By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

In October 2003, a failed actor named Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amy Hugeuenard were killed and eaten by an Alaska brown bear, which was in turn killed by the people who went to clean up the mess. Treadwell, the self-styled “protector” of bears in a region of Katmai National Park, had lived with them for 13 years until finally the bears had enough of him.

In 2005, a German film director named Werner Herzog made a documentary on Treadwell’s life and death, and it ran on the Discovery Channel this past weekend. I’m reviewing it here because it’s a creepy and unforgettable 103 minutes. In his 13 summers with the bruins, Treadwell filmed them and himself, and much of the movie is of brown bears, and of Treadwell mouthing off to the camera about his relationship with them.

The brown bear footage is amazing, but Treadwell is the most dislikeable human being I have ever seen on film, and he was also stark raving crazy. Witness him fondling a moist, fresh bear turd and crooning with ecstasy, or weeping softly and muttering endearments to a bored red fox. Clearly, this is a guy who should have had a net thrown over... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

One of the great shocks in our online gun survey was the complete ascendancy of Remington rifles and shotguns over everything else—particularly Winchester guns. The reason for this was made clear at the 2006 SHOT Show, where Remington unveiled the Model 105 Cti shotgun, a truly new design with a titanium and graphite receiver. It had everyone gibbering to themselves, so great a gun it is.

Winchester, on the other hand, was offering a bargain-price Russian-made .22 bolt-action, the Wildcat. A good, sound rifle, and a great value, but an old gun in every sense of the word. (It even looks like the Moisin-Nagant military rifle, which dates to the First World War.)

Browning, Winchester’s Siamese twin, introduced the T-Bolt .22, a re-done (and not nearly as nice) version of a rifle that was discontinued in the 1960s. The new T-bolt is a perfectly good little rifle, properly priced, and there’s no reason to get angry at it.

But you have to wonder: Why can’t some gunmakers innovate more? The Europeans seem to be far ahead of us in this respect. Tradition is great, but when that’s all you have to sell you find yourself out of business. Just... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

A note of warning to all you bloggers and bloggerettes: What follows  is a subject of such luminous, transcendent importance that you are going to see it in different form in the pages of Field & Stream at some future date. If this annoys you, complain to someone who cares. I don’t.

The most illuminating single comment at the 2006 SHOT Show (aside from “Wow, have you seen the booth babe two aisles up?”) was made by my friend and colleague Dick Metcalf, a man who operates at the very highest intellectual level. (He has a PhD from Yale, and taught at Cornell, for God’s sake. How he tolerates the gun biz is beyond me.) We were sitting next to each other at a press conference at the Leica booth, viewing the latest in multi-thousand-dollar teutonic optical marvels when he said:

“We’ve gotten to the point where you can buy an over-the-counter gun that’s beyond the ability of even a good shot to get everything out of it.”

Or words to that effect. And he’s right. There were probably a dozen exhibitors in that hall who make rifles that will shoot down to around a half an inch or better, starting with the lowest-priced... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

Is it possible? A new cartridge that is not short and fat and that will not snap your cervical vertebrae when you pull the trigger? Apparently so. Federal, at the 2006 SHOT Show, announced the .338 Federal (well, what the hell else would they call it, the .338 Remington?), which is a legitimized version of the .338/08 wildcat, which has been around for years.

The .338 Federal fires a 210-grain bullet at 2600 fps, and 180- and 185-grain bullets at 150 to 200 fps faster. Along with this information comes the apparently mandatory claims that the new round is superior to the .30/06, the 7mm Remington Magnum, the .338 Winchester Magnum, and for all I know, the .375 Eargessplitten Loundenboomer.

Give me a break! If you want to shoot 180-grain bullets, get a .30/06. The real forte of the .338 Federal is its ability to shoot 210-grain slugs at a respectable velocity without anywhere near the recoil of bigger .33 cartridges. In this respect it’s very similar to the .325 WSM. Of all the shooters I know who used the .338/08 when it was a... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

The survey is broken into five sections:
The Guns You Shoot
The Guns You Like Best
Your Thoughts on Today's Guns
Your Shooting Habits
Your Principles and Politics

You can click on one of these section names to visit that section, or just keep on reading to start at the beginning. And as you'll probably disagree with most of these results, voice your opinion by clicking on the "comments" link located all the way at the bottom of the page.

Section 1:Your Guns
You have plenty of good guns on your rack, but here’s what you take down most often

1. What is your primary whitetail gun?
Remington 700 15% Ruger 77 7% Winchester 70 7% Remington 870 5% Browning A-Bolt 4% Marlin 336 4% Winchester 94 4% Savage 110/111/116 3% Remington 742/7400 3% Remington 760/7600 3% other 45%

2. What is your primary whitetail gun’s caliber or gauge?
.30/06 20% 12 gauge 14% .270 13% .30/30 9% .308 7% .243 5% 7mm Remington Magnum 5% other 27%

3. What is your primary big-game rifle?
Remington 700 22% Winchester 70 11% Ruger 77 8% Browning A-Bolt 7% Savage 110/111/116 6% Weatherby Mark V 4% Mauser, commercial or converted military 4% Remington 742/7400 3% Remington 760/7600 3% Marlin 1895 3% other 26%

4. What is your primary big-game rifle’s caliber?
.30/06 30% 7mm Remington Magnum 10% .270 9% .300 Winchester Magnum 9% .308 6% .300 Weatherby Magnum 3% .300 Winchester Short Magnum 3% .45/70 3% .338 3% other 34%

5. What is your primary waterfowl shotgun?
Remington... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

Note from the editors: David E. Petzal is spending the weekend shooting, taking apart, evaluating, talking about, dreaming about, and possibly even sleeping with the year's latest guns and shooting gear at the 2006 Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is one of the largest gatherings of gun nuts in the country; while there he'll rub sore shoulders with more than 37,000 industry professionals from around the world, probably irritating many of them. After much grumbling about how technology is destroying the fabric of our moralilty, he's agreed to send us these reports from the show floor.

Winchester Wildcat:
Increasingly, American gunmakers are turning to eastern-bloc countries for their low-priced models, and this Russian-built .22 rimfire will sell for about $212. It looks oddly like the old Moisin-Nagant military rifle, but it's a very nice .22 bolt-action that offers a lot regardless of its price. The ones I shot were accurate, well made, had good trigger pulls, and worked without a hitch. Shoot this one and you can practically feel the hot breath of the Cossacks. ... [ Read Full Post ]