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Live from the SHOT Show: Booth Babes 2009

Joe_Cermele — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:16:53 -0500

10 New Shotguns from the 2008 SHOT Show

fieldandstream-editor — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:00:00 -0500

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

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.

Gun Review: The Kimber Model 84M SVT

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 04:15:00 -0500

THE INSIDE STORY
The Kimber Model 84M SVT (Short Varmint Target) is what's known as a "pickup gun," a short, handy rifle that you can carry day in and day out to shoot whatever you think deserves a bullet. It is, to steal Thomas Hobbes' phrase, "nasty, brutish, and short"-a pronounced case of form following function. It is also the most schizophrenic rifle I can remember shooting. When fed ammunition it didn't like-which was anything with bullets that weighed 55 grains-it shot groups of five that averaged 2.105 inches. For a rifle of this type, printing 2-inch groups is cause enough to grasp it by its massive muzzle and throw it into the nearest catfish-breeding pond. But stick around.

With ammunition it did like, which was anything that used bullets of 50 to 52 grains, it shot .500 inch on the average, and with some handloads that it really liked, it achieved .324-inch groups, the smallest of which was .274 inch, making it one of the two most accurate production centerfire rifles I've ever tried.

The SVT's massive barrel allows you to shoot and shoot without the gun's shifting its point of impact, but it also means that you must use high rings, and that you can't mount a scope with a large objective lens.

The trigger is not only very light (as it should be) but so clean and crisp that every manufacturer of varmint rifles should be required to snap it for half a day.

CALIBER .223

PRICE $1,162 (kimberamerica.com)

WEIGHT 9 pounds 6 ounces without scope

BARREL Fluted stainless steel, 181/4 inches, target crown, bull-barrel contour, 1.05-inch diameter at muzzle, free-floated, six grooves, match-grade chamber

STOCK Target style, laminated

TRIGGER PULL 1 pound 14 ounces

SCOPE USED IN TEST Zeiss Conquest 4.5XÂ¿Â¿Â¿14X

ACTION Mauser-type bolt with rotating extractor

MAGAZINE CAPACITY Five

The Land of the Giants

fieldandstream-editor — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 04:15:00 -0500

In November in Saskatchewan, where temperatures may soar to a sultry 15 degrees, I went to find a whitetail that would give me chills. Over the years I'd squandered too many hunts (as much as any hunt is ever squandered) in too many places by turning down adequate bucks, waiting for something extraordinary. The result has been, of course, broad swatches of vacant walls for all the heads I never got, and extra room in the freezer for the venison not taken. In Saskatchewan there are whitetails that live and die without ever catching so much as a scent of a human being. And some are big enough that no hunter has ever had to have a second thought about them. That was the kind of whitetail I needed-the no-questions-asked kind.

To hunt in Saskatchewan, though, a nonresident is restricted to the northern half of the province, in what is designated "provincial forest." It is in actuality an interminable hell of poplar and spruce where a hunter will get irretrievably turned around in 10 yards. (The standard admonition guides give their hunters is never to go into the bush alone, not even on the trail of a wounded deer.) Still-hunting borders on physically unfeasible, and to attempt spot-and-stalk hunting would be like trying to find Waldo in a satellite photo of Calcutta. As for drives-considering that they only propel deer into some equally impenetrable sector of the bush-bailing a boat with a net would be more productive. So in the hope of seeing at least one no-questions buck in my life, and in my sights, I dressed in layer upon layer of poly, wool, and down, covered it with a white suit, pulled polar-expedition boots onto my feet and mitts on my hands, and sat in a ground blind watching a small clearing marked with fresh scrapes and rubs.

{The Long Wait}
I sat all alone in the blind and waited quietly (no talking, no laughing-though after a while I was strangely tempted) from well before dawn till long after sunset. When you wait on whitetails in Saskatchewan, there are other things to see. On the rarest of occasions, a moose, elk, black bear, or wolf might wander by. NaÂ¿Â¿ve ruffed grouse also strolled about, easy and tasty pickings for the locals who lamented nature's oversight in not creating the 250-pound economy size. At intervals during the iron-cold day, ravens caw-clucked overhead, flying so low the grunts that came from them with each wingbeat were audible. Mostly for me, though, surrounded by the poplars and spruces, there was only the silence of the limbs as the waiting developed into something resembling a state of terminal ennui. Luckily, deer appeared just often enough for total psychological collapse to be narrowly averted.

Almost always it was does that came. They materialized in the small clearing with wary gaits, heads bobbing apprehensively. The smaller does came first, to be driven off by larger ones that pressed back their ears and flailed with their front hooves. Even the largest does, though, were subjects of abuse, with magpies hopping onto their rumps. The deer wheeled in annoyance, flaring the black-and-white birds, which hopped right back on, until the does dematerialized, driven to distraction. At the very start of the Monday that was the first day of the hunt, the does came and went. Then at 9:30 A.M. the first buck showed up, and he was only the biggest I had ever seen and could have legally killed. He walked out like an inevitability, a 150-class 10-point, antlers burnished like the arms of an antique oak rocker. Seeing a buck like that, you begin to understand what a peculiar condition maleness is, especially during the rut. The buck wasn't drawn by any promise of food. He had come to find does, and if they weren't there, he might only lope through the clearing or hover tormentingly at the margin of the poplars before simply fading away.

He stood, though, in the open, right in front of me; and that should have been that. But once moree, unable to help myself, I thought about it. It was less than two hours into legal shooting time on the first day. Couldn't something bigger possibly come along? My answer was to watch him walk away, even as a tiny voice in my head was bawling, What have you done?

No more bucks came out that day, and after dark the guide arrived to get me. He asked what I'd seen. I told him.

"Monday buck," he said with a shake of the head, meaning that more than one hunter had lived to regret not taking that first-day's deer. Monday, Monday, can't trust that day; and after a full day Tuesday of sitting and seeing only one wee buck glide through the clearing, I was thinking that maybe I shouldn't be trusted, either, at least not when it came to making up my own mind.

{A Better Buck}
On Wednesday there was a doe in the clearing under the moon before shooting time, then an 8-point in the first gray light. Even he would have approached a personal best, but after Monday I'd established a benchmark. There was no giving in, and if I had to sit out the rest of the days on stand and go home, babbling, without a deer, that's how it would be. As absurd as it might sound, having seen one real deer, I had to see one even more real before I could pull the trigger.

The day went on with ravens, does, and magpies and lunch from a sack. I fought sleep. Every hour or so I checked my watch to see how much time remained. It was 4 P.M. when he filled up the gaps between the poplars.

He was already standing there when I sensed him, feeling him in my spine as much as seeing him. Ten-point antlers heavy as an elk's rack crowned his broad head. This was without a doubt the deer I'd passed up all the others for over the years, and now my mouth was dry and I kept telling myself to move slowly as I pulled off my mitt and brought up the .300 Winchester Magnum. There was absolutely nothing to think about, except whether he would come out of the trees.

The buck went on standing, looking into the clearing. He took a step back. He took another and turned to his left, the trees shielding him. Now that I didn't have to make up my mind, he was going to take away the decision anyway. He walked forward, moving off, going. Then he began to circle in toward the glade. I almost jumped.

He came out from behind a tall pine an inch at a time, first his muzzle with the tips of the black, wide main beams extending past his nose. His head and neck appeared, but I waited, and then I could see his shoulder, and after that his side. I didn't wait anymore.

I thumbed off the safety, held behind his shoulder, and fired. He spun and was gone. I left the blind and walked the 80 yards to where the buck had stood when I shot. I looked for blood and hair but could find none. I turned toward the poplars and spruces and remembered the guide's dire warnings. Still bundled in cold-weather gear, I stepped into the bush.

In the trees, a web of brown-leafed trails tangled through the snow. An hour of light was left. I looked back and made the tall pine my landmark and started down the first trail, pushing through the trees. After a few hundred feet I had cut nothing and turned back to try another trail. Twenty yards down the fourth I found one drop of blood, already frozen to a leaf. Ten feet farther was a second.

He lay big and yellow-brown 75 yards from the first blood. His almost perfectly symmetrical antlers were more like black walnut than oak, the flats of the beams wide as the palm of a hand, the eye guards long and thick. (Later, the antlers would green-score 1632/8.) I was safe in imagining I was the first person ever to see this buck, certainly the first hunter. I risked going stir-crazy for that privilege, and what I saw was a deer beyond doubt, at last. >

McIntyre hunted with Jim Shockey's Hunting Adventures, 250-748-6413; jimshockey.com.

Trip Journal: Texas Rattler

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 04:15:00 -0500

Most Novembers find me in a treestand in New York's Catskill Mountains, overlooking some ledges and trails where I've taken nice bucks in the past. It's tough hunting here, though, with the deer few and far between. So this year I figured I'd try rattling in a Texas buck before the New York season opened in late November.

I booked a hunt at Stasney's Cook Ranch in the Texas Hill Country. The 24,000-acre ranch, about an hour northeast of Abilene, proved to be more than I could have hoped for. The first hour out of camp, on the first day, my guide Frank and I saw a 150-class buck not more than 100 yards from the truck. You can shoot deer from the vehicle in Texas, but I held off, hoping for more of a one-on-one type of hunt.

After lunch, still driving, and having seen three more shooting-sized bucks, I asked Frank if we could get out of the truck and hike a bit, maybe do some glassing and stalking. He readily agreed, and we were soon hoofing it down a rutted Jeep trail, deep in the hill country. We set up and tried rattling from one spot, and while Frank and fellow hunter Jason Nash from Federal Ammunition had a glimpse at two nice bucks that were interested in the rattling noises, no one got a shot.

An hour later, we set up overlooking a brush-choked gully, and Frank began to rattle, lightly tickling the antlers at first, then building up to an all-out fight. And it worked. Scrunched down against a scrub oak, I was watching the far end of the gully when a rack buck appeared, maybe 200 yards away. He was headed in our direction, and coming fast. In less than five minutes, he was in range, though I couldn't get a clear view of his antlers, much less a shooting lane to his heart-lung area. I waited, heart pounding, and sure enough, suddenly I saw his head and neck pop up over the lip of the gully, looking in our direction, trying to find the source of the rattling antlers. I had a throat shot at 45 yards and took it as soon as I saw he was a huge 9-pointer. The 338 Winchester cartridge--a new caliber from Federal, one with incredible power and no more kick than that of a 30/06-did the job efficiently, dropping the buck literally where he stood.

Later in the day, toward dusk, Nash and Frank rattled in a beauty of a 10-pointer, which also fell to a well-placed neck shot from Jason's 338 Sako. It was an unbelievable day, to say the least.

Rattling in Texas--it doesn't get much more fun than this, especially for a Northeasterner used to hunting in 20-degree weather and not seeing many bucks in a season, much less in a day. Our day ended with two happy hunters--that is, until we saw a 165-class buck as we drove back to the ranch at sunset. My only consolation is that I know I'll be going back.

If you're interested in going after a trophy whitetail, contact Stasney's Cook Ranch at 888-762-2999; www.stasney.com. Wild boar, quail, predator, Rio Grande turkey and dove hunting are also available, depending upon time of year.

Gun Review: Two new varmint rifles you can actually afford

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 04:25:00 -0500

This month, although the snow is on the ground, we must devote our thoughts to our little furry friends who will emerge in spring, and to two new rifles that will make their furtive existences even chancier than they are now. On the fuzzy side I speak of the woodchuck and the prairie dog; on the wood and steel side, the Savage Model 40 and the Thompson/Center R-55. The former is a design based on rifles made in more genteel shooting times, whereas the other is ultramodern. They are both unusual and highly useful guns that will cause varmint hunters to rejoice. (The varmints are entitled to feel fairly gloomy about the situation.)

THE RETRO SINGLE-SHOT
The Savage Model 40 is the spiritual descendant of the Savage Model 340. That horrendously ugly, cheap-looking, affordable, and accurate gun was made in both varmint and whitetail calibers, and it was the first centerfire rifle I ever bought. The Model 40, however, looks neither ugly nor cheap, and it's close to half the price of a conventional varmint rifle.

It employs a medium-heavy, target-crowned, 24-inch sleeved barrel. The stock is laminated, and the trigger is Savage's wonderful AccuTrigger, which on my rifle was set at a flawless 2.2 pounds. The Model 40's lines are pleasing, and fit and finish are excellent. It's not a light rifle; mine, minus scope, weighs 8Â¿Â¿ pounds.

Although the .22 Hornet-the only chambering for the single-shot Model 40-is a centerfire cartridge, the rifle employs a modified rimfire action. It's perfectly safe for factory .22 Hornet ammo, which operates at 43,000 CUP (copper units of pressure), but it is not safe for handloads that are hotter than standard, or for the souped-up .22 Hornet wildcat known as the K-Hornet.

The .22 Hornet was developed in the 1920s by a group of experimenters that included Col. Townsend Whelen. Winchester introduced it in factory ammo in 1930. It's pretty tame by modern standards, a 45-grain bullet at around 2700 fps at the muzzle. But at the time it was electrifying and hugely popular. My experience with it is long but thin. I shot rats with a Hornet in the mid-1950s, and in the 1980s I owned a very fine custom-made Hornet built on a Ruger Number One action. The Hornet is not a quarter-minute-of-angle, grass-scorching 400-yard round. It is a minute-of-angle, 150-yard round that has almost no recoil and a very mild report, making it pleasant to shoot. In these hyper times, those are considerable virtues.

With my Model 40, I got consistent five-shot 1 Â¿Â¿-inch groups at 100 yards using Remington ammo, and 1 inch with Winchester (Savage tells me that other Model 40s have shot sub-MOA). This may not sound like much in an era when factory varmint rifles shoot Â¿Â¿-inch groups or better, but think about it this way: At 100 yards, it will take all but the most emaciated prairie dogs, and at 150, it will nail woodchucks as well. There was a time when people actually hunted groundhogs to get within range. Try it. It's a pleasant change from sniping them from a quarter mile away.

The Model 40 will not be everyone's cup of tea. Today's trend is faster and hotter and farther, and many shooters will be unhappy with the limitations imposed by the little Hornet. So it was a very gutsy thing for Savage to take such a big step backward. On the other hand, intelligent and discerning shooters are going to discover that you don't need all that power and noise to have a fine day of varminting. At a suggested retail price of $436, you don't need a heck of a lot of money, either.

THE ULTRAMODERN AUTO
In 2001, Thompson/Center Arms introduced a .22 auto rifle that was so wonderful it won an F&S Best of the Best Award. The T/C Classic .22 LR was brilliantly designed and flawlessly made, a little marvel of quality in every respect. Its lineal descendant, the R-55, is chambered for tthe .17 Mach 2 rimfire cartridge and exhibits the same high standards as its parent.

Unlike the Classic, the R-55 has very racy lines: an extremely high comb, a deeply cut-out pistol grip, and a general Buck Rogers silhouette. The 20-inch barrel is medium-heavy, target-crowned, and screwed, not pinned, into the receiver. As a rule, the triggers on factory .22 auto rifles are nothing to get excited about, but this one is the exception-clean, and only 3.3 pounds. The iron sights are good enough to put most centerfire rifle sights to shame. They are precision adjustable and equipped with fiber-optic outline points in red and green. (You'll probably have to remove the rear sight in order to get a scope on the rifle.)

Hornady's .17 Mach 2 cartridge was introduced in 2004, based on the .22 Long Rifle case. It fires a 17-grain polymer-tipped bullet at 2100 fps from a 24-inch barrel. According to some of the early reports I've read, this is a red-hot 150-yard cartridge. But a couple of days of prairie-dog hunting last spring made me think otherwise. (As either Mark Twain or Benjamin Disraeli said, "There are lies, damned lies, and ballistics.") At 150 yards, these tiny bullets seem to lose most of their punch and the wind plays with them pretty badly. I think the .17 Mach is a fine 100-yard cartridge, and I tested it for accuracy at a conservative 50 yards, where I got .95-inch five-shot groups.

There are two versions of the R-55: In blue steel with a laminated stock, it costs $479; a stainless-steel, composite-stock model is $546. Weaver-style scope bases and rings are $51 extra. There are very few rifles around, either rim- or centerfire, that are as well thought out and nicely made as the R-55. In these sorry times, it's heartening to see a gun that is this good.

After the Shot

fieldandstream-editor — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 04:25:00 -0500

Even a hard-hit deer can cover lots of ground before it goes down for good. There's only one certain path that leads to your trophy: Follow the steps below to make the job of following the blood trail easier and increase the probability of recovering every whitetail you shoot.

[BRACKET "1"] Never assume you've missed. Just last year I watched a buck walk away after my shot, seemingly unscathed. He paused in a clearing, looked calmly around for half a minute, then tipped over dead. Until you confirm that you've missed the shot, assume you've made it.

[BRACKET "2"] Watch the deer carefully as it runs off. You may see blood on the buck's hide that indicates where your bullet or arrow struck. Body language can also provide clues: paunch-shot deer frequently hunch up, and heart-shot bucks may leap when hit.

[BRACKET "3"] Memorize two locations before leaving your position: Point A is where the buck stood as you shot, and Point B is the last landmark you saw him pass.

[BRACKET "4"] Go immediately to Point A and search for blood. If none is present, walk slowly toward Point B until you find some. Mark the blood trail with surveyor's tape or reflective markers.

[BRACKET "5"] Analyze the blood. The presence of bubbles means a lung shot. Green or yellow matter within the blood indicates a hit to the paunch. Very dark red blood suggests the bullet went through muscle.

[BRACKET "6"] Proceed on the blood trail now if you're certain the hit was immediately fatal. Otherwise, wait several hours (on morning hunts) or overnight (on evening hunts). The exception is if you expect major precipitation, which could wash away the blood.

[BRACKET "7"] Go slowly and mark the trail every several yards. If the blood diminishes, this will help you determine the buck's likely path.

[BRACKET "8"] Remain patient if blood becomes difficult to find, and try these two tricks: (A) Stand at the last drop, look behind you at your marked trail, then project it forward. The next blood is apt to be along this line. (B) Make small circles ahead and to the sides of the last sign of blood, searching for further evidence. Gradually expand the size of this cloverleaf pattern until you pick up the trail again.

[BRACKET "9"] Keep at it. Recruit some buddies if need be. And when you find your buck, take some time to consider exactly what he did and where he went after the hit. Wounded whitetails exhibit similar behaviors. The more you learn from each buck you recover, the more readily you'll find the next one.