By Philip Bourjaily

A while back we talked about relative recoil of the .44 magnum and the S&W .500. Here’s a video on the topic from none other than “FPS Russia,” who has become a viral hit due to his ability to procure all kinds of weaponry (dragon’s breath, mortars, the AA12 shotgun, an APC with a M2 on it) and shoot things while keeping up a foulmouthed running commentary in a fake Russian accent.

At any rate, in this video FPS Russia doesn’t swear much, and the comparison here between the .44 and the .500 is instructive, even though you can’t actually feel the recoil. You can tell that the .500 is louder, and that a bigger fireball comes out of its muzzle.

By David E. Petzal

In reviewing my voluminous and infallible records yesterday, I saw that I have killed a very large number of deer with the 7mm/08, never had to shoot twice at the same critter, and never had one travel more than 50 yards. This is pretty good performance from a mild-mannered, unassuming cartridge that gets less attention than it deserves.

By Philip Bourjaily

For this, my last post of the 00s, I had been trying for a while – and failing --  to think of an end-of-the-decade blog post. My “Eureka” moment came while cleaning up after cooking our Christmas goose. I heard the “tink” of metal falling into the kitchen sink. When I fished the misshapen pellet pictured above out of the sink I realized Hevi Shot is the most significant invention in shotgunning of the past 10 years.

By David E. Petzal

“It’s better to go broke at the range than it is to make a fortune in the shop.”*--Christopher Self, Alabama machinist, designer and rifle nut.

Last week, I got a further lesson on the folly of attempting shots at long range without actually testing your equipment beforehand. Shooting at 300 yards, a 165-grain polymer-tipped bullet which had shot splendidly at 100 and 200 yards turned in a group with a vertical spread of 7 inches. There was no horizontal dispersion at all, but the slugs were all over the place up- and down-wise.