Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2019 i Shooting Times

I just finished Joel Hutchcroft’s article on the Winchester Model 1895 in the July issue. I find lever actions among my favorite rifles, the 1895 as well! It’s nice to read about the ’95 coming back! Which leads me to a thought: I wonder if Winchester will ever reintroduce the 1894 without the (ugly) side-eject cutout. I’d find a way to afford one if the “old” top-ejecting ’94 came back. Tom Lundgren Via email New Cartridges for Reproduction Guns There is a need for a new cartridge for classic reproduction guns. The new one should be called the .38 Remington Extra Long. It would be identical to the .357 Remington Magnum, but the lettering would look better on single-action revolvers and lever-action rifles. While I’m at it, let’s have a…

WINCHESTER WAS THE FIRST COMPANY TO INTRO - duce a Mauser-type bolt-action rifle engineered specifically for the commercial market, initially as the Model 54 in 1925. Nine years later, a refined version with a much better trigger design was introduced as the Model 70, and history was made. There are those who argue to this day that the Pre’64 Model 70 is the finest bolt-action sporting design ever made. The controlled-feed design incorporates Paul Mauser’s burly claw-type, non-rotating extractor, which is the strongest extractor ever used on a bolt-action rifle. Plus, Model 70s are strong yet sleek, precise yet reliable, and when properly built, they provide outstanding accuracy coupled with unequaled smoothness. As most Winchester aficionados know, the best of the breed came before 1964, when cost-cutting measures resulted in…

THREE TRADITIONAL REASONS FOR HANDLOAD- ing are economy, accuracy, and power. A fourth—sometimes more important than any of the others—is simply allowing an old rifle to shoot once again. This can present some challenges for those accustomed to factory dies, modern powders, a wide variety of jacketed bullets, and a wealth of loading data. Early this year, an old German Schützen rifle followed me home from the Rock Island auction. It resembled something from the Brothers Grimm but had a strong Martini-type action and a very nice set trigger, and while the bore resembled an abandoned mine shaft, it appeared to be eminently usable. It also had sights, which is no small thing on such rifles because more often than not the detachable sights have been lost along the way.…

BERGER’S NEW 156-GRAIN 6.5MM EOL ELITE HUNTER BULLETS ARE purpose-built for hunters who demand a heavy bullet for their 6.5 Creed-moor, 6.5 PRC, 26 Nosler, and other 6.5mm rifles. (Minimum recommended twist rate is 1:8.) EOL stands for Extreme Outer Limits, and this new sleek EOL Elite Hunter bullet is the “heaviest in class” and has an ultra-high ballistic coefficient (G1 BC is 0.679; G7 BC is 0.347) and increased sectional density. It utilizes Berger’s hybrid ogive design that blends tangent and secant designs to optimize efficiency, reduce wind-drift, and minimize sensitivity to seating depth. MSRP: $57.99 per 100 bergerbullets.com LWRCI SMG .45 ACP The new SMG is LWRCI’s first pistol-caliber carbine. The .45 ACP SMG uses a delayed-blowback operating system, U.S.-manufactured UMP magazines, and many of the same fully…

WE BALLISTICS TYPES ALL KNOW SAD STORIES about cartridges that showed great potential but failed shortly after leaving the launch pad. One, intended as a “super” revolver cartridge, failed to make the grade in firearms with cylinders but is a fine performer in other platforms. It is the .357 Remington Maximum. The cartridge made its debut in 1983 in the Ruger New Model Blackhawk single-action revolver. Later, Dan Wesson Firearms made double-action revolvers, and Thompson/Center offered single-shot Contender pistol barrels. H&R and Savage both chambered the .357 Maximum in single-shot rifles or combo guns. The .357 Maximum is a “stretched” .357 Magnum case; it’s about 0.315 inch longer than its parent. Maximum average pressure (MAP) was set at 40,000 psi/48,000 CUP, substantially higher than the .357 Magnum. Industry specs call…

GEORGE GARDNER OF GA PRECISION IS ONE OF THE BEST RIFLE builders in the country, and I had the privilege to spend two days shooting a GA rifle built on a Tempest action with a Bartlein barrel and a Manners stock at a prelaunch long-range shooting event when Hornady introduced the A-Tip. That rifle put four of five 6mm A-Tip bullets into a sub-half-MOA group at 1,206 yards. The pressure got to me, and I dropped the fifth shot a fraction—opening the overall group size to three-quarter MOA. Before the event was over, I ordered my own GA Precision 6mm Creedmoor rifle. It features a Templar action built for GA Precision by Defiance Machine, a GAP #7 profile Bartlein barrel with a 1:7 twist fitted with an APA Gen 2…

THE ALL-NEW 6.5 WEATHERBY REBATED Precision Magnum (WBY RPM) cartridge is a vast departure from classic Weatherby design. The 6.5 WBY RPM has no belt, no double-radius shoulder, and no freebore. It’s still a hotrod, but that’s about all it has in common with its traditional belted-magnum, Venturi-shouldered, generously freebored ancestors. The cartridge has a steep, 35.25-degree shoulder, nearly parallel sides, and a rebated rim. For those of you familiar with the 6.5-284 Norma, imagine a stretched-out version that makes the most of a long rifle action, provides magnum 6.5mm ballistics, and is compatible with a standard 0.473-inch-diameter (.30-06 size) boltface. So, what inspired this dramatic departure from traditional Weatherby engineering? The 6.5 WBY RPM cartridge was designed for a new, sub-five-pound mountain rifle built on a titanium version of…

AS R.L. WILSON WROTE IN SILK AND STEEL: Women at Arms, “That women played a greater role in early American gunmaking is gradually becoming documented….” He gives the example of Jane Frazier (also spelled Frazer and Fraser), who in 1755 was kidnapped by a marauding band of Delaware Indians and taken deep into the Ohio Valley. According to Wilson, her knowledge of gunsmithing saved her life. After stealing a broken musket and repairing it, she and two other kidnap victims escaped. Here’s her story. Jane Bell was born on January 1, 1735, in Winchester, Virginia. She grew up doing what most 18th-century girls did but also learned to shoot and had her own musket at the age of 12. She enjoyed shooting and became a crack shot. Seeking a more…

Q: I ENJOYED THE FEATURES AND departments in the October issue, but I would have liked them even more if all the charts had listed the energy figures for the hunting cartridges. Only Steve Gash’s article on the 6.5 Grendel had energy data. Can you please give me the energy figures for the 6.5 PRC, 6.5-284 Norma, 6.5 Remington Magnum, .270 Winchester, and .350 Legend loadings based on the velocity data in the charts for those respective articles? William Mitchell Via email A: Here are those energy figures as determined by an online energy calculator. Joel J. Hutchcroft .45 Colt Ammo for the Model 1873 Lever Action? Q: If I were to purchase a Uberti Model 1873 .45 Colt lever action with a 24-inch barrel, exactly what type of bullets…

WHAT FOLLOWS IS NOT INTENDED TO BE A DULL, boring treatise about a dull, boring topic. My intent is to provide clear and concise insight into an important safety and reliability factor that a competent handloader will consider when preparing brass for reloading. So what is headspace, why is it important, and how does one ensure achieving proper headspace when making safe and reliable handloads? A practical, descriptive definition of headspace is how well the cartridge fits the gun’s chamber. Obviously, handloads must have the correct and reliable energetic components (primers and propellant). The cartridge case must have a tight primer pocket, proper size flash hole, adequate neck tension, and no defects that might cause it to rupture and leak hot gases when the round is fired. Another, less obvious,…

THE .22 LR T-BOLT RIFLE FROM BROWNING HAS BEEN AROUND FOR A LONG time, probably because it’s so much fun to shoot and accurate to boot. The rifle was first brought to market in 1965, but it was dropped from production in 1974. In 2006 it returned to production, and the company is still bringing out new versions. I’ve been shooting the latest variation, which is called the T-Bolt Speed. All T-Bolt rifles are straight-pull bolt actions, and they operate differently than your standard turnbolt. To operate the bolt, simply pull straight back and then push it straight forward. On the way back, the dual extractors pull the fired case out of the chamber and going forward pick up a loaded round from the magazine and insert it into the…

IF YOU’VE READ MY QUICK SHOT ON Browning’s T-Bolt Speed on pages 52 and 54 in this issue, you may have noticed the CCI Clean-22 .22 LR ammunition listed in the performance chart. It’s a new loading from CCI, and I think it deserves to be highlighted. The Clean-22 ammunition features an exclusive polymer bullet coating that is similar to the coating used on sister company Federal’s Syntech centerfire ammunition. The coating is designed to reduce copper and lead fouling in firearms barrels without leaving a residue, and CCI says it cuts lead buildup in suppressors by 60 to 80 percent. CCI Clean-22 is offered in High Velocity and Subsonic loadings, both of which utilize 40-grain bullets. The Subsonic load’s factory-rated velocity is 1,070 fps, and the High Velocity load’s…