Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2025 i Shooting Times

I DID A DOUBLE TAKE WHEN I OPENED UP THE SEPTEMBER 2024 ISSUE to “The Shootist” column written by Joseph von Benedikt and saw a picture of a Colt New Frontier .22 revolver that I own. I bought it in 1987 at a gun show for $140. It is in pristine condition with a G prefix before the serial number, and it has a 6.0-inch barrel. I don’t believe that it is rated for a .22 Magnum cylinder, as Joseph says that the L series is, as I notice in the picture that .22 LR is stamped on the cylinder, and mine has no markings on it. I want to thank him for a fine article on this great revolver that shoots extremely well. Tom McDonald Pittsford, VT My Pet…

NOTABLY, THE ITALIAN 6.5X52 CARCANO M91/38 is the precise variation used by Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Oswald’s rifle was modified to use a telescopic sight, but aside from that, the rifle highlighted here is the same model, made in the same factory (Terni), during the same year (1940) as the Oswald rifle. M91/38s were made for only two years, 1940 and 1941, before being discontinued for the slightly longer-barreled M91/41. That version was the final iteration that served until the Carcano M91-based design was retired. Myriad different versions of the basic M91 served various countries through various conflicts. Italy used the rifle in one capacity or another for a full 90 years, from 1891 to 1981. Other nations that employed it at one…

HANDS DOWN, KIMBER’S NEW FULL-SIZE 2K11 double-stack Model 1911 is très chic. It has all the bells and whistles that have come to be required on a high-end 1911, and it also has a few new features that make this pistol very classy. Full disclosure: This pistol is so new that Kimber didn’t even have official specifications ready for publication at the time of this writing (all weights and measures were taken by me, using a battery-powered digital scale, my old Hornady electronic digital calipers, an RCBS spring-type trigger pull gauge, and a flexible tape measure), but luckily, Shooting Times was able to get a shooting sample for this report. Form The brand-new 2K11 pistol is a wide-body Model 1911, meaning it has a wide grip frame to accommodate a…

A SINGLE SHOT BUILT ON THE NO. 1 ROLLING BLOCK action and introduced by Remington in 1893 may have been the first shotgun of American make to be chambered for the 20-gauge shell. Nineteen years later, Winchester’s famous Model 1912 pump gun was offered only in 20 gauge, with 12-bore and 16-bore guns arriving several months later. The 20-gauge shotshell was off and running in America with side-by-side doubles built by Parker, L.C. Smith, Fox, Ithaca, Winchester, Stevens, and others quickly joining the chase. In those days 20-gauge guns were commonly chambered for the 2½-inch shell, with the 2¾-inch chamber not commonly seen until sometime in the 1930s. Catalogs published by Winchester, Remington, Peters, and Western in 1932 listed only the shorter shell, and it was loaded with 7/8 ounce…

WITH THIS INSTALLMENT, I’D LIKE TO REMIND READERS THAT MyOutdoorTV has a lot of personal-defense-oriented content that’s dedicated to tactical and defensive topics. Three shows specifically focused on defense are “The Best Defense,” “The Best Defense: Survival!,” and “Personal Defense TV.” These shows feature top-flight firearms and tactics instructors who provide hard-hitting, cutting-edge techniques that will keep you and your loved ones safe at home and on the street. You’ll learn about the latest, greatest guns and ammunition for self-defense; gunhandling drills that will build your survival skills; hand-to-hand combat techniques that will keep you safe; and more. For a limited time, use the promo code SHOOTING30 and get a 30-day free trial of MyOutdoorTV. Cannot be combined with other offers. You can watch all the shows you want during…

AN ALMOST STRAIGHT LINE OF DESCENT CAN BE drawn from the duelling pistols of the late 1700s to the magnificent Hammerli Free Pistols that have found their way into museums of art and design around the world, two centuries later. Around the time of the Napoleonic Wars, dueling became “almost a national sport” in England and Ireland. This not only gave rise to the perfecting of the handgun by such as Twigg, Wogdon, and the Manton brothers, but shooting schools also appeared in London to teach young men how to shoot. Later, with dueling outlawed in one European country after another, the pistols themselves went underground, so to speak. Now they were called “target” pistols, although why you would need a matched pair of target pistols in a walnut case,…

THE NEW 15-ROUND 9MM MAGPUL AMAG 15 SG9 MAGAZINE FEATURES A corrosion-resistant, stainless-steel body; a high-visibility, controlled-tilt follower; a stainless-steel spring; a flared, easily removable floorplate; and capacity indicators starting at five rounds that continue down the spine in one-round intervals. The new magazine is compatible with SIG SAUER P320 Compact frames. Plus, it features paint-pen dot matrix construction for magazine marking. MSRP: $34.95 magpul.com Davidson’s Exclusive Holosun EPS-Carry MRS The Holosun EPS-Carry MRS is an enclosed handgun sight designed for narrower, subcompact handguns. It features an aspheric lens, an ultra-low dot height, and a built-in rear notch sight. The housing is made of 7075 aluminum, and the sight utilizes Holosun’s K footprint. An RMSc-to-K footprint adapter plate is included. Also, the multi-reticle allows users to select the 2-MOA dot,…

THE .38 SPECIAL’S JOURNEY STARTED almost 175 years ago with a percussion revolver. Samuel Colt entered the medium-caliber sector with the .36-caliber Model 1851, commonly called the “Navy.” The Navy delivered better stopping power than Colt’s diminutive .31-caliber “pocket” models, with less bulk and recoil than his .44-caliber Walker and Dragoon models. The link between this old revolver and the .38 Special starts with a question: Why did an ancient “.36-caliber” revolver require 0.375-inch round balls? All rifled barrels have two internal diameters. When the barrelmaker drills the initial axial hole, you get a “bore” diameter. Cutting rifling grooves to spin the bullet creates the larger “groove” diameter. For decades convention was to use “caliber” interchangeably with the smaller “bore” diameter; a “.36-caliber” Colt Navy’s 0.372- to 0.375-inch groove diameter…

ANOTHER FRIEND OF SHOOTING TIMES HAS passed away. William Edward “Ed” Brown Jr., the renowned pistolsmith, passed away on September 15, 2024, after battling a rare form of untreatable liver cancer. Ed was born on December 13, 1946, the son of William E. and Velma Hammack Brown. He married Twylla Roe on November 27, 1965, and they had two sons (Travis and Wade) and a daughter (Wendy). Twylla, Travis, Wade, and Wendy survive. Before becoming the world-class pistolsmith we all know about, Ed was a tool and die maker, CNC programmer, and CAD/CAM designer by day, and in the evenings and on weekends he was a part-time gunsmith. He received his FFL in 1968 under the name Brown’s Gun Shop, and for 20 years on evenings and weekends, he honed his pistolsmithing…

Q. THE COLUMN ON HANDLOADING THE .300 SAVAGE IN THE OCTOBER 2024 issue was good. However, the real problem now is both factory-loaded ammo and brass. I have a .300 Savage rifle and generally just use it for practice. But now, with no brass or ammo available, it’s hard to justify using it. Can Lane Pearce recommend some reloading suppliers with .300 Savage brass? Anthony Mannering Via email A. According to the Graf & Sons website, Federal, Hornady, Remington, and Winchester make ammo; however, it’s currently out of stock. Winchester also markets .300 Savage brass, but it also is out of stock. If I were you, I’d forget about factory ammo and cases and form/trim .308 Winchester cases as needed. As I mentioned in that column, .300 Savage brass easily…

AROUND THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY, JOHN Browning and Fabrique Nationale finalized the design of a new semiautomatic handgun, and that gun (the FN Model 1900) spawned the beginning of the pocket pistol era that soon encompassed the world. Chambered in 7.65mm Browning (a.k.a. .32 Automatic Colt Pistol), more than a million were made during the next decade. Three years later, Browning improved the pistol’s design, and this time Colt manufactured them. Initially topped with 71-grain/74-grain RN-FMJ bullets, the .32 ACP cartridge delivered approximately 850 fps/950 fps velocity, depending on the bullet weight. That’s rather anemic compared to other handgun cartridge ballistics. According to R.K. Wilson’s Textbook on Automatic Pistols 1884-1935 (copyright 1941), “Ballistically, it is a poor cartridge…but it’s responsible…for the introduction and worldwide distribution of cheap (blowback…