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An Illustrated Guide to Making the 10 Toughest Shots on Deer

fieldandstream-editor — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 05:00:00 -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

How To: Make your own Ballistic Buffalo

fieldandstream-editor — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 05:15:00 -0400

Back in the 1970s, when great bullets did not abound and bad ones did, I corresponded with a very knowledgeable gun writer named Bob Hagel, who told me that I should do my own testing to see which slugs would penetrate and hold together before I took them hunting.

The following target is based on what Hagel used and is made to tear apart weak bullets. In the Ballistic Buffalo, only the strong survive.

Making the Beast: In front I stick two thicknesses of worn-out truck inner tube (1), which you can get for free at any tire shop. Behind it goes a bundle of water-soaked newspapers (2), and behind that, an 11x14-inch piece of 1/2-inch plywood (3). Behind the plywood I place bound bundles of water-soaked newspaper (4) that total 2 feet thick, and behind that, if I'm testing an extremely tough bullet (usually it's not needed), more plywood. In the rear, I use a post (5) or tree stump to lean it all against.

In the Buff: With an orange aiming dot marked on the upper-left-hand quadrant of the tire, I fire a shot from 50 yards. Then, I go up to the buffalo and carefully start pulling the paper bundles apart to see how far the bullet has penetrated, taking note of the size and shape of the wound cavity and the depth of penetration. When I find the slug, I remove it with a pair of pliers because it is as hot as hell.

Weight Up: The slug goes into a handloader's scale. I divide the resulting measurement by the original weight of the bullet to find the percentage of weight it retained. Try this yourself, and you will know how far your bullet penetrated, how big a hole it made, and how well it survived the trip.

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: 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.

Scope Review: the Nikon Buckmasters 3X

fieldandstream-editor — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 04:05:00 -0500

Eons ago, when I bought my Model 340 Savage (the No. 1 song at the time was "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" if that gives you some idea), the only scope I could afford to mount on it was a rimfire model.

As I recall, it was a pretty dismal thing even for the little it cost. These days we are much more fortunate.

The scope I mounted on the Savage Model 40 (rifle review posted yesterday) was a Nikon Buckmasters 3XÂ¿Â¿Â¿9X (631-547-8607; nikonusa.com), which has a real-world price of $200 and is a prime example of what a lot you can get for that modest sum.

No bells and whistles, just bright, sharp optics and excellent adjustments. I wish I'd had one then. I wish I'd had a lot of things then.