Shooting Gear

Good Gun Book: 'Shooter's Bible Guide to Optics'

Dave_Maccar — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:09:35 -0400

by David E. Petzal

Optics, like everything else in our world, are in a state of turmoil. On the one hand, you can now pay close to $4,000 for a riflescope or a spotting scope and $3,000 plus for a binocular, while on the other hand there are riflescopes and spotting scopes selling for $400 and $300 that are better than anything you could buy at any price 20 years ago. Yet on the third hand we now have optical devices that did not even exist 20 years ago, such as laser rangefinders, range-compensating scopes, and good red-dot sights.

And if you’re to spend your money on any of this gear, you will quickly become confused, and your confusion can take on ugly notes of fear and panic. “What is one to do?”, you will bellow, and your dog will wet the carpet in terror.

Not to worry. You can simply spend $19.95 on a new book by Tom McIntyre called the "Shooter’s Bible Guide to Optics," which will make all things clear. It’s not only a guide but a catalog as well, printed on good paper that resists much handling and streams of drool. Tom does the judging for Field & Stream’s “Best of the Best,” feature in the optics department. He knows everything about the subject, has worlds of hunting and shooting experience, and is a brutal and relentless tester. When I want to explain something that’s complex, involves glassware, and requires that I actually know what I’m talking about, I quote him.

Buy the book. It’s the only way you’re going to make any sense out of all this. Skyhorsepublishing.com

Hearing Loss: Only You Can Prevent Brain Rot

Online Editors — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 23:53:15 -0400

by David E. Petzal

In order to have some hope of conducting business with mankind in general, I wear hearing aids, but not very often, since I’m indifferent to what most people say, and I find that being able to hear all the little noises I had forgotten existed is annoying. But there is a problem with this. The first is that my hearing aids have memory, and when I go in for a checkup the audiologist plugs them into a laptop and they show how little I wear them.

This, the audiologist explained, is not wise. According to a study done at the University of Pennsylvania last year, “… declines in hearing ability may accelerate atrophy in auditory areas of the brain and increase the listening effort necessary for older adults to successfully comprehend speech.”

What this means in English is, that if your ears are f***ed, pretty soon your brain will be, too. And while your ears can get help from hearing aids, there’s nothing that can be done for your rotten brain. As the audiologist put it, “Once you start sliding down that slope, you’re in real trouble.”

I’m writing this for all of you who are getting on in years and are deaf and partly deaf, and all the young folks who are spending every waking hour with a plug in their ear listening to God knows what.

As they say in the military, “Be advised.”

March Madness: Remington Model 700 is the F&S All-Purpose Whitetail Rifle Champ

Online Editors — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:01:56 -0400

by Dave Hurteau

Well I don’t think any of us can pretend to be surprised. (If we did a shotgun tourney, the 870 would surely win, too.) But getting here was fun, and in the end it came down to mystique vs. legendary accuracy.

Here in the northeastern big woods, where pinpoint accuracy is not paramount, I tend to favor mystique, which is probably why my cabinet holds a Rifleman’s Rifle in 7mm-08 (not to mention a Savage 99 in .300 Savage and a Model 94 in .30/30, among others). But I must say that I’ve long lusted for a Model 700 Mountain Rifle in .260. The 700’s incredible popularity and proven out-of-the-box accuracy make it a deserving winner, you must admit (although you’re welcome to complain about it below).

To see the championship game and final bracket, click here.

The Gun Nut Nation Survey 2012

Dave_Maccar — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:42:59 -0400

Sound off, Gun Nuts. Tell us what you love about today’s rifles and shotguns. Tell us what you hate most about the perception of gun owners in the media. Tell us about your hopes and fears concerning a certain election this November. Tell us about what makes you a Gun Nut in the following survey—a collection of questions about the politics, economics, and state of Gun Nut Nation. The results will be published in the July 2012 issue of Field & Stream. Thank you for participating.

Retirement Age: The Progress of Modern Optics

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 12:17:05 -0400

by David E. Petzal

At any given time I’m likely to be shooting loaner rifles, and so I keep eight or so scopes on hand to mount on these guns. Some of the scopes have been around for 15 years or more, and I keep using them because they work. The other day, however, I was shooting with one that had been around a long time, and on the other rifle I was using I had a brand-new Meopta MeoStar. When I switched from the rifle with the Meopta to the one with the old scope it was as though I had suddenly developed glaucoma. Everything went dim and muddy.

Often, when this happens, it’s because the lenses have acquired a coating of what looks like dried oxtail soup, topped by a layer of dust. You clean them off and they’re fine. But the lenses on this old scope were clean. What was at work? New scopes are so much better than those from only a decade ago that they make them look...disadvantaged. Optical progress, which used to proceed at a measured and stately course, now moves at the same breakneck speed as everything else.

This is not a disadvantage. One of the results is, I’m now seeing new low-priced scopes that are as good, optically, as the high-priced scopes of the 1990s. And today’s medium- and high-priced scopes are in another league altogether.

The other thing that happened on that fateful day was, my old scope declined to send bullets where they were supposed to go. The windage adjustment was either worn out, or wearing out, and was unable to do what I was telling it.

So I sighed, and retired the old scope, and got a brand-new Meopta Meopro, and everything is now bright and sharp, and the bullets go where they’re supposed to, but it’s sort of sad. The old scope had served honorably.

I have yet to feel an ounce of empathy, however, for any old computer.

Meopta: A Reality Czech on Scope Values

Dave_Maccar — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 08:47:02 -0500

by David E. Petzal

As many of you requested, I walked the hallowed (and semi-ventilated) halls of the 2012 SHOT Show with your requests for inexpensive stuff ringing in my ears, instead of just the usual ringing. Riflescope-wise, the standout is Meopta, which I originally thought was an Asian firm, but turns out to be Czech. Meopta has been around for over 70 years and makes rifle scopes, spotting scopes, and binoculars. I’ve used only the rifle scopes, of which there are two lines. MeoStar (pictured here) is the more expensive, made and assembled in the Czech Republic, while MeoPro scopes have their components made abroad and assembled here. Cabela’s sells both MeoPro instruments and its own Euro brand, which is made by Meopta.

The first time I used a Meopta rifle scope I guessed its price was $300 higher than what it actually cost. Think of it this way: A MeoStar that goes for $650 is a $1,000 scope on which you’re getting a $350 discount. A MeoPro scope that sells for $450 is a $750 scope, ditto ditto. Don’t let the modest prices fool you; these are very, very high-grade instruments.

Last summer, Kenny Jarrett, who is as knowledgeable and as fussy about scopes as any human I know, said: “If you can’t afford a [Here he named a very famous and very costly scope.] get a Meopta.” He was absolutely right.

Why isn’t the line better known? Reinhard Seipp, who is COO of Meopta USA said, “We’re not very good at publicizing ourselves.” Then he paused and smiled. “But we’re very good at making things.”

Pro Ears ReVO: Hearing Protection Designed For Young Shooters

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:11:49 -0500

This set of ears was designed for youth shooters from the ground up, rather than modifying an existing design. The ear pads are specially shaped to eliminate gaps in the seal around the ear near the jawline on smaller heads.

Rimfire Scope Review: The Nikon Pro-Staff BDC 150

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:46:00 -0500

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.

For example, I found that with high velocity ammo (1,200 fps) I could sight dead on at 25, which still had me dead on at 50 yards, and that, using the scope at 4X and sighting with the topmost BDC aiming circle, I was dead on at 100 yards. And that’s all I need.

Aside from that the BDC 150 is a full-sized scope (You’ll almost certainly need high rings.) that has brilliant optics and superb adjustments. Indeed, the adjustments are among the most accurate and positive that I have used on any scope, rim- or centerfire.

And now, you’re thinking, we come to the part where he says that the price is $1,098.35, but that it’s a great investment. No. This is the part where I tell you that the MSRP is $169.95 and that I see it on the Internet for $126. This makes it one of the great optical bargains of the year, or perhaps the century. www.nikonhunting.com

Yet Another Reason To Break The Bank

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:04:47 -0400

by David E. Petzal

For years I’ve been whining at you that while it’s OK to buy an inexpensive gun, it’s stupid to cut corners on optical equipment, because the cheap stuff will not hack it.

Exhibit A here, is a Leica spotting scope that elk guide Amos Ames has used for the past 13 years. As you can see, it’s had a hard life, and then some. It is, however, still fully functional, where a lesser piece of equipment would be in a trash bin somewhere.

The other thing a scope of this caliber can do is let you search, hour after hour, without going blind. As Amos put it one morning: “You just saw me looking through this scope for three and a half hours solid. If you’re going to do that, you better have top-flight equipment.”

His binocular, by the way, is a Swarovski. Amos is the rule among guides, not the exception. The tools they value most are their pickup trucks and their spotting scopes and binoculars.

A Longtime Shooter's Notes on Hearing Loss

Dave_Maccar — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 11:58:11 -0400

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.

I've found it best to be pretty blunt about the situation. I point at my hearing aid and say “Speak slower [louder], I’m deaf, I can’t understand you.” Almost invariably, the person to whom I explain this will say “Oh, I didn't know.” And then will start again, speaking exactly the way they did before—too fast, or mumbling, or too softly, or whatever. Or, they will get out one sentence I can understand and then default to their normal pattern of speech. It makes for a stressful existence. For example, when I gave blood a few days ago I dealt with three vampires at the blood bank and had to ask them speak slower/louder a total of 7 times.

What I’m curious about is, do those of you who have also gone deaf have the same experience? Do you find that the people with whom you deal in the course of a day react to your lack of hearing as the ones I run into? Maybe it’s my approach. I’m considering having cards printed that say:

“I am hearing impaired. In order that we may conclude this transaction with a minimum of difficulty, kindly slow the f**k down and speak the f**k up.
Thank you.”

Or should I put it in stronger terms? Let me know what you think.

*I’m referring to the habit of some girls of high school and college age to clench their jaws when speaking, as though they had developed tetanus. The mouths don’t move and the sound, like, doesn't come out.