January 09, 2012
Taurus hit a real home run with the Judge revolver. Inside a few years, Taurus has sold tens of thousands of the guns which had all three of our major ammunition manufacturers creating special Judge loads. The idea of a special cartridge-firing revolver in .45 Colt with an extended cylinder that can take .410 shotgun shells apparently touched something very deep in the American shooter. Mostly, I think folks are seeing the Judge revolver as a multiple-projectile shooter, although I have no hard data to support this belief. Americans have always liked multi-function guns going back as far as the Revolutionary War, when George Washington 's soldiers sometimes used buck-and-ball loads in their muskets.
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January 06, 2012
It was not a good day on the job for one would-be burglar. First, he tried to climb in the window of 77-year-old Donald McElrea’s home, but was caught in the act. Pistol in hand, McElrea confronted the burglar. The gun startled the burglar so badly that he lost his footing and plummeted 20 feet over the side of the elevated deck.
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January 02, 2012
This year, 2012, promises to be the year of the .22. Why? Because $20 for 550 rounds of .22 Long Rifle is much better than $20 for 20 rounds of something else if you are just shooting for fun. When I referred to “affordable” in my recent post about the Ruger LCR in .22 Long Rifle, I was referring more to the ammunition cost than the gun itself. But the next Ruger handgun I just received (literally, I have only checked the serial number to log it in) retails for less than the LCR .22 and is still chambered in .22 Long Rifle. It is the Ruger SR22, and it is on the way to your dealer now.
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January 02, 2012
“Pretty bold to call your rifle the American, Mike,” I told Ruger President and CEO Mike Fifer. He just grinned at me. Product Manager Mark Gurney and the engineers at Ruger’s Newport, N.H. factory, had given me a full briefing on the design, features and construction of the company’s latest model. Finally I am able to talk about the newest all-American-made bolt-action rifle. In case you haven’t put the puzzle pieces together, it is called the Ruger American Rifle, and it reflects the growing trend toward the economical bolt-action hunting rifles that are dominating the firearm industry. Ironically, it started in 1963 with the Savage Model 110, and has been dog piled on by Remington, Marlin and others. Last year, the hottest selling rifle in this class was the Savage Axis.
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December 29, 2011
Upon noticing a car following him into his neighborhood late one night, a homeowner had a bad feeling. Once he turned into his driveway, the car crept by, turned around and again drove by before stopping. Then he heard someone running up the driveway.
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December 22, 2011
It is really amazing how many cartridges have long service lives. During this centennial year of the great .45 ACP cartridge (and the gun that shoots it), we remember a full century of service for this legendary problem-solver. Students of the .45 know that the basic idea is more than 100 years old, since Colt made early relatives of the 1911 as far back as 1905. The desirable ballistics of a big, slow-moving .45 slug for military service goes back as far as 1875 with the .45 Schofield round and 1873 for the .45 Colt. That turn of the century era was fertile time for ammunition designers. We saw the .38 Spl. introduced in 1898, the 9 mm Luger in 1904 and the .44 Spl. in 1907. The .38 Spl. became the top police cartridge of the 20th century in America. It also was the basis for .the famous .357 Mag., which ushered in the Magnum handgun era.
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December 21, 2011
It was much easier deciding to carry a handgun on a daily basis than it was deciding how to carry that handgun. I knew I wanted it accessible, but well hidden, and I had to be able to train with the system. I also knew that I wanted to carry my Kimber Ultra Carry in .45 ACP.
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December 20, 2011
My blog on the Ruger Lightweight Carry Revolver (LCR) chambered for .22 Long Rifle has brought up a groundswell of requests for the gun to be chambered in .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire (WMR), better known as .22 Mag. It looks to be especially attractive with the introduction of new loads, such as Hornady’s Critical Defense with a .45-grain FTX bullet, which according to factory data leaves a short 1 7/8-inch barrel at 1,000 fps, delivering a muzzle energy of 100 ft.-lbs. So why can’t you buy a .22 WMR LCR right now? The .22 Long Rifle seems to work fine, why not the .22 WMR?
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December 20, 2011
Even if you don’t need a last minute gift, buy this book because it’s a must-read for anyone with an interest in the inside story of the most fascinating firearm since Eugene Stoner invented the AR180, which became the AR15/M16 family. What gun could as dramatic in its impact as the M16? What else? The Glock.
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December 16, 2011
The “From The Editor” I wrote for the February issue (if you missed it don’t worry; it won’t be in your mailbox until mid-January) was based on two trends I have seen developing for 2012: Manufacturing guns to be affordable and the introduction of a host of new .22 Long Rifle rifles and handguns that are actually affordable to shoot.
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