Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2025 i Gun Digest

I took a new shooter to the range a few weeks back, and the experience turned out to be more enlightening than I expected. As my next-door neighbor, I know this man quite well. And, despite his polite but persistent reminders, it took me longer than I care to admit to put a date on the calendar and actually stick to the commitment. Something always came up for either he or I. Given this was his first handgun experience, we started small, running CCI .22 LR rounds through a target at about 7 yards. Bulls were punched and smiles ensued. Then, we bumped up to a Springfield 9mm, followed by a couple mags through my Remington Executive .45 ACP. More rounds downrange with more smiles logged. I’d previously hinted that…

01 Viktos Counteract CCW Duffel Bag If you ever travel armed, Viktos’ new Counteract CCW Duffel Bag is worth a look. When judged as just a duffel, the Counteract is already a nice bag. It boasts a generous 44-liter capacity and is built using strong, weather- and stain-resistant 500D polyester ripstop. It also features a dedicated, vented footwear compartment, a protected laptop/tablet sleeve and removable padded shoulder straps. As a CCW bag, it only gets better: The Counteract has a removable compartment with a CCW pistol tray, a Universal Hookie holster and several interior pockets for magazines and other gear. Oh, and it has lockable zippers, too, so you can fly with it. MSRP: $200 02 Rattlesnake Tactical 34-Round 9mm Glock-Pattern Magazine For a long time, when it came to…

In 1979, I purchased my first centerfire rifle. (My dad actually bought the rifle because I was not old enough, but I paid for it with money I earned from a paper route.) It was a brand-new Remington Model 700 ADL, and it cost $223. Based on inflation, today that rifle would cost about $981. That rifle shot well but it was plain-Jane with a walnut stock and blued steel. It did not have any of the modern and cool features hunters want today, like a synthetic stock and Cerakote finish resistant to the elements. It did not have a detachable magazine, a scope rail, a threaded muzzle or brake, or a bipod attachment point. The new Evoke rifle from Christensen Arms has all those things and a retail…

The 6.5 Creedmoor, the world’s most popular rifle cartridge choice, doesn’t need any help making new friends. Regardless, Henry Repeating Arms, a company that prides itself on its all-American firearms “DNA,” did just that when it introduced the low-recoiling, flat-shooting, .264-caliber cartridge to one of America’s final firearms frontier void of the Creedmoor hype. It was a good idea. You’re welcome, lever-action crowd. Henry’s firearms platform of choice for this introduction, the Long Ranger, made perfect sense to me. The Long Ranger is the redheaded stepchild of the lever-action rifle world, because it feeds its action cartridges from a box magazine instead of a tube. Now, the folks at Henry absolutely know how to make fantastic traditional, tube-fed lever-action rifles, but that’s not really the point right now. No, the…

HISTORICAL NOTES Announced in 2002, the .243 WSSM was intended to deliver a new level of long-range performance and accuracy to the .243 chamberings. Cartridge overall length is 2.36 inches, a half-inch shorter than the 2.8-inch length of other shortaction cartridges. The .243 WSSM appears in super-short rifle actions, which should improve receiver stiffness and accuracy. The Browning Super Short Magnum A-Bolt, which weighs 6 pounds and uses a shorter action for the 2.36-inch length cartridge, and Winchester’s Super Short Magnum Model 70 are currently the only factory-new products available in this round. GENERAL COMMENTS The .243 WSSM case does not employ a belt; it headspaces on the case shoulder. For efficient and consistent powder burning, it retains the short-fat cartridge case geometry of the Winchester Short Magnum line. Cartridges…

Glocks don’t have much flair … and a whole lot of them don’t have any. Despite being functionally perfect, it took quite a while for there to be any flair, and there still isn’t much. What really caught my attention recently was the comment “Gen 5 Glocks have a magwell flare, not much of one, but there are 24 million Gen 1 through Gen 4 Glocks that have none at all.” The Glock magwell flaring device, the Flarewell, does exactly that. It flares out the magwell opening of your Glock pistol (9mm and 40 frames only) for a faster reload. I know some of you are thinking, “My Glock mags are tapered at the top. That makes reloads fast.” Yes, but would you turn down faster? I thought not. The…

When Josey Wales asked those Yankee soldiers if they were “… gonna pull them pistols or whistle Dixie?” he did not care that a revolver was technically not a pistol. For many years, no one else cared either. Practically everyone referred to almost every handgun as a pistol. There have been a lot of great pistols over the years but our focus here is strictly on revolvers—the best dozen revolvers ever made. This might sound like an easy list to complete but when you get into it, it’s not. Was the best cap-and-ball revolver the 1851 Colt Navy or the 1860 Army? Was the best Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver the Model 19 or the Model 686? And then you must decide if any of the Ruger double-action revolvers…

Assembling guns and optics The Christensen one of Arms those things that Ridgeline FFT rifle is a lightweight seems big-game to generate rifle a lot ofdesigned controversy.forthefield. There are some Depending on chambering, ways it only and weighs some about wrong ways to do right things—and 5.4 pounds. this, of course, has led to people performing some rituals bordering on voodoo. Everyone seems to have their own way of doing things. Assembling bolt guns, AR rifles and optics isn’t magic—though there are some considerations that you’ll want to make as you go about the process. The main factor to consider is proper torque on your parts and screws, something that has eluded many people over the years. THE MYSTICS Gun culture has bred some very interesting subcultures over the years,…

CLASSIC 01 Henry Big Boy Steel Carbine Henry and lever-action rifles go together like chocolate and peanut butter, so you shouldn’t be surprised to see Henry topping this list. And, in the words of one of GDTM’s columnists and feature writers, “I’ve been a fan of the .327 Federal Magnum cartridge since its inception.” This rifle is a sweet-shooting little carbine that comes with a ladder-style leaf rear sight and a brassbeaded front. Perhaps the top feature is the lack of an extra safety: The hammer and trigger are the safety—which is exactly the way a lever-gun should be. But don’t let the “Steel” designation in the rifle’s name fool you: The rifle, as well as the .327 Federal Mag. cartridge, are capable of taming so much more than targets.…

A hundred years before anyone thought about a .32 H&R Magnum, Winchester introduced the .32-20 WCF cartridge for their Model 73 lever-action rifle. The year was 1882, the same year Robert Ford shot Jesse James. The .32-20 soon became very popular in a variety of revolvers, especially Colt’s Peacemaker. Elmer Keith even developed an early relationship with the .32-20, shooting cottontails with his granddad and later carrying a 7½ inch Colt in .32-20 while working with a survey crew. Other 0.32-caliber handgun cartridges, like the .32 Smith & Wesson, .32 Smith & Wesson Long and .32 Colt New Police, were popular with private detectives, cops and target shooters. In 1896, S&W attempted to improve the .32 S&W by lengthening the case by 0.31 inch. The .32 S&W Long was just…

In the 21st century, a polymer pistol in a plastic holster is the norm. They have excellent retention and have gotten quite comfortable. New manufacturing methods and materials are cheap and accessible. Still, the allure of leather remains, perhaps because humans have been using animal skins longer than we’ve been using language. Heck, our earliest evidence of leather comes from processing tools that date back over 100,000 years. There has actually been a bit of a resurgence in leather holsters in recent years because of the vast increase in available pistol make and models, natural materials lending themselves better to universal fits. Leather can also be extremely comfortable compared to plastic. But the upsides are also the downsides. Like us, leather has a lifespan. A highquality, cared-for leather holster gains…

While picking my first handgun, I didn’t opt for a compact carry gun or one of the ever-popular .22 LR options—both target rimfire revolvers and autoloaders are a ton of fun—but instead wanted a long-barreled, rock-solid, single-action gun that I could use to hunt both deer and bear here in my native New York. I chose a Ruger Blackhawk in .45 Colt in a stainless finish, with a 7½-inch pipe. Among the more popular revolver cartridges, the .45 Colt offers quite the flexible package, giving the shooter what might seem like three different cartridges rolled into one. Adopted by the U.S. Army in 1873, it served as our offcial military sidearm until 1892 (though remained in use until 1896) and would go on to inspire one of the most popular…

The night was bitterly cold and pitch black except for the faint silvery starlight that helped guide my horse and me down the steep mountainside. We made our way toward the distant glow of what I knew to be our base camp on this, my third unfruitful day of a Rocky Mountain elk hunt. Upon nearing the welcome glow and warmth of the campfire, I reined up, drew my still unfired .54-caliber Hawken from its saddle scabbard and dismounted just as the camp cook came running out of the tent screaming, “That gosh-darned, son-of-gun field mouse has been in the flour sack ag’in and they ain’t gonna be no biscuits if this keeps up!” Of course, he didn’t say, “Goshdarned, son-of-a-gun.” He used words that were more of a colloquial…