July 18, 2012
In doing some research for the “From the Editor” for the September issue, I spent some time looking at William Batterman Ruger’s first contribution to American Rifleman, and no it wasn’t his “.22 Ruger Pistol” that made its debut in a September 1949 advertisement, nor was it Technical Editor Julian S. Hatcher’s extremely favorable review of “two production-line samples of the .22 Ruger” that ran in November 1949.
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June 04, 2012
There were some delays as the network jockeyed the season premiere time slot, but American Rifleman Field Editor Bruce N. Canfield will make his debut as the firearms expert tonight at 10:30 p.m. Eastern on History’s “Cajun Pawn Stars,” which is filmed at Jimmy “Big Daddy” DeRamus’ Silver Dollar Pawn & Jewelry in Alexandra, La. The show airing tonight has Bruce sizing up a Model 1918 Browning Automatic Rifle brought into Silver Dollar. DeRamus not only has an FFL, but a machine gun dealer’s license, too.
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May 14, 2012
Sometimes even the busiest days are pretty fun. We are finishing the July issue of American Rifleman after coming off an intense week of filming the third quarter of “American Rifleman Television.” We on the magazine staff already have full-time jobs, but we put in some pretty intense weeks on television production. But sometimes there is a lot of fun buried in that intensity.
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May 02, 2012
This is the view through the “American Rifleman Television” remote camera as we fired the most impressive gun of the season for the third quarter of 2012. Thanks to Jim Supica, Phil Schreier, Doug Wicklund and Matt Sharpe of the National Firearms Museum, I can now say I have shot what I regard as undoubtedly the coolest 18th century gun extant. The Nock Volley Gun is one of the most unusual service firearms of the Napoleonic era. It was a flintlock with seven barrels, one central barrel with six more surrounding the latter, sort of like a pepperbox. The difference, of course, is that all seven barrels fire at once with the Nock—it only happens to the extremely unlucky (or careless) with a Pepperbox. Think of a Nock as a deliberate chain fire waiting to happen.
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April 03, 2012
What's Going On with Gun Sales?
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March 28, 2012
Late last year I was fortunate enough to visit Ruger’s factory in Newport, N.H., and get a preview of what the American gunmaker had in the pipeline for 2012. Ruger doesn’t like to release information on its new firearms until the guns are already in production and ready to ship to distributors. That way, if you hear about a new Ruger and want one, it is not like trying to order a unicorn from your local gun shop.
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March 27, 2012
In 2010 Donald Trump, Jr., and his brother Eric Trump went on safari in Zimbabwe. Photos from the safari were obtained without permission and posted online. The hunt included elephant, Cape buffalo, leopard and crocodile. The images drew the expected vitriol from anti-hunting extremists, such as PETA and other organizations that want to ban all hunting, regardless of where it is or who is doing it. In response to those attacks Don tweeted, “I’m a hunter, for that I make no apologies.”
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March 26, 2012
Sometimes you are the go-to guy or girl. You are the one in your peer group or social network that appears to know the most about firearms. This is a more weighty responsibility than one might think. In our office, I imagine more so than some places of employment, we talk about guns … a lot. Were we to have an actual water cooler (denied yet again in the fiscal 2012 budget), it would no doubt compare to the Fountain of Knowledge (or in Col. Potter’s parlance, perhaps, a “Fountain of Horse Hockey”) for most things regarding firearms. But we assume certain knowledge, a certain level of experience and a certain physiognomy that affect how we discuss firearms.
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March 05, 2012
Q. I watch “American Rifleman Television” and hear Mark Keefe and Michael Parker pronounce the name “Garand” like “Ger-und” and in the same show someone else will pronounce it like I do, which is “Guh-rand.” What’s the deal? Are those two misspeaking every week?
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February 21, 2012
American Rifleman Field Editor Bruce N. Canfield is one of the nation’s leading authorities and authors on American military arms. You may not know his name, but if you read a story about guns ranging from the 1861 Springfield to the Garand or M1 Carbine in American Rifleman over the past two decades, you know his work. A genteel, soft-spoken Southerner, Bruce seems an unlikely choice for reality television, but he is a part of the History Channel’s hottest new show. Bruce told me that for executive producers, two things are hot right now on television: guns and Louisiana (I’m sure Will Hayden from “Sons of Guns” would agree). Both are combined in “Cajun Pawn Stars,” which airs Monday nights on History, and is filmed at Jimmy “Big Daddy” DeRamus’ Silver Dollar Pawn & Jewelry in Alexandra, La.
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