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Darting Rocky Mountain Bighorns In Arizona

fieldandstream-editor — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 04:00:00 -0500

Dream Bucks: Your Trophy Deer Photos From the 2005 Hunting Season

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 05:00:00 -0400

A Beginner's Guide to Blackpowder

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 05:00:00 -0400

Slide Show: This Week's Tips from Jerome B. Robinson

fieldandstream-editor — Sat, 20 May 2006 07:00:00 -0400

Slide Show: This Week's Tips from Jerome B. Robinson

fieldandstream-editor — Tue, 16 May 2006 07:00:00 -0400

The 50 Best Guns Ever Made, Revisited

fieldandstream-editor — Fri, 05 May 2006 12:00:00 -0400

Click here to read this story and post your comments on David E. Petzal's blog, The Gun Nut

Editor's Note: Last February, Dave wrote a cover story titled "The 50 Best Guns Ever Made" that generated lots of heated opinion. In case any of you missed the piece, we've posted links to it in photo gallery form in Dave's blog. Keep an eye on the story next week as he returns to the subject with updates to the list and some fresh thoughts on these guns.

Click here to read this story and post your comments on David E. Petzal's blog, The Gun Nut

Cover Story: The Gun Nut Survey

fieldandstream-editor — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 04:15:00 -0500

In the 12 days it was out there, we got over 2,000 responses to our Gun Nut Survey. Some of the results were flat startling. We learned that Remington rules the roost as far as popularity goes, that the highest-ranked handgun was designed before the First World War, and that our No. 1 big-game and deer cartridge is even older. But this nod to tradition aside, we found that most of you do not yearn for the good old days. You think modern guns are better, and you are perfectly happy to break with tradition if it results in a better firearm. We also learned that firearms hunters won't cross certain technological barriers if it means violating their code of ethics.

The best part of the survey may be your comments. We've published as many of them as we could.

Click here to read the rest of the story on David E. Petzal's new blog, The Gun Nut

Shotgun Roundup: 20 More New Guns for 2006

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 04:15:00 -0500

Check out Phil Bourjaily's SHOT Show shotgun roundup, featuring hands on looks at some of the guns mentioned here, by clicking this link

In terms of sheer numbers of new products, this is not a big year for the smoothbore community, but a few innovations have found their way into the mix.

Winchester and Browning have a new semi-auto gas-operating system that is likely to form the basis for a significant family of arms. Remington has made welcome improvements to its venerable Model 1100 in the clay-target arena and continues with its camouflaged hunting line for deer and turkey enthusiasts. In fact, camo finishes are appearing on an increasing number of established models in 2006.

Click on a gun to see a bigger picture

Browning Cynergy Classic Field

Distinctive game-bird scenes on both sides of the receiver mark the model. In addition, a 12-gauge version comes on board for 2006.

Browning Cynergy Classic Sporting

The Classic Sporting model features special engraving, with a Browning Buckmark logo in the center, and a traditional-style walnut stock and forearm in an oil finish. The advanced Cynergy design incorporates an ultra-low-profile receiver and MonoLock hinge, reverse-striker ignition system and mechanical triggers with the lines of a traditional stock and forearm.

Browning Gold Superlite Hunter

Weight reduction is the name of the game for 2006. A new alloy magazine tube knocks nearly a half pound of weight off this year's version. It comes with a 26- or 28-inch-long barrel.

Browning Silver

The Silver 12-gauge features an aluminum-alloy receiver in a semi-humpback design and Browning's Active Valve gas system, which automatically adjusts to fire a wide range of loads.

Remington 11-87 Sportsman

This fully rifled 20-gauge slug gun is the perfect antidote to hard-kicking 12-gauge deer guns. It has a cantilevered barrel for scope attachment.

Remington Model 1100 Competition

Designed for the serious clay-target shooter, this new 1100 comes only in 12-gauge with a 30-inch overbored (.735) barrel.

Remington Model 1100 Classic Field

Notable this year is a 12-gauge versi with a 26- or 28-inch barrel. Both use the Rem. Choke system and include a high-polish receiver and barrel.

Remington Model 11-87 Super MAG Special Purpose Thumbhole-Turkey

Fully covered in Mossy Oak Obsession camo, this new model sports a 23-inch barrel and Truglo fiber-optic sights.

Remington Model 11-87 Special Purpose Thumbhole-Deer

This new model uses a heavier laminated thumbhole stock and an R3 recoil pad to reduce recoil. The fully rifled cantilever barrel (21 inches) is designed for 2Â¿Â¿- or 3-inch sabot slugs.

Remington 870 Wingmaster NRA

The NRA Heritage logo is prominently featured on the receiver; a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the NRA. The 12-gauge comes with a 28-inch vent-ribbed barrel.

Remington 870 Express

This value-priced line (mechanically identical to the Wingmaster) gets two new cosmetic upgrades: one with a brown laminate stock, the other in Mossy Oak Break-Up.

Remington 870 Wingmaster Dale Earnhardt Tribute

This year's version, the last in the series, will be a 20-gauge with a 26-inch vent-ribbed Rem. Choke barrel (with 24-karat gold highlights) chambered for three-inch shells.

Weatherby Athena D'italia Deluxe

Designed for the most discriminating tastes, this high-end side-by-side features a single inertia trigger and is adorned with a Bolino-style game scene with Renaissance floral engraving.

Weatherby Athena D'italia PG

This new side-by-side is targeted at shooters seeking a quality double gun with a pistol grip and single trigger. It has a hand-selected, oil-finished walnut stock and comes in 12-, 20- and 28-gauge.

Winchester Select Midnight

The blued receiver carries extensive engraving, with gold-accented game birds on both sides and the bottom. The satin-finished Grade II/III walnut stock and forearm feature a unique oval checkering pattern.

Winchester Select White Field

The new Select White Field Extreme and Traditional models are designed to enable budget-conscious shooters to enjoy over/unders. The guns are available in 12-gauge and feature engraved silver nitride receivers.

Winchester SX3 Field

This new semi-auto is chambered for three-inch loads and weighs 6.5 pounds, thanks to a lighter magazine tube, recoil-spring system, slim-line barrel and machined rib.

Winchester SX3 Waterfowl

The new Super X3 uses the new automatic Active Valve gas system to handle a wide range of loads without adjustment. Camo versions come in three-inch chamberings only.

Winchester SX3 Composite

The Super X3 Composite models will be offered with 3-inch and 3.5-inch chambers, with Perma-Cote. Stock spacers allow cast and drop adjustments over a quarter-inch range. The composite forearms incorporate the Quadra-Vent forward ducting system, which helps bleed gases away from the shooter more efficiently.

Ruger Red Label 12-Gauge

Responding to the requests of upland game, wild turkey and waterfowl hunters, who believe blending in can mean the difference between success and failure, Ruger will offer the popular Red Label All Weather 12-gauge over/under in a Realtree Hardwoods HD camouflage finish. Both the metal parts and the synthetic buttstock and forearm are covered in a durable, abrasion-resistant coating that helps hunters stay stealthy and also protects the firearm.elect_white_lg.jpg",600,200)'>
The new Select White Field Extreme and Traditional models are designed to enable budget-conscious shooters to enjoy over/unders. The guns are available in 12-gauge and feature engraved silver nitride receivers.

Winchester SX3 Field

This new semi-auto is chambered for three-inch loads and weighs 6.5 pounds, thanks to a lighter magazine tube, recoil-spring system, slim-line barrel and machined rib.

Winchester SX3 Waterfowl

The new Super X3 uses the new automatic Active Valve gas system to handle a wide range of loads without adjustment. Camo versions come in three-inch chamberings only.

Rifles: Stock Exchange

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 07:15:00 -0500

Chemistry never appealed to me except on those occasions when a student would screw up in the lab and produce such a godless and mephitic stench that we would get the rest of the afternoon off. I began to appreciate chemistry more when the first synthetic stocks appeared, because they revolutionized rifle making. For the very first time, shooters had absolutely stable, lightweight stocks that were stronger than wood. But there was and still is a minus side: Even with an imaginative paint job and a nice shape, a synthetic stock lacks the beauty and character of wood.

Then there are laminated wood stocks, which have been around for decades. They are strong and stable, but they look like what they are: thin slabs of wood glued together and stained in depressing colors.

THE ALTERNATIVE
But now, as former President Bubba used to say, there is a third way. Serengeti Stockworks in Kalispell, Montana (406-756-2399; serengetistockworks.com) builds laminated walnut stocks that are stable yet look like natural wood. Serengeti uses a proprietary process in which a solid-walnut blank is sawn into five unequal slabs. Before the five pieces are glued together, however, their grains are arranged so the direction of each opposes that of the next. You end up with three thin inner stabilizing layers that lie along the length of the barrel and action, and two thick outer layers that supply the stock with its natural looks. How natural? My gun dealer, who handles many high-grade firearms, didn't spot the laminations until I pointed them out.

CHOICES
There are eight Serengeti basic stock profiles and a choice of three woods (California English, California Claro, or Bastogne) available in four grades. Serengeti also offers a mind-boggling list of options: checkering, grip caps, glass bedding, and more.

You can restock as thrifty or as expensive as you please. For example, you can buy an A-grade blank for $195. Serengeti will semi-inlet and finish it for $200, and you or your gunsmith can do the rest of the work. Or you can have Serengeti do the whole job, which they did on my Weatherby Mark V Accumark in .300 Weatherby Magnum. That gun now has a Merlin-profile stock made from AAA-grade Claro walnut, custom oil-finished, ebony fore-end tip, reinforcing crossbolts with ebony plugs, Dakota steel grip cap, and shadowline cheekpiece. The total cost, with action bedding, was $2,240-not cheap, but this is first-class work.

BUT DOES IT SHOOT?
With its original factory stock, my Weatherby shot .828 inch with handloads using 180-grain Swift Scirocco bullets. It now groups the same load in .720 inch.

I shot the newly stocked rifle at the beginning of a tropical September, when it was so hot and humid that the targets wilted in my hand. A second session at the end of October, with the temperature 58 degrees lower and the humidity 62 points less, did not move the point of impact. I will keep shooting as the weather changes and let you know how it does.

Wall-Hanger Guides

fieldandstream-editor — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 04:05:00 -0500

Some of the trophies I remember best from hunting and fishing trips are not game or fish but the men who guided me. I can think of several whom I'd like to have stuffed and hung on the wall.

Right over the fireplace I'd hang Billbob, the Wyoming "cowboy" mule deer guide. He looked like the Marlboro man-tall, lanky, handlebar mustache, and a swagger. But in truth he was neither a cowboy nor an experienced guide; he was a hairdresser. He gave ladies permanents in his mother's little cowtown salon.

When he saw the lightweight tents we'd packed, Billbob kicked the dirt and declared, "We needa get us a ruggeder outfit than that." He roared off in his pickup, then reappeared an hour later with his lights off, towing a 30-foot trailer. After he rammed the trailer back into thick brush I noticed the placard by the door: PROPERTY OF WYOMING HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT.

Billbob spat and proclaimed, "I helped buy that trailer, and I'm claiming my share of it this week." Billbob slept dry in the trailer each night while the rest of us (East Coast sissies who eschewed stolen property) shivered in wet tents and worried that the sheriff would show up. We all got nice bucks on that trip, but we rarely talk about them. Billbob the hard-bitten, hairdressing cowboy and his "borrowed" highway department trailer was the best trophy of that trip.

Then there was Marcel, the luxury-minded Canadian moose hunting guide. He was so excited about the prospect of being featured in a magazine story that he got knee-walking drunk before we arrived, causing us to delay our departure for a day. Then, upon inspecting our canoes, he complained that there was no room for his gear. "When I go in the woods, I go comfortable," he declared, pointing to an immense pile of duffel which included the mattress, blankets, and pillows off his double bed at home, a sack of potatoes, and 24 loaves of bread. Marcel's insistence that he would not travel with less forced us to hire a motorboat for the guide and all his stuff. This subverted the very premise of our trip, which had been to paddle canoes deep into the wilderness where motorboats couldn't go.

We saw one moose-a distant bull that was coming to our calls when he was cut off and slain by hunters patrolling the lakeshore in a motorboat. Our only trophy from that trip is the recollection of Marcel reclining on his mattress amongst his pillows, eating bread and potatoes.

Right next to Marcel, I'd hang Jack, a Kansas duck hunting guide who could really talk mallard and knew where to find rafts of fat, corn-fed ducks. What he wasn't so good at was boat safety.

It was a long ride to reach his hunting spot, but Jack had a big boat that got us there in time for a good shoot. Trouble was, Jack sheared a pin as we were picking up the decoys, and he had neither a spare nor a paddle. Using a piece of the broken pin, Jack managed to jam the motor in gear, but it stuck in reverse.

"If I shift gears, that little piece of pin is going to fall out," Jack announced. "We've got to go home backwards."

With the motor stuck in reverse, Jack backed the boat slowly all the way up the lake, with each wave slopping over the transom into the cockpit, where we took turns bailing. When we got to the dock, a pair of smug hunters stood laughing at us.

"Don't say nothing," Jack hissed. "Just make sure they see the ducks." And then he loaded the boat on the trailer stern first, hoping to make the hunters think he knew something they didn't.

But my favorite trophy guide was Adamie, the Inuit guide who tried too hard to make us happy. "You want to fish in the river or the bay?" Adamie asked through an interpreter at the beginning of the trip.

"Wherever you catch the most fish," I said.

"We catch most in the bay," the interpreter translated.

So, all that day we fished along the shores of Hudson Bay but caught nothing. Not one single bite.

"Why are we catching noo fish?" I asked.

"Because the fish are in the river," Adamie answered.

"You said you catch most in the bay," I argued.

"We catch the most fish in the bay in winter," Adamie explained with a grin. "In summer the fish go up the river, but we can't catch as many there."

I was learning. I said, "Let's go where we'll catch the most fish today."

All smiles, Adamie took us many miles up river for the rest of the week. We caught loads of big Arctic char, huge lake trout, and 5-pound brook trout.

"You like this better than the bay?" Adamie inquired as he unhooked another 10-pound char.

"Much better," I said.

"Good," Adamie exclaimed. "I just want to make you guys happy."

My collection wouldn't be complete without another trophy guide from the North Country, Sam Fast Rabbit. Sam was a tough old Indian, but his lips were deeply cracked by the constant tundra wind and he had no lip balm, so each morning Sam wiped great gouts of his wife's scarlet lipstick across his mouth. When it rained, the lipstick dissolved and ran all over his chin. He was frightening to see. Sam was a colorful trophy, but where would I hang a mount that looked like that?