by David E. Petzal

As a number of you pointed out in my post on the Forbes Rifle, light rifles kick more than heavy rifles of the same caliber. But weight is only part of the equation, and recoil is a highly subjective matter.

In the case of NULAs, you get kicked less than the figures would indicate because the stock is an extremely good design that gives you plenty to hang on to, and directs the recoil into your shoulder rather than into your head.

I myself am not a good judge of recoil because I shoot all the time, have been reduced to an insensible mass of protoplasm, and don’t care anymore. I’ve shot NULAs ranging from .22/250 up through .340 Weatherby, and the only ones whose kick I really noticed were a .338 Win Mag and the aforesaid .340. They were not more than I could handle, but they weren’t fun, and I realized after a while that I could do the same amount of damage to the critters with lesser cartridges.

by David E. Petzal

Here’s a good reason not to be a coyote, or any other objectionable form of animal life. Mr. Eichler, who is a varmint hunter of note, has collaborated with Rock River Arms to produce a totally cool MSR with all the right bells and whistles. There are a great many specs here, so let’s get to them.

by David E. Petzal

If you’d really like to depress yourself some evening, watch “Doomsday Preppers” on the National Geographic Channel. The show details the plans of normal, well adjusted people to cope with the aftermath of fiscal collapse, nuclear holocaust, the eruption of Yellowstone, solar flares, and so on.

The New York Times noted with outrage that many of these people were accumulating guns and ammunition in order to defend their 1,500 pounds of MREs and dried brown rice, but stockpiling guns is fine with me. My concern is that most of them seem pretty inexpert with guns. One prepper was counting on a Ruger Number One single-shot which, despite its many splendid qualities, is not what you’d pick to blast the mob at your door. Another managed to shoot off several fingers during a practice session. Yet a third, a resident of the Oligarchy of Bloomberg, took lessons in knife fighting because he was unable to get a gun, ignoring the fact that everyone in the Oligarchy of Bloomberg who wants a gun has one, or several, and when the pistol-waving mob comes to this fellow’s apartment I don’t think that he and his knife will last long.

by David E. Petzal

One of the shows in this season’s Gun Nuts will be me shooting at 500 yards at the Scarborough Fish & Game Association range in Scarborough, Maine. The point I will be making is that, if you don’t practice shooting at ranges over 300 yards, don’t shoot at game beyond 300 yards. It’s not enough to buy the equipment and know the theory.

This was borne out a couple of weeks ago when I was shooting at Scarborough with Rocky Prout, who is head of the Rifle Committee, a Distinguished Rifleman, and a Highpower Competitor for 20-plus years. I was to shoot at 500 yards and we had a stiff incoming breeze on the order of 25 mph.

Conventional wisdom says that an incoming wind will lift your bullets on their way to the target, and I asked Rocky how much I should allow for it.

“Nothing,” he said. “At 500 yards this isn’t going to move a .30/06.”