Innholdsfortegnelse for Volume 75, Issue 22 i Firearms News

Even before I visited the FN factory in Liege, I was fond of their products. That visit happened while FN was still trying to stem the tide of striker-fired pistols, before the whole world simply had to give in to the assimilation. When they did come out with a striker-fired pistol, they settled on it in an excellent manner: the FN 509. The FN 509 is one of the best pistols to wrap your hands around, in the polymer-frame, striker-fired arena. So much so, that the one I’m working on for a future Firearms News article, I might just buy. (Yes, and risk points-deductions to my Gun Writer Man-Card, for sure.) The grip on the 509 really fits my hand, and those of a lot of shooters I’ve handed it…

In case you haven’t noticed, ammunition is both hard to get, and expensive right now. Oh, you have? Maybe the solution, or at least one partial solution, is a sub-caliber trainer. This is something that has been around pretty much from the start of cartridge-using firearms. A century-plus ago, it seems as if every military organization had either “gallery” loads, down-loaded regular service cartridges, or rimfire clones of their service rifle. Even when ammo was cheap, governments were loathing to spend any more on ammunition than they absolutely had to. Well, the age of rimfire service rifle clones is back upon us, in part because ammo is expensive, but also because it isn’t always easy to find a range where you can shoot centerfire rifle cartridges at distance. (And .223…

The Winchester 63 is one of the world’s most elegant semiautomatic .22 rifles. Produced for some twenty-five years from 1933 until 1958, 175,000 copies rolled off the lines. Reliable, accurate, and beautifully executed to pre-war standards of workmanship, the classic Model 63 is an extraordinary example of the gunmaker’s art. The Model 63 is a novel takedown design. Turning out a thumbscrew at the back of the receiver allows the little rifle to be broken in half for easy storage or portage. The end result is an exceptionally capable plinking, utility, hunting, or survival tool. A Most Significant Life In the eyes of the world, he was the illegitimate son of an itinerant carpenter. He received relatively little formal education and was initially raised in exile, fleeing the authorities of…

Previously, Firearms News ran my report on Taurus’ new TX 22 pistol. But, as has happened to many pistols on today’s market, it has now been upgraded to accept electronic dot sights. At the danger of repeating myself, I believe it would be informative to repeat the many advantages to using an electronic dot sight: 1. Faster targeting — once a target is acquired, it is easy to quickly center the red dot on the target and fire the gun. There is no need to align the sights and take time to aim. In addition, this type of sight gives a much greater accuracy rate when taking aim at a moving target. 2. Unrestricted eye relief — eye relief is unlimited which allows for faster targeting as it takes away…

In The Shootist , the character of J.B. Books (John Wayne, in case you were wondering) advises the young’n who admires him, Gillom Rogers (played by Ron Howard) to only carry five rounds in his revolver. Unless he’s really sure he needs six, five rounds is the only safe way. With that plot-line setup, it is inevitable that he loads six rounds in each of his revolvers before the climactic shootout. (Hope I didn’t spoil it for you.) The six-shot cylinder works pretty much like any other single action revolver. Loading is simple. The Barkeep trigger assembly has the same four clicks that the Colt single action had from the beginning. So, cock the hammer to the second notch, the second click, and the cylinder will now rotate freely. Hinge…

.22 Long Rifle firearms have been popular since the cartridge was introduced in 1884. You’d think there’d be no more avenues to explore, yet every year or two a manufacturer manages to come out with a new .22 firearm that offers new and different features. Winchester brought out their Wildcat .22 rifle just a few years ago. This was a thoroughly modern rifle with all sorts of very interesting and useful features. They have just introduced a new version of the Wildcat, the Wildcat SR, which might in fact be the superior model. I secured a sample of the Wildcat SR in black for testing. Well… black-ish. Technically, the stock on this model is gray, but it’s a dark charcoal gray, not much lighter in hue than the black (blued)…

We all have history. Today I get to test and write up exotic, expensive, custom and highly-refined firearms of all types. The handgun I learned on? A Dickson Cheyenne. Say what? What was that? It was a single-action looking double action revolver, in .22LR. It was made in Germany by Rohm and imported to the States sometime before the GCA 68 put a big barrier to imports. It was not the most robust revolver ever made, and it didn’t take a lot of shooting (at least, not by my idea of “a lot of shooting” even back in the 1960s) to start showing its weaknesses. But it got me started. The point is, if you want someone to get interested in shooting, you have to have them shoot. And it…

The MP5 submachine gun took over where the UZI sub machinegun left off in the mid-1980s as the subgun of choice or desire. Back in 1981 or so, I got my first UZI carbine. It was state of the art back then and many of us remember the Secret Service Agent who pulled the UZI SMG from a briefcase to protect President Reagan after he had been shot by John Hinckley Jr. I remember seeing the HK94, a semi-auto, commercial version of the MP5, around 1983, in gun magazines and, being a fan of the Heckler & Koch HK93 and HK91 rifles, I was interested. The price for an HK94 A2 in 1984 was $650, $720 if you wanted the retractable stock. The only other places I saw photos of…