pattern your shot at various ranges from 10 out to a maximum for 40 yards to see how the pattern opens up as the range increases. There aren't many manufacturers of life sized goose targets, so I use a life-sized turkey target to determine the number of hits to the vital areas. Start out with plain target loads to get your shot onto the paper. Once you’ve established this baseline zero, go ahead and take the target out to 40 yards and fire a load and observe the result. Ideally, your pattern should be concentrated enough to land 8 or more pellets in the vital areas. Any less than that and you either need to use a different load/choke combination. If you find that changing the shot load or choke doesn’t help, you will need to bring the target closer until you can consistently get an acceptable pattern.

Use the proper shot size: Snow geese are not usually as large as their darker cousins. The largest light goose species, the Greater Snow Goose, tops out at just under 10 pounds, while the Canadian Goose can easily top 14 pounds. The smaller size of Snow Geese means that you should stay away from the larger shot size. Stick with #1, #2, or even #4: you'll get better patterns and the shot will still be effective out to 100 yards (if you can hit them that far!)

Use a LOT of decoys: You'll need a lot of decoys for snow geese. A small flock of decoys should exceed 100 rags or shells. Some professional guides stake out decoy flocks which number in the thousands. Rags and movers are great at convincing geese that your field would make an excellent landing spot, but take care not to space them too closely together. Geese can have a 6 foot wingspan and will be looking to see if they have room to land. Decoys spaced 8-10 feet apart will make a more inviting spread.

Take the time to construct your blind properly: Goose have excellent eyesight and are quick learners. They can recognize a poorly constructed blind from hundreds of yards away. Make sure that the color and pattern of your camouflage matches your surroundings: I can't tell you how many times I've seen a RealTree AP Hardwood pattern used in a corn field where it just stands out like a sore thumb. Instead, something like Mossy Oak Duck Blind or RealTree Max-4 would be more appropriate.

Wrap or camouflage your gun: Glint from shiny blued barrels is a sure fire way to scare off a goose. Many guns are available in a camo finish straight from the factory, but if yours is not you can use camouflage tape to prevent reflected glare from indicating your presence to a keen eyed goose.

Practice shooting while sitting: Don't assume that practice on clay pigeons will substitute for practice mounting the gun from a sitting position. Most goose blinds require the hunter to sit or lay down and then sit up for the shot. You will almost never be standing when it's time to "take 'em" so practice mounting the gun in a sitting position.

Get solid cheek weld: When mounting the gun, make sure you have proper cheek weld and sight alignment.

Single out your target: Don't think that you can just aim at a flock and have birds drop. Single out your target and aim at just that one bird.

Planning a successful goose hunt is not always easy. With these tips and a bit of luck however, you'll be well on your way to filling your limit of light geese this season.

Proper Pistol Grip

2010-09-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

Many words and much debate has gone into discussing the proper way to grip an autoloading pistol. Some will argue that the proper grip is to have your thumbs forward, some that the thumbs should be up, while still others insist that the thumbs locked together. I’ve even heard it recommended that the thumbs be canted away from the gun to ensure that they do not interfere with the action or inadvertently hit the slide lock. Which is correct?

A hybrid of the “Thumbs-Forward” and “Thumbs-Up” grip on a 1911 handgun. Note that there is a gap where the slide lock lever is.

One point of agreement among nearly all experts is the role of the primary hand and the support hand. The primary hand should apply slight pressure to the front and backstrap of the grip, while the support hand squeezes from the right and left side. In order to maintain positive contact with the gun, the support hand should be such that the heel of the hand is nestled within the gap left by the shooting hand on the left side of the grip.

Your support hand should do most of the work here- your shooting hand has enough to do working the trigger, safety (if equipped) and magazine release. Most instructors explain that your support hand should provide 60% of the grip, squeezing side to side, while the shooting hand provides 40% of the grip squeezing front to back. While you’re practicing your grip, do make sure you’ve not got a death grip on your pistol. You want a firm, solid grip to be sure, but you don’t want a “white knuckle” death grip. Think of it like holding a small squirmy animal: you’re not trying to crush it, just keep it from getting away from you.

But what about those pesky thumbs? What do you do with them? As far as this writer can tell, it doesn’t really matter too much so long as they are not interfering with the slide or controls, however I don’t recommend using the locked thumb method. The locked thumb method can interfere with the support hand’s ability to have good solid contact with the grip panel. By wrapping the thumb of your support hand over the thumb of your shooting hand, it necessarily pushes the heel of your palm out away from the grip. The presence of this gap makes the gun tend to turn towards the support hand under recoil.

Many competition and tactical shooters recommend the thumbs-forward grip as it is a more intuitive method to point the pistol at your target. The question then becomes: Do you lay your thumbs along the slide, or hold them away to minimize any interference? Here, the experts are split. Glock pistol shooter Dave Sevigny keeps his thumbs laying right along the side of the pistol. Brian Enos on the other hand keeps his thumbs away from the pistol. Some Sig Sauer pistoleers have noticed that having the thumbs along the side while using a thumbs-forward grip can cause the slide lock lever to be pushed down so that the handgun will not go into slide lock on an empty magazine. Conversely, Glock pistols can be inadvertently locked back by riding the slide lock lever.

Todd Jarrett using a thumbs forward grip at the USPSA Steel Challenge.

The thumbs-forward method demonstrated by Todd Jarrett on the left is perfect for shooting 1911 handguns. With this method, the frame mounted safety is positioned directly underneath the shooting hand thumb, making it incredibly fast and intuitive to draw and disengage the safety selector in one smooth motion. With a gun equipped with a high-ride beavertail making it easier to get a higher grip on the pistol and extended safety lever, the thumbs-forward method is very natural and comfortable.

Shooting semiautomatic pistols using the thumbs-forward method really becomes useful when used in action pistol or tactical applications where speed and accuracy are both needed. By positioning the thumbs-forward along the slide (or slightly off of the slide) you are in essence creating a second sighting device: wherever your shooting thumb is pointing is where the pistol is pointing. This makes it incredibly fast to draw the pistol, get your proper grip, and press forward to the target without needing to hunt around for the front sight. As Colonel Jeff Cooper explained, “The body aims, the sights confirm.” If you are watching the target (which you should be) as you press forward using this grip, the front sight should naturally come up into your view, presenting you with a very fast and natural sight picture.

TAPCO G2 Double Hook AK-47 Trigger

2010-09-10T15:57:00.000-07:00

The TAPCO G2 Double Hook AK-47 Trigger is probably one of the best upgrades you can make to your AK-47. Combat rifles such as the AK have notoriously sloppy triggers that require upwards of 10 lbs of trigger-pull. To make matters worse, many of the Com-Block semi-automatic rifles imported here have a hump on the back of the disconnector that creates the horrible trigger slap of many of these imports.

This guide walks you through the process of installing the G2 Double Hook AK-47 on a Romanian SAR-1 rifle. While the particulars of this install pertain to the Romanian SAR-1, they also apply to most other AK-47 semi-automatic imports, including most Yugoslavian models and Saigas chambered in 7.62×39. This particular trigger set should also fit both stamped and milled receivers. That being said: gunsmithing is required. We do not recommend that any of the procedures described here be performed by anyone but a qualified gunsmith.

The first step is to disassemble your AK according to TAPCO’s Instruction Manual. Always unload and clear any firearm completely before beginning to disassemble it.

With your disassembled rifle, lets compare the individual components to check for areas that may need filing or grinding for proper fitment. First, lets take a look at the trigger itself. Here, we compare the Century Arms trigger as installed on a Romanian SAR-1. Note that on the TAPCO the rear of the trigger has much more material than the Century trigger. It should also be noted that the TAPCO trigger uses a larger pivot hole that requires a bushing (included in the TAPCO kit) to slide over the pin.

The disconnector that is used on the Century trigger group has much more material on the rear of the part. Why Century decided to cast the part in this way is beyond us, but the result is horrible trigger slap. The TAPCO disconnector uses the traditional Com-block design and does not have the additional hump of metal.

Our Romanian SAR-1 has a single hook trigger design. Because of this, the receiver only has one notch for the trigger hook. We took a Dremel rotary tool and a medium stone to grind out a matching notch on the other side of the trigger slot. Be careful while grinding, go slowly, and don’t apply very much pressure – let the stone do the work for you. In this photo you can see that our stone slipped out of the notch and marred the finish a bit. Not a huge deal, but perhaps a bit more care while grinding could have prevented this.

After test fitting our trigger in the modified slot, we noticed some flashing left over from the mold in which the trigger was cast was interfering with the operation of the trigger. We ground this bit of metal off the front and the back of the trigger, taking a little bit at a time and test fitting in between grinds until it was just right.

At this point we reassembled the rifle to dry fire it and cycle the action a few times to check it for functionality and reliability. One problem quickly arose: the trigger would stick after being pulled and would not reset. A closer inspection revealed that the hooks were sticking in the notches. It wasn’t that the notches weren’t long enough, but it seemed that the hooks were grabbing on the sides of the trigger slot, like it wasn’t quite wide enough. So, we disassembled the rifle again and broke out the dremel one more time to take off just a tiny amount of material from the sides of the trigger slot.

After reassembling the rifle one last time, everything worked flawlessly. Instead of a creeping heavy combat trigger, we had a crisp clean trigger with very little creep. The action cycled well, and range testing showed that the rifle was just as reliable, and a whole lot more accurate.

September Dove Season

2010-09-09T15:46:00.000-07:00

While the summer heat still persists it’s hard to believe that a new hunting season begins today. September 1st marks the beginning of Dove Season for many states, September 17th for most of the rest, and like many others I’ll be out chasing the little gray rockets. Doves can be devilishly hard to hit and their lightning fast aerobatics rival that of the most talented jet pilot.

It takes a sharp eye skilled at calculating the proper lead to reliably drop a dove. Gil Ash teaches the Optimum Shotgun Performance or “OSP” system of scattergun shooting, and that is the system I use. It’s a both-eyes-open instinctive system whereby you rely on your brain’s ability to naturally calculate the proper lead, never taking your eyes off of the bird. Having a properly fitted gun is critical for this system to work. When hunting dove using the OSP system, you track the bird with your head and shoulders while bringing the shotgun up into the firing position. When the gun stock meets your cheek and shoulder, you pull the trigger and (ideally) drop the bird. Don’t swing through the bird as with more traditional shooting.

Even with the proper lead and a good shot, I’ve seen a puff of feathers fall to the ground while the dove pulls a Barrel-Roll and a Split-S maneuver, zooming down into the safety of nearby trees and shrubs. One of the best ways to ensure a successful dove hunt is to buy quality shells. Nothing is more frustrating than shooting a dove and watching only feathers fall to the ground while the injured bird flies off to the safety of a nearby stand of trees. For a 12 gauge shotgun, you should buy shells with at least a 1 1/8 ounce shot load. I recommend Winchester Super-X #6 or Winchester AA #8 to reliably drop doves. For a 20 gauge shotgun, a 7/8 ounce load will do the job, though a 1 ounce load or more is preferred. Again, 2 3/4″ Winchester Super-X shells loaded with an ounce of #8 shot or 3″ Winchester Super-X shells topped off with 1 1/4 ounces of #6 shot should ensure a good pattern out to 30 or 40 yards.

For hunting them, I prefer to set up along a tree line next to a crop field. In the early morning doves move from their roosts to the fields to feed. As the morning wears on, around 9am or so, I’ll walk through the field to scare up birds that are feeding and take them on the rise. A quick break for lunch and then a move to nearby stock tanks usually nets me a few more heading over for the cool shade of a tree lined pond and a quick drink. Early afternoon hunts can be difficult, but a sharp eye and a walk through roosting areas generally nets me a few more birds as they abandon their roosts at my approach. As the sun begins to set around 5:30 in the evening, if I haven’t shot my limit yet, I’ll move back to the crop fields and take some more when they move back to feed again in the evening.

Tropical Storm Hermine has rained out much of the early season in North Texas and parts of the Midwest, but the traditional fall weather systems are returning and the doves should soon be flying over crop fields throughout the Central Flyway. Keep your eyes on the tree line and your proper lead in front of the bird and you to can catch your limit of doves this year.

We Talk To Sheriff Jim Wilson About Remington’s New Versa Max

2010-09-08T15:40:00.000-07:00

When Remington calls you and asks if you’d like to go down to Argentina to test out their newest autoloading shotgun while hunting dove, there’s only one answer: Yes! Singer and gun writer Sheriff Jim Wilson got just that opportunity, and when he got back we got the chance to talk to him about his experience with Remington’s newest long gun, the 12 gauge Versa Max.

Let’s talk about your experience in Argentina with the Versa Max, we’ve heard a lot about how soft shooting it is. Well, I thought it was very comfortable to shoot. I did not weigh the gun, but they list it as a 7.7 pound shotgun. That’s not nearly as heavy as some of the autoloaders in the past. Yet, it shot very nicely. I probably shot in the neighborhood of 2,000 rounds while I was down there.
You really put it through it’s paces then. Did you have any issues with feeding or ejection? No, save for a time or two. I hate to say this, but the Australian shotgun shells use the dirtiest powder you’ve ever seen. The powder just burns really dirty. Late in the day I would have a couple of malfunctions, but it was not serious at all.
One of the problems that we had was that under Argentine law, at the end of the day the guns had to be kept at the lodge or wherever. I think one of the problems was that some of the bird boys were cleaning the guns for us and they really didn’t know how to clean the ports. Once the Remington guys figured that out, well the guns worked just fine.
The Versa Max has a pretty unique ported chamber design. What type of special attention do you need to give that when cleaning? You know, I really don’t think you would. I think with our American ammo it would just run, run, run. In those torture tests when they were first developing the gun they would just run gobs of ammo through it.
What size shells were you using? They were 2-3/4″ shells and as best as I could tell 1-1/8 ounce loads and #7, #7.5, and some #8. We did have some of the new Remington Hypersonic 3″ ammunition down there. That’s got the new accelerator wad. Those things send a load of #2 out at 1700 feet per second. It’s pretty cool ammo, I’ll tell you that.
I shot some of that, and gosh it was comfortable to shoot. Remington did a lot of research before they ever released this gun, and one of the specific things they wanted to work on was to have something that’s comfortable to shoot and I think they really did accomplish that. I’m not a real technician on this but I think the double recoil pistons that are used help smooth the gun up, help smooth out the recoil. The felt recoil is just not much at all.
Tell me a bit about the ergonomics of the gun. Remington has added an adjustable comb and shims to change the length of pull. That’s one of the coolest thing about it. It’s part of the package, you don’t buy it extra. In the package when the gun comes are several combs of different heights, and you can just grab them with your fingers and pop them out, you don’t need any tools or anything. You could just literally take them out to the range while you’re shooting clay birds and switch combs out.
The shims that go on the back for length of pull are almost as easy to change as that. The length of pull as the gun comes out of the box is 14-1/4″ and you can go to 15-1/4″. The shims would be a little harder to adjust, you have to screw them out.
Still, I imagine it couldn’t take more than a couple of minutes to install or remove them if I had a multi-tool handy. Exactly. Speaking of that sort of thing, the action of the shotgun, when you take it apart, breaks down into five pieces. You can do all of that with your hands, there are no tools necessary. There are a couple of pins in the bolt area, once you get that far, but you take out the firing pin and you can use that to punch those pins out. That’s it. You can disassemble the gun into five major parts with no tools.
Now, when I’m duck hunting or goose hunting, the weather can get pretty bad. How does the Versa Max hold up? When you’re duck hunting, if it’s sleeting or raining on you or something like that, the gun is just going to get absolutely wet. It snowed on us the first day we were down in Argentina. It snowed all afternoon, and the birds were flying great. It would have been a terrible day to be out working, but it wasn’t bad to go hunting.
I’m not sure the weather is ever quite bad enough to call off a hunting trip. Still, the ice and rain didn’t affect the Versa Max did it? No, and that’s what I was saying about how easy it is to take down the action. If you’re in a duck blind and you’re getting wet all day, you can go in in just a few minutes and strip that action down, wipe it off and lubricate it. You don’t need any special tools. You don’t even need a screwdriver to do that.
Was it picky about lubrication at all? No, it’s not. All the internal parts are nickel-teflon coated. It really doesn’t take a lot of lubrication.
Is that the same as Remington’s TriNyte coating? No, that’s a separate coating. The barrel is TriNyte coated, but all the internal parts are nickel-teflon coated. The TriNyte is similar to what I would call a baked-on finish.
The waterfowl model is also completely camo’d including the barrel. I didn’t hunt with one, but there were several down there that I got to handle.
Did you have the opportunity to try shooting any skeet or trap with the gun? No, but I think that’s where the “Versa” comes into the name is it’s versatility. I think for dove, pheasant, quail, ducks, geese, turkey, I think the gun will work for all of those, and certainly for skeet and trap.
In January they’ll come out with the 26″ barrel model which some people prefer for skeet. I don’t happen to, my biggest problem in shotgunning is stopping my swing, so I prefer at least a 28″ barrel. When I get tired, that’s the mistake I make is stop my swing. When I start missing targets, I guarantee you I’m shooting behind them.
What are the sights like on the Versa Max? It’s got a Hi-Viz front sight. The one that was on my gun was a lime green, which worked just fine. I think that you can also change it to what ever color you prefer.
Did you get to use the Hi-Viz under any low-light shooting conditions? You know, just late in the afternoon a couple of times, but not real low light. Of course I do my best to focus on the bird and not even look at the shotgun. Generally when I look at the shotgun I miss.
As I mentioned in the article I wrote on the American Hunter blog, it shot where I looked.
That’s really important, having an instinctive shotgun. You can really see how much effort Remington put into designing the ergonomics of the gun to be adjustable for just about every shooter and every situation. Being able to shoulder it naturally is incredibly important. Well exactly, I stand about 5′10 and weigh about 170 pounds. The shotgun that fits me is not going to fit some guy that’s 6′5″ and 250. The beauty of that Versa Max is that with the shims and the combs and all of that he can make it fit him.
You’re saying you could essentially order this gun, sight unseen, from our online firearm sales, and be able to adjust it to fit you perfectly? Absolutely, because everything is in there. I didn’t mention this yet, but once you take the comb out, you can see down into a compartment in the buttstock and there’s a metal plate in there. The instruction manual tells you how to adjust that metal plate and it changes the drop at heel and it changes the cast. You can make it cast off or cast on. You just buy the gun, and everything is in there that’s necessary that you need to fit the gun to yourself personally.
Here’s another point too: You get the gun fit to yourself, but now next week you’re going to be hunting doves in a T-shirt, while come January you’ll be hunting ducks in everything you own. That’s when you get your shims out and lengthen it or shorten it as you need it.
I can’t wait to get my hands on one, I don’t mind saying I’m a bit jealous that you got to try one out. I certainly enjoyed it and I think it’s a great shotgun. You can tell that these guys at Remington have spent a lot of time and put a lot of thought into this.

Click here to purchase your own Remington Versa Max.

Allegation	Fact
The Model 700 rifle is prone to firing without the trigger being pulled because of a design defect in the Walker trigger mechanism.	Both Remington and experts hired by plaintiff attorneys have conducted testing on guns returned from the field, which were alleged to have fired without a trigger pull, and neither has ever been able to duplicate such an event on guns which had been properly maintained and which had not been altered after sale. Mr. Belk, a paid plaintiffs’ expert, was given extensive air time by CNBC to espouse his theory that the Remington 700 is defective because the trigger “connector” supposedly allows debris to interfere with the trigger mechanism (the “debris theory”). In statements made under oath, however, Mr. Belk has demonstrated the implausibility of the theory upon which he and CNBC rely. • He admitted he has never found debris or contaminants to be interfering with the trigger and connector in a Model 700 rifle he had examined. • He admitted that he has never attempted to duplicate his “debris theory” because the possibility of producing such an inadvertent firing is simply too remote. • He admitted that accidental discharges can and do occur as a result of unknowing inadvertent trigger pulls, and that many use these excuses to avoid embarrassment or blame.
The shooting accidents featured in the CNBC program involved circumstances where the Remington Model 700 rifle fired without a trigger pull.	Whenever a firearm is not handled properly, tragic accidents can occur. Each of the tragic and emotional personal injury and death cases cited by CNBC involved a breach of one or more important gun safety rules. • Failure to keep the rifle pointed in a safe direction • Failure to properly maintain the rifle • Altering the rifle’s trigger mechanism • Failure to have the safety engaged when not actively engaged in firing the rifle BARBER ACCIDENT The Barber rifle had been modified in multiple ways and poorly maintained (rusted action). Even so, in testing by experts for both Remington and the Barber family, the Barber rifle would fire only by pulling the trigger while the safety was in the fire position. JORDAN ACCIDENT Mr. Jordan’s Model 700 rifle, which CNBC alleged fired without a trigger pull, resulting in the accidental shooting of his wife, had a modified trigger. According to police reports, Mr. Jordan was carrying the rifle on a sling, and as it slipped off his shoulder, the gun discharged, striking Mrs. Jordan nearby. Mr. Jordan acknowledged that the gun’s safety was in the “fire” position and also asked investigators, “do you think it could be possibly [sic] that I hit the trigger with my thumb or finger when I was reaching for the rifle?” ANDERSON ACCIDENT Serious gun handling errors led to the tragic death of Kathy Anderson, another case featured on the program. The account provided by CNBC and the Andersons’ attorney, Robert Chaffin – that the rifle fired when the owner was unloading his rifle in another room, and the bullet went through the wall – is unambiguously contradicted by police reports. Those reports clearly state that the shooting occurred when the owner was showing the loaded rifle to a 14-year-old boy in a room of people, including Mrs. Anderson. Testing by Remington and plaintiffs’ experts verified that the firearm would only discharge when the trigger was pulled with the safety in the “fire” position. RAMBO ACCIDENT Mr. Jay Rambo has a lawsuit pending against Remington. According to the allegations of the complaint, his father, Dale Rambo, was in the process of loading his rifle when the rifle fired. Because there is pending litigation in this matter Remington will not comment other than to note that its formal response to the lawsuit includes the allegation that the senior Mr. Rambo’s careless and negligent handling of the rifle “was a direct and proximate cause” of his son’s injuries.
Military and police agencies have had issues with Model 700s.	U.S. MARINE CORPS CNBC extracted portions of Marine Corps incident reports in an attempt to support its allegation that rifles were experiencing firing without trigger pulls. CNBC left out the facts that the Marine Corps found that the firearms in question had been improperly altered and that Marines had coded both of their incident reports “U” for “Misuse of Item” as opposed to finding the gun at fault. After its investigation, the Marine Corps revised its training and maintenance manual to limit alteration of the fire control. PORTLAND, MAINE POLICE DEPARTMENT CNBC showed a five second video of a rifle discharging when the bolt is touched by a man dressed in camouflage fatigues with his identity blocked. CNBC did not provide any information as to where the video was taken, who the shooter was, and most importantly, the condition of the gun. Remington has initiated contact with the Portland police department to inquire about the alleged problems and gain access to the guns and the officers. U.S. BORDER PATROL Remington representatives spoke with a Border Patrol official familiar with the CNBC allegation that Border Patrol officers had experienced misfires. The Border Control official advised Remington that the rifles had been improperly altered. The Border Patrol continues to utilize Walker fire controls in their Remington sniper rifles. U.S. MILITARY The Model 700 continues to be the firearm of choice for elite shooters from America’s military and law enforcement communities, and has been the platform for the United States Marine Corps and U.S. Army sniper weapon systems for over two decades.
A multitude of historical documents show that a defect in the design of the Model 700 trigger mechanism causes accidental discharges.	During CNBC’s program, portions of some isolated internal documents, going back as far as 1946, on a variety of topics, were mixed-and-matched by CNBC with other documents on unrelated topics to lead the viewer to false impressions. As the documents clearly demonstrate, both “tricking” and the “screwdriver” test refer to contrived, intentional manipulations of the trigger, not an unintended discharge as alleged in the CNBC program. As explained in a 1979 Remington document, “tricking” required the user to first intentionally place the safety between the “safe” and the “fire” positions, then pull the trigger, then push the safety the remainder of the way forward to the “fire” position. If the firing pin released, the rifle was said to have failed the trick test. None of the events alleged to be involved in any of the shooting accidents featured in the CNBC program involved tricking. In addition, even the contrived “tricking” condition only applied to the estimated 1 percent of Model 700 rifles manufactured before 1975, not to any rifles made thereafter as was put forth by CNBC. CNBC also inappropriately relied upon 60-year-old documents created during the developmental and pilot testing phase for its proposition that the Remington 700 Walker trigger mechanism is unsafe. To the contrary, these documents underscore Remington’s long-standing commitment to safety through its program of pre-production testing of its products.
Jack Belk – Presented as the “Plaintiff Expert”	Mr. Belk, a paid plaintiffs’ expert, has made numerous statements under oath that demonstrate the implausibility of the allegations made throughout the CNBC program: • Mr. Belk testified under oath that he has never been able to duplicate an accidental discharge of a Model 700 without a trigger pull in any of the accident guns he has examined. • Mr. Belk has testified that he has never found debris or contaminants to be interfering with the trigger and connector in a Model 700 rifle he had examined. • Despite his reliance on this theory as being the cause for accidental fires, Mr. Belk has testified that he has never attempted to duplicate his debris theory because the possibility of producing such an inadvertent firing is simply too remote. • Mr. Belk has testified that he has no criticism of the design of the Model 700’s manual safety mechanism. • Mr. Belk has testified that accidental discharges can and do occur as a result of unknowing inadvertent trigger pulls, and that many use these excuses to avoid embarrassment or blame. • Mr. Belk’s focus has been in attempting to advance his “debris theory,” a focus that he has not limited to the Walker trigger mechanism. Mr. Belk, as a paid plaintiff’s expert, has also advanced this theory against other gun manufacturers.
Roger James – Presented as the “Remington Insider”	As the alleged “Remington Insider” Roger James has testified in open court, he last worked for Remington in 1993. Mr. James never worked in the manufacturing or production of firearms; rather, he was employed in Remington’s ammunition plant. In 1997, Mr. James was hired by plaintiffs’ attorneys to testify in two cases involving Remington shotguns and one involving a semi-automatic rifle. Testifying in those cases under oath, he was specifically asked whether he had “any recollection of ever hearing anyone at Remington discuss alleged accidental discharges involving bolt-action rifles.” His answer was, “No, sir.”
“The complaints stack up in the 1970s after Remington recalls a similar rifle, the 600, over inadvertent discharges. But the company decides not to recall the more popular 700.”	The trigger mechanism of the Model 600 rifle at the time of the recall was different than the Model 700 rifle’s trigger mechanism. In fact, when Remington recalled the Model 600 rifle, it replaced Model 600 trigger mechanisms with Model 700 trigger mechanisms.
The 2007 X-Mark Pro is “exactly the same mechanism” that Mike Walker proposed in 1948.	Remington has an extensive and ongoing research and development program across all of its product lines, and continuously introduces new and updated products. Remington introduced the X-Mark Pro trigger mechanism in 2007. The X-Mark Pro trigger mechanism has a one-piece trigger without a connector. Like the Walker trigger mechanism, the X-Mark Pro is a safe and reliable high performance system. Remington continues to utilize the Walker trigger mechanism in rifles sold to the U.S. military and for use in certain custom rifles as requested by our customers. The 1948 design shown by CNBC is very dissimilar to the X-Mark Pro and, in fact, was not even Mr. Walker’s, but that of another Remington engineer. CNBC also did not note that Mr. Walker’s 1948 proposal would have left the connector in place, or that when Mr. Walker designed the Model 700 in the early 1960s, he maintained the connector and incorporated a sear blocking safety mechanism, consistent with prior designs.
Instead of changing its guns, Remington changed its message to the public and developed the Ten Commandments of Firearms Safety with giant public relations firm Hill & Knowlton.	Remington firmly stands behind the importance of gun safety and has actively supported and promoted safe gun handling practices and other safety initiatives for decades. Remington did not, however, develop the Ten Commandments of Firearms Safety. According to the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute (SAAMI), the Ten Commandments of Firearms Safety have been in existence since the 1920s.
“Every case is settled with a confidentiality agreement that prevents you from talking about it.”	Confidentiality agreements are a very common practice in civil litigation, and it is often the plaintiffs who want such a provision. In fact, when the Barber case was “satisfactorily resolved” in 2002, a confidentiality provision was included in the agreement at Mr. Barber’s request.