Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2019 i Shooting Times

AS A FORMER MILITARY AND LAW ENFORCEMENT SNIPER/COUNTER- sniper and small arms instructor, I try to read as much material about precision rifles as possible, with an emphasis on new developments. I was glad to see the article on the .300 PRC in Shooting Times, as I have inherited a Winchester Model 70 with a too-skinny, 1:10-twist barrel that I want to rebarrel with a heavier, 1:8-twist tube. However, I found a discrepancy that needs closer investigation. Mr. von Benedikt stated in his article that given a long enough magazine, a .300 Win. Mag. rifle could be rechambered for the .300 PRC. However, other writers have stated that the shoulder of the .300 PRC sits closer to the case head than does the shoulder of the .300 Win. Mag. This…

WINCHESTER’S MODEL 1873 LEVER ACTION WAS the first truly successful high-capacity repeating rifle. Bugs that plagued the ancestral Henry Model 1860 and Winchester Model 1866 were largely eliminated in its design, and it quickly became the favorite of ranchers, cowboys, lawmen, and outlaws. During the half-century it was manufactured, just over 720,000 were produced. Manufactured in 1889, the Model 1873 shown and reviewed here represents the most popular configuration—the “rifle” model with crescent buttplate and 24-inch octagonal barrel. Second in popularity was a carbine version with a 20-inch round barrel. There was a third standard type (“musket”) with a 30-inch barrel and full-length stock, but it made up only about five percent of total Model 1873 sales. In addition, many custom 1873s were built and shipped. Chambered in various cartridges,…

Optics for shooters have changed considerably in the last few years. In the past, we were happy if we had a fixed 4X on our .30-06 rifle, and if we were really upscale, a nice 3-9X variable on a short magnum rifle was the norm. No more. These days, scopes cost and weigh about as much as the rifle they’ll be mounted on, have sophisticated reticles, send and receive messages from smartphones, and communicate with computers via satellite. My how times have changed. Here are some of the coolest new offerings introduced at this year’s SHOT Show. A Aimpoint Aimpoint’s new compact 1X ACRO P-1 pistol sight was built to endure environmental and temperature extremes and has been tested to withstand the firing of more than 20,000 rounds of .40…

EVERYONE KNOWS THAT HORNADY HAS BEEN MANUFACTURING QUALITY RFID gun storage lockboxes and security vaults for a long time. And most readers probably know that Hornady purchased the SnapSafe company a few years ago and has continued to supply those fine, innovative gun safes that the customer puts together himself. Now Hornady is offering a bunch of new products that go inside those safes. The items include gun racks and hooks, lighting solutions, and products to help eliminate humidity. I find the dehumidifiers especially interesting. Hornady’s canister dehumidifier protects your firearms against rust and corrosion and has an indicator cap that changes color when it’s time to recharge the unit. Recharging is easily done by placing it in the oven. The digital hygrometer displays high/low readings for temperature and humidity…

LEUPOLD’S FX-II 2.5X 20MM ULTRALIGHT RIFLE- scope is a little gem that has been in the company’s lineup, under one name or another but virtually unchanged, for at least 30 years. It’s an 8-inch-long, straight 1-inch tube that weighs a feathery 6 ounces. Scopes don’t come much lighter or more compact than that. According to Leupold, it was added to the lineup decades ago at the insistence of its employees, most of whom are serious hunters and shooters and roam the dripping forests of the Northwest. Ranges are short, conditions are bad, and shots are quick or not at all. They wanted a riflescope that was short, lightweight, and low power. And, of course, it had to be made with Leupold quality. Back in the ’90s, variable scopes were relentlessly…

CLOSELY BASED ON THE VERY FIRST OF STONER’S ORIG- inal AR-15 designs—serial number 1—the 5.56 NATO Brownells BRN-PROTO sports a “trigger-style” charging handle inside the carry handle. The brown furniture is polymer rather than fiberglass like the original, but it looks identical. Matte gray anodizing, a slab-sided lower, round handguard, prototype front sight, and duckbill three-prong flashhider all look like the original features. The 20-inch barrel’s bore is chrome lined and rifled with a 1:12 twist. Weight is 7.5 pounds. Magazine capacity is 25 rounds. MSRP: $1,499. brownells.com WINCHESTER USA READY AMMUNITION Winchester’s new USA Ready line was created for competitors and target shooters looking for premium performance, so the new ammo uses flatnose or open-tip bullets for optimal accuracy and Match Grade primers for improved consistency. In addition, shooters…

THE RISE OF COWBOY ACTION SHOOTING BACK in the late 1990s saw a number of older revolver cartridges being rediscovered. When we developed the Speer Reloading Manual #13, we added new tables with pressure-tested data for popular cowboy cartridges. There were also new data sections for the .44 Russian and the .45 S&W Schofield cartridges. People look for an edge in competition. Modest recoil is a benefit on any rapid-fire stage. Match rules capped maximum handgun velocities to reduce damage to steel targets, but there were no minimum restrictions. People started loading lightweight bullets with light propellant charges to shoot better at speed. Not long after the light-load trend appeared, so did a lot of damaged revolvers. Most involved revolver barrels looking like a snake that swallowed an egg. A…

TALK ABOUT MACHO. PAUL CURTIS EMBODIED what most early 20th-century men wanted to be. He was an expert swordsman with foil and saber. He was an excellent shot with rifle and shotgun. He took extended hunting expeditions and was an avid hunter, as evidenced by 33 years of game records. He was commissioned as a captain in the United States Army in 1917 and served in World War I and again in World War II. He was an able cowboy, being able to stay aboard a bucking bronco as well as the average wrangler, and he lived for the outdoors. While readers today probably have never heard of Curtis, during the first half of the 20th century, he enjoyed significant influence within the shooting industry. From 1919 until 1934 he…

Q: I HAVE READ THAT JOSEPH VON BENEDIKT HAS USED A PRETTY FANCY riflescope made by Revic in some of his Shooting Times articles. I understand it is a very sophisticated scope. What unique features does it have, and what does Joseph think of it? Anthony Chisholm Via email A: Conceived and designed by Aaron Davidson and his team at Gunwerks, the Revic PMR 428 4.5-28X 56mm scope is the single most advanced, innovative sporting optic on the market. Onboard sensors read air pressure, temperature, angle, and magnetic declination and transmit the info to the scope’s brain. It takes that info; matches it to your rifle/cartridge specific ballistics, which you’ve programmed into it; and computes holdover corrections. An electronic display inside the scope displays the distance the turret is dialed…

LAST FALL, I FOUND A REALLY NICE VINTAGE Marlin Model 94 .44-40 lever action for sale. Made in 1905, the color-casehardening on the frame and lever had mostly faded, but the 24-inch octagon barrel and magazine tube retained most of their original bluing. Most important to me, the bore was excellent and shiny. A couple of months after buying the Marlin Model 94, I picked up a scarce Remington Model 14½ slide-action rifle. It was made in the mid-1920s and was chambered in .44-40. Shooting Times Editor in Chief Joel Hutchcroft suggested I include both guns in this reloading column. Reloading the .44-40 Reloading the vintage .44-40 round is a bit more challenging than most modern straight-walled handgun cartridges, partly because it was originally loaded with blackpowder. In 1873, when…

WHILE SOME HUNT- ers consider the side-by-side shotgun the epitome of mechanical perfection and style, some wingshooters think it’s a weird antique. In 2001 my wife, Eileen, and I were invited to hunt a South Dakota farm owned by a young man named Cameron Wyly. He had let wild vegetation grow between his cornfields to allow pheasants to nest and hide from predators. We’d met Cam that spring on a snow goose hunt arranged by the state tourism department, and he had invited us to hunt wild pheasants in the fall. In October we packed up shotguns and a young bird dog named Gideon, the result of a midnight dalliance between a Labrador retriever and a Llewellin setter, and arrived at Cam’s place shortly before the noon opening of pheasant…

TAURUS’S NEW COMMANDER HAS MANY FINE FEATURES, INCLUDING A 4.25- inch stainless-steel barrel. Unloaded, it weighs 35.0 ounces. All parts are manufactured and assembled at the company’s factory in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and imported to the United States. A passive block prevents the firing pin from moving forward until the trigger is squeezed. The frame and slide begin as ordnance-grade steel forgings, and like all other parts, they are precision-machined to final dimensions. Almost everything considered to be important on this type of pistol is here. The Commander slide has grasping grooves up front and at the rear. Novak sights are dovetailed to the slide, with two white dots flanking the 0.130-inch-wide rear sight notch and a single dot on the 0.130-inch front blade. The rear sight is drift-adjustable for…