Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2022 i Shooting Times

I WAS NOT A FAN OF THE BROWNING HI-POWER BUT GOT A GOOD DEAL ON one just over a year ago. Then I bought a few extra mags from Brownells. With such a rugged trigger, I’m surprised it was popular and expensive! Reading Joel Hutchcroft’s “Hi-Power Magic” report on the new Springfield SA-35 Hi-Power in the March issue, I wondered how long it would be before I found one. Sometimes procrastination is a virtue. I found one at a reasonable $650 plus tax and am amazed with the trigger. I’ll be shooting it soon with my cast bullet handloads to cinch the deal. Thanks for the write-up! Carl Zmuda Via email POI Shift in Variable-Power Optics At 70 years of age, having been an avid reader of gun magazines since…

IT COULD BE SAID THAT WINCHESTER’S MODEL 71 was the last great traditional lever-action design. Introduced in 1935, it was adapted from Winchester’s Model 1886 and featured a new cartridge. Named the .348 Winchester, the new cartridge was intended to be a do-all round ideal for anything from deer to moose. Interestingly, the Model 71 is the only traditional Winchester lever gun not named for the year it was introduced. Instead, being the next rifle model introduced after the bolt-action Model 70, it was labeled the Model 71. You can read more about the .348 Winchester cartridge on page 40 of this issue. Here, I will just say the cartridge was potent. Recoil proved to be more than the average deer hunter wanted to deal with, but Alaskan and Canadian…

AFTER AN EXTENSIVE development, the brand-new .30 Super Carry semiautomatic pistol cartridge bridges the gap between the popular .380 ACP and the hugely popular 9mm Luger. The advantages it offers are very exciting indeed. In 2021 there were over 1.79 million NSSF-adjusted NICS background checks for firearm purchases. This number is a good proxy for sales because the vast majority of these checks are approved. All states have laws that make it legal to carry concealed, and responsible citizens are stepping up. This unprecedented demand for defensive arms has prompted firearms manufacturers to introduce many different handguns suitable for personal defense, and the majority are small, lightweight semiautomatics. Unquestionably, the most popular self-defense round these days is the 9mm Luger. Sure, the .45 ACP and .40 S&W are fine rounds,…

NEW FOR 2022, TRIJICON HAS A COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE VERSION OF the Variable Combat Optical Gunsight (VCOG) 1-8X 28mm Squad Common Optic. It’s functionally identical to the current U.S. Marine Corps Squad Common Optic (SCO) VCOG with minor cosmetic changes to the external laser-etched markings. Features include a forged 7075-T6 aircraft aluminum-alloy body, tethered turret covers, Tenebraex flip caps, an integrated base and LaRue Tactical LT799 mount, a first-focal-plane illuminated reticle, and fully multi-coated lenses. MSRP: $3,150 trijicon.com SIG SAUER ROMEOZero Elite SIG SAUER’s new ROMEOZero ELITE micro-open reflex sight is optimized for concealed-carry pistols and has a scratch-resistant, distortion-free glass lens; a proprietary carbon-infused ruggedized polymer housing; an enhanced steel shroud; eight daytime illumination settings; and a glow-in-the-dark backup rear sight. It uses the RMSc footprint and a CR1632 battery.…

WHEN A MAJOR COMPANY DEVELOPS A CAR- tridge and submits it to the industry through SAAMI, other member companies enjoy a set of fully fledged specs, drawings, and test standards. It is more difficult to duplicate an old existing cartridge, such as a foreign one with no U.S. standards. CCI-Speer previously took up the challenge with the 9mm Makarov when large numbers of surplus Soviet Bloc pistols were imported in the 1990s without suitable ammo. Later the company took on another cartridge that was seldom if ever seen in the United States: the 9x23mm Largo. About 1912, Spain adopted the German-developed 9mm Bergmann-Bayard cartridge, calling it the “9mm Largo,” meaning “large” or “long.” The cartridge was used extensively in pistols, sub-machine guns, and even a bolt-action carbine. In the mid-1990s,…

THE NEW-FOR-2022 9MM G3X from Taurus is a hybrid version that customers specifically asked for. As Taurus describes it, the G3X is a “blend” of the compact G3C and the full-size G3. I just say it’s a clever combination. Up top, the G3X features a stainless-steel 3.2-inch-long barrel and a compact stainless-steel slide. The slide is finished in matte black Tennifer, and it has three grasping grooves on each side at the front and eight grasping grooves on each side at the back. The top is flat, and the top edges are rounded. The muzzle end and the sides ahead of the ejection port are contoured for easier holstering. The barrel has a loaded-chamber view port on top of the chamber that allows a chambered round to be seen, providing…

THE LIBERTY BAND BY CROSSBREED HOLSTERS GIVES USERS THE ABILITY TO wear any holster with 1.5-inch clips in multiple positions without the need for a belt. Designed to be as comfortable as a piece of clothing and made of a nylon and rubber blend, the Liberty Band is perfect for those who find inside-the-waistband carry uncomfortable because it positions the holster slightly above the pant line. The soft band is designed to not pinch or scratch the user’s skin. And the thicker top portion secures the holster clips to the band, keeping the holster securely in place yet easy to remove. It weighs approximately 1 pound, is offered in black and nude colors, and comes in Extra Small, Small, Medium, and Large sizes. MSRP: $34.95 crossbreedholsters.com…

I DON’T KNOW IF ARTHUR SAVAGE TECHNICALLY qualifies as a gunsmith, but I do know he was an extraordinarily successful inventor and is credited with designing one of the most iconic American centerfire rifles. Of course, I’m referring to the Savage Model 99 lever action. I’m not an expert on the Savage Model 99, but I know it is one of the most popular classic rifles among Shooting Times readers because I get a lot of letters and emails from readers saying so. In addition to coming up with the design for the Model 99, Savage also invented radial tires and a torpedo. He once owned the largest cattle ranch in Australia and then a plantation in Jamaica. And he built race cars. Here’s a little info on the man.…

Q: I AM LOOKING FOR RELOADING INFORMATION ON THE .25-20. HAS Shooting Times run any recent handloading articles on the .25-20? If not, can the experts help me out? Dennis Steffenhagen Via email A: We haven’t run any full-fledged articles on the .25-20 for quite some time. We did have a flurry of letters from readers expounding on the little cartridge’s virtues not too long ago, and Layne Simpson included a handload for it in his 2021 article titled “Cast Bullets for Lever Actions.” Our other Lane—Lane Pearce, that is—wrote his “The Reloader” column on the .25-20 back in February of 2016, wherein he described how to form .25-20 cases from .32-20 brass and included a dozen handload recipes. I retrieved Pearce’s loads from his column and Simpson’s load from…

WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, YOU WOULD OCCA- sionally hear someone ask, “Where were you hiding when the brains were handed out?” The jab suggested you were a slow learner and quite unaware of something interesting they already knew about. Well, I apparently was “hiding” when Western Powder introduced Accurate LT-32 rifle propellant because it’s taken me nearly 10 years to learn about it. Western’s objective was to duplicate a military surplus propellant that Walt Berger introduced to the benchrest circuit in the 1980s. That powder was IMR 8208, and it was made in the 1960s. Berger relabeled it T-32 and, for a modest price, shared 8-pound kegs of it with shooters. T-32 quickly became the “holy grail” for loading 6mm PPC because shooting tiny groups was almost a guaranteed…

IN ABOUT 1935 A MIGRATION TO BOLT- action rifles and “rimless” cartridges occurred, and although Winchester had a rifle for that (its newly introduced Model 70), the company wasn’t ready to let go of its lever-action legacy. For around 60 years, America’s favorite repeating rifles were all lever guns. And while the doughboys who had returned from the Great War had a new understanding of rifle and cartridge performance, lever-action rifles were still second to none in popularity. But the writing was on the wall, especially in terms of cartridge performance. Lever-action rounds, such as the .30-30, .32 Special, .33 WCF, .38-55, and .45-70, were all quite good inside 150 yards—or even 200 yards—but past that, they just couldn’t compare. A bolt action in .30-06 or a European round like…

ANY NUMBER OF MY ACQUAINTANCES WILL CON- firm this fact: I am not a gunsmith and do not pretend to be one. When skilled work needs to be done, I find an expert to do it. However, there are some essentials that can no longer be found commercially or don’t require the sterling touch of a London gunmaker. These I make myself, and since they will rarely leave my gunroom and will be seen by few, it doesn’t matter if they are a bit crude. Making one’s own ammunition is not really gunsmithing, but it’s related, and in that case it’s make it yourself or don’t shoot. Also, some of the tools and skills involved (if such they can be called) are useful for both. For example, serious gunmakers always…