http://www.americanrifleman.org/BlogList.aspx?id=34History Channel's Top Shot is in its fourth season and still going strong. Follow along with AmericanRifleman.org (and original winner Iain Harrison) as we track Season 4 all the way to the final shot.(c) 2010 All rights reserved.5http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-season-five-is-comingTue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Paul Rackley<br /><br />The fifth season of History&rsquo;s Top Shot begins May 29, 2013, at 10 p.m. EST, showcasing contestants from previous seasons. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">This year, however, is a little different. The 16 competitors will not be on teams, meaning there will be no nomination range, and personal politics and alliances will not be factor. This season, it&rsquo;s all about shooting skill, and the contestants will be facing off in what producers are calling &ldquo;The Proving Ground.&rdquo; </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Once again, Colby Donaldson will be the host, and previous winners, such as Iain Harrison and Chris Reed, will make appearances. And as per earlier seasons, there will be a variety of historical and modern firearms with which the shooters will perform. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Personally, I&rsquo;m pretty happy that the drama of the show is being eliminated. My favorite seasons have been the ones where the shooters took the high road, and let skill be the deciding factor of who went home. I always loved it when shooters volunteered for the nomination range out of a sense of honor in their poor performances and no one had to vote. And as there is only one season where the drama was an influencing factor, it seems as if I&rsquo;m not the only one who wants the show to stay on the range. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">It also looks like <a title="See all of Season 5's competitors. " href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/cast" target="_blank">some of the fan favorites</a> will be coming back for All-Stars, such as Gabby Franco, the only woman to earn the green shirt, Chris Cerino, Kelly Bachand, Jamie Franks and others. It should be a fun season to watch, and Reality Shots will, once again, be providing insight to one of the most popular shooting shows on TV. <br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-season-five-is-coming#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/the-family-3-gun-shootoutThu, 18 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Paul Rackley </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Sons of Guns seem to have fans from all walks of life, including a couple of big boys in the firearms industry&mdash;<a href="http://www.brownells.com/" target="_blank">Brownells</a> and <a href="http://www.hornady.com/" target="_blank">Hornady</a>. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Pete Brownell and Jason Hornady are such fans that they flew to Louisiana to discuss the development of 3-gun sets customized for each guy&rsquo;s father. Both groups settled on Red Jacket ARs, Saiga 12-gauge shotguns and 9 mm 1911s (they were called 2011s on the show). However, each customized the guns to what he thought would be best for his father while trying to upstage the other. Jason made it plain that there was some friendly competition between the families when he said: &ldquo;I want the same thing, but make mine just that much cooler than his.&rdquo; Of course, it was all in fun as the two men have been friends for many years, and wanted to have a friendly father/son 3-gun competition between the two families. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">As is typical in a drama-based reality show, there were a few problems with finishing the guns in time. Part of the problem was that Chris, Will&rsquo;s son-in-law, decided that he was inspired to build an additional 3-gun set so he and Will could compete in the competition. Another problem was drama, but since drama is built into every TV show, that was expected.<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">In the end, the Sons of Guns crew was able to finish the <a href="http://www.brownells.com/dreamguns/Brownells-Dream-Build/Brownells-Sons-of-Guns-AR-Build-sid1026.aspx?ICID=4017" target="_blank">Brownell</a>, <a title="See the Hornady AR. " href="http://www.brownells.com/dreamguns/Brownells-Dream-Build/Hornady-Sons-of-Guns-AR-Build-sid1025.aspx?ICID=4018" target="_blank">Hornady</a> and <a title="See the Red Jacket AR. " href="http://www.brownells.com/dreamguns/Brownells-Dream-Build/Red-Jacket-Firearms-Sons-of-Guns-AR-Build-sid1027.aspx?ICID=4016" target="_blank">Red Jacket</a> guns in time for the competition, which Red Jacket won to the surprise of many, including myself. Check the ARs out on Brownells <a href="http://www.brownells.com/" target="_blank">website</a> and see if you agree with their choices. Personally, I would love a 1911 in 9 mm with a double-stack magazine, but would probably stick to my personal AR and more standard shotgun. How about you?</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/the-family-3-gun-shootout#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/talking-with-chris-chengMon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Chris Cheng is the self-desribed IT geek and winner of Top Shot Season 4 That self-deprecating description belies the fierce competitive streak that underpins his success on the show, despite his lack of formal training.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Chris grew up on Orange County, California, which can hardly be described as a hotbed of gun culture. Despite this, his father still managed to introduce him to shooting at an early age, and once he got his first taste of pulling a trigger, he and his group of 8-year-old friends would tear up the neighborhood with BB guns, wrist rockets and super soakers. After graduating from UCLA, he went on to the prestigious Monterey Institute of International Studies, where unlike many of his peers who entered an assortment of three letter government agencies, he was recruited into the pressure-cooker environment of Silicon Valley. There he learned to handle extreme stress, working for a company whose products you probably use today. I caught up with him after his victory over Greg Littlejohn to ask a few questions on behalf of AmericaRifleman.org.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Harrison:</strong> When did you start shooting competitively?<br /><strong>Cheng:</strong> I shot IDPA and USPSA matches every weekend in the few months leading up to Season 4, but before that I was pretty much just a recreational shooter, so I went into Top Shot with a lot less experience than most of the other guys. I&rsquo;ll be shooting the IDPA California state championships next month, along with a couple other members of the Season 4 cast, so it&rsquo;ll be interesting to see how we do.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Harrison:</strong> What were some of the highs and lows of the completion for you?<br /><strong>Cheng:</strong> I&rsquo;m a fiercely competitive kinda guy, so one of the high points was beating William in the elimination challenge with the Henry rifle. He had an early lead, but I just kept plugging away and eventually overtook him for the win. The lowest point had to be when Gabby was eliminated. Chee had no idea that his winning a place in the next event meant that Gabby was going home and both had developed a pretty close friendship. After she left, we all rallied round to try and make sure he kept his head in the game, but he was pretty heartbroken.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Harrison:</strong> What are your plans for the future after winning Top Shot?<br /><strong>Cheng:</strong> Well, as you know, one of the benefits of the win was the contract with Bass Pro. I&rsquo;m doing a number of appearances for them at stores around the country, a little firearms training and a speaking engagement. I&rsquo;m going to be leaving my job in Palo Alto to pursue a couple of other opportunities and shooting in some more competitions.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Harrison:</strong> I&rsquo;m putting together the World&rsquo;s only night time 3-gun match in July. Want to come out and shoot it?<br /><strong>Cheng:</strong> Sign&nbsp; me up.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">If you&rsquo;d like to talk to Chris about his experiences on Top Shot, look for one of his visits to a Bass Pro Shops location. He&rsquo;s a good guy with outstanding natural talent and always approachable, if you have a question.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><img title="Chris Cheng" src="../../Webcontent/gallery/162/2024ChrisCheng_web.jpg" alt="Chris Cheng" width="644" height="436" /></span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/talking-with-chris-cheng#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/tied-up-finalWed, 02 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">This week's finale opened with the competitors returning to the house to be welcomed by a pretty lavish spread. Up till this point, people cook for themselves or their team mates, but the final four get treated to a meal that's put together by the set caterers and a celebratory bottle of booze makes its way into the house.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Another tradition is the dueling tree shoot off, which makes up the first challenge of the day, where Chris Cheng managed to create an early lead over Auggie, which he managed to maintain all the way to the finish line.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Gary bested Greg Littlejohn in the second heat after showing his mental strength by shooting a well-disciplined game after being forced into a reshoot, leaving Auggie and Greg to battle it out for the remaining place in the next challenge.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">After a nail biting finish, Auggie proved that you can't miss fast enough to win and had to walk off into the sunset.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The game of HORSE took an interesting turn this time with each of the competitors trying to outdo each other with shot difficulty. Of the three, Chris' offhand shot with the <a href="http://www.benelliusa.com/shotguns/benelli-m4.php" target="_blank">Benelli</a> was probably the most ridiculous, as the best group that can be expected at 75 yards with conventional slugs exceeds the size of the chosen target, which made a hit a matter of luck more than skill. I was, however, glad to see the Lee Enfield make it into the competition, where Chris used it to good effect to put a point on the board and establish a lead over his peers. All three shooters were more than capable of making the next shot, a glass at 35 feet, but Chris once again managed to calm his nerves and drill it, earning his spot in the final competition. With only one target left, Gary picked up the <a href="http://www.fnhusa.com/le/products/firearms/family.asp?fid=FNF003" target="_blank">FN FiveSeven</a> and blew his chances of making it through to the next round.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">I was somewhat surprised at the choice of the producers to use the flintlock pistol as the first firearm of the shoot off. If either competitor had missed, there was no way he could have recovered his pace as the reload time would have put his opponent halfway down the field. As it was, both men connected with both shots and were pretty evenly matched all the way down the line. I lost count of how many times Colby used the phrase, "We're all tied up," but in this case, he was entirely correct as, unlike the Dustin/Mike contest last season, this one came down to the final target. Chris Cheng, a self-taught, everyman shooter and self-described IT geek took the well-deserved victory.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The day before the Season 4 finale this week, Colby and I broke bread in a Texas hunting camp and discussion naturally turned to the show and the difference it has made in the firearms industry, not to mention the wide spectrum of changes that it's wrought in the lives of the individuals who participated. I hope that this season's winner will gain as much from the experience as Chris Reed, Dustin Ellerman and I did. Check back in a day or so to read Chris Cheng's story and get the inside skinny on Season 4.<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/tied-up-final#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/machine-gun-funWed, 25 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">This season of Top Shot has seen a gradual introduction of Point-of-View cameras to capture the action from the shooter&rsquo;s perspective. Although not as impressive in their own right as the high speed Phantom cameras, these cameras have added another perspective to the show that illustrates what&rsquo;s going on as the competitors press the trigger. One of the reasons the show is so expensive to produce is the size of the crew needed to service so many pieces of recording equipment, although it wouldn&rsquo;t be anywhere near the same viewing experience without them. The footage this week of cases being ejected from the <a title="The M1919 was used in the Falklands war. " href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/GalleryItem.aspx?cid=22&amp;gid=82&amp;id=534" target="_blank">M1919</a> was a case in point, as was the exploding shaving cream can as it spun ribbons of white foam in a graceful arc during the elimination challenge. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Shooting a machine gun from a pintle mount can be pretty easy. Shooting a machine gun that is missing a buttstock from a moving vehicle is much, much harder, so I wasn&rsquo;t surprised at some of the scores that were turned in for this week&rsquo;s challenge. All concerned seemed to have difficulty striking the right balance between conserving enough ammo to last the entire run versus sending enough fire volume downrange to hit the targets. One thing that was brought home was that in that particular application, the machine gun is very much an area firearm&mdash;think of it as a shotgun where the shooter determines the shell&rsquo;s payload by how long he presses the trigger. Sure, hits are determined to a great extent by accuracy, but without enough projectiles, there will be gaps in the pattern. Greg Littlejohn used his experience behind the M240 to shoot fast doubles and triples, which made good use of the available ammo and controlled the dispersion to earn him an impressive lead.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Augie and Kyle wound up in the elimination challenge, shooting the PS90, which I was hoping, given the previous challenge, would have a happy switch. In contrast to the Browning, the little <a title="View the homepage of FNH. " href="http://www.fnhusa.com/le/" target="_blank">FNH</a> gun is amazingly controllable on full-auto fire and features a two-position trigger to select full- or semi-auto when the selector dial is rotated. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The Kim&rsquo;s game that Craig Sawyer taught both shooters may indeed be used by the U.S. military as a training tool, but I humbly claim its origins for my country of birth. Rudyard Kipling introduced it to the world in his 1901 novel about the Great Game between Russia and Britain that played out in south Asia, and is well worth a read. In it, a young boy is schooled in espionage by his mentor through learning the contents of a tray that is set in front him. Both men chose entirely different strategies for memorizing the contents of the box that held their target items, with Kyle studying intently to maximize the amount of information he could retain in one run. During practice, this earned him the best quote of the show from Craig Sawyer who wryly observed that Kyle &ldquo;abandoned any sort of pride&rdquo; in his quest to stay in the game. Augie on the other hand decided that his brain would be full after cramming five objects in there, so elected to come back for another look.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">One of the advantages of having fewer players at this stage is that more time can be devoted to each, and the audience gains more of a feel for the characters on the screen. In both instances, Kyle and Augie came across as solid, down-to-earth guys, and this season as a whole has so far distinguished itself with good sportsmanship and a lack of histrionics. Next week&rsquo;s finale promises to follow in the footsteps of its predecessors, with all of the firearms showcased so far returning for an encore, along with a little head-to-head dueling tree action.<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/machine-gun-fun#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/tower-workWed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">This week&rsquo;s show saw the return of Jeff Gonzales who, like Craig Sawyer in previous episodes, qualifies as the Real Deal, and if you ever get the chance to attend one of his training classes, I guarantee you&rsquo;ll want to take the opportunity. The first challenge had the competitors working out of a holster, which was a novelty for Top Shot and indicative that the comfort level of the producers is improving. If nothing else, the fact that the show has introduced a number of TV creative types to guns has to count as a check mark in the positive column.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">As competitors moved through the rappel tower, the USPSA competitor in me couldn&rsquo;t help but want to hose the targets. The guys behind the cameras had other ideas however, throwing a whole load of firearm manipulation into the mix as the shooters were forced to clear and holster the FN FiveSeven before moving to the next shooting position. This caused both Kyle and Gary to make mistakes; Gary needed to retrace his steps after failing to holster and Kyle wasted precious seconds after failing to perform a &ldquo;tap, rack, bang&rdquo; drill when the pistol initially failed to fire. In this shooter&rsquo;s opinion, the most impressive performance came from Chris, who demonstrated the old maxim of slow is smooth, smooth is fast, which was enough to earn him the top slot, while Gary, Chee and Greg received places at the nomination range. When Kyle shot Chee&rsquo;s target after previously talking about sending Greg into the next competition, I have to wonder if he decided that keeping the big Midwesterner around was in his own best interests going into the final rounds.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">In the elimination challenge, the guys got to play dress-up before breaching doors with a shotgun and mowing down targets with the FS2000. Watching Gary move through the course for the first time, it was apparent that his run was very smooth and fluid and that Chee would have a hard time catching him. When Chee failed to blow the lock on his third door with the first round from the Mossberg, he was pretty much done at that point. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Next week sees the debut of the M1919 machine gun and the return of the PS90. With five shooters remaining, there&rsquo;s only one more elimination challenge before the four man finale, and possibly the last Top Shot ever.<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/tower-work#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/a-really-long-shotWed, 11 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">There is so much that goes on behind the scenes when the filming an episode of Top Shot, such as obtaining experts to train the competitors. When Kelly was first approached by History to return as an expert on long range shooting, he naturally wanted to know what would be expected of him in order to put in the necessary research. Being the good engineering student that he is, his first order of business was to get some time behind an Accuracy International rifle, which meant a trip down from Seattle to see me. I&rsquo;ve occasionally mentioned the unofficial TS alumni network&mdash;this was one of those instances where it came into play.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Running the given load data, elevation and environmental conditions through a ballistic calculator provided a range card out to the expected distance of 1,200 yards. It wasn&rsquo;t until the day of the challenge that the producers casually announced that they&rsquo;d moved the target out another 900 feet&mdash;no big deal, right? According to the charts, the bullet would enter the transonic zone about 50 yards from the target, which caused no small amount of trepidation in the experts. As any long range shooter will tell you, at this point in its trajectory there&rsquo;s a good chance the projectile will tumble, which makes connecting with the target a crapshoot. Before the competitors got to shoot the AWM, George lined up the sights and with Kelly calling wind, center punched the bull, producing a 4-inch group. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The day after the elimination challenge is when all the high speed footage is shot. When Kelly and George were setting up for the cameras, one of the head honchos from the production company paid them a visit and bet them that their previous performance was a fluke. He lost a C note on that bet.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Of course, Augie Malkovich had his opportunity to shine with the big gun, landing his kill shot in 38 seconds. The shooter who showed the biggest contrast from their practice performance was Gabby, who had been consistent right from episode 1. This was a cruel illustration that it all comes down to how you shoot on that day, at that time, and that it&rsquo;s a whole different game when shooting past 1,000 yards.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Now that the competition is down to the individual stage, all the information the shooters have gleaned about their teammates and rivals comes into play&mdash;as well as the political blowback from previous decisions. William discovered this to his detriment when first and Chris and then Greg shot his target at the elimination range, sending him up to fight for his place with the Henry repeating rifle. If Chris had repeated what he&rsquo;d done on the first target of the elimination challenge, he would have ended the competition early. He sent a bullet into the splash plate in front of the target array resulting in two steel rings going down&mdash;a risky strategy, but I can&rsquo;t say it&rsquo;s one I&rsquo;ve never used. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Gabby fans (and I count myself in those ranks) can catch up with her at the <a title="Get all the latest updates from NRA Annual Meetings. " href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/BlogList.aspx?cid=25&amp;id=43" target="_blank">NRA Annual Meetings</a> in St. Louis this weekend, together with George Reinas, Chris Reed and Greg Littlejohn, as well as my good friend Chris Cerino. Stop by if you get the chance.<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/a-really-long-shot#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/british-gunsWed, 04 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">By Iain Harrison</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">When I was contacted by the producers for this episode, I have to admit I was a little apprehensive being called in as the expert. Sure, I own a couple of the guns in question and have fond memories of some of their siblings from the British martial arsenal, but expert, I ain&rsquo;t. So what do you do when you need the inside scoop and historical background on a <a title="Read about the Webley Mk4 Revolver." href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/ArticlePage.aspx?id=1359&amp;cid=28" target="_blank">Webley revolver</a>? Simple, you contact Phil Schreier at the <a title="Learn more about the National Firearms Museum. " href="http://www.nramuseum.com/" target="_blank">National Firearms Museum</a>, and pick his brains, long before you get anywhere near a plane bound for California.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">Going into this episode, I knew that the competitors would probably not have touched any guns from that period, so I was keen that they&rsquo;d get the full experience. So many of the Webleys that were imported to the U.S. wound up with the back of their cylinders shaved down to accept .45 ACP ammo in moon clips, but this in my humble opinion was a travesty, sort of like taking an original <a title="Read about the Colt Single Action Army in a piece from the early days of American Rifleman." href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/colt-single-action-army-elmer-keith/" target="_blank">Colt SAA</a> and chambering it for .45 GAP. So .455 Webley it had to be.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">Of all the red team members who shot the Mk VI in practice, Chee was the guy who absolutely nailed it. He was competent at both single and double action manipulation and showed a quiet mental toughness that due to being benched in previous challenges, never came to the fore. Gabby on the other hand had real problems in shooting the revolver double action and decided ahead of time that she would take the time penalty involved in cocking the weapon between shots if she had to shoot it in competition. I was surprised that Terry&rsquo;s only encounter with the gun was while watching Indiana Jones, but apparently his teammates didn&rsquo;t hold that against him. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">The blue team&rsquo;s decision to sit out Gabby probably cost them the game. If they had known about the problems she encountered with the handgun, their choice may have been different.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">To give you an idea of the type of stress that competition can induce, particularly when there&rsquo;s 100k on the line, I personally shot all the targets you saw in the high speed footage. Because the timer was off and the only folks around were the crew, there was a lot less pressure involved and the task of sending rounds downrange was a pleasant afternoon diversion, rather than the deciding factor in a competition The problem most shooters had was over leading the target&ndash;the proper hold was about 1/3 of the jar but most rounds were sent way ahead. The red team communicated this early to their teammates, while the blues took much longer to figure it out.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">With only four choices, the trip to the elimination took a lot less time than in previous episodes with Terry and Greg heading to face the <a title="Learn more about the Lee Enfield rifle." href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/ArticlePage.aspx?id=2203&amp;cid=8" target="_blank">Lee Enfield</a> MkIII. I had the opportunity to introduce both of them to methods of manipulating a bolt gun that might have been foreign to anyone raised on a conventional rifle, which was very satisfying for someone whose great-grandfather was part of the British infantry who perished at the Somme. The men who fought and died in that horrific conflict knew a thing or two about ripping a bolt.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">I really hoped that Terry would carry the torch in this competition, but I can&rsquo;t detract from Greg&rsquo;s performance. He won fair and square, perhaps gaining an advantage from his experience with his own 1903 Springfield. By far, the biggest hill to climb was weapon manipulation and getting used to the rifle&rsquo;s point of aim. When I shot it, I noticed that rifle needed the shooter to cut the target in half with the front sight, rather than use a conventional 6 o&rsquo;clock point of aim. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">Next week brings two other Top Shot alumni appearing for the longest shot ever taken on the show. My friends Kelly Bachand and George Reinas get to shoot another British rifle from the modern era&ndash;the Accuracy International in <a title="The .338 Lapua Magnum was used to record one of the longest known shots on record. Next week it'll be featured on Top Shot." href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/ArticlePage.aspx?id=2430&amp;cid=2" target="_blank">.338 Lapua Magnum</a>.<br /></span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/british-guns#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/episode-7-equals-trick-shotsThu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">After the departure of Tim Trefren, falling to several well placed atlatl darts, the red and blue teams team found themselves with an equal number of members. I must confess, I have no idea why my friend Bob Vogel was chosen as the expert for this week, other than he&rsquo;s an absolute ninja with any handgun, current World IDPA champion and all-round good guy. Come to think of it, those are probably sufficient qualifications for any of the current crop of shooting shows.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The red team practiced first and the standout performer of their session was Gabby Franco. The diminutive Venezuelan showed that while she was an Olympic pistol shot, she could turn in a solid performance with a <a title="The original review of the 10/22. " href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/ruger-10-22-rifle-review/" target="_blank">10/22</a>. On the blue team, William Bethards likewise showed all-round competence, but was unwilling to consider shooting anything other than the pistol, which was the cause of some friction with his team members, particularly Terry Vaughan. While team cohesiveness is undoubtedly important, due to the nature of this week&rsquo;s initial challenge, the lack thereof didn&rsquo;t hurt so much as crappy individual performances. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The challenge&rsquo;s first bowling pin shoot seemed a little easy, but Chris Cheng managed to pull out an early lead for the reds using one of Remington&rsquo;s new R1911&rsquo;s. Greg managed to get his excuses in early after losing 1-2 against Kyle, again shooting pins. Terry and Gabby performed equally, shooting bottle openers with the Volquartsen 10/22, which meant that Gary had a mental edge going into his contest with Dylan, who failed to score at all on his aerial targets. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">After much foreshadowing during individual interviews, William managed just one out a possible 4 targets in what appears to be 10-15 mph wind, which meant that red team won by default without even sending their final shooter up to the line. As a side note, whenever I&rsquo;ve been on the property where the show is filmed, there is always a 10-15 mph wind blowing and it seems like the producers site each challenge so that it&rsquo;s blowing at full value. Did anyone else notice the continuity error during the slow-motion shots? I&rsquo;ll have to mention to the editors that 10/22&rsquo;s don&rsquo;t typically launch 55grain FMJ bullets. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Blue team&rsquo;s loss meant that Dylan and William faced each other in elimination, with the rest of the team members consolidated around the decision. At the elimination range, the effect of William&rsquo;s attempt at intimidating his opponent by shooting strong hand only was somewhat diminished when he forgot to take the safety off. I&rsquo;m pretty sure there were a few chuckles from the bench at that. Robert Vogel Bob returned to school our shooters on the SIG 229 &amp; Browning Buckmark, in this case decked out with a nifty lightweight barrel from Tactical Solutions. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">William used both firearms to good effect during the elimination challenge, remaining calm enough to make consistent hits while Dylan adopted a spray &amp; pray philosophy, proving once again that you can never miss fast enough to win. With blue team once again one man down, next week sees the debut for a couple of British firearms that are close to my heart. I had a lot of fun showing the competitors the Webley MkVI in .455 and of course introducing them to &ldquo;rule 303,&rdquo; but the outcome wasn&rsquo;t quite what I&rsquo;d anticipated.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/episode-7-equals-trick-shots#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/victorian-machinists-artFri, 23 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">I mentioned some of the ways in which the mid season blahs might be countered in previous posts and this time around, the producers of Top Shot rolled out a gorgeous (and huge) example of a Victorian machinists' art. Bear in mind that that the <a title="Watch this gun in action. " href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/videos/weapons-rundown-32-bag-gun#weapons-rundown-32-bag-gun" target="_blank">3.2-inch bag gun</a> was made one at a time, and that each individual part was hand fitted to its neighbor over the course of assembly, making the guns incredibly expensive. Also, because of the charging system, there was no effective means of containing propellant gasses inside the breach. If you watched closely, you could see a puff of smoke escaping toward the teams during the challenge.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Although the cannon itself was beyond cool, especially given its provenance, I was left feeling a little flat by the team challenge.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Perhaps we've all been spoiled by the head to head format of previous episodes, but this one, decided as it was by the most insignificant of margins and with each team taking their turn, I felt there was a lot of excitement missing. I understand that there was no way that two identical cannons could be sourced in order to make it a simultaneous challenge, but the more readily available Hotchkiss gun might have been a better choice?</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The process of picking the cast of reality TV shows has developed into a fine art. If you have a hankering to apply for the show, expect to go through a battery of psychological exams, interviews and practical tests in order to fill some carefully picked roles. This elimination challenge showed Tim Trefren, a burly Rocky Mountain big-game guide straight out of central casting taken down by a self-proclaimed IT geek. I'm often asked how much of the show is scripted (answer&mdash;apart from Colby's intro's&mdash;none of it), but this week's episode was the archetypal David &amp; Goliath encounter, with mass audience appeal.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Next week sees the return of a Top Shot staple with trick shots galore, with a teaser of some British guy bringing a few guns from across the pond into play. With the blue team winning streak these past couple of episodes, I wonder if they can keep it together. <br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/victorian-machinists-art#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/mistakes-make-a-differenceWed, 14 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">This week&rsquo;s edition of Top Shot proved once again that a single brilliant performance isn&rsquo;t enough to ensure a win. Instead, victory goes to the team that makes the fewest mistakes, even if you make a few mistakes of your own in the process.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">As far as I&rsquo;m aware, this was the first time that the process of loading a primitive firearm has been part of the show This, coupled with movement while firing in the elimination challenge, indicates that the producers are becoming more comfortable around guns and the capabilities of the contestants. I hope that in the event of the show is picked up for another season, we&rsquo;ll get to see some more dynamic scenarios. It was not full-blown USPSA or 3-gun stages perhaps, but progress nonetheless. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">During the team challenge, the process of manipulation was as important as making the shot. If the red team would have had Gary coaching them through the loading process, they may well have made as many mistakes as certain blue team members. I have to admit, I barely suppressed a chuckle at the sight of Greg trying to crush the trigger on the flintlock, only to learn that the firearm was at half cock. If there was a special prize for the longest time taken over a single shot in the history of TV, the guy would be a shoo-in.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Were it not for Chee Kwan&rsquo;s comedic performance on the rope swing, the outcome would have certainly been much closer. Adding to the comedy was Dylan&rsquo;s comments during the interview about Greg&rsquo;s shooting; I was surprised by the double entendre. During the elimination challenge, I kept waiting for one or both shooters to adopt the strategy of advancing a few paces, then posting up and shooting the targets as they appeared through the port. On closer examination though, it appeared that whoever designed the prop installed a couple of bars to keep the shooter off balance and continuously advancing. That was a cunning move.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">After the results were announced, Iggy discovered what so many of us in the world of competitive shooting have learned over the years. Sometimes re-shoots go in your favor, but most times, they bite you. Kudos goes to Tim, who used the first run as a learning experience and found his rhythm for the second go round.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">I commented last season that in order to combat the midterm blahs, the producers should roll out the big guns. Next week shows the biggest gun yet on the show, which will need both teams to be fully functional in terms of communication and synergy. Let&rsquo;s see who can keep it together.<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/mistakes-make-a-difference#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/lots-of-emotionsFri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">This week's show opened with Terry Vaughan employing the skills he uses in his everyday life to try and instill a little unity to the dysfunctional blue team (he's a motivational speaker, amongst other things, in case you missed his bio), which seemed to have a positive effect, at least in the short term. At the practice range, I have to fault the editing as neither of the teams appeared to hone in on the critical aspect of the challenge to come&mdash;that of cocking and loading the crossbow quickly and&nbsp;smoothly. The shooting aspect would have been familiar to everyone (stock, trigger, sights), but no one apart from Tim Trefren was used to getting the crossbow into action. Unfortunately for him, his acknowledgement of this fact meant he sat out the challenge.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">During the team challenge, the red team made the wise decision to put Gabby in the hot seat first&mdash;with only one target to engage, her small stature was less of a disadvantage as she would only need to cock the 150-pound bow one time. Unfortunately, she fumbled the load, giving William and the blue team an early lead. Gabby did not however fumble as badly as Greg Littlejohn, whose difficulty in getting the bow into action and subsequent flustered shots allowed Chee Kwan to put red back on top. I was impressed by Chee's mental toughness; despite going into the round with a mountain to climb, he calmly shot his own match and allowed his opponent to beat himself. It appeared that just about everyone who missed a target overestimated its speed, with the majority of the bolts passing in front. Note to self; modern crossbows are pretty fast.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Team <a title="Learn more about Smith &amp; Wesson firearms. " href="http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CustomContentDisplay?langId=-1&amp;storeId=750001&amp;catalogId=750051&amp;content=11001" target="_blank">Smith &amp; Wesson</a> sent along <a title="Julie Golob is one of the best and most popular competition shooters. " href="http://www.juliegolob.com/" target="_blank">Julie Golob</a> for coaching duties for the elimination challenge. On a side note, it was good to see neither Colin nor Greg had any ego issues with getting shooting tips from a woman. This was just as well, as Julie could have slapped them down, hard. The art department again outdid themselves with a target array that required mental gymnastics from the shooters&mdash;shoot the large, static plate to release a swinging target that had progressively smaller and faster-moving hit zones. The lead required to score a hit increased as the challenge progressed, while the target exposure decreased, and the stress this placed on the shooters was evident. In the final analysis, neither displayed exceptional skill or lightning fast reloads, though, as my friend J.J. Racaza wryly observed, Greg did seem very in touch with his emotions.</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/lots-of-emotions#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/teamwork-rulesWed, 29 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">This week&rsquo;s episode saw the welcome return of my friend Chris Reed to the fold, and I bet he got flashbacks as he walked up to the house. The competitors are shuttled around the property in blacked-out vans so that challenges in the process of construction are hidden from view until it&rsquo;s time to go to work. So any time you get to see the process from the other side of the camera, it feels a little weird.&nbsp; The elimination challenge coach was 3-Gun phenomenon Taran Butler, and if you&rsquo;ve never seen him run a <a title="Learn more at the Benelli website. " href="http://www.benelliusa.com/" target="_blank">Benelli</a>, you&rsquo;re missing one of the virtuoso performances of the practical shooting scene.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Now that the competitors have been in the house for almost a week, differences in opinion have emerged about the cohesiveness of blue team. William Bethards nailed the subject regarding the differing maturity levels, and it looks like tension may be building between him and Dylan. During the team challenge, the camera crew did a fantastic job capturing the impact of birdshot on clays and the design of the challenge itself was one of the best we&rsquo;ve seen so far, as it mixed accuracy and teamwork through The Benelli <a title="Read about the Benelli M4 shotgun. " href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/benelli-m4-super-90-review/">M4</a> and the&nbsp;<a title="Read about the Benelli Vinci" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/benelli-vinci/" target="_blank">Vinci</a> with&nbsp;different targets and ammo types. Unfortunately, the blue team&rsquo;s performance was deficient in all areas and their lack of urgency in particular came back to bite them.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">I tend to bang on about not being too hard on the competitors as they&rsquo;re portrayed on screen because with the amount of footage available to the producers, it&rsquo;s very easy to edit someone into the role of good guy or foil. That said, I bet Greg Littlejohn is regretting his interviews this morning&mdash;a tip for aspiring contestants; if you don&rsquo;t give them the material, they can&rsquo;t use it. The elimination range sent Terry and Michelle to battle it out with slugs and buckshot against props that no doubt were inspired by Taran&rsquo;s experience with the most evil target in the World&mdash;the MGM Double Spinner. As many 3-gun competitors have discovered to their chagrin, the key to dropping targets like this is timing. It&rsquo;s not enough to rely on just accuracy or power; you need all three elements working in order to master the array and Michelle was lacking in two of them. She did however exit with grace and dignity and will no doubt be missed, particularly by Dylan.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Next week mixes up primitive and modern equipment with the crossbow and the Smith &amp; Wesson M&amp;P 9 mm. I wonder which member of team S&amp;W will show up to act as expert in the elimination challenge. <br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/teamwork-rules#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/the-greatest-automatic-rifleWed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">By Mark Keefe</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you watched &ldquo;Top Shot&rdquo; last night, you got a glimpse of the greatest automatic rifle&mdash;notice I did not use the words &ldquo;light machine gun&rdquo;&mdash;of all time. That gun is the John Moses Browning-designed Model 1918 <a title="Learn more about the Browning Automatic Rifle." href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/john-brownings-automatic-rifle/" target="_blank">Browning Automatic Rifle</a>. Browning actually created gas-operated self-loading firearms. Noticing the disturbance in the grass caused by the passing of a bullet out of the muzzle, Browning hooked a &ldquo;flapper&rdquo; onto the barrel of a lever-action that harnessed the expanding propellant gasses through a hole drilled in the barrel. He used the force of the gas to move a lever linked to the action to cycle it. That principal, what we call gas-operation, was applied to the Colt Machine Gun Browning designed in 1889, better known as the Model 1895, and later the Model 1914 called the &ldquo;Potato Digger&rdquo; and before eventually reaching the Browning Automatic Rifle.</span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Browning knew that the United States would eventually enter the Great War. A true patriot, he set out to design the tools American troops would need to fight in the stalemate of the trenches. A reliable belt-fed machine gun and an automatic rifle were presented to the Ordnance Department, demonstrated at Congress Heights on Feb. 27, 1917, with the former adopted as the Model 1917 Machine Gun and the latter as the Model 1918 Browning Automatic Rifle. Browning took no royalties from the U.S. government for either design, although after the war the manufacturing rights for both guns went to Colt in Hartford, Conn., and Fabrique Nationale in Liege, Belgium.</span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">The gas-operated BAR, a &ldquo;machine rifle&rdquo; in contemporary U.S. Ordnance Department, lingo, could fire on full or semi-automatic, be carried by one man and could be used as a semi-automatic rifle&mdash;an accurate one&mdash;or it could be used to fire at cyclic rate of generally between 500 and 600 rounds per minute. The BAR gunner actually was issued a belt with a cup on its right side so it could be used for suppressing the enemy trenches with &ldquo;walking fire&rdquo; fire from the hip. It had excellent sights with a blade front and a rear aperture. </span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Later the U.S. Ordnance Department tried to turn the BAR into something it was not. As magazine fed automatic rifles went, it was the best. As a general purpose light machine gun, it was a very reliable failure, especially when compared to the German MG34 or MG42. Even against the best box magazine fed light machine gun of World War II, the British Bren, the BAR&rsquo;s limited magazine capacity and lack of a quick change barrel and relatively light weight made it less than optimum for sustained fire. The Ordnance department added a bipod (which soldiers and Marines discarded as lost to enemy action, messed around with the rate of fire &ldquo;slow&rdquo; and &ldquo;fast&rdquo; and other contraptions and widgets to turn the BAR into something it was never meant to be, including a curious rear monopod. When used as intended, as a machine rifle, there was none better.</span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Verdana&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Learn the </span></span><a title="Read more about the BAR." href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/john-brownings-automatic-rifle/"><span style="color: #800080;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">full history of the BAR</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">, and watch an </span></span><a title="See the Browning Automatic Rifle in action on I Have This Old Gun." href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/Video.aspx?vid=2055&amp;cid=23"><span style="color: #800080;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">I Have This Old Gun</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"> episode featuring the BAR that aired on </span></span><a title="Want to see more American Rifleman TV? Check out these episodes from 2010." href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/american-rifleman-episodes-2010/"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">American Rifleman TV</span></span></a><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">.</span></span></span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><img title="Browning Automatic Rifle" src="../../Webcontent/gallery/159/2036BAR_BLOG.jpg" alt="Browning Automatic Rifle" width="379" height="446" /><br /></span></span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/the-greatest-automatic-rifle#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/starting-season-4Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Has it really been almost two years since I first became involved with Top Shot? Time has flown. The cast of Season 1 had no idea what lay in store from them as they assembled in a business hotel near LAX to go through the casting process for a show that most of us thought, secretly, had no chance of getting off the ground.&nbsp; Sometimes, it&rsquo;s great to be proved wrong.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">It seems like each season throws its members a curve ball in the opening episode and this year was no different. Forest McCord and Craig Buckland are both world class action shooters and to see them eliminated before the real competition even started, was startling to say the least. Craig especially had the breadth of ability and experience to be a difficult guy to beat, but unfortunately we&rsquo;ll never get to witness the revolver skills that took him to the top of IDPA, as he shanked the opening shot. It was good to see, however, that the M1A (sorry Colby, but I didn&rsquo;t see a giggle switch on that rifle) was actually zeroed and that just about everyone had the ability to line up iron sights &amp; press a trigger. Next time, I&rsquo;d like the producers to get rid of the sandbags and at least make the shooters use an unsupported position.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The team challenge seemed like it must have taken forever to shoot and this was one instance where I was glad of a little editing to make things go quicker, otherwise it would have been like watching paint dry. Still, resetting the plate rack every time a shooter missed made for an accuracy-intensive competition that went down to the wire, and where the mental pressure on the last men standing must have been agonizing. In this situation, there is nothing for it but to shut out the world around you and focus on the fundamentals.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">American Rifleman readers will no doubt be familiar with Garry James who made a welcome reappearance as an expert on the M1 carbine. I first met Garry on the set of Season 1, where he saved the day by allowing us to use one of his own Kentucky long rifles after the original provided by the show broke down. This time, the guns proved less finicky, which was just as well since one of two complex vintage mechanical devices could have caused problems. Did any of you guys catch what model of motorcycle was used in the elimination challenge? The absence of horizontal cylinder heads ruled out my first guess, but I&rsquo;m no expert in vintage bikes.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Both the victor of last night&rsquo;s elimination challenge and the vanquished carried themselves well and there was none of the drama (yet!) that played out last season. Having met most of Season 4&rsquo;s cast, I have a feeling you&rsquo;ll like these guys and I am looking forward to next week, which features the BAR and a 40 mm grenade launcher. Oh, and watch out for those British dudes, some of them can shoot.<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/starting-season-4#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/finaleWed, 26 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Since the first two seasons established a template for the finale that works, the producers seem loathe to change. So, last night we were treated to the spectacle of Mike, Gary, Chris and Dustin going head-to-head shooting dueling trees, playing HORSE and, finally, the all-in culmination of the show.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">I must admit, I was surprised by Chris&rsquo; performance on the first challenge as he&rsquo;s been very solid with a handgun all season. I guess that on the home stretch, pressure must have finally got to him. Despite only having shot a Glock three times previously, Dustin stepped it up and proved that it&rsquo;s not the arrow that counts. I spoke to him yesterday about his performance on the show and he was every bit as upbeat and cheerful as&nbsp; portrayed on the small screen, as you&rsquo;d expect from someone who&rsquo;s 100k richer.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Asked about his strategy on the HORSE challenge, he said: &ldquo;I really didn&rsquo;t want to go first as I&rsquo;d rather someone else tell me what to do than make that decision &amp; have to live with it. At home, I check zero my rifles using golf balls, so I had them set them up at 100 yards and they had no chance. They had no idea where that rifle was zeroed, they weren&rsquo;t expecting it, but I surprised myself and hit it.&rdquo;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The final shoot off started well for both men, right up to the point where Mike started missing with the Benelli. If you caught the behind the scenes episode that followed, you would have caught his explanation as to why that happened. It seems as if the wide variety of different firearms messed with his mental game and he buried the front sight at the bottom of the ghost ring and had no feedback to let him know that his shots were low. This proved to be his undoing, as from that point on, Dustin missed only three times, all with the S&amp;W 500.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">I asked Dustin about what he would say to anyone considering applying for the show. &ldquo;I think my performance gives hope to the everyman, backyard shooters. I don&rsquo;t claim to shoot the best; I just enjoy it the most. That enjoyment led to me not collapsing under pressure and gave me the edge I needed to pull this thing off. I hope that gives encouragement to the all the amateur, everyday shooters out there without any shooting resume like myself.&rdquo;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The application for Season 5 of Top Shot is available at the History Channel website. What are you waiting for?<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/finale#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/a-good-planTue, 25 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Whoever thought up the wheel used during the competition should have taken a bow at the closing credits. Not so much for the concept, but for the ability to jury-rig that contraption out of components that were obviously laying about the back yard of some prop house, and making it safe enough that someone would willingly strap into it. Although the SP89 was a decent choice for the challenge gun, I&rsquo;m sure a lot of viewers were disappointed that the show didn&rsquo;t provide a real MP5K and let the shooters take it in full auto mode.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The initial challenge itself showed that even the best shooters can have off days, but that the key to success is in winning more than you lose, Mike Hughes being a case in point. One aspect of the elimination challenge that was particularly striking was the difference in mental attitude of each shooter. Alex approached the course of fire without a real game plan, deciding to adjust his strategy on the fly when he found out what being propelled at 15 mph backwards felt like. When Mike, on the other hand, was being pulled into position, you could see him taking a sight picture and trying to commit the target layout to memory. He watched the last target disappear from view knowing this would be the one he&rsquo;d pick up first when the flag dropped. When he left the starting line, he already had a solid plan in mind. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">He took the first three targets on one side and then rapidly transitioned to the opposite array, alternating as he went downrange. The result was almost impossible to beat and a great illustration of the mental discipline that top-level competition instills.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Going into the final, I&rsquo;m sure all of us have our own picks as to who will win the title. Chris has shown himself to be a versatile all-around shooter, Mike has bounced back from elimination three times, Gary has the background and training to see him through just about anything and Dustin&rsquo;s natural abilities and unbridled enthusiasm just might be enough to overcome his lack of experience. Any of these guys would be a great ambassador for firearms owners in general, so I&rsquo;m not going to be upset whatever the outcome. Given the amount of money spent on this season&rsquo;s challenges, I&rsquo;m pretty sure the finale will be every bit as spectacular as the preceding episodes. I&rsquo;ll be watching and I&rsquo;m sure many of you will be as well. <br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/a-good-plan#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/dramatic-changeFri, 14 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Let's deal with the main dramatic element first. Did anyone notice how choppy the editing was in this week's episode? It was almost as if Jake had a story to tell, but it didn't fit the narrative. According to Mr. Zweig, three out of the four malfunctions he experienced with the STI pistol were left on the cutting room floor. Whether these were self-induced or due to the gun and ammo is probably not going to be resolved, however, his stoppage drills as portrayed left a little to be desired.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Having seen firsthand how a different perspective from behind the camera can make a scene appear entirely at odds to the one perceived by the participants, I'm forced to trot out my first rule of reality TV; it's all in the edit. My second rule of reality TV is; if you don't give them the material, they can't use it against you. If you want to avoid being portrayed as blustering and foul-mouthed, then you really need to watch what you say or do around the camera, which admittedly is a lot easier said than done when they're rolling 24/7.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">After Jake quit, you could almost hear the producers scratching their heads, trying to figure out how to resolve the crisis. Bringing back Mike Hughes was a good choice and one that may well prove fateful for a number of the remaining competitors, as his performance with the Sako TRG was inspiring. He managed to remain calm and collected enough to figure out that single-loading the rifle after a miss was going to be a lot quicker than ejecting the magazine, throwing a few rounds into it, reseating and working the bolt handle. After Phil ran the gun dry with the other magazine on the ground, his fate was pretty much sealed.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Next week sees one of the biggest props yet to make its debut with notorious 3-gunner Matt Burkett. Who doesn't like a little MP5 full-auto action?<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/dramatic-change#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/go-big-or-go-homeFri, 07 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Shooting the big 50 is always a fun experience. However, rapid firing 14 rounds, like Gary Quesenberry in this week&rsquo;s show, is a good way to develop a nasty flinch, and to start doubting your own abilities. Running the numbers through my ballistic calculator and assuming that the 40 mph wind was at full value, it&rsquo;s easy to see why some of the competitors were having the trouble they did. If the target was moving into the wind, the 9-m.o.a. lead required to hit a target moving at walking pace would be added to the 13-m.o.a. wind value. If the target and wind were in the same direction, they&rsquo;re subtracted from one another. Get that bit of math wrong and your rounds don&rsquo;t have a chance of connecting.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">In the elimination voting, Jake&rsquo;s strategy of selecting the strongest competitors to eliminate each other has been consistent throughout, but it was interesting to see that since it&rsquo;s every man for himself, Alex has also adopted this philosophy. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">During the elimination challenge, I enjoyed the fact that both Mike and Gary were forced to reload magazines while under the time pressure, as this tilted the balance hugely toward the accuracy side of the equation. While the players had full magazines, they could blaze away but once dry, the seconds spent on cramming rounds into them were seconds that could be used by your opponent to carefully line up the sights and make that perfect trigger press. Gary won because he took fewer rounds to make his hits.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">In next week&rsquo;s show, the drama looks like it reaches critical mass. Think you&rsquo;ve seen the last of Mike?<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/go-big-or-go-home#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/a-villain-emergesWed, 05 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Back&nbsp;in Season 2, I speculated that as both the compound and longbow had been used, competitors in Season 3 could look forward to drawing a recurve and this week&rsquo;s show proved me correct. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Up until this point in the show, I have been, like most viewers, enjoying Jake&rsquo;s metamorphosis from loud but respectable ex-SEAL into foulmouthed villain. I&rsquo;m sure he gave the producers plenty of material to work with, but it was an interesting plot arc nonetheless. He provided the reality show equivalent of the movie bad guy and I half expected him to have a scene where he tied someone to a railroad track. However, this week made me give the guy a little bit of respect as he shoots exceptionally well with a</span><span style="font-size: small;">&nbsp;wide variety of different firearms and tools, and he obviously went into the show with his own strategy worked out well in advance. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">One can disagree with his execution, (as I do) but if you accept the observation that in American life there are no second acts, the corollary to this is that there is no long game. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">It would also&nbsp;appear that Top Shot is the graveyard of elite USPSA shooters. With Chris Tilley done in by a blowgun, Brad Engman meeting his demise with hand thrown clays, Athena with a&nbsp;Thompson and now Cliff Walsh succumbing to the recurve, it once again proves that this competition is all about dodging the firearms you&rsquo;re weakest with in order to prevail with your chosen specialism. I was sorry to see Cliff Walsh depart, as he&rsquo;s a great shooter and a good guy.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Next week sees the Sawman's return with another .50 BMG. Being both a fan of the big 50 and having a lot of respect for Craig Sawyer, I&rsquo;ll be glued to my set. <br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/a-villain-emerges#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/trick-shots-with-jerryThu, 22 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Jerry Miculek has been a hero of mine since I first saw him shoot in Bisley, England in 1993. Back then, British citizens were permitted to own handguns, and believe it or not, England put on one of&nbsp;the world's largest handgun competition that&nbsp;covered just about every discipline that could be shot with a pistol or revolver. Jerry put on daily displays of his prowess with a Smith &amp; Wesson 625 and always wowed the crowds with not only his marksmanship, but with his laid-back showmanship. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The next time we met was early last year, during the casting for the inaugural season of Top Shot and although it pains me to say it, I'm glad he decided not to join the show as a competitor as he's probably the most accomplished&nbsp;all-around shooter&nbsp;these days.&nbsp;While most famous for his skills with a wheelgun, there's nothing that goes bang that he can't shoot exceptionally well. So it came as no surprise to see him coach the competitors with not only the <a href="http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product4_750001_750051_764964_-1_757769_757767_757751_ProductDisplayErrorView_Y" target="_blank">Smith &amp; Wesson&nbsp;686</a>, but the <a href="https://www.volquartsen.com/" target="_blank">Volquartsen</a> as well, before moving on to the <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/ArticlePage.aspx?id=1748&amp;cid=26" target="_blank">Schofield</a>. This week's show was a fairly good test of marksmanship as&nbsp;there was nothing too hard and they were using firearms that everyone should be familiar with. This allowed no excuses based on whacky guns, obstacle courses, the phases of the moon or last night's bad burrito.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">It was also&nbsp;interesting to see that although the practice session went well for just about everyone concerned, the pressure of competition was handled by some much better than others. Of course at this stage, it's hard to play the invisible man and hope you can skate by under the radar. Every one of your teammates has a pretty good idea of your strengths and weaknesses and will be thinking how to use that information to his advantage. The red team's decision to send Michael Marelli to elimination was an obvious one based on his performance, but his choice of opponent was a little puzzling to say the least. Given that Jerry Miculek was the expert, it might have been a clue as to the probable firearm, so picking anyone other than revolver expert Cliff Walsh would have been a good way of upping your odds of staying in the running.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Another way to increase your chances is by&nbsp;carrying over your practice methodology to competition. For example, if you've practiced hip shooting using a body index to get your hits, why on earth would you change things up&nbsp;and use a range prop to brace against, especially when there was $100,000 on the line? Ah well, live &amp; learn.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/trick-shots-with-jerry#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/group-dynamicMon, 19 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">Returning to the set of Top Shot for the second time, it was immediately apparent that there was a different group dynamic in the house than in either seasons 1 or 2. It&rsquo;s interesting from a sociological perspective just how these things play out, as the interaction of the various characters is never a constant and changes with the new mix and&nbsp;with their reactions to the situation within the house.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">In this week&rsquo;s show, Chris Reed and I had the chance to see the Season 3 guys in action and offer a little third party perspective to the trials&nbsp;and tribulations facing the two teams. Bear in mind that at this point, the contestants had been in lockdown for about 3 weeks, so to say they were going a little stir-crazy might be an understatement. Between practice sessions, we had the chance to sit down with our respective teams and let them know what was going on in the outside world and how the experience had changed our lives. Speaking with Mike Hughes at a shooting event after the show, he mentioned that the reality check was appreciated and that the mood in the house changed a little for the better. Good enough, I guess. My work here is done&hellip;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The team challenge was a perfect illustration of why so often victory goes not to those who demonstrate occasional brilliance, but those who make the fewest mistakes. Blue team dropped a few seconds here, fumbled a load or took an extra shot there, which in the end was enough to give the red team a pretty sizeable margin over them. Then the fun began.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.cornershot.com/" target="_blank">The Cornershot</a> was designed for use inside buildings where low-light levels make the video screen more visible. Shooting&nbsp;outside in the California sun proved a more difficult environment. You can get an idea of the problem if you&rsquo;ve ever used your smartphone at noon. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Finally, in case anyone was wondering why the armorers chose to use a <a href="http://www.glock.com/english/index_pistols.htm" target="_blank">Glock</a> 18 on semi-auto, instead of the much more commonly available G17, your answer can be found in the wording of the National Firearms Act. The G17 becomes a short barreled rifle if placed into the Cornershot stock, subject to a $200 tax and other restrictions regarding transfer. If you use a registered machine gun, no such complications ensue.<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/group-dynamic#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/rolling-out-the-big-gunsFri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">By Iain Harrison</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">First off, I must apologize for being away. Without giving too much away, I spent last week north of Los Angeles with Chris Cerino, George Reinas, Kelly Bachand, Adam Benson and Peter Palma and the opportunities to comment on the show were somewhat limited due to the amount of time we spent without any contact with the outside world. I'll it leave you to figure out what we were doing.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">We're well into the &ldquo;difficult&rdquo; middle episodes of the current season now. Those quotation marks are there not to denote the competitiveness of the challenges, but rather the difficulty the producers are facing at this point to come up with ideas that are fresh and captivating. Every competition show goes through the same evolution&mdash;early episodes are interesting due to the new characters and plot twists. Of course in the later episodes, most people have chosen favorites and are on the edge of their seats cheering on 'their' guys. So, how do you counter these mid-season doldrums? Easy, roll out the big guns.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">In the team challenge, the presence of Jack Dagger made for a good dynamic, as the guy is a natural instructor and showman. I met him for the fourth time last week and he always bubbles with enthusiasm for his craft. The teams produced a close-run result with the Blues being sent to elimination and being forced to send two of their best shooters to battle it out with the awesome <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotchkiss_gun" target="_blank">Hotchkiss Mountain Gun</a>. I hesitate to guess at the amount of muzzle energy this gun produces, but I'm guessing it would dwarf my <a href="http://www.barrett.net/" target="_blank">.50 BMG</a> several times over. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">While Jarrett seemed to have the edge in the practice session, Mike's conduct in the elimination challenge once again illustrated the mental aspect of the sport. He never once looked over to see what his rival was doing, concentrating solely on his own performance and made measured, economical movements whenever it was time to run the gun. There was one point where he swabbed the bore with the mop, flipped it and then ran a dry patch in one continuous motion that was pure poetry.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">In this week's episode, one thing that struck me immediately was the presence of a commercial from a firearms manufacturer. Not a sporting goods retailer that happens to stock guns, not an ATV company that caters to sportsmen, but a real, honest to goodness riflemaker. This is cause for celebration&mdash;it means that the network is getting over their fear of alienating the non-shooting audience, probably because that part of the population has expressed no objection to seeing a trade in firearms. This means we're winning.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Next week you&rsquo;ll see yours truly return to the set with Chris Reed as honorary team captains and we both found it pretty hard not to grab a gun to start sending rounds downrange.<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/rolling-out-the-big-guns#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/shotgun-masteryFri, 26 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">This week sees me on the road again, headed to <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/rockcastle-3-gun-match/" target="_blank">the largest 3-gun match</a> of the season in Kentucky, so it was perhaps apt that Episode 3 of "Top Shot" would feature one of the biggest names in the sport as shotgun expert. <a href="http://www.taranbutler.com/" target="_blank">Taran Butler</a> demonstrated his prowess with a <a href="http://www.benelliusa.com" target="_blank">Benellli</a> and showed why reloading is such a critical skill to master.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Despite Blue Team's theatrical performance in the practice session, they still managed to apply the fundamentals under pressure. Taran awarded expert's pick to Billy on the Blue Team.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">I'm enjoying the fact that all the team challenges this season are being run in a head-to-head format. This makes the outcome more accessible to the viewer and produces more exciting TV. Michael Marelli discovered that it's wise to consider one's words in an interview, lest they come back to haunt you. Claiming to be shotgun expert and then making only one hit out of five in a couple of his relays is a great way to be hoisted by one's own petard.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The art department at Pilgrim Films really outdid themselves for the elimination challenge this week. Can you imagine the amount of work that went into creating the prop for that event? The development of "Top Shot" as a business is really evident in season 3. Did anyone else notice the product placement from <a href="http://www.remington.com" target="_blank">Remington</a> and <a href="http://www.safariland.com" target="_blank">Safariland</a>, as well as the obvious one from Benelli?</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">After the 3-gun match this weekend, I'm headed to L.A. for a week for a project that I can't reveal too much about, but you, no doubt, can connect the dots. Colby tweeted this week about a spinoff show from "Top Shot," which should give a lot more in-depth information about the technical aspects of the shooting sports. Watch this space...</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/shotgun-mastery#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/malfunctionThu, 18 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">I had the pleasure of watching Episode 2 on Tuesday night, accompanied by fellow Season 1 finalist Chris Cerino and his family. We both had the privilege of competing in the NRA's inaugural <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/national-defense-match-camp-perry/" target="_blank">National Defense Match</a> at Camp Perry a couple of days before and it was great to be able to catch up on events since we last met at the <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/Video.aspx?vid=1877&amp;cid=23" target="_blank">Bianchi Cup</a> earlier this year. As the video played, we both chuckled at some of the insider jokes and watched as outsiders as the narrative unfolded.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">If you look carefully, you can often pick up on clues that clever editing and multiple camera angles might obscure. For example, during the team challenge when Jake made his charge up the length of the course to close the gap on the Red team. His failure to get a round off in the final bunker should have prompted a "Hmmm," moment. He is, as he tirelessly informs us an ex-SEAL, so you might think he would be both physically fit and familiar with the AK family of firearms. Turns out, he had a rifle malfunction that cost the Blue Team the win and sent Sarah to elimination. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">During practice for the team challenge, the Blue team appeared to lack the cohesion demonstrated by their opponents and this was reinforced during the elimination process with no unified strategy emerging to deal with the loss. Sarah and Dustin found themselves at the friendly end of an M&amp;P, receiving expert advice from Craig Sawyer, with Dustin showing a clear advantage skill with that particular pistol. The final tally in the elimination challenge seemed to bear this out; Sarah 11, Dustin 23. However, it would be interesting if the percentage of hits versus rounds fired was shown.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Looks like next week has ninja 3-gunner Taran Butler introducing a Benelli M4 loaded with slugs. Another hard-recoiling combination, so if Amanda or Sarah had made it through the first two episodes, they may well have found themselves facing another challenge where their physical stature placed them at a disadvantage. <br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/malfunction#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/set-up-to-loseFri, 12 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p style="text-align: center;"><img title="Top Shot Season 3 Cast" src="http://www.americanrifleman.org/home-carousel/images/ts_3_blog.jpg" alt="Top Shot Season 3 Cast" width="400" height="200" /></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">Unlike previous seasons, the team selection process on <a title="Top Shot Season 3" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/" target="_blank">Top Shot's Season 3</a> was straightforward: winners of the first head-to-head challenge went to blue team, losers of the challenge went to red team. Will this "winners vs. losers" division balance out, or will the blue team run away with the competition while the red team is slowly eliminated?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">Vote in the Reality Shots poll below and comment to make your voice heard!<br /></span></p> <div style="margin: 20px 0px 5px 20px; float:left; clear:all;"> <script src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/5402618.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <noscript> Enable JavaScript to view poll. Or copy and paste this link: http://polldaddy.com/poll/5402618/ </noscript></div><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/set-up-to-lose#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/a-harsh-kick-offWed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;"><a title="Top Shot Season 3" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/" target="_blank">Season 3</a> got off to a great start last night with the producers choosing to create an instant winner versus loser dynamic, via the medium of the <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/shooting-the-500-smith-wesson/" target="_blank">S&amp;W .500 Mag</a>. In the initial head-to-head shoot off, competitors were paired up according to their backgrounds and Mike Hughes showed his mettle with a smoking run, despite being much more familiar with a <a href="http://www.glock.com/" target="_blank">Glock</a>. Both ladies were forced to deal with recoil that was way out of their comfort zones&mdash;a pretty harsh way to kick off the competition, but great for showing the audience dramatic high speed footage of flames blowing out of the barrel/cylinder gap. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">There were several new additions to this season's format that I believe are going to take the show to the next level. The first is the use of Phantom (high speed) cameras to capture the actions of competitors during the challenges, whereas previously this technology had been used more selectively due to its cost. The other is to include more detailed information regarding the actual performance of the shooters, something which can sometimes be obscured in the editing of the challenges. Top Shot, now with added stats!</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The team challenge was interesting in that it shows just how difficult it can be to operate a firearm under physical and mental stress. At least two competitors tried to operate the Larue OBR without a magazine in place, and this is a rifle with controls that should be familiar to all. Note to editors: The shot of a round impacting the dirt 10 feet low and left of the target was overused.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">I was slightly surprised to see the <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/colt-single-action-army-elmer-keith/" target="_blank">Single Action Army</a> used as the nomination pistol as I figured the producers might continue the 1911 centenary theme. I hope for Phil's sake that it doesn't appear in one of the challenges, as he managed to shank the shot in Amanda's target pretty badly. For the first show at least, the nomination is performance based and it will be interesting to see how long this lasts. Anyone care to make a prediction?</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><em>&mdash;Iain Harrison</em><br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/a-harsh-kick-off#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/season-3-beginsTue, 09 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">It&rsquo;s only been a year since the Top Shot season 1 finale and already we&rsquo;re facing the launch of <a href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot" target="_blank">Season 3</a>, with Season 4 about to start production. I&rsquo;m still amused that it took so long for a mainstream network to discover the marketability of shooting, but now the History Channel is completely behind the show. Make no mistake, this is a hugely expensive undertaking and the amount of cash involved in producing one episode might surprise you, but the American public has taken to the mixture of firearms, explosions and drama.&nbsp;You and I both knew they would, but it&rsquo;s nice to be vindicated.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">If you read this blog six months ago, you&rsquo;ll probably remember me harping on about the fact that the audience watches the competitors on the show more through a soda straw than on a screen, but it bears repeating. As you pick your heroes and villains remind yourself that despite what you see in front of you, these folks are all shooters like you and me, with their own set of weaknesses, imperfections, strengths and humanity. If you met them in real life, there&rsquo;s a better than even chance you&rsquo;d wind up being good friends, even if you were rooting for their downfall on TV. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Season 3 promises to be even bigger and better than its predecessors and you will no doubt notice that there&rsquo;s more involvement from the firearms industry. This is due to the efforts of world class 3-gun competitor Taran Butler, who acted as a behind-the-scenes technical advisor and matchmaker. You may also see some familiar faces return to shepherd the competitors through the various challenges, as well as a whole bunch of new ones. Anyway, it&rsquo;s almost show time, so sit back, grab a beverage and prepare to hoot and holler as Top Shot returns to the nation&rsquo;s living room.<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/season-3-begins#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-chris-reed-interviewWed, 04 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">If you've been following along with <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/BlogList.aspx?cid=25&amp;id=34" target="_blank">Reality Shots</a> so far, you've undoubtedly enjoyed our inside look at the guns, contestants and challenges of History Channel's Top Shot Season 2. You've also enjoyed analysis of the show from its first champion, Iain Harrison. The heralded shooter and British army officer has provided clever insights and behind-the-scenes tidbits from episode one to the exciting finale last week. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">In his <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-finale/" target="_blank"> examination of the final episode </a>Harrison wrote: "So, we have a new champion. He's a good guy with a great strength of character and I hope you get the opportunity to know him a little better. For all of the drama portrayed and criticized, 'Top Shot' has done more for the shooting community in the last year than any other single program, and it's worthy of support."</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Harrison was referring to Chris Reed, a self-described good ol' country boy trained in the cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta, who took home the $100,000 prize and the title of "Top Shot" in a frenzied final competition against runner-up Brian Zins. <br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">In this exclusive interview for <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/" target="_blank">AmericanRifleman.org</a>, Harrison talks with Reed for the first time from the floor of the NRA Annual Meetings in Pittsburgh Pa., to find out the answers to the questions Top Shot fans have been wondering since the final shot was fired. <br /></span></p> <p> <object width="560" height="349" data="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/1b5mCP_AwgY?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> <param name="src" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/1b5mCP_AwgY?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" /> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /> </object> </p> <p>&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-chris-reed-interview#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-finaleThu, 28 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">I must confess that when the <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/" target="_blank">AmericanRifleman.org</a> folks approached me to provide my insight on <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/" target="_blank">"Top Shot</a>," I was a little bit hesitant. I'm really not a TV kind of guy, but they persisted. I guess my take is somewhat akin to a kid in Willy Wonka's factory&mdash;there's a ton of stuff happening that looks cool, but I have no idea what it does so please take any views offered with a basketball-size grain of salt. What has been interesting is the way the show has gotten bigger and better, and how it has brought many non-shooters into the fold. I've talked to a lot of people who've seen the show and want to go shooting as a direct result. So, if you have a similar encounter, please take the time to show them just how safe, satisfying and challenging our hobby can be. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">OK, now that the Public Service Announcement is over, it&rsquo;s time to get back to the action. It seems like the producers received a lot of positive feedback on the Season 1 finale and word came down to the effect of, "Great. Now make it bigger." The art department rose to the challenge, and the first bout was a doozy. Riffing on the dueling-tree theme, the sliding shutters inserted a new dimension into the competition. The problem posed was whether to concentrate on one's own targets, shut out the opposition or combine the strategies. Joe looked a little lost when faced with the constantly changing target array, which surprised me as he was very focused when shooting swinging plates. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The HORSE challenge was an obvious fan favorite and I hope it becomes a fixture of the show. The chance to capitalize on an opponent's weaknesses adds a strategic component to the competition. This mental aspect is, for me, the most intriguing part of the shooting sports, and last night, George really messed with a lot of people's heads. I recall cautioning viewers to remain detached from the character portrayals and to remember the power of editing if we wish to gain a true perspective of the very real people on our screen. At a bare minimum, George sacrificed a 50-percent chance at the prize money and, quite possibly, 100k in order to help out a friend. Any armchair quarterbacks want to bag on him now? </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The mano-a-mano aspect of the final showdown between Brian and Chris was a nail-biter all the way to the final firearm. I was pleased to see each man's favorite firearm featured equally&mdash;Chris simply doesn't miss with a bow and Gunny is pure poetry with a <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/45-in-world-war-ii/" target="_blank">1911</a>&mdash;so the two of them trading paint as they raced down the course had everyone cheering like it was the Daytona 500. In the end, it came down to whoever could shut out the 3 million people watching over his shoulder and just shoot. That guy was Chris and I applaud him for it. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">So, we have a new champion. He's a good guy with a great strength of character and I hope you get the opportunity to know him a little better. For all of the drama portrayed and criticized, "Top Shot" has done more for the shooting community in the last year than any other single program, and it's worthy of support.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-finale#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/crowning-a-championTue, 26 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The next Top Shot will soon&nbsp;emerge, and&nbsp;if it&rsquo;s anything like last season, it will happen with a really big bang. But, of course, two more contestants will have to be sent packing before we know who will be shooting in the final challenge. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Regardless of which two face off in the finale, tonight&rsquo;s show should be a treat since the producers are bringing back many of the tools-of-the-trade that we&rsquo;ve seen throughout the season. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The first competitor to fire his last shot will do so with the Browning Hi-Power in a challenge that looks like it&rsquo;s going to be settled at the dueling tree. Then, the competitors will be choosing among a variety of rifles and handguns in the anticipated trick shots challenge. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Finally, the last two marksmen will be running the gauntlet using a mixture of firearms and primitive weapons to determine who will be the next Top Shot.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/crowning-a-champion#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/who-will-winThu, 21 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">The last episode of <a href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/">Top Shot</a> provided big drama for the contestants, bringing together vertical plunges, moving vehicles and a <a title="Top Shot Episode 11, Season 2" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/mission-impossible/" target="_blank">firearm previously unseen</a> on the show. After Jamie's exit (in his fourth elimination challenge, no less), only four competitors remain and the next episode will see three of them ushered off in defeat.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">On April 26th, who will claim the Top Shot prize of $100,000 and title as Season 2 Champion? Vote in our interactive poll for your favorite remaining marksman, or comment below with who you wanted to see make it further.</span></p> <div style="margin: 20px 0px 5px 20px; float:right; clear:right;"> <script src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/4948105.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <noscript> Enable JavaScript to view poll. Or copy and paste this link: http://polldaddy.com/poll/4948105/ </noscript></div> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">Be sure to look out for the firearms used in the final episode and follow <a title="NRA's American Rifleman Twitter" href="http://www.twitter.com/NRA_Rifleman" target="_blank">@NRA_Rifleman on Twitter</a> to livetweet the episode as the action unfolds!</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/who-will-win#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-jamies-last-standWed, 20 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">Last night's thrilling episode is brought to you from the lobby of a mid-priced business hotel, north of Los Angeles. Sitting next to me is the winner of Season 2, and I'll leave it to you to figure out why we're here. You might draw a conclusion from the fact that the casting process for Season 4 is underway. Hmm, we're talking about one, two, and four....what's missing?&nbsp; I'm pleased to say that, based on having worked with him a few months ago and again over the past few days, the winner of Season 2 is one heck of a stand-up guy. He has his own story to tell, which I'll leave for him to recount after next week, but suffice to say that "Top Shot" only scratches the surface. There's a whole stack of stories behind how he got to where he is today.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">While shooting last week's show, I was asked to take a look at tonight's first challenge during the setup phase, and through a mixture of bravado and overconfidence, I asked for the targets to be set out at approximately 50 yards. I failed to account for the fact that trying to engage targets that far out while lying flat means you're trying to acquire your front sight while your arms are over your head. Try it, talk about a humbling experience, and especially when hanging 120 feet in the air. <a href="http://mattburkett.com/" target="_blank">Matt Burkett</a>, the expert for the first challenge, recognized the problem and moved the balloons closer. The result made for another memorable episode and one that George will not forget anytime soon. The look on his face while contemplating the harness dangling from the ball of that crane was priceless, but he pulled himself together and made six hits to earn immunity from the elimination range.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The elimination challenge seemed like it was a done deal even before the competitors returned from the practice range. Despite Jamie's confidence in his shotgun prowess, he was fairly obviously outclassed by Chris, who managed to hit 48 out of his 50 practice targets. Although Jamie is a self-proclaimed country boy, I'd be willing to bet that shooting things from the back of a moving pickup truck is a skill more prevalent in Mississippi than California. So, I have a feeling that Chris has had a little practice in this particular discipline.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Next week is the <a href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/episodes/" target="_blank">season finale</a>. I have no idea what the producers have in store, but based on the events of Season 1, I'm looking for a challenge that includes most if not all of the firearms seen so far. And given the skill of the remaining contestants, it should be a nail-biter. We might just have a surprise for the attendees of the <a href="http://www.nraam.org/index.html" target="_blank">NRA Annual Meetings</a> in Pittsburgh next week. Stay tuned. <br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-jamies-last-stand#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/mission-impossibleTue, 19 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><em>UPDATED: We had been told the shotgun being used in the elimination challege was going to be&nbsp;the M4. However, the contestants actually used the M2.</em></span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">With only two more episodes to determine the next <a title="Top Shot" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;">Top Shot</span></a><span style="font-size: small;">, the competition is getting wilder and more personal. This week, contestants will bounce and zip through a couple of missions that could have come straight out of the mind of Jim Phelps. </span></span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">First, contestants will be raised 125 feet in the air&nbsp;via a line and safety harness, and then dropped from this elevated position. While heading toward the ground at a fairly high rate of speed, the competitors will use a </span><a title="Glock 17 Pistol" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/glock-17-pistol-history-review/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;">Glock 17</span></a><span style="font-size: small;"> to hit more targets than the other competitors. </span></span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Later, Colby introduces the group to the </span><span style="font-size: small;">Benelli M2</span><span style="font-size: small;">, which shouldn&rsquo;t take long since it&rsquo;s an earlier version of&nbsp;the military&rsquo;s standard issue shotgun. The M2 is the workhorse of the Benelli shotgun line.&nbsp;It's light, nimble and rugged for use any condition. &nbsp;</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">With the M2, the shooters will be taken for a ride where they will have to bust clays from the back of a truck to see who has fired his last shot.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/mission-impossible#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-eightWed, 13 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">So, did anyone notice the connection between the firearms on last night's show? I had the opportunity to choose just about any firearm in the inventory of the the biggest prop house on the west coast, but went with a few familiar friends in the AR15, the FN-FAL, Browning Hi-Power and SIG, figuring that most firearms aficionados had shot at least one of them. They'd also been mostly absent from the show so far. In case you were wondering, they're all variants of guns that have shown up in British service over the years. If only I could have snuck in a WG revolver and an Enfield...</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Going back to the Top Shot set was a little strange at first. As a competitor, your every move is controlled according to the shooting schedule (cameras, not guns), and you're allowed very little insight as to what's going on outside of the house or range. As part of the crew, you get a birds-eye view of the process and how all the little cogs and springs interact to create the final product. It was an eye-opener, not in the least because of the amount of planning and scheduling involved in creating the challenges, most of which are planned months in advance and involve special effects guys, carpenters, painters, a firecrew and, of course, the armorers and expert. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">I also got to see some of the technology involved in capturing images of a bullet in flight, which for a fan of technology is worth the price of admission alone. If you'd like to see more of what a camera capable of 40,000 frames per second is capable of, go to Google.com and search "Phantom Camera." As an aside, firearms manufacturers are finding high speed cameras to be very useful in product development - according to my sources, Ruger has been using one for some time now and utilized it extensively in research and development on the new LC9 pistol.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Last night's first challenge proved difficult for some of the shooters that have been dominating the field so far. The difference between Jamie and Brian's time was over a minute, which must have seemed like an eternity when he was returning to the bench. Most of the shooters smoked the pistol stage, which was to be expected as long guns are actually more difficult to shoot under those conditions - the handgun allows the shooter much more opportunity to isolate motion from the platform as there are three more joints between it and the gun. Those 100-yard targets are awfully small when the front sight is dancing all over the California landscape.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">I'm still not convinced that the producers made the right choice when it came to the process of selecting who would go to elimination. Although it made for good TV and no doubt caused a good deal of controversy, at this stage in the game during Season 1, all the eliminations were performance based and I believe a lot of viewers prefer that format. We'll see what changes are made in Season 3 - hopefully the politics get factored out of the equation.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Next week sees the contestants hoisted to the top of a crane, then dropped with a Glock in their hands. I got to try this out while on set&nbsp; and I guarantee it's as much fun as it sounds.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-eight#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/shake-it-upTue, 12 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">With just a few more episodes before revealing the Season Two <a title="Top Shot Season 2" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot" target="_blank">Top Shot</a>, the producers are shaking things up to bring the best to the top by having the competitors shoot a variety of firearms from unstable positions. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">This is also the episode where Season One winner and AmericanRifleman.org contributor Iain Harrison expertly&nbsp;guides the competitors through the practice session, providing them with insight&nbsp;into the skills needed to continue in the competition. And this week looks like practice might be crucial to staying in the game. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">The remaining marksmen will be will be firing the <a title="Browning Hi Power" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/browning-hi-power/" target="_blank">Browning High-Power</a>, the <a title="Colt AR-15" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/videos/m-16-rifle-history/" target="_blank">Colt AR-15</a>, the <a title="FN FAL" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/videos/fn-fal-rifle/" target="_blank">FN FAL</a> and the SIG Sauer 228 in a moving exercise where they have to run between stations, obtain a steady aim while balancing on unsteady platforms and still hit the intended target. It looks like a combination of speed and accuracy will determine who stays, similar to how three-gun competitions are scored, which is probably why Harrison is this week&rsquo;s expert. <a title="Iain Harrison" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-seven/" target="_blank">Harrison</a> is an avid three-gun competitor, and he showed last year that he has the skills for running and gunning.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/shake-it-up#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-sevenThu, 07 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">OK, full disclosure: I love <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/50-bmg-ultimate-big-bore/" target="_blank">shooting .50 BMGs</a>. Why? They are loud, obnoxious, excessive and very, very American. When I lived in New York, the legislature decided that, despite the fact that the cartridge was conspicuously absent from the roll call of those found at crime scenes, they were going to ban it. Until that point, I had absolutely no interest in the round, but as soon as it was under threat, I knew I had to have one. So, I plunked down my hard-earned cash on a single-shot bolt-action upper for an AR-15. While not the most refined or accurate contraption, it brings a huge grin to the face of anyone who shoots it, and the blast from the muzzle brake removes anything on the bench at the range. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Last night's episode was, for me, <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-50-bmg-rifle/" target="_blank">the most interesting yet</a>. Not only from a firearms perspective, but from the standpoint of human interaction. I mentioned a few weeks ago that it was intriguing to read tea leaves, trying to figure out what was really going on in the house based not only on the images the director chose to show or had available, but what was missing from the on-screen action. Last night followed the best traditions of pathos with the depiction of a good guy, a bad guy, a conspiracy, conflict and triumph and, as one would expect, caused a fair number of viewers to get wrapped around the proverbial axle.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">At the first challenge, Ashley summed up the problem facing the competitors: "A 1,000-yard shot in a 40 mph crosswind&mdash;good luck." It looked like the wind conditions were changing every couple of minutes and the canyon was no doubt causing all kinds of random air movements as the wind swirled. After George made that shot right off the bat I recalled his own words in the first episode when Jay centerpunched the 200-yard target with the Sharp's: Bet you couldn't do it again.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">In the elimination challenge Jay managed to stay in the running while he shot from the kneeling position, but once he went prone and got behind the sights, his peripheral vision was cut down. Matters weren't helped by him keeping his left eye closed while he scanned for targets, which meant that several targets appeared and disappeared before he had time to engage. Jamie's time spent on military ranges worked to his advantage this time. He was able to anticipate, identify and aim faster and ultimately prevail. I was sorry to see Jay walk off into the sunset&mdash;his presence was both entertaining and a good illustration of how important the mental aspect of this game is.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Next week sees the return of yours truly. While the competitors may not get to shoot the biggest gun of the season in this episode, they do get to shoot the most guns. I chose a few of my favorite firearms for the challenges. I hope you enjoy the selections.</span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-seven#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/stephanie-hayden-datingWed, 06 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you watched the first season of "<a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/behind-the-scenes-with-the-sons-of-guns/" target="_blank">Sons of Guns</a>" on the Discovery Channel you probably realized that it's as much about the personalities that work at Red Jacket Firearms as it is about the guns they create.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">While NRA Publications may be full of hardcore firearms traditionalists, we're not completely immune to the lure of "reality" TV.&nbsp; A few of us made a friendly wager behind closed doors as to whether Stephanie Hayden and RJF apprentice Kris Ford were dating (we're suckers for good relationship drama). If you watch the show you know why.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">On a recent trip to Baton Rouge, Reality Shots got a chance to ask Stephanie the question fans have been wondering about. Online Hunting Editor Ben O'Brien was behind the camera, and by his reaction, it's obvious what he picked in this one-of-a-kind office pool. </span></span></p> <p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/utWpINHsWas" width="640" height="390" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/stephanie-hayden-dating#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-50-bmg-rifleTue, 05 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">On this week's episode of Top Shot, the contestants will face a long-range test that most shooters don't get to experience, the 1000-yard shot. The remaining competitors, who have made it to the individual stage, will be settling in behind the biggest gun ever used on the show</span></span><span style="font-size: small;">&mdash;</span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">the <a href="http://barrett.net/firearms/model82a1" target="_blank">Barrett 82A1</a>, chambered in .50 BMG. <br /><br />In the <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/50-bmg-ultimate-big-bore/" target="_blank">November 1995 issue</a> of <em>American Rifleman</em> magazine Stanton Wormley Jr. described this famous heavy-hitting caliber: <br /><br /><em>In every performance category, the .50 BMG easily outclasses any conventional rifle cartridge. With 12,000 to 14,000 ft.-lbs. of muzzle energy, the .50 BMG is more than twice as powerful as the .458 Win. Mag. and some 1 1&frasl;2 times as powerful as the .460 Wby. Mag.</em><br /><br />The Barrett 82A1was the first semi automatic .50 caliber rifle available more than 20 years ago and has enjoyed success in both the civilian and military worlds ever since. As most of the remaining shooters have a military backgrounds, it will be interesting to see how they react to the felt recoil in the heat of competition. <br /><br />If that's not enough, the elimination challenge this week will feature <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/ArticlePage.aspx?id=2279&amp;cid=8" target="_blank">the M1 Garand</a>, which is considered one of the finest rifles ever produced by American armories.<br /><br />Tonight's episode is slated to be the best so far, and we can't wait for exploding targets and super slow motion .50 BMG rounds screaming down range. <br /></span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-50-bmg-rifle#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/daryl-parker-interviewFri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">In the long tradition of chatting with <a title="Top Shot" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot" target="_blank">Top Shot</a> contestants post-elimination, Rifleman's Reality Shots caught up with Daryl Parker.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>American Rifleman:</strong> <em>How would you describe the positive effect that Top Shot has had on the general public's opinion of firearms and the shooting sports?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>Daryl Parker:</strong> I believe Top Shot has created a groundswell of Americans who are interested in learning about this sport, and motivating them to get out to the range. I&rsquo;ve heard from numerous sources that ranges are now seeing a significant increase in their weekend traffic.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> <em>What were your goals coming into Top Shot? Did you meet them?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>DP:</strong> Obviously, my goal was to win the title, but barring that, I hoped to make it to the individual portion of the contest. THAT didn&rsquo;t happen either, but in the end, I am glad that I was a tough competitor, and represented myself well.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> <em>Explain, from your point of view, the reason for the red team's domination?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>DP:</strong> I wouldn&rsquo;t call it red team&rsquo;s domination as much as I would say it was blue team&rsquo;s failure to thrive. We had all the talent we needed, which makes it even worse that we lost some of the challenges we did. That being said, I don&rsquo;t want to take anything away from the red team&mdash;great marksmen.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> <em>The show has portrayed Jay as "the novice." Though we all know everyone on the show has the skills to win.&nbsp; Do you think the competitors underestimated him?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>DP:</strong> Yes, but I also believe Jay has fostered that perception a little bit, so that other competitors would underestimate him. It has worked, but with a background in elite competition in Olympic archery, skeet, air pistol and air rifle, Jay is anything but a novice.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><img style="float: left; border: 0pt none; margin: 3px 7px;" title="Daryl Parker, Top Shot Contestant" src="http://www.americanrifleman.org/home-carousel/images/daryl_inset.jpg" alt="Daryl Parker Top Shot" width="200" height="300" /><br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> <em>The military guys in the house have obviously bonded and are in turn rooting for each other to win. Does that mean everyone in the house for the remainder of the show will be looking to oust Jay first?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>DP:</strong> I don&rsquo;t necessarily think it will be a group strategy for them, since they are now going to individual competition, but since eliminating <a title="Jermaine" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-jermaine-answers-questions/" target="_blank">Jermaine</a> and now me, he will definitely have a target on his back.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> <em>You were confident that you could beat Jay with the .22. What was the major reason he took you down in the final challenge?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>DP:</strong> There were two reasons: the rounded-profile front-sight on that .22 revolver completely covers the 1.5-inch disk at 25 feet, and I couldn&rsquo;t tell where my rounds were missing, so it took me way too long to finish the pistol targets, and Jay was changing magazines as I had just put in a full one. If I could have just gotten started with that magazine, I might have been about to finish him off, but as you saw, my magazine was not fully seated and fell out.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> <em>What was the most thrilling challenge you took place in?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>DP:</strong> I would have to say it was the plate challenge, because it was a head-to-head challenge, and speed was a factor. We had a lot of adrenaline pumping that day, and we needed that win. It was the most satisfying challenge, I&rsquo;ll put it that way.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> <em>What did you make of the overall experience of Top Shot?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>DP:</strong> Overall, it was amazing. I got to know some of the most dynamic, skilled and personable people I&rsquo;ve ever met, shoot these crazy challenges they came up with, and compete on a national stage. The fans from this show are incredible, and I can&rsquo;t tell everyone how much I have appreciated all their support and words of encouragement.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> <em>What does the future hold for you in shooting?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>DP:</strong> I am going to be opening a specialty shooting range soon! It will have the standard firearms safety classes, basic and advanced marksmanship, shotgun and rifle (out to 1,000 yards), but the crown jewel will be a one or two day shooting package where the shooters will test their skills against Top Shot-like challenges!&nbsp; It is going to be a blast!</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> <em>Who is your pick to win Season 2?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>DP:</strong> That&rsquo;s a tough call. The remaining seven shooters are all skilled, but I&rsquo;m going to have to go with either Brian Zinns or Chris Reed. Those two are now the elder statesmen of the show, and I think in the end, their experience will win out.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/daryl-parker-interview#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/behind-the-scenes-with-the-sons-of-gunsWed, 30 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><img style="margin: 3px; float: right;" title="Stephanie and Will Hayden " src="http://www.americanrifleman.org/home-carousel/images/redjacket1.jpg" alt="Stephanie and Will Hayden " width="368" height="399" /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Stephanie-Hayden-Sons-of-Guns/129541613777398" target="_blank">Stephanie Hayden</a> is standing by the printer. &ldquo;Dad look at this,&rdquo; she shouts holding up a list of rare guns, including an Uzi, from a prospective client. In a flurry of phone calls, e-mails, messages and wish lists, Owner <a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/sons-of-guns/bios/will-hayden-bio.html" target="_blank">Will Hayden</a> pulls on a cigarette in his office. Through the vale of smoke to his left is a window that let's the boss see into his shop. Right now <a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/sons-of-guns/bios/vincent-buckles-bio.html" target="_blank">Vince Buckles</a>, </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">lead gunsmith,</span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"> is welding a stock in the corner as gunsmith <a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/sons-of-guns/bios/glenn-fleming-bio.html" target="_blank">Glenn Fleming </a>puts together a folding stock for a conversation kit. At the same time in the bustling lobby Kris Ford breaks out a box to show off a Desert Eagle for an upcoming &ldquo;special top secret&rdquo; project. The group's attention is soon gathered by a bright purple pickup in front of the building. The distinctive truck is sporting a bunch of Louisiana State University stickers and one other interesting item&mdash;a Civil War era mini cannon. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">&ldquo;This really happens every day,&rdquo; Stephanie says with a grin. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not just for the cameras.&rdquo; </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Welcome to Red Jacket Firearms. It&rsquo;s a different kind of gun shop&mdash;the custom kind. But custom doesn&rsquo;t quite do justice to the innovative firearms these guys and gals turn out. Will runs a shop where family comes first. That&rsquo;s why, he says, his shop is unlike all the rest.&nbsp; Oh, and they have a TV show. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">&ldquo;This show [Sons of Guns] isn&rsquo;t about guns,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s about my family, and my crew. It would be the same if we sold ice cream or flowers. We&rsquo;re just everyday people who build guns and love doing it.&rdquo; </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">In the short three months since its debut, this inside look at one of the most innovative custom gun shops in the Nation, dubbed "Sons of Guns," has taken reality TV by storm. Fans have flocked to the show to see what crazy firearm Red Jacket can cook up next, and these gun-toting Bayou boys have proven they can do almost anything with a gun. Rifleman&rsquo;s Reality Shots will be covering everything "Sons of Guns" in the weeks to come, but first up Will gives us an exclusive look at <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/Video.aspx?cid=23&amp;vid=3253" target="_blank"><strong>RJF's newest AR platform rifle</strong></a>. </span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/behind-the-scenes-with-the-sons-of-guns#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-analysis-episode-8Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">Last night's team challenge showed that, despite the 10/22's old school wood stock, simple iron sights and complete lack of a tacticool railed forend, it is nonetheless a great equalizer. Chris Reed demonstrated his knowledge and insight of this when he said, &ldquo;with the .22, in ten minutes I'll tell you who's the better shooter.&rdquo; And he should know, having regularly placed in the Total Outdoorsman Challenge.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">Expert for both challenges was Spencer Hoglund, who last season taught the contestants the art of running a SAA at speed against a similar backdrop to this episode's. Known by his Cowboy Action Shooting handle of &ldquo;Lead Dispencer,&rdquo; he's a true master in his field and a genuinely good guy to boot. The unsung heroes of this show, however, are Pilgrim Films' art department personnel who have managed to come up with shooting competitions that captivate the audience, while providing challenges to the shooter that test the fundamentals of marksmanship while being both fair and extraordinary. No mean feat.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">The shooting gallery itself encouraged the contestants to push themselves to see just where that balance of accuracy and speed lay, in order to gain the maximum number of hits in the time allowed. Unfortunately for blue team, Jay's performance consisted mainly of missing slowly. People who shoot with me regularly know my reputation as a sandbagger, so I claim a little insight to the subject. If I were a less charitable guy, I'd say Jay was angling to win as many two thousand dollar gift cards as possible by suckering his teammates into the elimination challenge, but having talked to him I'm pretty certain that wasn't the case.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">What Jay does have is an extraordinary ability to address the mental aspects of the sport. His background in both golf and competitive archery has equipped him with the tools needed to focus on his own game to the exclusion of events around him. He simply does not get rattled by his opponent's performance and manages to use his admittedly shaky shooting technique to its fullest advantage. While Daryl was in many respects the ideal student, listening to the instructor and trying alternative methods such as cocking the pistol with his weak hand so as not to break his grip, seeing Jay catch up and then pass him caused him to pull some of the easiest shots in the entire competition.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">Next week, George gets his wish to shoot something a little bigger and the teams merge as this competition turns into an individual event. Shooting Barrett M82s at a thousand yards should give the resident sniper a distinct advantage, but given the season so far, I'd be willing to bet there'll be a twist. Also in the newest trailer, there's something oddly familiar about the guy shooting an AR-15 can't quite put my finger on it...</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-analysis-episode-8#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/the-shooting-galleryTue, 29 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;">This week, the marksmen of Top Shot have the opportunity to bust out in a real-life shooting gallery, made famous years ago at carnivals around the country, using one of the most fun rifles ever made&mdash;the <a href="http://www.ruger.com/products/1022/index.html" target="_blank">Ruger 10/22</a>. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><em>American Rifleman</em> <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/ruger-10-22-rifle-review/" target="_blank">reviewed this blow-back operated semi-auto rifle</a> in 1964, giving it high-marks for reliability, accuracy and shootability. The 10/22 is still a popular rifle for both plinking and small-game hunting, and is available is a variety of models from blued with a wood stock to stainless with a composite stock and even a bull-barrel tactical version. Almost every young shooter learned on a .22 rifle, with many using the 10/22 to pop cans, targets, squirrels and rabbits in a quest to become riflemen and women. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">In the elimination challenge, two marksmen will continue on small-caliber theme by handling a Smith &amp; Wesson .22 revolver in an event that wasn&rsquo;t explained in last week&rsquo;s previews. However,&nbsp;if previous episodes expectations are continued, it should be a lot of fun to watch.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/the-shooting-gallery#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/kyle-frasureThu, 24 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><a title="Rifleman's Reality Shots" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/BlogList.aspx?cid=25&amp;id=34" target="_blank">Reality Shots</a> once again got to pick the brain of the most recently ousted <a title="Top Shot" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot" target="_blank">Top Shot</a> star: competitive shotgun shooter <a title="Kyle Frasure" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/kyle-frasure" target="_blank">Kyle Frasure</a>. Despite some rough performances in the first few challenges, Kyle made it past the halfway point and had only positive things to say about his experience.<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>American Rifleman:</strong> What is your reaction to the statement in this week's episode that some of the red team members thought you were&nbsp;"kind of a joke?"</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>Kyle Frasure:</strong> Frankly, I have to admit that my performance in the first two challenges was a joke. I don&rsquo;t take any offense to the statement that some of the red team members thought I was a joke in terms of shooting ability. All of the people in the house operated as a family. With that being said, there was endless mocking and joking about everything under the sun, especially when it came to shooting ability. I hold everyone in the house in the highest regard and have the utmost respect for all of them.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> Tell us about the dynamics of the blue team as the show went along. Was Jay as disruptive as it seemed early on?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>KF:</strong> From the get go, the Blue Team got along swimmingly. Despite the varied backgrounds of the members, we understood that each one of us brought a different skill set to the table. We really did have it all in terms of shooting skills and experience. We had archers, pistol professionals, pistol instructors, CQB experts, and shotgunners. The team started breaking down after the second pistol challenge when a few of the team members felt that Jay was giving unwanted and incorrect coaching. Things came to a head after the nomination range in which <a title="Jay and Jermaine" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/poll-jermaine-challenge/" target="_blank">Jay and Jermaine were selected to go head to head</a> in the elimination challenge. Jay felt that he was betrayed, and in all honesty, he was. We really hashed things out after Jay won that challenge&mdash;we talked and got everything out on the table and rebuilt the team. Jay is a great guy with the absolute best intentions, although sometimes he is misunderstood. To this day, I am very close friends with Jay and will be for a very long time.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><img title="Kyle Frasure" src="http://www.americanrifleman.org/home-carousel/images/kyle_f.jpg" alt="Kyle Frasure" width="500" height="300" /><br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> Did the blue team make a mistake putting Chris Tilley up for elimination?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>KF:</strong> I don&rsquo;t think we made a mistake in putting Chris Tilley up for elimination. The challenge was lost due to the two missed shots: one by Chris and the other by Daryl. Due to the lack of performance, both were nominated. It has been said that the strategy was too aggressive, but I have to disagree. We very likely would have won had we not missed those two shots.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> What has been the blue team's main downfall?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>KF:</strong> There were a couple of contributing factors to our downfall as a team up until this point. Firstly, we made some egregious mental errors throughout the challenges; most notably <a title="Episode 3" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/videos/playlists/season-2-anatomy-of-a-shot" target="_blank">the third challenge</a> where, bless his heart, <a title="Jermaine Finks" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-jermaine-answers-questions/" target="_blank">Jermaine got lost</a> in the heat of battle and wanted to win the whole thing himself. &nbsp;Secondly, due to the lack of cohesion within our team, our full potential was never really realized.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> Your experience was extensively with shotguns. Do you feel like you didn't get to show the fans your true shooting talents?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>KF:</strong> While I&rsquo;ve shot a wide array of firearms, my experience mostly pertains to shotguns. Unfortunately I was never able to show the viewers what I am best at. I really would have liked to have had a chance to shoot clays out of the back of a truck like I have been seeing in the previews. Although I didn&rsquo;t get to shoot shotguns on the show, I really do feel like I settled into my role on the team and was eventually able to show that I have an inkling of shooting ability.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> Explain how the fundamentals of shooting changed when you were shooting upside down.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>KF:</strong> Shooting upside down was one of the coolest shooting experiences I&rsquo;ve ever had. Once Ashley and I found out that we were going to shoot upside down, we couldn&rsquo;t help but laugh like little kids. I mean, this is something that most people will never experience. If you can do this safely, you should definitely try to replicate it. When upright, you lift the firearm against gravity and steady it by using your arms and shoulders especially. When you&rsquo;re upside down, you have to use the opposite muscles to stabilize the gun. Not only that, just to keep your body taught and straight, your ab muscles are in constant strain. Not only was it exhilarating, but also a great workout.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> Did you feel like you went out in the best way possible, losing to Ashley's perfect run?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>KF:</strong> From the bottom of my heart, I could not have been more proud to go out the way I did. If I was going to be eliminated, I wanted it to be in a ridiculously exciting challenge and against the absolute best. I got my wish; Ashley is not only a phenomenal shooter, but also a wonderful person. If somebody is going to beat me, it better be with a perfect score.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> What did you make of the overall experience of Top Shot?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>KF:</strong> I had the time of my life while on Top Shot. It really was a dream come true to be on this season. I know that over 2,000 people had that same dream and only 16 realized it. I am so grateful that I was one of the 16. I was able to meet 15 other people who have the same passion for shooting from all walks of life. I am proud to call the 13 guys and the 2 girls </span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">in the house </span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">friends for life.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR</strong>: What does the future hold for you in shooting?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>KF:</strong> Because of the demands of school for the past 3 years, I have had to take a reprieve from competitive shooting. I am hoping that I can get back into sporting clays as a shooter and, more importantly, as an instructor. I really feel that being on Top Shot makes me an ambassador to the shooting sports and it is my responsibility to show others (especially the youth) that the sports are welcoming of novices and a great place to meet some of the best people in the world.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> Who is your pick to win Season 2?</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><strong>KF:</strong> My pick for the winner of Season 2 would have to be Brian or Daryl. Brian is arguably the best bullseye shooter that has ever and will ever exist. He is a master with that 1911 and a great guy. I am sure he will go far. Daryl is a wild card because he is so versatile with so many different weapons. He is another outstanding competitor and great friend.<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/kyle-frasure#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-trick-shotsWed, 23 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">The opportunities to practice shooting two revolvers at once are few and far between. Competitions that require participants to engage their targets upside down after going through the equivalent of permanent press cycle can be counted on the fingers of a boxing glove, which kind of gets to the crux of the whole <a title="Top Shot Video Blog" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/second-season/" target="_blank">Top Shot philosophy</a>. This isn't about excelling at one particular facet of the shooting sports. It's all about survival. It's about getting through the competitions where you're weakest in order to make it to the point where you can send the other guy home, be it in the first episode or the last. When the original 16 competitors were assembled in an L.A. hotel the night before we headed off to the house, we were all ushered into a room and seated opposite roughly the same number of executives, producers and other powerbrokers. The head of the production company explained in a torrent of expletives that this wasn't going to be like any competition any of us had been in before. It took most of us a while to adjust to the idea, but he was right.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><img title="Top Shot Trick Shot" src="http://www.americanrifleman.org/home-carousel/images/trickshot.jpg" alt="Trick Shot Top Shot" width="626" height="349" /><br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">Last night again saw <a title="Brian Zins" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/brian-gunny-zins" target="_blank">Brian Zins</a> demonstrate during red team practice just why he's the guy to beat when it comes to precision shots with a handgun. It seemed like he elbowed the expert out of the way in order to impart the knowledge gained in 10 NRA Championship wins and you really can't argue with success. It came as no surprise as, yet again, he was sidelined during the team challenge by the blues, though they'll have to pick someone else to sit out next week.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">What the blue team hadn't counted on however, was the composure and accuracy of <a title="Joe Serafini" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/joe-serafini" target="_blank">Joe Serafini</a>, who aced his part of the challenge and set the stage for red team to once again dominate, sending the four remaining blue team members to the elimination range. With only a handful of members left, the blues are running out of options when it comes to deciding who to dispatch, though <a title="Ashley" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/ashley-spurlin" target="_blank">Ashley</a> saved his team one tough call by putting himself forward. It seemed as though the red team antipathy toward Jamie was more muted in this episode, though I have a feeling that was as a result of editing rather than actuality.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">As the expert in the elimination challenge, <a title="Taran Butler" href="http://www.taranbutler.com/" target="_blank">Taran Butler</a> got to demonstrate the versatility that has gained him notoriety on the national 3-gun circuit. Although known more for running a shotgun or AR-15 at phenomenal speed, he coached the two competitors to master a completely alien skill with a revolver and showed that, no matter what the situation, the fundamentals of sight alignment and trigger control can never be ignored. Next week sees the competitors go back to everyone's favorite rimfire and with just about every competitor owning a 10/22, the playing field will be as level as it's ever been.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-trick-shots#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/trick-shooting-the-classicsTue, 22 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">If the previews are to be believed, the Top Shot contestants are going trick shooting during this week&rsquo;s team competition. It looks like it might be a shooting version of H.O.R.S.E., which should provide some fun shots if the shooters have some imagination. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Of course, it won&rsquo;t be hard to imagine the guns they&rsquo;ll be competing with as all three are American classics&mdash;the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colt_Official_Police" target="_blank">Colt .38 Official Police</a>, the Ruger Security-Six and the <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/colt-1911-history/" target="_blank">Colt 1911</a>&mdash;two of which should be well-known to the competitors at this point of the game even if they weren&rsquo;t previously familiar with them. </span></p> <div style="margin: 20px 0px 5px 20px; float:right; clear:right;"> <script src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/4766746.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <noscript></noscript></div> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">This will be the first appearance of the <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/ruger-security-six/" target="_blank">Ruger Security-Six</a>, a double-action revolver, usually chambered in .357 Mag., which was first introduced in the early 1970s. The Security-Six was marketed to law enforcement personnel and self-defense advocates, and was available with 3-, 4- and 6-inch barrels and either fixed or adjustable sights, though the majority were adjustable-sight models. The Security-Six was the predecessor to both the Service-Six and the Speed-Six, all of which are out of production, but remain popular in the used gun market. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Once the losing team is determined and two marksmen have been sent to elimination, the Ruger Security-Six will again step to the limelight in a competition called Boots Up, which is anyone&rsquo;s guess as to the meaning. Guess we&rsquo;ll just have to wait and see.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/trick-shooting-the-classics#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-sixWed, 16 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">Readers of this blog (yes, both of you</span></span>&mdash;<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">you know who you are) will be familiar by now with my usual Tuesday evening routine of finishing work and then heading over to my local Irish bar to watch Top Shot. The reason I watch there with friends, rather than secluded in my man cave is twofold. First, the service is a lot better. Second, it's really entertaining to look around the bar during the show and see how many non-shooters become sucked into the drama that unfolds onscreen. Last night's episode was definitely a winner in that respect. I know that some of the shooters watching will have been turned off by the fact that the contest revolved around primitive weapons, but given what the show has done to bring the shooting sports into living rooms across the country, I'm OK with that.<br /><br /> I watched the table next to me during the team challenge and saw three couples in their late 50's who, by their reactions, had very limited exposure to what we as shooters do. They had however watched John Wayne movies growing up and instantly related to the practice and the players, listening intently to the expert and nodding in agreement with his assessment of their performance. <a href="http://www.jackdagger.com/media.html" target="_blank">Jack Dagger</a> was one of our favorite tutors in Season 1. The guy is a natural communicator and a very talented performer in his own field, appearing in Australia this month with his own show.<br /><br /> Watching Chris Reed make his own 'hawk' out of a weight lashed to a stick brought back memories of improvised practice sessions where the competitors used whatever came to hand to gain an incremental advantage during down time. It obviously worked for him as he stuck every axe he threw. Joe Serafini had a huge amount of pressure placed on him to make the high-risk final shot. Believe me, although you're conscious of the 150 or so people on set watching you perform, you're <em><strong> really</strong></em> cognizant that about 2.5 million of your fellow citizens are looking over your shoulder. All credit to him, he didn't choke and delivered the win.<br /><br /> If the blue team's intent was to eliminate one of their strongest players, they really couldn't have done any better than the choice they collectively made to send Daryl and Chris to the elimination range. I have a feeling that we've just heard the death rattle of the blues this season. During the elimination challenge we saw the incredible mental tenacity that Chris Tilley has used in the past to win world championships</span></span>&mdash;<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">after Daryl opened up an impressive six-point lead right out of the gate, Chris pulled himself together and relentlessly closed the gap to a nailbiting finish. When the result was announced, you could hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth all the way from the <a href="http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?act=idx" target="_blank">Brian Enos Forum </a>as the last USPSA champion was sent home.<br /><br /> Next week sees a trickshot redux, with an appearance by 3 gun phenomenon Taran Butler as one of the experts. Should be a good one.<br /></span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-six#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-fiveThu, 10 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Currently on the second leg of my March odyssey, I'm watching <a title="History Channel" href="http://www.history.com/top-shot" target="_blank">Top Shot</a> tonight with some friends in a restaurant in Fairfax Va., just down the road from NRA HQ. It feels like revisiting the scene of a crime, as last time I was here, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Official-Peter-Palma-Fan-Page/121518757889610" target="_blank">Pete Palma</a> joined me for the occasion, and the celebrations were a little, shall we say, spirited? Pete has since moved to Blake Miguez's stomping grounds, so he won't be able to make it for episode five of Season 2, but I'll be reporting back when he accompanies me to a 3-gun match next month. The inimitable <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Adam-Benson-on-Top-Shot/135691463110604" target="_blank">Adam Benson</a> is among tonight's audience however, and I know that Jermaine, George and JJ Racaza have their own viewing party tonight in Atlantic City.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">I've spoken extensively with some of the guys from the current show, and one thing that's very striking is, like their predecessors, they've formed a strong bond and remain in constant contact with one another. As shooters, we all know that the vast majority of our ranks are populated by stand-up guys and girls, so it should come as no surprise that despite the drama of the moment, captured in stunning HD, we see adult human beings able to put their emotions aside for the greater good.<br /></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">The whole bar erupted when Blake and JJ took the stage to show off just how fast they could run a <a title="1911" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/greatest-pistol-in-the-world/" target="_blank">1911</a>. This was perhaps the first time on network TV that world-class IPSC shooters had the opportunity to demonstrate just what it takes to compete at that level. At the team challenge, it was apparent that the competition was entering a new phase as there was absolutely no hesitation to sit out Brian Zins&mdash;a smart move from the blue team, one that ultimately ensured their victory. We saw that in this type of contest, victory goes not the the team that exhibits the occasional flash of brilliance, but to the guys who make fewer mistakes. I'm sure Brian's accuracy would have tipped the balance for a red win.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">As we progressed to the elimination challenge, the audience got the chance to see the artistry that comes out of Johnny Lim's shop. Jamie proved he could adapt quickly to the refined trigger and C-More sight system of the <a href="http://community.history.com/reply/396115/t/Re-For-those-that-are-interested-in-the-Razorcat.html" target="_blank">Razorcat</a> and, despite the best efforts of the editors to create tension, he pretty much wiped the floor with Eric. I'm not sure what's happening off-camera between him and some of the other military guys, but I guess we'll have to stay tuned to find out.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Right now, I'm in San Antonio to do a little hog hunting with <a href="http://www.shootingillustrated.com/category/blogs/tell-me-why/" target="_blank"> Ed Friedman</a> and Angus McClellan from <a title="Shooting Illustrated" href="http://www.shootingillustrated.com" target="_blank"><em>Shooting Illustrated</em></a> and <em>American Rifleman</em>, and I'm sure they'll keep you posted as to our success or otherwise, then it's back to the beautiful Pacific Northwest for episode six.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-five#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/second-seasonWed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><a title="Iain Harrison" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/iain-harrison/" target="_blank">Iain Harrison</a>, Top Shot Season 1 Champion and <a title="Iain Harrison Blog" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-four/" target="_blank">AmericanRifleman.org blog contributor</a>, was in-house earlier this week, so we convinced him to sit down in front of the camera and talk about the whole of Top Shot season 2 so far: what he liked, what he thought was different, recent eliminations and much more. </span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">Watch his video blog below, and be sure to follow his weekly analysis of each episode on <a title="Rifleman's Reality Shots" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/BlogList.aspx?cid=25&amp;id=34" target="_blank">Rifleman's Reality Shots</a>.<br /></span></p> <p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/eI6AF13JfF4" width="640" height="390" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/second-season#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/maggie-reese-top-shot-interviewMon, 07 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Reality Shots <a title="Jermaine Finks" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-jermaine-answers-questions/" target="_blank">once again</a> caught up with a newly ousted <a title="Top Shot Season 2" href="http://www.history.com/top-shot" target="_blank">Top Shot</a> contestant this week to discuss life before, during and after the show. This time it's <a title="Maggie Reese" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/maggie-reese" target="_blank">Maggie Reese</a>, the final woman to be eliminated from Season 2.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>American Rifleman: </strong>Was it one of your goals after being chosen for Top Shot to be a role model for women shooters?</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Maggie Reese:</strong> Honestly, I didn't think about being a role model to other women. I went on Top Shot to challenge myself and try something out of my comfort zone. But I am happy to know that has been inspiring to other women to go out and try something new as well. I've received a lot of e-mails from women saying that they are going out to the shooting range for the first time because of watching Top Shot. I feel really great about that.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>AR: </strong>How do you think viewers of the show will perceive both women being eliminated early?</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>MR:</strong> I think fans of the show understand that 15 people have to go home before one can win. The odds were stacked against the ladies from the beginning with there being only two of us and 14 men.&nbsp; But we were all initially cast for a reason and I think the viewers respect that.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>AR: </strong>It seemed as if you were more compassionate to Jay's situation and more reluctant than other team members to confront him about what was perceived as overbearing behavior. Talk a little bit about how you felt about Jay as a shooter and as a teammate during the your time in house.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>MR:</strong> I really believe that on Top Shot, you need your team to survive in order to get to the individual portion at the end and hopefully win. For that reason, I respected that others might have strengths and skills that I don't and I was willing to trust in my teammates and rely on them in competition.&nbsp; I saw Jay as someone who helped me when I asked for it and who also performed well in the challenges. But, it was during the practice session with the M1A that I saw he was not working well with the rest of the team and I saw that as being detrimental to all of us, myself included.&nbsp; That's why I voted for him over Kyle to go into the elimination round. But when he came back, I didn't want negativity to permeate throughout the group and be destructive to the team in the challenges.&nbsp; I just wanted to focus on what was important to all of us and that was winning.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>AR: </strong>Did we miss any conflict between you and the other contestants or were you generally settling disputes?</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>MR: </strong>Truthfully, there was very little conflict in the competition. Of course, there are going to be </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">stressful moments during the challenges. But, overall I think most of us got along very well and respected one another as shooters.</span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong><img title="Maggie Reese " src="http://www.americanrifleman.org/home-carousel/images/maggie.jpg" alt="Maggie Reese" width="644" height="500" /></strong></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <br /><strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>AR: </strong>Do you feel like you didn't get to show the fans your true shooting talents or are you satisfied with your performance in the challenges involving firearms?</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>MR: </strong>Of course I would have liked to go further in the competition and to have shot more firearms.&nbsp; Everyone on Top Shot is hoping to have their moment to "shine" where they get to shoot the weapon they excel at the most. Everyone wants to prove why they were picked to be there in the first place.&nbsp; Jay had that opportunity with the archery challenge. I was very disappointed to have missed the race gun challenge. But Top shot is not about excelling at one thing, it's about adapting to many.<strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> What does the future hold for you in 3-gun and other shooting competitions?<strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>MR: </strong>I've got a major 3-gun competition at the end of this month and a full schedule for the rest of the year. In October, I will be competing in <a title="IPSC" href="http://ipsc.org/" target="_blank">IPSC</a> World Shoot (which only happens every three years) as a member of the Ladies Production Team.<strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>MR:</strong> Who do you think has the best chance to win?<strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>AR: </strong>I think Blue Team's Ashley Spurlin has the best mindset and focus in the competitions. I fully expect him to be the last man standing.<em></em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><em>American Rifleman</em> social media followers also submitted questions for Maggie:<strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Alex Esplin (via Twitter):</strong> Do you think fatigue from practice was detrimental to the challenge?<strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>MR: </strong>I think fatigue played a major role in the elimination challenge. I struggled physically to draw the bow back and could never get it to full extension. But I accept that my poor performance in the team challenge put me in that position to begin with.<strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Aaron McClosky (via Facebook):</strong> What fundamentals changed most under stress?<strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>MR: </strong>Wow, great question, Aaron! For me, when I shot a weapon that I was not familiar with, I became so focused on the mundane aspects of it's operation that I lost "sight" (pun intended) of the fundamentals like good sight alignment and follow through.<strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Karen Janicek (via Facebook): </strong>There is a lot of tension on the Blue Team, following the last challenge. Do you think they will be able to pull it together?<strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>MR:</strong> I hope they can! The Blue Team has a lot a great shooters who deserve to make it to the end.&nbsp; They just need to work together as a group to maximize everyone's strengths and overcome others' weaknesses. I hope they appreciate that they need each other as a team to get to the individual portion at the end.<strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Patrick Graham (via Facebook):</strong> Will you continue to shoot 3-gun?<strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> Of course! I have a full competition schedule for the year ahead. You can follow me on my Facebook page "<a title="Top Shot Season 2 Maggie Reese" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Top-Shot-Season-2-Maggie-Reese/192910510723204" target="_blank">Top Shot Season 2 - Maggie Reese</a>" and hear all about my other shooting adventures.<strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Jacob Podgurski (via Facebook): </strong>Are you married?</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>MR:</strong> No, but I have a wonderful boyfriend who is also a competitive shooter.</span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/maggie-reese-top-shot-interview#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-fourWed, 02 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">I'm occasionally asked if the <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/iain-harrison/" target="_blank">Top Shot experience</a> did anything for me, besides the ability to buy a bit more ammo. Well, today's thrilling installment of my Season 2 review is brought to you from sunny downtown Prescott, Ariz., rather than my usual watering hole in Oregon, as this week I'm attending an industry shoot at Gunsite with the likes of Bryce Towsley and Ed Head. So yeah, there's been an entire career change in the course of a few months and to be honest, my head's still spinning. I hope that the Season 2 competitors manage to turn their appearance on the show to their advantage as like their predecessors, they're all pretty much just regular guys with a passion for the shooting sports.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Planning for <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/history-channel-top-shot-3/" target="_blank">Season 3 </a>is already well underway (casting interviews are next week in LA) and one has to wonder what the producers will come up with for non-firearm projectile weapons next time around. Lets see; stick bow, check. <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/bowtech-bows-top-shot/" target="_blank">Compound bow</a>, check. Anyone want to put money on the appearance of a recurve later this year?</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">In last night's competition it seemed the blue team had a marked disadvantage from the outset. When Colby asked for a show of hands with regards to prior experience with the compound bow, it looked as if almost the entire red team had shot one, versus only a couple for blue, and when Chris Reed saw that Bowtech on the table, he was grinning like a Cheshire cat. The blues did fairly well in practice despite their lack of experience but their cohesiveness in competition was not as great as the guys wearing the red shirts, possibly due to tensions between team members. I'm not sure I agree with a couple of comments from the red team regarding the blue team's ignorance in regards to Maggie Reese's form during the competition. Maggie wasn't using the peep sight during the team challenge, and that would have been obvious from red's perspective as they were off to the side; not so much from blues' vantage point behind her. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">I love the setting of the nomination range this year. It's burned-over, post-apocalyptic look is the perfect backdrop for the decisions that are made there. In this case, blue team showed that their strict, performance-based strategy has its limitations when it comes to planning for the long game. Next week the 1911 returns with race guns and plate racks. You think an Open division 3-gunner might prove to be an asset in those conditions? I realize that Maggie had a shaky start, but I have a feeling she'll be sorely missed when Blake Miguez and JJ Racaza return to show off the skills for which they're rightly famous.&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /></span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-four#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/bowtech-bows-top-shotTue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">On tonight's episode of Top Shot contestants will face off using something a little less powerful than the <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/m1a-and-the-glock-17/" target="_blank">Springfield M1A </a>or the <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/heres-tommy/" target="_blank">Thompson submachine gun</a></span></span></span><span id="ctl00_BodyPlaceholder_articleDisplay1_FormView1_article_textLabel"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">&mdash;</span></span></span><a href="http://www.americanhunter.org/articles/best-compound-bows-2011/?utm_source=home-tabright4&amp;utm_medium=web&amp;utm_content=3288&amp;utm_campaign=HomeTrack1" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">the compound bow.</span></span></span></a></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The men will be using the <a href="http://bowtecharchery.com/#/productBreakdown?r=products_products&amp;i=16" target="_blank">BowTech Assassin</a> which features the company's binary cam system with rotating draw length modules. The binary cam system is designed to produce flawless cam synchronization for easier tuning which should result in more consistency. The Assassin was introduced to the bowhunting public this year to great fanfare and is considered by most to be one of the fastest (333 fps) and lightest (4.8 pounds) bows on the market. </span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The women (i.e. Maggie) will be using another bow from BowTech's 2011 line, <a href="http://bowtecharchery.com/#/productBreakdown?r=products_products&amp;i=15" target="_blank">the Heartbreaker</a>. This compound was built specifically for the female archer with its lighter frame and shorter draw lengths. We've seen in the previews for episode four that Maggie may have some trouble getting on target in this challenge. Let's hope she can find a way to step up for the blue team. </span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Bowhunting innovator and <a href="http://www.brackettoutdoors.com/cbhome.htm" target="_blank">TV host Chris Brackett</a> will help contestants hone their archery skills, limited as they may be.</span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Bowhunters and archery enthusiasts across the Nation should be jealous that the Top Shot contestants were among the first to get their hands on the Assassin and the Heartbreaker. For all the fans that can't do without firearms, you can look forward to a return to the norm in next week's competition. We'll just say there is a rather popular and relevant handgun on tap. <br /></span></span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/bowtech-bows-top-shot#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-jermaine-answers-questionsFri, 25 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><em>American Rifleman</em> gave its social media audience on <a title="American Rifleman Facebook Page" href="http://www.facebook.com/AmericanRifleman" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a title="American Rifleman on Twitter" href="http://www.twitter.com/NRA_Rifleman" target="_blank">Twitter</a> a chance to ask <a title="Jermaine Finks" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/jermaine-finks" target="_blank">Jermaine Finks</a>, the most recently eliminated contestant from Top Shot, questions they had about his experience on the show. Below are Jermaine's answers.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">For future opportunities to interact with Top Shot contestants, be sure to "like" <a title="American Rifleman Facebook Page" href="http://www.facebook.com/AmericanRifleman" target="_blank">American Rifleman's page on Facebook</a> and follow <a title="American Rifleman on Twitter" href="http://www.twitter.com/NRA_Rifleman" target="_blank">NRA_Rifleman on Twitter</a>.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><img style="vertical-align: baseline;" title="Jermaine Finks" src="http://www.americanrifleman.org/home-carousel/images/jermaine_cut_blog.jpg" alt="Jermaine" /><br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><em><strong>Alex Esplin via Twitter:</strong> Was your combat experience a negative factor in the team challenge?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">Only to the point of&nbsp;being in&nbsp;"Battle Mode"&nbsp;while having a misunderstanding of the rules regarding handing off the weapon and then misjudging the third foxhole to be the last foxhole.<em></em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><em><strong>Cole McClary via Facebook:</strong> Was the front sight hard to focus on under stress?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">Actually not so much. Doing lots of scenario training under stress helped with that.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><em><strong>Brian Ostro via Facebook:</strong> Did you find it more physically demanding than you thought?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">I stay physically fit for my job and I expected this season of Top Shot to be more physically challenging. With that mindset, I amped up my regular training regimen before I came on the show, and kept at it while staying in the Top Shot house.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><em><strong>Daniel Moncier via Facebook:</strong> How did you feel about the show (the reality aspects of it) and did you learn anything from it?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">I got to meet a lot of personalities that share the same passion for the sport of shooting. It was a neat change from the folks at work, to see the difference of mindset. One thing I learned is that I'm going to get into the pro shooting circuit.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><em><strong>Guillaume Denoix via Facebook:</strong> How many years of training and shooting does it take to fully understand how to shoot? Are you able to apply your training to all firearms?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">That depends on the person's abilities, how serious they are about shooting, and how far in skill level they want to go. It takes thousands of hours, repetitions, and rounds of ammo to build muscle memory which leads to proficiency.&nbsp;With all that factored in, and with basic marksmanship fundamentals being the core of your training, you can apply your training to all firearms.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><em><strong>Bryan G. Hamilton via Facebook:</strong> How difficult was it to balance egos and performance when the cameras weren&rsquo;t on?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">We were open about everything.&nbsp;I don't think anyone tried to hide their skill level. We all had tough skin and we were a bunch of A-types who just let it flow!</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><em><strong>Patrick Graham via Facebook:</strong> Does competing on Top Shot give eliminated contestants a shot at a career in the firearms/shooting industry?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">I say it's all on how you conduct yourself when it comes to proficiency, safety, and personality.&nbsp; Not too many companies or shooting organizations want to allow negativity or unsafe practices into competitions, since it may promote and reflect that to the public. If you are seen in a positive light and can shoot,&nbsp;I think it can lead to good things.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><em><strong>Kenneth P. Jones via Facebook:</strong> After you&rsquo;ve had time to think about it, would you have rather faced Kyle (who you selected) or Jay (who your teammates selected)?</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">I picked Kyle because of his overall performance on the show, while Jay was picked for the simple reason that some of the Blue team members saw him as being unfair and not a team player.&nbsp; Even after having time to think about it, I'd still make the same decision. Out of principle, I had to stick with the original plan we all agreed upon in the beginning, that if it came to choosing who goes to the elimination challenge, it should be based on performance.</span><em><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><br /></span></em></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-jermaine-answers-questions#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/poll-jermaine-challengeWed, 23 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><a title="Top Shot Season 2" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/videos/playlists/season-2-full-episodes" target="_blank">On last night's Top Shot</a>, <a title="Jermaine Finks" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/jermaine-finks" target="_blank">Jermaine Finks</a> was eliminated from the second season at the foe/friendly plate shootout by <a title="Jay Lim" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/jay-lim" target="_blank">Jay</a>, and seems to have gotten a tough break. </span></p> <div style="margin: 20px 0px 5px 20px; float:right; clear:right;"> <script src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/4604629.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <noscript> Enable JavaScript to view poll. Or copy and paste this link: http://poll.fm/2l23h </noscript></div> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">Jermaine shot 7 "foe" plates in the challenge, for a total of 7 points, but also hit one "friendly" plate, losing a point, making his final score 6. Jay hit 6 foe plates and no friendly plates, also for a final score of 6. The tie was broken by the rule that whichever competitor had the lower number of friendly plate hits won, thus double-penalizing and eliminating Jermaine.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"> Was this fair, or should the tie-breaker have gone differently? Vote in our Top Shot Poll on the right and let your voice be heard.<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/poll-jermaine-challenge#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-episode-3-analysisWed, 23 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">As with every other human endeavor that involves lots of highly specialized people, there&rsquo;s more to this <a title="Behind the Scenes of Top Shot" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/Behind-the-Scenes-of-Top-Shot/" target="_blank">TV business than meets the eye</a>. Literally. To get some idea of what this means, imagine looking at the world through your favorite scope; there&rsquo;s that part in the glass that is crystal clear and hi-def. Then there&rsquo;s everything else &ndash; the world outside the scope that&rsquo;s happening around what you perceive to be the universe, but is just as real, just as valid. The director&rsquo;s job is to move that scope around and capture the essence of what&rsquo;s happening in the bigger picture &ndash; get it right and the image onscreen becomes a microcosm of actual events. Get it wrong and you miss out on vital information, or give entirely the wrong impression.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">With reality TV, there&rsquo;s the additional factor of the cast who might have a vested interest in keeping certain developments under wraps, so I try to watch with this in mind, looking for hints of what might be happening away from the camera. Besides, it&rsquo;s fun reading tea leaves.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">Last night&rsquo;s team challenge was a run &amp; gun event, which meant a couple of guys were at a distinct disadvantage due to the physical aspect. <a title="John Guida" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/john-guida" target="_blank">John Guida</a> probably took a lot of flak from the MMQB crowd for his decision to retire, but I respect his decision not to hamper his team; despite this being an individual competition, the best way not to be eliminated in the early stages is to make sure your team wins and if you personally can&rsquo;t make it all the way through, why drag them down? As usual, Craig Sawyer did good work getting the weaker team members <a title="M1A" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/videos/weapons-rundown-m1a" target="_blank">up to speed</a> on the <a title="M1A1 Rifle History" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/springfield-armory-m1a-rifle/" target="_blank">M1A1</a> and I bet <a title="Maggie Reese" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/maggie-reese" target="_blank">Maggie Reese</a> was cringing during the event to see all of the 180 violations when moving. Oh, and I&rsquo;ve <em>got</em> to get some explosive targets for my next match.</span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><img style="float: right;" title="Jermaine Finks" src="http://www.americanrifleman.org/home-carousel/images/jermaine_add_in.jpg" alt="Jermaine Finks" width="300" height="500" /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">If ever there was an illustration that shooting is a mental game, this episode was it. After charging through the team event at warp speed, Jermaine discovered that all his efforts had been in vain due to not following Colby&rsquo;s instructions and his mistakes wound up losing the challenge for blue team. The elimination challenge was every instructor&rsquo;s nightmare.&nbsp; You spend countless hours and thousands of rounds tweaking your grip, modifying your stance, working on trigger control and sight alignment in order make the mechanics of shooting a subconscious event. Then you&rsquo;re beaten on national TV by <a title="Jay Lim" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/jay-lim" target="_blank">some dude</a> who looks like he learned to shoot by watching Starsky &amp; Hutch reruns. Jay mentioned that the pistol he was using was hitting low left. Anyone want to take a guess as to why that might be? What Jay did have however, was the mental fortitude to take on someone who was obviously the better shot; he stayed strong, shot his own match and let the other guy crumble. In the end, his opponent beat himself. There&rsquo;s a lesson in there for all of us.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">Next week sees the challenge switch from bullets to bows, with gear supplied by my fellow Oregonians at Bowtech. I have a feeling that <a title="Chris Reed" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/chris-reed" target="_blank">Chris Reed</a> and Jay Lim will be the hot ticket.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-episode-3-analysis#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/m1a-and-the-glock-17Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">On Tonight&rsquo;s Top Shot, the remaining competitors will be shooting two firearms that are very popular with the shooting public&mdash;the M1A and the Glock 17. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/springfield-armory-m1a-rifle/" target="_blank">Springfield M1A</a> is a civilian version of the M14 that served the U.S. military from 1959 to 1970 when it was replaced by the M16. Many people still claim that the M14 was the better battle rifle due to its powerful 7.62 mm chambering. For many years, the M1A looked exactly like its select-fire cousin without the selector switch&mdash;though until the &lsquo;90s, the stocks still had the switch cutout. The belief that the M14 was the better rifle has kept up its popularity and Springfield Armory still produces eight models of the M1A. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/glock-17-pistol-history-review/" target="_blank">Glock 17</a> was also originally designed for military use&mdash;the Austrian military and police forces&mdash;and was Gaston Glock&rsquo;s first entry in the handgun market. Considering the popularity of Glock today, it&rsquo;s hard to imagine the less-than-stellar reception that this new &ldquo;plastic pistol&rdquo; received from American shooters in the early 1980s. However, once the Glock Safe Action Pistol was accepted by a few American police forces, it quickly rolled over to American shooters. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The competitors of Top Shot should be familiar with both of these firearms, providing an interesting show to determine who will fire their last shot.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/m1a-and-the-glock-17#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/athena-lee-top-shot-exit-interviewThu, 17 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">As we'll attempt to do every week, Reality Shots caught up with Top Shot contestant Athena Lee to get her reaction to being the second shooter (and first woman) eliminated from the show. Before we go any further, we'd just like to commend her for going full auto on the Thompson submachine gun during the elimination challenge. Athena, you certainly went out with a bang. <br /></span></span></p> <p><strong><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">AR: </span></span></strong><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">What did you make of the overall experience of Top Shot? Do you have any regrets (apart from not winning)?</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Athena Lee:</strong> <em>Despite not being in the show for very long, my overall experience was good. I met 15 incredibly talented people from all over the country who shared my passion for shooting. This definitely was a once in a lifetime experience that I do not regret doing. My only regret is not having time to prepare myself by practicing with guns that I was not familiar with.</em><br /><br /><strong>AR: </strong>What was your reaction to being picked last when the red and blue teams were originally formed?<br /><br /><strong>AL: </strong><em>I certainly wasn't excited about being picked last. The rational part of me was thinking, "These people don't know what I do." So I just sucked it up and hoped that I could prove myself to these people.</em><br /><br /><strong>AR: </strong>When did you start shooting? Who took you to the range for the first time and how old were you?</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>AL: </strong><em>I am a competitive IPSC/USPSA shooter. This is my 20th year competing in the Open Division. My dad brought me to the shooting range with him a few weeks before my 13th birthday.</em><em><br /></em></span><span style="font-size: small;"><strong><img title="Athena Lee " src="http://www.americanrifleman.org/home-carousel/images/ts_athenal_1018201-cb-0338.jpg" alt="Athena Lee" width="644" height="400" /></strong><strong></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>AR: </strong>How do you think you performed in the team challenges? Do you think you are a better shooter than your performance on the show indicated?<br /><br /><strong>AL: </strong><em>Well, not hitting a single thing on the team challenge definitely crushed my soul. I went into this competition thinking that as long as I follow the fundamentals of shooting (sight alignment, trigger control, etc.), it wouldn't matter what gun was presented to us. I'm used to shooting with a camera behind me and crowds of people watching so I didn't think it was going to be a big deal but when you go to the line with guns that you barely have time to practice with or none at all (first challenge), that throws you off quite a bit. I know I am a better shooter than what my performance on the show indicated. You don't win two IPSC world championships by missing all your targets. I don't mind losing or failing because I know that only makes me a better competitor but to failboat two challenges in front of millions of people is very disheartening.</em><br /><br /><strong>AR:</strong> Did the paintball aspect of the team challenge effect the way you performed? Were you tired or anxious when you got the Colt revolver?<br /><br /><strong>AL:</strong> <em>The physical aspect of the paintball challenge did not affect me at all. I am used to going on full sprints and stopping abruptly and engage targets. The only thing I stressed about was the debate in my head whether to shoot the Colt revolver single action or double action. Earlier at practice, I tried it both ways and found that I shot better in double action. How? I will never know but I think it was that inner argument that brought about my missing those targets. As any competitive shooter would attest, once those voices in your head start arguing, you're pretty much toast.<br /></em><strong><br />AR:</strong> In that light, why do you think you were nominated?<br /><br /><strong>AL:</strong><em><strong> </strong>Simply, I didn't perform. I'm supposed to be a pistol shooter and I didn't hit a thing.<br /></em><br /><strong>AR:</strong> Had you ever fired full-auto firearms before the Thompson?<br /><br /><strong>AL:</strong><em> Never. I've seen the Thompson in movies and I've always wanted to shoot one because it just looks so cool.</em><br /><br /><strong>AR: </strong>Being one of two women on the show, did you see any difference in the way you (and Maggie) were treated by the men? What were some of the differences in terms of accommodations, living space, conversations, etc. between you and Maggie and you and the male participants?<br /><br /><strong>AL: </strong><em>The guys treated us very well. They were all gentlemen and were like brothers. Maggie and I shared a room in an extended part of the house. As for conversations, etc., it was like family.</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>AR: </strong>What are your thoughts on the significance of Top Shot when it comes to exposing the public to shooting and allowing the normal person to see firearms in a different light?<br /><br /><strong>AL:</strong> <em>When I first saw Top Shot, it made me happy. I love to promote shooting as a sport and emphasizing that guns aren't things you should be afraid of. I like how Top Shot encourages&nbsp; shooting. I've heard so many feedback from people who never shot before wanting to go try shooting because it looked like FUN on TV. There are many schools of thought when it comes to shooting and I'm more into the sporting aspect of it. It's a great skill to have!</em><br /><br /><strong>AR:</strong> Would you do this whole thing over again? Why or why not?<br /><br /><strong>AL: </strong><em>Only if I was casted with this Season's Cast. I can't imagine being with any other group of people. We have a lot of GREAT people from the military who definitely represented their respective branches very well. I can honestly say that I am glad we have these people protecting our country.</em><br /><br /><strong>AR:</strong> Who is your pick to win this season? Why?</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><em><strong>AL: </strong>Gosh, that's hard. Of course I'm rooting for Maggie but there are so many talented and well-rounded shooters this season that it is difficult to pick!</em><br /><br /><strong>AR:</strong> We've also polled our readers for questions. Here are the two best: <br /><br /><strong>@EnBloc via Twitter: </strong>What did you do to prepare for the Top Shot competitions before you went on the show?<br /><br /><strong>AL:</strong> <em>Unfortunately (and regrettably), I didn't have time to prepare for the show because shooting season was in full swing prior to filming. I had two major matches that I had to attend from the time I got the call that I got into the show and the actual filming. They were crucial matches because I had to make my points so that I can make it into the women's team for the world championships in Greece this year. Though it may not be obvious from my horrible performance on the show, I made it into the women's team and I can't wait to get back into training so that we can win another gold medal in Greece!</em><br />&nbsp;<br /><strong>Dan Kemp via Facebook: </strong>Do you think it was a good idea to go full auto on the Thompson in the final challenge, after you were already having a hard time controlling it?<br /><br /><strong>AL<em>: </em></strong><em>How can you NOT go full-auto when you have a Thompson in your hands?? Joking aside, I was exhausted from the practice sessions. I could hardly see my target once we started our elimination challenge because of the smoke. I don't know how I got the strength to shoot the elimination match but I can definitely say I was running on pure adrenaline. I'm not a quitter but I am logical. I could feel everything was stacked against me because I could hardly see my target through the bursts that I was doing, I was tired, the trigger was long and heavy (I used two fingers to pull)...Once your body is tired, the mind follows. So I reloaded after that and just went full-auto (And boy, did it feel good!).</em></span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/athena-lee-top-shot-exit-interview#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/episode-two-iain-harrison-top-shotWed, 16 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p class="x_MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><em>By Iain Harrison, Top Shot Season 1 Champion</em></span></span></p> <p class="x_MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">I'm sitting here in the bar filled with fellow shooters who have taken the place over, and we&rsquo;re deep into discussion regarding this week&rsquo;s show. At the Top Shot house, there already seems to be a schism forming between the competitive shooters and the military guys. I must confess to being torn between the two. I&rsquo;m currently competing on the local circuit, but I have a military background which makes it hard for me to pick sides. I guess I&rsquo;ll just have to see how this one plays out.</span></span></p> <p class="x_MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">During the team challenge, <a href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/brian-gunny-zins" target="_blank">10-time national champion Brian Zins </a>showed why he ended up on the podium so often, tearing up the bull's eye on his targets with precision. He comes across on screen as a kind of cuddly, friendly elder statesman, but having met the guy I should probably point out that he&rsquo;s a 20-year Marine corps veteran and current private military contractor with a rock hard psyche. It would be incredibly foolish to underestimate him.</span></span></p> <p class="x_MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Once again, we saw specialists at the top of their game unable to adapt to the crude iron sights, stock grips and trigger of a vintage revolver. To be honest, I&rsquo;m a little worried as this year, I&rsquo;m about to start my first season in USPSA&rsquo;s Open division, shooting a widebody 1911 with a red dot sight. Don&rsquo;t get me wrong, this combo is the most fun you can have within the US borders, but I&rsquo;m 100 percent positive <a href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/athena-lee" target="_blank">Athena Lee</a> will kick my butt all over the range when our paths cross; she&rsquo;s an incredible athlete in her field. But I&rsquo;m going to go out of my way to shoot the crappiest guns in my collection to make sure I can still make hits on demand with say, an as issued SMLE or better still, a Nagant M1895.</span></span></p> <p class="x_MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">The elimination challenge</span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">, in my humble opinion,</span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"> was one of the best ever, starting with the practice session which took us all back to the county fair and the &lsquo;Shoot the Star&rsquo; sideshow. There was one small problem, though, the Thompson was captioned as being referred to as the &lsquo;annihilator&rsquo; in WWI, yet the following scene had it (correctly) captioned as being introduced in 1919. </span></span></p> <p class="x_MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Each one of those Thompsons had to have been worth at least $20,000 and getting the chance to see contestants rock and roll with six 50-round drums until the barrels were smoking hot was worth the price of admission. The size and weight (14 pounds) of the firearm placed Athena at a distinct disadvantage, but you have to give her credit &ndash; when she saw she was losing to Jamie, that mental switch was flipped and the red mist came down. If you&rsquo;re going to go out, go out in style.</span></span></p> <p class="x_MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">On another note, having been on the other side of the cameras, I would hesitate to condemn anyone for their performance as a teammate, as so much of your on-screen persona is determined by editing. Please bear that in mind as you cheer or jeer for your personal heroes or villains. It will do you well to remember that this is just TV and if the director evokes strong emotions in his portrayal of certain characters, well, he&rsquo;s done his job.</span></span></p> <p class="x_MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Next week we'll welcome return of our friend Craig Sawyer as the expert, putting the competitors through their paces with the M1A1. For those who missed him on Season 1, Craig is the real deal; an ex-SEAL who has been there, done that and got the T shirt, but is a genuinely good guy. &nbsp;With red and blue now even, it&rsquo;s a given that the team with the most practical riflemen (its non-gender specific meaning &ndash; sorry Maggie) will have the upper hand.</span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/episode-two-iain-harrison-top-shot#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/heres-tommyTue, 15 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a title="Top Shot" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot" target="_blank">Top Shot</a> kicked this season off by having shooters compete for team selection, team challenge and show survival <a title="Top Shot Guns Episode 1" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/its-all-about-the-guns/" target="_blank">using three iconic American firearms</a>. It was a great start for a show that spotlights both historic and modern firearms in a very positive light. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">This week, competitors will be using two more well-known American guns to continue their quest to be the next Top Shot. In fact, it&rsquo;s almost as if they&rsquo;ll be playing Cops and Robbers since they&rsquo;ll be competing with two guns that saw major use during Prohibition. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The <a title="Colt Official Police" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colt_Official_Police" target="_blank">Colt Official Police Revolver</a> was introduced in 1927 and became one of the most popular handguns with law enforcement officers, while the <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/world-war-ii-thompson/" target="_blank">Thompson submachine gun</a> was made famous by gangsters like Al Capone and Machinegun Kelly, and even fired by England Prime Minister Winston Churchill. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now one of the most interesting aspects of this week&rsquo;s show was revealed, but not fully explained, in last week&rsquo;s previews. It looks as if contestants will be shooting at the opposing team with paintball guns during the team challenge. This should provide an increased level difficulty and excitement for both the competitors and the viewers at home.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/heres-tommy#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-team-pollSat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">On the <a title="Top Shot Season 2" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/videos/playlists/season-2-full-episodes" target="_blank">season 2 premiere of Top Shot</a>, as <a title="Iain Harrison Top Shot" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-one/" target="_blank">Iain alluded to</a>, the two team captains chosen by their <a title="Sharps Rifle" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/sharps-50-caliber-rifle/" target="_blank">Sharps</a>' shooting ability couldn't have been more different.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"><img title="Top Shot Season 2" src="http://www.americanrifleman.org/home-carousel/images/tsmontage2.jpg" alt="Top Shot Season 2" width="492" height="194" /><br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;"> Blue Team Captain <a title="Jay Lim" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/jay-lim" target="_blank">Jay Lim</a> had a strategic and preplanned tactic for assembling his team: he informally interviewed many of the other contestants, making a list of possible prospects, and ultimately ended up with a group of shooters with significant competitive experience. Red Team Captain <a title="Chris Reed" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/chris-reed" target="_blank">Chris Reed</a> had a laid back approach and let the cards fall where they may, winding up with a team comprised of mostly ex-military shooters and instructors. </span></p> <div style="margin: 20px 0px 5px 20px; float:right; clear:right;"> <script src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/4538229.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <noscript> Enable JavaScript to view poll. Or copy and paste this link: http://poll.fm/2l23h </noscript></div> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: small;">The <a title="Travis Marsh" href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/interview-with-travis-marsh-top-shot/" target="_blank">Blue Team is already down a player</a>; did Jay overthink his team choice, or will his strategy ultimately hold out?</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/top-shot-team-poll#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/interview-with-travis-marsh-top-shotFri, 11 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">As we'll attempt to do every week with the eliminated contestants, Reality Shots caught up with newly ousted <a href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/travis-marsh" target="_blank">Travis Marsh</a> from </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Top Shot Season 2</span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"> to see how he felt about his short time on the show. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> How do feel about being the first to leave the Top Shot house? We know you were expecting to stay a little longer. <br /><br /><strong>Travis Marsh: </strong><em>Well I was definitely expecting to stay a little longer, but I was stoked to be there. Ever since I was 13 years old I've been shooting competitively, you know, international shooting and stuff like that. I used to get so mad because I was too good for my own good. I got a big head because I was pretty much unstoppable. <br /><br />I would go to the Olympic festival and ESPN would be sitting there filming the swimming, filming the track and field and talking to all these people and I was like &ldquo;What the heck? What about shooting?&rdquo; Shooting was an Olympic sport and we&rsquo;ve been the first medal almost every year and yet they didn't show anything about Olympic shooting. It used to frustrate me. I always wanted shooting to get a chance on TV, and when this show happened I was like &ldquo;Holy crap, this is great!&rdquo; Just to go there and compete against some good folks and walk in to that house was awesome. You never know what to expect when you are going on TV. Typically, when you go to a shooting match it&rsquo;s a whole different ballgame. You get in the same mindset of the shooting match, but you have to ask what the twist is going to be. The twist is that you are living in a house with 15 other Type A personalities and there&rsquo;s no TV, no radio or anything. It was just crazy. <br /></em></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><em><img style="margin: 5px;" title="Travis Marsh " src="http://www.americanrifleman.org/home-carousel/images/ts_travism_1018201-cb-0711-1.jpg" alt="Travis Marsh " width="600" height="400" /></em></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong> How many days were you there in total? <br /><br /><strong>TM:</strong><em> I was out there for a little over a week. The first part of it is getting things situated, and we had a couple of bad days because of weather and stuff like that. I never knew what it took to create a TV show, and I found out the biggest joke out there is &ldquo;TV magic.&rdquo; They re-filmed different things, especially the opening scenarios, not the shooting part of it and being in the house, but there is so much more involved. We spent three days just doing interviews and just filming us walking across a field. That field was ragged, but once 16 people walked back and forth over that field, we flattened it out and made it a big road. It was insane, I felt like I was in the military marching up and back all that time.</em><br /><br /><strong>AR:</strong> Did you have any experience with the .44 Mag. before the final competition? <br /><br /><strong>TM:</strong><em> No, not at all. As a matter of fact, I have a .44 Mag. rifle which was my first hunting rifle. It was a Ruger .44 Mag. It was funny because I was all excited to get to shoot Dirty Harry's pistols. I&rsquo;ve always wanted a Smith &amp; Wesson .44 Mag., and getting to shoot it was great but, absolutely not, I had not shot it before that&hellip;.In practice it took me about two or three shots to feel the trigger, to feel how to shoot that [gun] and after that I felt like I was unstoppable because I was on target. But then you turn around and go from stationary targets at 50 feet to little plates moving at you and dropping, it was like &ldquo;OK, this is cool.&rdquo; Then they told me that Chris Tilley hit five, you have to beat five. Now, I've got to hit five, I got six shots and I&rsquo;m going to have to reload here if I miss one shot, and all these things start clicking in your head. It&rsquo;s a mental game. Being out of competitive shooting for so long, I knew what I needed to do and I just failed to do that. I failed to get my head where it needed to be. I let my emotions get way too ahead of me. <br /><br /></em></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Do you think that not being in the shooting game over the last few years hurt your reputation going into the competition? Did that factor in being picked for the elimination challenge? <em><br /><br /><strong>TM:</strong> Absolutely, that was 100 percent as to why I was picked. I can&rsquo;t see into Chris, Maggie and Kyle&rsquo;s minds. But, think about it, we were talking and we said &ldquo;Other guys hit the balls but me, Chris, Maggie and Kyle didn&rsquo;t hit any solid balls&rdquo; during our roundtable meeting. I opened my mouth during that, which didn&rsquo;t help me. I said &ldquo;Chris and Maggie, you guys are pistol shooters, you do nothing but shoot pistols and you guys couldn&rsquo;t hit the easiest ball as a target. You two need to go up for elimination, it&rsquo;s just unacceptable.&rdquo; I&rsquo;m not a pistol shooter, Kyle&rsquo;s not a pistol shooter and we didn&rsquo;t hit the solid balls like we should have, absolutely. Could you pick us? Sure you could. But who should you pick? The two people who are professional pistol shooters who didn&rsquo;t perform in this game. The blue team should have faired so much better and we didn&rsquo;t. I think me saying that didn&rsquo;t help, plus the fact that Chris, Maggie and Kyle had to pick who they wanted to go against. They probably said &ldquo;I want to go against a guy who isn&rsquo;t a pistol shooter and hasn&rsquo;t shot recently.&rdquo; The thing is, I am a better shooter than that, and I&rsquo;m disappointed in myself. I didn&rsquo;t perform well in the challenge, Chris outperformed me.</em><br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>AR:</strong></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"> The trailer for next week&rsquo;s episode sort of foreshadows some personality conflicts. Did you see any of that while you were there? <br /><br /><strong>TM: </strong><em>Not really but you can see that it can happen. Again, 16 type A personalities in a house is a lot to deal with because you&rsquo;ve got different people with different attitudes. I&rsquo;d say about 98 percent of the time everyone got along well and it was perfect. After a while people can rub on each other and rub on each other the wrong way&hellip;.I didn&rsquo;t want to be dramatic. Believe me I could have walked back in that house after the elimination challenge, and I could have went crazy on half the people in the house. I couldn&rsquo;t do it because I didn&rsquo;t want people to go &ldquo;Here we go, another drama-filled Top Shot.&rdquo; Shooters don&rsquo;t want that, they want to see shooting. I want this TV show to succeed beyond belief, and the fact that people who don&rsquo;t shoot watch this show and see shooting in a positive light is awesome.&nbsp; <br /></em><br /><strong>AR: </strong>Final question, from your experience in that week, who do you think is going to win? <br /><br /><strong>TM:</strong> <em>I think everyone will be surprised with who wins. It&rsquo;s hard to pick after just seeing one show because you don&rsquo;t really know people&rsquo;s background and what they specialize in....I like Jermaine, he&rsquo;s a really calm, cool and collected type of guy and a class act. He could be a force to reckon with in this competition. Who do I think is going to win? I think everybody has a pretty good shot but I&rsquo;ll throw in my hat for Jermaine. I&rsquo;ll give him a heads up. <br /></em><br /></span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/interview-with-travis-marsh-top-shot#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-oneWed, 09 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><em><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">By Iain Harrison, Top Shot Season 1 Champion </span></span></em></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">During <a href="http://www.americanhunter.org/articles/Behind-the-Scenes-of-Top-Shot/" target="_blank">Season 1 of Top Shot</a>, I'd head to a local watering hole to watch the show on Sunday evenings with a few friends. Our weekly viewing parties eventually grew to around 150 people, all jammed into a local bar, hooting and hollering as characters on the screen gave it their best shot. This time around, the crowds are a lot smaller, but we're still meeting to discuss the action, pick our own personal favorites and analyze the shots as they happen, so I hope you'll join us online to add your voice to the throng.<br /><br /><img style="float: right; margin: 5px;" title="Iain " src="http://www.americanrifleman.org/home-carousel/images/7_top_shot_harrison.jpg" alt="Iain " width="644" height="500" /><br /><br />Last night saw the 16 contestants meet officially for the first time. Some of them know each other from the competition circuit already and if they're anything like the Season 1 guys, most of them snuck out of the hotel when they were supposed to be sequestered during the casting process and headed to the nearest bar (yeah, there's a theme here). For the most part though, after they first encounter the entire field, the competitors have their guards up and are feeling each other out, trying to figure out each others' weaknesses while adapting to the this new and very foreign environment.<br /><br />While certain aspects of Season 2 were instantly familiar to fans, right off the bat the producers threw the audience a curve ball, pitting the competitors against each other with a Sharps falling block rifle and a 6 moa target at 200 yards. A note on the first challenge; in an ideal scenario, the competitors would have had a sighter and then a shot for record, rather than just one round to count. You could see that variations in sight picture really played a huge part in the bullets' point of impact, with the majority of them printing low right</span></span><span id="ctl00_BodyPlaceholder_articleDisplay1_FormView1_article_textLabel"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">&mdash;</span></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">great to see that big chunk of lead arcing downrange though.<br /><br />Nonetheless, having the competitors select their own teams was a smart move. Despite an exhaustive selection process, the competitors probably know more about each others' shooting skills than the guys behind the cameras. It will be interesting to see whether Jay's exhaustive interviews work in the long run. Seems like he strongly favored the competitive shooters while <a title="Chris Reed" href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/chris-reed" target="_blank">Chris Reed's</a> laid back approach meant his team was packed with military guys.<br /><br />The team challenge begged the observation that you shoot best what you shoot the most. Having World class USPSA shooters compete with a real 1911 pattern pistol, complete with thumbnail front sight, tiny fixed notch rear, stock trigger and awful grip safety was a real leveler and gave the guys with everyday guns in their safe a leg up. It also was a learning experience for the guys behind the scenes</span></span><span id="ctl00_BodyPlaceholder_articleDisplay1_FormView1_article_textLabel"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">&mdash;</span></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">shooting smooth spheroids with a hardball is a lot harder than it sounds in the production meeting, huh?<br /><br />It should have come as a surprise to no one that Chris T. prevailed in the elimination challenge. The guy is one of the strongest IPSC shooter out there (he's on the US squad for the World Shoot in Greece this summer), so he's no stranger to coming up with a plan and sticking to it. Looked like he shot the entire challenge in single action mode despite it being slower and forcing him to break his grip on every shot, which kind of reinforces the point about shooting best what you shoot the most. <a href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/travis-marsh" target="_blank">Travis</a> got to find out that an offhand comment can come back to haunt you</span></span><span id="ctl00_BodyPlaceholder_articleDisplay1_FormView1_article_textLabel"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">&mdash;</span></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">digital is forever.<br /><br />In next week's show it looks like the pace is stepped up a notch. Thompsons, drum mags and paintball guns</span></span><span id="ctl00_BodyPlaceholder_articleDisplay1_FormView1_article_textLabel"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">&mdash;</span></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">can't wait!&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /></span></span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/iain-harrison-top-shot-episode-one#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/its-all-about-the-gunsTue, 08 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">History Channel&rsquo;s Top Shot was a breakout hit in 2010, as much for the firearms spotlighted as for the shooters competing. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">This season promises to be even better with new contestants, new challenges and, of course, new firearms. Tonight&rsquo;s show will feature 16 competitors firing three different, but well-known guns: the <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/sharps-50-caliber-rifle/" target="_blank">Sharps .50</a> caliber rifle, a <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/greatest-pistol-in-the-world/" target="_blank">Colt 1911</a> in .45 ACP and the <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/smith-wesson-model-29/" target="_blank">Smith &amp; Wesson Model 29</a> in .44 Mag. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Sharps has long been revered for its placement in American History, while Ole Slab Sides is celebrating its 100 year anniversary as the most popular pistol in America. And the Model 29 became famous when Clint Eastwood handled the &ldquo;<a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/GalleryItem.aspx?cid=22&amp;gid=90&amp;id=607" target="_blank">most powerful handgun in the world</a>&rdquo; in the Dirty Harry movies. </span></p> <p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">While <a href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot" target="_blank">Season 2</a> will no doubt feature some typical reality-show personality drama, Top Shot is about guns, the people who love guns and some really cool shots.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/its-all-about-the-guns#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/colby-donaldson-talks-top-shot-season-twoMon, 07 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">In anticipation of tomorrow&rsquo;s premiere of Top Shot Season 2, we caught up with host and former <em>Survivor </em>contestant Colby Donaldson to get his thoughts on Season 1 and let fans in on what they can expect the second time around.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">AR:</strong> What attracted you to Top Shot when you first heard about the idea for the show? <br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">CD:</strong> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I&rsquo;ve been shooting since I was six. So, the first interview that I had with the producers and the network&mdash;it just felt right. It is one of those unique opportunities to pursue and take part in a job that is a part of your passion. I&rsquo;ve been incredibly enthusiastic about studying firearms for several decades, and I think it was a surprise to those who brought me in as a host that I had a background and knowledge of weapons. That was the fun part, getting to stretch my legs in terms of the weapons and the language. As you can imagine, in Hollywood there aren&rsquo;t a lot of guys out there that shoot on a regular basis. So, it was a good fit and that&rsquo;s what has been so much fun.<br /><br /></em></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">AR:</strong> With that past knowledge of firearms, do you think you could have done well in Season 1 as a competitor? <br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">CD:</strong> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">At first, my ignorance combined with arrogance had me thinking that I could actually contend with these guys. I learned really quickly when I showed up for Season 1 that I couldn&rsquo;t hang with them. Now, there are a lot of weapons that I feel like I would match up very well, but the cool aspect of Top Shot is you have to have that breadth of ability and that adaptability. I&rsquo;m not proficient with a bow&mdash;whether it&rsquo;s a long bow or compound&mdash;so there are certain weapons in which I know I would fall short. Some of these competitors blow me away at just how talented they are at being able to pick up a completely forgiven weapon and, after one practice session, they&rsquo;re completely proficient with it. It&rsquo;s impressive, and it&rsquo;s fun to watch. But I will tell you this: Season 2 was a humbling experience for the entire gang. Our challenges are so much more difficult than Season 1. Not just in terms of the weapons and how random those may be, but just what we required of the shooters. <img style="margin: 5px; float: right;" title="Colby " src="http://www.americanrifleman.org/home-carousel/images/ts_colby_1018201-cb-0520.jpg" alt="Colby" width="350" height="467" /><br /><br /></em></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">AR:</strong> Is there one aspect of the shooting competition that you singled out from Season 1 that you wanted to change going into filming for Season 2?<br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">CD:</strong> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On the production side we get rather nitpicky, and our job is to improve. There were a lot of logistics in terms of covering the challenges, you know, camera-wise. We are a small crew by comparison to other network competition shows like Amazing Race or even Survivor, and yet I think we put together a product that stands tall up against those programs. But you want more of everything, you want more camera angles, you want more slow motion. You just want to give the viewer the same experience we had when we were out there filming it, and that&rsquo;s very difficult to do. The weapons are unbelievable, the challenges are epic and we want to bring that into your living room. That&rsquo;s the thing about Season 1; it was the first time for all of us. The producers, cameramen and the directors were figuring out on the fly how to cover everything and how to get the best shot. Because it&rsquo;s a competition you can&rsquo;t retake, you can&rsquo;t stop and say &ldquo;back it up guys let&rsquo;s do that over again.&rdquo; There are no rehearsals, it is literally one take, one shot and you hope to get the action. That&rsquo;s what we learned from Season 1; we needed to make sure our camera guys were in position to truly capture what is taking place out there on the range.<br /><br /></em></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">AR:</strong> When you referred to the AR-15 as the &ldquo;modern sporting rifle&rdquo; in Season 1 the reaction here at the NRA and even in the gun blog world was &ldquo;we&rsquo;ve won.&rdquo; You used the proper term to describe the rifle instead of labeling it with the words &ldquo;assault&rdquo; or &ldquo;baby killer,&rdquo; and you did it on a mainstream television show. Have you gotten any feedback from that? <br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">CD: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></strong><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thanks, I appreciate the comment. The feedback that I&rsquo;ve gotten from everyone, whether I&rsquo;m in the hardware store or even the gun store, is that people want to talk about the show. They love to give feedback not only on the weapons but the challenges, and the interesting thing is the suggestions you get. Our armchair quarterbacks are the inspirations literally for the weapons we chose for Season 2. Half of the weapons we use on Season 2&mdash;by the way, the AR-15 comes back, it is in Season 2&mdash;were chosen because of suggestions we get, and I get personally, from the viewer. My personal stance on the AR platform rifle, and I have one in the back of my truck right now, it is the most utilitarian recreational sporting rifle that you can have&hellip;.It is my favorite rifle, bar none.</em> <br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">AR: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span></strong>Let&rsquo;s get into Season 2 and talk about the cast a little bit. Who was the most surprising contestant?<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <br /><br /></strong></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">CD: </strong><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I have to be careful not to give anything away here. But, I&rsquo;ll tell you what, Kyle [Frasure] surprised a lot of people. I think any of the shooters that come in&mdash; this will hold true regardless of what season you are referring to&mdash;as professionals are always going to be one dimensional&hellip;.I think your professionals, and Kyle is a shotgun guy, come into this thing being incredible with one weapon. I mean, any of your professionals are just hoping to last long enough to get to their specialty. What always surprised me are the guys who come in who don&rsquo;t have a military, hunting or recreational background that pick up anything you give them and they go out and perform well. Kyle was one of those guys. He was not arrogant about anything, and he was open about learning and listening. He absorbed from not only the experts that came in, but the other contestants. He was one of those guys who impressed me.<br /><br /></em></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">AR: </strong>On the other hand, were there any highly touted contestants that didn&rsquo;t perform well? <br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">CD: </strong><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I don&rsquo;t want to sound like a broken record, but I&rsquo;ll go to the experts. There were those that came in highly decorated in their field that were not able to adapt and did not, in my opinion, listen and learn and absorb like Kyle did or like other people did. As a result, they didn&rsquo;t do well. I&rsquo;m not going to get specific on that. There wasn&rsquo;t anyone out there that disappointed me, but it was very clear that the key to this competition is you have to be able to adapt. That&rsquo;s why I believe your military and recreational backgrounds, whether its men or women, tend to fare well in this competition.<br /><br /></em></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">AR:</em></strong><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </em>We saw a lot of drama and controversy last season with Adam and Caleb. Some people enjoyed that aspect of the show while others were turned off. Was there any similar drama in Season 2?<em><br /><br /></em></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">CD: </strong><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">[Top Shot] is different from any other type of competition show for one season and one reason only: If you show up and perform you can&rsquo;t be sent home. It eliminates, to answer your question, all the conniving, backstabbing, manipulating and plotting. I think part of it also has to do with the mentality of the majority of shooters. Those with a background in marksmanship truly believe that to be the best you have to beat the best. So, there&rsquo;s not a lot of [drama] because we don&rsquo;t need it on this show. The excitement and fun for the viewer is in watching the challenges and watching the competition. <br /><br /></em></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">AR: </strong>In talking to contestants from the first season, all 16 of them seemed to form a bound and a friendship from the show. They were unified as a part of the community of shooters. Did you see that in the Season 2 cast?<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <br /><br /></strong></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">CD</strong><em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">: I think what you will see on Season 2 is a unity among those with a background in armed forces. We had the military guys truly bond on this season. Obviously they are a part of the brotherhood already, but there was a unity that you didn&rsquo;t see in Season 1.<br /><br /></em></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">AR:</strong> Finally, what is one aspect of Top Shot Season 2 that will most excite the AmericanRifleman.org readers and other fans of the show? <br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">CD:</strong> <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We took everything from Season 1 and amplified it. It is basically Season 1 on steroids. That goes for the weapons, the challenges, the level of competition and the challenge to the shooter. Everything is amplified, and that&rsquo;s it. I&rsquo;m not being vague, but I knew what the challenges were going to be and even I was surprised at how it played out. It&rsquo;s going to be a great season.</em></span></span></span><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"> <br /></span></span></strong></p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/colby-donaldson-talks-top-shot-season-two#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/riflemans-realityFri, 04 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT<p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">With last year's introduction of the <a href="http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/videos/playlists/season-2-bios#meet-maggie-reese" target="_blank">History Channel's Top Shot</a>, the firearms world got its first taste of reality TV&hellip;.and we loved it. The manufactured drama might not be our style, but the historical, competitive and, of course, shooting aspects hooked us from episode one. <br /><br />With Season 2 set to debut this Tuesday, Feb. 8 on the History Channel, we're turning our fascination with this reality shooting competition into a blog. <br /><br />On board for this effort is the first ever Top Shot <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/iain-harrison/" target="_blank">champion Iain Harrison</a>. The savvy Brit marksman will be checking in every week to give his <a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/top-shot-champ-answers-questions/" target="_blank">candid opinions </a>on everything from behind-the-scenes hijinks to how each historically inspired challenge was constructed. We'll have interviews with contestants, reviews of the firearms used and plenty of chances for you to <a href="http://community.history.com/forums/170/" target="_blank">voice your opinion</a>. <br /><br />There's a new cast, new guns, something new for us to do on Tuesday nights and, while nobody is getting $100,000 for this effort, we plan to have some fun along the way. </span></span></p> <p> <object width="640" height="385" data="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/sjI4J1axFQI?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0&amp;hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> <param name="src" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/sjI4J1axFQI?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0&amp;hd=1" /> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /> </object> </p><p><a href="http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/riflemans-reality#listbutblog">Comment on this post</a></p>