by David E. Petzal

When I showed up at the Kittery Trading Post to buy a used Anschutz .22, I was saddened to see that this peerless piece of Teutonic precision (one with a $1,000 price tag, new) was saddled with a piece-of-junk scope that you might use to hold a window open, or throw at an armadillo if one particularly annoyed you.

There is no abundance of good rimfire scopes—in fact, there are damned few—despite the fact that that the .22 is the foundation of any serious shooter’s gun collection. I guess most people feel that when they've bought the gun they've shot their wad (as it were) and look for something cheap and rotten to use as a sight.

This brings us to the new Nikon Pro-Staff BDC 150 3X-9X-40. It is a very, very good scope, and it comes with Nikon’s BDC reticle, which will enable you to shoot out to 150 yards. This particular reticle is calibrated to work only at 9 power, and only with hyper-velocity (1,600 fps) ammo, but with a little experimental shooting, you can adapt it to just about anything.

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by David E. Petzal

Having started shooting in the 1950s when no one wore hearing protection and having persisted for half a century, I now have what the doctor describes as “profound” loss of hearing in both ears. What has happened is that some of the hairlike receptors in the middle ear, called cilia, have dropped dead from all the noise. This has had three effects: First, I have to wear hearing aids, but even with those I still have trouble understanding some people. Second, I have constant ringing in my ears, called tinnitus. Third, I have lost my ability to tolerate high-pitched sound that doesn't bother other people, such as fire sirens or Michelle Bachman speeches. This is called “recruitment.”

Of the three, the least known is recruitment. It occurs because your ears essentially re-program themselves when some of your cilia call it quits, and have other cilia doing double duty to compensate for the loss. The result is, that when certain sounds hit your ear, they get very loud very quickly because the way you process sound is all screwed up and some of your cilia are pulling in that sound much harder than they normally would. This is why, when a fire engine passes you with its siren going, you clap your hands over your ears and fall to the ground foaming at the mouth. And people with normal hearing merely stare at you in curiosity.

About hearing aids. The ones they have now are infinitely better than the ones that existed only a decade ago. But they are not a cure-all. If you’re trying to talk to someone who jabbers like a rhesus monkey, or speaks softly, or both, or has Valley Girl Lockjaw,* you will not understand them.

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By Chad Love

Last year at about this time we posted a story about a diminutive piece of pocket artillery called the mini cannon. It was a real, working gun that used  gunpowder, tiny steel balls and  what looked like firecracker fuses to wreak havoc on all sorts of common items. Well, the guy who made it has been busy since last year, and  now he's back with something equally cool...the mini crossbow (hat tip to Suburban Bushwacker for the find)

Which one would you rather have, the cannon or the crossbow? [ Read Full Post ]

By Editors

SOG Specialty Knives and Tools is asking if F&S readers have the grit, guts and gall to show their best impersonation of the one and only Gunnery Sergeant R. Lee Ermey, a.k.a. The Gunny, to the world.

You know him from his Academy Award-nominated performance in Full Metal Jacket along with his many other film roles, including the Toy Story trilogy and the History Channel series "Lock N' Load With R. Lee Ermey."

If you think you can hack it, SOG has kicked off the "Are You The Gunny?" video contest on its Facebook page. Participants are asked to videotape and upload their best Gunny impression to the page and the winner with the best submission will be flown to Las Vegas as a guest of SOG for the 2011 Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show and Conference in January. The winner will also get to hang out with The Gunny himself at a special cocktail party on the first night of the show.
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By Philip Bourjaily

My kids are both almost my height and shoot my guns, so as far as I’m concerned the biggest problem with the new Thompson/Center Hot Shot rimfire is that it wasn’t around 10 years ago when I needed it.

Youth guns should be inexpensive because kids outgrow them so fast. But, they should be good guns, too, safe, accurate and shootable. Styled to look just like a little version of Mom or Dad’s T/C Encore, the Hot Shot is a good first rifle for even very young kids. [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal

Back in 1968, the first Howa rifles were imported from Japan under the name Golden Bear. The magazine for which I worked assigned a writer to review one, the article he wrote was such an over-the-top rave that I called him.

“Just between us,” I said, “they aren’t really that good, are they?”

“Just between us,” he said, “they’re better.”

And that is why, when Roy Weatherby looked for a manufacturer to build affordable rifles with his name on them, he picked Howa. And nothing has changed since.

What attracted me to this particular Vanguard was its resemblance to an Ed Brown Ozark, a model which I believe he no longer makes. I was lucky enough to get hold of one a few years ago. It is a 7mm/08 with a 20-inch #3 contour barrel and a weight of 8 ½ pounds with scope. The rifle is not only very accurate, but has almost no recoil, and is a pure pleasure to shoot. [ Read Full Post ]