Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2021 i Shooting Times

Three Suggestions HATS OFF TO STEVE GASH AND HIS GREAT COVERAGE OF THE NEW SAVAGE Renegauge shotgun in the July 2020 issue. Some of the wonderful improvements in semiauto shotgun design are long overdue. The improved adjustable stock ergonomics, the barrel fluting, along with three choices in barrel length, and exceptional camo options, accompanied by a light trigger pull craved by shotgunners for decades are welcome indeed. Kudos to the Savage designers and their foresight. I do, however, have three constructive suggestions for the Renegauge. 1. At the MSRP of $1,450 to $1,550 (which is, I believe, indeed reasonable for this quality shotgun), the barrel should be larger in diameter and back-bored for optimal pattern performance. 2. Matte the bolt, especially on the turkey and waterfowl models. 3. The turkey…

YEARS AGO, I WAS WORKING IN A GUNSHOP WHEN a fellow laid a shiny belly gun on the counter and asked the manager what he’d give for it. The manager wasn’t in a good mood and clearly didn’t want the pistol. “Sorry,” he said, “I can’t resell that for much. Not interested.” “I’ll take $25 for it,” came the response. Poor as a church mouse, I pricked up my ears. The manager just shook his head. As he walked away, I buttonholed him. “Mind if I buy it?” Store policy was that if the shop didn’t want a used firearm brought in for sale or trade, any employee was welcome to negotiate for it. With the go-ahead from the boss, I offered $20 and became the dubious possessor of a…

ACCORDING TO SPRING- field Armory spokesmen, the brand-new 9mm XD-M Elite line “represents the pinnacle of performance in factory striker-fired pistols.” The new line includes the XD-M Elite 3.8 and XD-M Elite 3.8 Compact with 3.8-inch barrels; the XD-M Elite 4.5 with a 4.5-inch barrel; the XD-M Elite Tactical OSP with a 5.34-inch threaded barrel, optics-ready slide, and suppressor-height sights; and the XD-M Elite Precision with a 5.25-inch barrel, extended slide, and adjustable rear sight. I got my hands on the XD-M Elite 3.8 Compact and put it through a thorough shooting session for this report. The 9mm XD-M Elite 3.8 Compact features a compact slide and, as I said, a 3.8-inch barrel. The barrel is hammer forged and given a satiny black melonite finish, whereas the forged steel slide…

BLACK HILLS AMMUNITION WAS FOUNDED in 1981 by Jeff and Kristi Hoffman What started in a small building in Rapid City, South Dakota, has grown into a large manufacturing complex that produces a variety of handgun and rifle ammunition for the law enforcement, military, and civilian markets. The founders are still involved in day-to-day operations, and their “family” has grown to over 60 members. Every person there is devoted to producing the best products that can be made. Like Jeff, some are retired law enforcement officers One of the most recent innovations in a long line of quality handgun ammunition is the company’s unique Honey-Badger that is loaded with bullets of monolithic construction. The bullets are made to Black Hills’s specifications by Lehigh Defense of Quakertown, Pennsylvania. Solid-copper bullets have…

HORNADY HAS CREATED A NEW LINE OF HANDGUN HUNTING AMMUNI- tion appropriately named Handgun Hunter. Initial calibers are 9mm Luger, .40 S&W, and 10mm Auto pistol cartridges and .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, .454 Casull, and .460 S&W Magnum revolver cartridges. The ammunition is loaded with new, specially engineered copper-alloy MonoFlex handgun bullets and premium cases, primers, and propellants. Designed to provide deep penetration and 95 percent weight retention, the MonoFlex bullets have a proprietary elastomer material inserted into the bullets’ hollowpoints. Upon impact, the elastomer tip compresses and causes the bullet to expand quickly. I test-fired the .44 Magnum Handgun Hunter ammunition in my trusty old Ruger Super Redhawk double-action revolver with a 9.5-inch barrel. It’s currently the only .44 Magnum handgun I own, but believe me, I’ve owned a…

I KNEW JIM CLARK TO BE A POLITE AND KIND southern gentleman. I first met him in the late 1970s when I worked for Gil Hebard, his good friend and fellow NRA Bullseye pistol champion. At that time, I was a lowly high school kid, and all I knew about Jim was that he had won a bunch of pistol matches and that he was a top-notch pistolsmith. Regardless, the few times I was in his presence, he treated me with good-natured humility. I respected him for that. Later, I learned a lot more about the man, and I came to respect him even more. James Edwin Clark was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on February 15, 1923. Three years later his father abandoned his family. His mother eventually remarried,…

Berger Long Range Hybrid Target Ammunition BERGER IS NOW LOADING ITS SUCCESSFUL LONG RANGE HYBRID TARGET bullets in 6mm Creedmoor and 6.5 Creedmoor ammunition. The bullets feature high ballistic coefficients (BC) and hybrid ogives, and they are Doppler verified to have less than 1 percent BC variation. The ammo utilizes Lapua cases and clean-burning, temperature-insensitive propellants. Bullet weights are 109 grains in 6mm and 144 and 153.5 grains in 6.5mm. MSRP: $39.99 bergerbullets.com Davidson’s Exclusive Wilson PPE Carbine The new Wilson Combat PPE Carbine, distributed exclusively by Davidson’s, is chambered in 5.56 NATO and has a 16-inch LE-profile match-grade barrel. The carbine features a two-stage trigger, a mid-length gas system with low-profile gas block, and a 1/2x28 threaded muzzle with a Q-Comp muzzle device. Other features include a forged flat-top…

MY NOVEMBER 2020 COLUMN ABOUT THE OLD .38 Special 200-grain “Super Police” loads included a discussion of stability issues. Some readers asked for more on stability, so here you go. Every bullet will eventually tumble. Where the tumble commences depends on, among other things, what media it encounters, bullet shape, impact velocity, how fast it sheds speed, and how fast it is spinning. A conical bullet only travels nose-on by virtue of artificial spin-stability created by gyroscopic forces. Once artificial stability is lost, the center of mass (CM) leads the charge. If the CM is near or behind the midpoint, the bullet can tumble. From a terminal ballistics standpoint, tumbling beginning within the first 15cm (about six inches) of tissue may increase the wounding efficiency of a non-expanding bullet. Forty-year-old…

RUGER’S PC CARBINE HAS GONE THROUGH SOME CHANGES IN THE NEARLY quarter-century that it’s been around. Most recently, some versions now sport a free-floating, slotted, aluminum handguard and an adjustable buttstock; the gun is now a takedown model; and it now incorporates interchangeable magazine well inserts. One thing that hasn’t changed is the carbine is chambered for handgun cartridges. It’s obvious the newest versions of the PC Carbine are intended for tactical/defense use. The slotted handguards are M-LOK compatible, making attaching tactical accessories easy, and the adjustable buttstocks look a lot like the familiar AR-15 types. But I’ve always thought of the PC Carbine as a camp carbine, so I opted to shoot the standard model that has a sleek, “normal” traditional-style forearm and a fixed butt-stock. And I chose…

A WHILE BACK, AN INTERESTING QUESTION arrived from a reader. At what point, he asked, did matchlocks finally fade from use? Were they used in the American Revolution? That was a question I couldn’t answer, but a flintlock-specialist friend offered the opinion that by 1776, the flintlock had firmly shoved the matchlock out of the picture. This set me to wondering. We assume that when a new technology came along, everything that went before was swept aside—that users abandoned the old and gleefully reached for the new, the way it is now with digital gadgets. But such was not the case. In the world of handguns, particularly, there has always been considerable overlap. One famous example is Wild Bill Hickok, the “prince of pistoleers,” and the Colt 1851 Navy. Hickok…

Walker Colt Caliber? Q : Terry Wieland’s “Gunsmoke” column on the Walker Colt in the November 2020 issue was good, but I thought the Walker Colt was .44 caliber. Mr. Wieland said it was .45 caliber. Can he please clear up my confusion? Bill Nichols Via email A : Although the Walker Colt is always identified as a .44, the bore is, in fact, .45 and requires a lead ball of 0.454-inch diameter. I fire my recent-production Walker made by Colt using Hornady .45-caliber (0.454) balls. Some Walkers will accept a ball as large as 0.457 inch. A conventional .44 bullet (0.430-inch diameter) simply falls down the bore. Similarly, the “.36” Colts, such as the 1851 Navy, are actually .38 caliber and shoot a ball 0.375 inch in diameter. Terry…

READER CLIFF TILLEY RECENTLY EMAILED THE editor in chief and asked if Shooting Times could revisit the .41 Special. He forwarded Mr. Tilley’s inquiry and urged me to accept the assignment. I reluctantly accepted—not! You see, I did a reloading column on it almost 10 years ago, and I’ve been wanting to write about it again for quite some time. The .41 Special’s story starts all the way back in 1964. Sort of. That was the year the .41 Remington Magnum cartridge was launched. Unlike other magnum revolver rounds, such the .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum, a lower-velocity Special round, as in .38 Special and .44 Special, did not exist. Remington did offer a reduced-velocity, swaged lead “police” load, but wildcatters, including Elmer Keith, soon came up with reduced-power loads…