Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2020 i Shooting Times

MANY THANKS FOR THE COLUMN IN THE DECEMBER 2019/JANUARY 2020 issue on loading the .30-06 Ackley Improved. The .30-06 AI was my father-in-law’s pet cartridge, and he fired it through a sporterized M1917 Enfield. I remember visiting the farm right after he had put a new storm door on the farmhouse. He had saved the cardboard box the door came in and could hardly wait to show me how the AI shot at a quarter-mile. His aiming point was high and the bullet strikes were low, but they did print on the cardboard. Unfortunately, I never took the opportunity to shoot the AI. Brian Benoit Poolesville, MD 9.3x62mm Is Not Obscure I enjoyed the “The Ballistician” column by Allan Jones in the August 2019 issue very much, as I have…

THE FIRST TIME I READ ABOUT A FOX STERLING- worth shotgun was in the pages of Galen Winter’s book The Best of the Major . It made an impression, and when I spotted the worn 16-gauge shotgun featured here on the used-gun rack of my favorite local gunshop, I knew immediately it was coming home with me. A.H. Fox began making fine shotguns in the very early 1900s, touting them as the best side-by-side guns in the world. While they didn’t legitimately compete with the finest English guns, they were indeed some of the nicest—and most reliable—ever made in America. Early versions were called “graded” guns, as in A Grade, B Grade, and C Grade. This referred to the quality and quantity of engraving, the quality of the wood, and…

IN 2008, WHEN RUGER INTRODUCED its tiny .380 ACP LCP pocket pistol, the company set the gun world on fire. It was, as the cliché goes, a stroke of genius. The firm immediately sold truckloads of the little semiautomatic pistol, and other big-name gunmakers scrambled to get on the bandwagon. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then, and the original LCP has gone through a few updates and redesigns. Ruger announced the LCP II .380 in 2016, and now there is the brand-new Lite Rack LCP II chambered in .22 LR . That’s right, .22 LR, and it’s intended to be a trainer pistol for the .380 ACP LCP and LCP II and the slightly larger 9mm EC9s and LC9s pocket pistols. No serious handgunner thinks…

UNDERTONES OF THE “TURNBULL” IN THE .475 Turnbull cartridge’s name resonate with me. With my own .475 Turnbull rifle, I turned a Cape buffalo almost the moment he tried to charge. I’d made a less-than-perfect first shot, and at one point in the following mêlée, the bull made a determined attempt to come. Fired from about 30 yards, my 400-grain bullet impacted the point of the bull’s shoulder, breaking it. Almost knocked down by the impact—and with the desire to charge knocked out of him—the bull turned and made for cover. Another time, I knelt a few paces behind Doug Turnbull and our PH Jacques Strauss. Threading the needle through a thicket of camelthorns, Turnbull shot a massive old dagga boy perfectly from 27 yards. As the bull launched into…

AS I’VE REP TED BEFORE, GENE DeSantis built the first DeSantis Gun Hide holster by hand at his kitchen table over 40 years ago. Since then, the company has become a global enterprise, utilizing the latest tech nologies. DeSantis holsters are used by elite law enforcement agencies and the U.S. military. And skilled craftsmen still con struct DeSantis holsters by hand in the United States. One of the company’s newer offerings is the Yukon Hunting Rig for scopeless handguns. This shoulder holster is made of heavy-duty ballistic nylon and has a fully adjustable harness that can be adjusted for multiple angles. The rig positions the handgun across the hunter’s chest, distributing the weight evenly and placing the gun conveniently within easy grasp. The Yukon Hunting Rig is offered in black…

EONS AGO, WHEN I WAS BUT A BOY AND DRAG- ons roamed the earth, some bright light in the shot-shell industry decided that sales records could be broken if they stuffed twice as much shot into a shot-shell, called it a “magnum,” and marketed the hell out of it. Now, the very word “magnum” means different things to different shooters. To a rifleman, it means more powder and higher velocity in a particular bore size—the .300 H&H Magnum versus the .30-06, for example. To a shotgunner, it can mean many things, none of them good. Way back when, as I mentioned, it meant more shot in a payload—1½ ounces instead of 1⅛ ounces. Then they decided to throw in more velocity. Then they lengthened cases to get more of everything.…

RUGER HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THE ALL-NEW Ruger-57 polymer-frame semiautomatic pistol that’s chambered for the speedy 5.7x28mm centerfire cartridge. The pistol’s design is new from the ground up and features a 4.94-inch, eight-groove barrel with a twist rate of one turn in nine inches. The frame is made of high-performance, glass-filled nylon, and the alloy steel slide is drilled and tapped for optics mounting and wears a black oxide finish. The pistol weighs 24.5 ounces empty and is 8.65 inches long, 5.6 inches tall, and 1.2 inches thick. The rear sight is fully adjustable, and the front sight has a fiber-optic insert. The gun features an ambidextrous 1911-style thumb safety and a reversible magazine release button. It comes with two magazines that hold 20 rounds each. MSRP: $799 ruger.com Speer Gold…

The .38 S&W, also known as the “.38 Colt New Police” when loaded with a 150-grain flatpoint bullet, was popular with America’s detective forces. Compact snubnose revolvers were unavailable for the .38 Special until about 1927, so the .38 S&W owned that niche. Interest in “more stopping power” led to the development of a 200-grain lead-bullet load that was called the “.38 S&W Super Police,” or simply “.38/200.” There were even shotshell loads. Our British allies also liked the .38/200. They replaced the .455 Webley Mk II cartridge with the .38 S&W in 1931 as their standard sidearm cartridge in Enfield break-top revolvers. They called the .38 S&W the “.380 Revolver” cartridge. They retained the 200-grain lead bullet until just before World War II, when authorities felt the soft-lead bullets…

THE 7.62X51MM NATO WAS INTRODUCED by Winchester as the .308 Winchester in 1952, and soon wildcatters gleefully necked the case up and down to other calibers, producing many offspring. Some new commercial rounds also came into being in 1955, namely the .243 Winchester and a new .35-caliber big-bore cartridge called the .358 Winchester. The .358 Win. was formed by necking up the .308 Win. to .35 caliber, analogous to the .35 Whelen being necked-up from the .30-06. The .358 Win. retains the .308 Win.’s shoulder angle of 20 degrees and case length of 2.015 inches, although its cartridge overall length of 2.780 inches is 0.030 inch shorter than that of the .308 Win. The genesis of the .358 Win. stemmed from a persistent demand through the years, and Winchester did…

THANKS TO SHOOTING TIMES WRITER STEVE Gash, I’ve been learning about the exciting history of Wells Fargo stagecoach guards and detectives in the Old West. Steve kindly gave me his copy of the well-documented and well-written Shotguns and Stagecoaches: The Brave Men Who Rode for Wells Fargo in the Wild West by John Boessenecker, and it makes for good reading. Those men guarded valuable cargo through lawless terrain and encountered some wild characters while doing their jobs! Take the exploits of Daniel Conway Gay. He was primarily a police officer in Sacramento, California, but he also worked as a detective for Wells Fargo on a case-by-case basis. He was the first Wells Fargo detective to kill a man in the line of duty. Gay was born in 1827 in Licking…

Q: I need handloading data for the .257 Shooting Times Westerner (STW) that was designed by Layne Simpson. I lost my edition of Shooting Times that had loading data for the wildcat cartridge, and while I have numerous loading manuals, none has loading data for the .257 STW. Can you help me? Bob Beever Via email A: The .257 STW was in fact designed by Layne Simpson, and Shooting Times published a bunch of handloads for it in the June 1998 issue of the magazine. Layne created the wildcat cartridge by necking down the belted 8mm Remington Magnum case to .257 caliber. Some of the powders and bullets in that original chart have been discontinued over the last 22 years since the article ran, but here are 17 handloads from…

JUST ABOUT EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE HEARD about the .350 Legend by now. It’s been featured in just about every gun magazine, including Shooting Times. But some of you may be interested in handloading the new round. For you, we present this report. The .350 Legend case is a straight-wall case with a slightly tapered body so that it will reliably feed in a bolt-action or semiautomatic rifle. It’s also rimless and headspaces on the case mouth. According to its SAAMI specs, the maximum average pressure (MAP) is 55,000 psi, so unlike similarly shaped pistol cases operating at pressures up to 35,000 psi, .350 Legend cases are more likely to stretch when fired and resized. Trimming each batch to uniform length proved to be an important step to ensure correct headspace.…

AMONG HIGH-CAPACITY SEMIAUTOMATIC pistols in 9mm Luger (a.k.a. 9x19mm Parabellum), the new micro-compact Hellcat from Springfield Armory is uncommonly lightweight and small. Weighing a mere 18.3 ounces, it departs the factory with two stainless-steel magazines that hold 11 and 13 rounds respectively. My wife’s Glock 26 is small and lightweight, but at a quarter-pound heavier, a quarter-inch longer, a quarter-inch taller, and 0.150 inch thicker, it appears big when the two are held side by side. All things considered, the SIG SAUER P365 is the Hellcat’s only competition. The recoil-operated, striker-fired Hellcat is offered in two variations. One comes with robust steel sights dovetailed to the slide, and the designers obviously knew what is needed on a personal-defense pistol. The windageadjustable rear sight with its 0.145-inch-wide and 0.130-inch-deep U-shaped notch…

THE FX 1911 MILITARY DDEF G10 PRODUCED BY AMERICAN TACTICAL Imports (ATI) exclusively for Davidson’s has a bunch of nice features, including a Davidson’s Dark Earth Cerakote-finished frame and textured Pachmayr G10 grip panels. It comes with a 5.0-inch barrel, a standard-style barrel bushing, and a standard recoil spring guide rod assembly. Unloaded, it weighs 37.0 ounces. The slide has grasping grooves at the rear only. A GI-style rear sight is dovetailed to the slide, and its square notch is 0.107 inch wide. The smooth military-style front sight is 0.099 inch thick. Sight radius is 6.13 inches. The ejection port is slightly lowered but not flared. The pistol’s frontstrap is smooth, and the arched mainspring housing has nine vertical grooves and a military-style lanyard loop on the bottom. The slide…