By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

Current Taser stun guns pack a 50,000-volt wallop—plenty of juice to temporarily paralyze people. Problem is, today’s Tasers are only effective to about 25 yards. But the company is now developing a solution called the eXtended Range Electro-Muscular Projectile. A radically new shotgun shell designed to deliver the combined blunt-force trauma of a fast-moving baseball with the electrical current of a stun gun, the XREP has a current range of 100 feet. The US military, though, has challenged the company to extend the range to a 100 yards.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/computing/20060221-1515-tasershotgun.html [ 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 Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

The White House proposal to sell some 300,000 of acres of national forest land to help pay for rural schools is "dead in the water," according to Sen. Conrad Burns, (R-Mont.). The proposed legislation, says Burns’ spokesperson Matt Mackowiak, would go directly to the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, which Burns chairs. "As far as [the proposal] advancing through the subcommittee,” says Mackowiak, “it's just not going to happen."
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2006/02/21/news/01burns.txt [ 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 Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

Families Afield, a national campaign backed by the US Sportsmen’s Alliance, the National Wild Turkey Federation, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation to recruit younger hunters has scored another significant legislative victory, as Ohio Governor Bob Taft has signed House Bill 296, approving apprentice hunting licenses. The new licenses will become available this July and will allow novices to hunt for up to three years without having completed a hunter-education course, as long as they’re accompanied by a regularly licensed adult.
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/outdoors/outdoors.php?story=dispatch/2006/02/19/20060219-E15-01.html [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

Yesterday, Kennedy County, Texas, Sheriff Ramon Salinas closed his investigation of the Cheney shooting, telling the Houston Chronicle, "No charges will be filed against anybody -- that's it.” Meanwhile, President Bush made his first public comments about the incident, saying that the VP handled the situation “just fine” and that he is “satisfied with the explanation [Cheney] gave.”
What do you think? Are you satisfied?
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060216/cheney_charges_060216/20060217?hub=TopStories [ Read Full Post ]