By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

Back in the 1960s when I was just a baby gunwriter, I had the great good luck to meet a gunsmith named John Dewey, who was not only one of the nicer people I’ve run into, but also a leading maker of benchrest and varmint rifles. Among the things I learned from John was the fact that benchrest shooters knew more about what makes guns tick than anyone else, and that if I wanted to learn about rifles, I should read a magazine called Precision Shooting.

John, sadly, passed on long ago, but Precision Shooting is alive and well and still very much worth reading. It’s mostly about target, benchrest, and varmint shooting, but there’s all sorts of other stuff. And the ads are as good as the articles.

On the downside, the editing, writing, and photography are strictly amateur. No one—but no one, not even lawyers—writes worse than engineers and mechanics, and unless you are mechanically aptituded, you are going to have a hard time with some of the copy.

On the other hand, Precision Shooting  is done for fun. Remember fun? PS  reminds me that this is a hobby, for God’s sake, and it’s OK to smile about things once in... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

One of the most consistent threads of conversation I pick up in my Internet wanderings is that gun magazines are not what they used to be. The writers, it’s claimed, are a bunch of pissants compared to the giants of yesterday, and the magazines themselves are nothing but advertisements supported by whoring from the writers.

In fact, a fellow gun writer sat down next to me at the SHOT Show and gave me a grilling on this very subject. Here’s what I told him:

Old-time gun writers were a lot more colorful. Many of them had military experience, and this lent a certain cachet to their names: Colonels Townsend Whelen and Charles Askins, Major George C. Nonte, Captain Phil Sharpe. Pete Brown and Warren Page were Navy officers. Today, the only writer with any rank is Colonel Craig Boddington.

Today, it seems, gunwriters start very young—in their 20s and early 30s. I started in my 30s, and although I thought I knew it all, I did not know ca-ca. The time to start is in your 40s when you’ve had time to get some experience, and found out you can’t make a living doing anything else.

Old gun writers were far more distinctive. If... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

About 10 years ago, Swarovski Optik brought forth upon this continent a new riflescope, equipped with a laser rangefinder, weighing almost as much as a rifle, and costing as much as a trip to Africa. But so appealing was the idea that the scopes actually sold. And those of us who were paying attention knew that it would be only a matter of time until someone developed a rangefinding scope that was light, simple to use, and affordable.

And now, by crackey, that time is here. At the 2006 SHOT Show, Bushnell announced its Yardage Pro 4X-12X riflescope, which will tell you not only how far off the animal is, but allow you to adjust the reticle for the yardage and hit the damned thing. The Yardage Pro is about the size of a 4X-12X by 42 riflescope, weighs only 25 ounces, and mounts pretty low on Weaver-type mounts. (Bushnell is working on getting it even lower.) It ranges from 30 yards to 800 yards, and comes equipped with 6 detachable elevation knobs, five calibrated to common trajectory profiles, and one left blank for you to fill in.

In use it works like this: Pick the knob that matches the trajectory of... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

If you can remember when rock n’ roll was young, you can remember that Redfield was one of our top domestic riflescopes—maybe the best. Redfields had three knurled rings on their optical-lens bells, and you saw them and smiled. But in the 1970s Redfield hit the skids. It went though a series of ownerships, and its quality and reputation declined steadily, to the point where today the brand is forgotten and discredited.

But this is not the end for Redfield. Three years ago the Redfield name—there was little else left—was purchased by Meade Instruments, a U.S. maker of high-end optical products. Last year at the SHOW Show, a new line of Redfield scopes was announced, but failed to materialize.

This year, Meade had three or four toolroom scopes to look at, and they are highly interesting instruments. The full Redfield line will feature 6 models—three with 1-inch tubes and three with 30mm tubes. The 1-inchers come in 5X-25X (No, that is not a misprint—all six Redfields feature a 3-cam zooming system and a 5X magnification range.), 3X-15X, and 3X-15X with a 52mm objective. The 30mm scopes are made in 6X-30X, 4X-20X, and 4X-20X with a 56mm objective.

They are simply loaded... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

Before we get to the subject of this entry, I have to tell you that I don’t care for the word “blog.” It sounds vaguely disgusting, as in: “The X-rays show that you have a large blog in your mastoid sinus cavity, and it has to come out.” Or: “I shouldn’t have had the refried beans last night. I’ve got a terrible case of blog butt this morning.” If I had told my old mom that someday I would be writing for something called a blog, she probably would have burst into tears.

But enough of that. I’m told that one of the purposes of blogs is to direct readers to other sources of information. So I would like to commend to you Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries, a collection of thoughts on military affairs, history, hunting, firearms and ammunition, the English language, and American culture. You can read the commentaries by clicking here. For those of you who live in outer darkness and have not heard of Colonel Cooper, he is a former Marine, a gun writer for nigh unto 50 years, one of the Main Thinkers on the subject of combat handgunning and rifle marksmanship, and an elegant and... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

After much prayer, meditation, and fasting (well, no, no fasting, screw that) I have realized that our deterioration as a nation is not due to our addiction to gasoline, Internet porn, a Congress that has pretty much given up, a pinheaded President, or Senator Hillary R. Clinton's nightmarish, nonstop whoring after the Oval Office. No, it is due to the Lead Sled.

In case you're not familiar with this infernal device, it is a metal pan upon which is affixed a rifle mount. To use, you lock your rifle in the mount and throw lead-filled shot bags on the sled. Then you aim the rifle and shoot, and the monstrous combined weight of sled and lead completely eliminates all recoil.

If you use the Lead Sled you will not suffer from detached retinas, blinding headaches, crying jags, spinal injuries, or any of the other neat stuff that recoil can cause. That's the good news. The bad news is you will be a sissie boy, a girlie man.

Friends, listen to me: The way you learn to shoot a rifle that kicks is by shooting a rifle that kicks. My brother, a sixth-degree black belt (Tae Kwon Do), tells me of martial arts experts... [ Read Full Post ]