Wayne van Zwoll, Author at Gun Digest

A Primer On Long-Range Optics

Wayne van Zwoll

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February 4, 2019

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Long-range optics can be somewhat complicated in nature and in their operation, but there are a few key things to remember to simplify the process.

What you need to consider when shopping long-range optics:

Magnification suffers if it doesn't come with clarity.
A 40x eyepiece is a maximum for a field spotting scope.
The larger the ocular lens, the larger the exit pupil and the more light is transmitted.
Lens coatings reduce light loss due to reflection and refraction.
Variable power spotting scopes tend to be more useful.
Given it shrinks the field of view, too much magnification in a rifle scope can be a handicap.
Too much magnification increases reticle quivers.
It also increases how much mirage you see.

A spotting scope moves things. It pulls things tiny with distance right into your hand. But the “Big Eye” is cumbersome too. On a hunt, you must weigh the benefits of detailed looks at distance against the various costs of making them.

Spotting scopes date way back. In 1608, Dutch spectacle maker Hans Lippershay lined up a pair of lenses on a distant weathercock. A huge chicken appeared, as if by magic! A year later, Galileo Galilei built his first telescope. With it and later versions, he discovered four of the moons orbiting Jupiter and distinguished individual stars in the Milky Way.

Galileo’s first telescopes had a convex objective lens and a concave ocular lens, so the focal point of the front lens lay behind the rear lens. Johannes Kepler changed Galileo’s design to put the image inside the tube. The image was upside down there, but, since these men were viewing stars, upside down didn’t matter! Later, engineers would devise an erector system to right the image. Early ’scopes delivered a fuzzy image, a result of “spherical aberration,” or the failure of light rays to meet at a common point along the lens axis. With no way to refine lens curvature, makers of early telescopes just increased focal length. Some versions had lenses several hundred feet apart! Tubes were both impractical and unnecessary. Compound lenses would eventually correct spherical and chromatic (color) aberrations.

By the time target shooters used spotting scopes to see bullet holes at 600 yards, and hunters took them afield to find bighorn rams, magnification had become an industry. Bull’s-eyes and animals at very long range popped, sharp-edged and super-sized, from a tube no bigger than a rolled-up newspaper. Four hundred years of progress in optics have put close images in a rucksack, and the last 50 years have delivered refinements early astronomers could not have imagined. Still, the Big Eye’s function is the same as it was in the seventeenth century: to help us see better.

Bigger Is Better, But…

Magnification is one assist. But bigger images aren’t sufficient if image quality suffers as a result of the enlargement, or if the image gets dim. In fact, magnifying a recognizable object too much can make it unrecognizable! And the ability of lenses to transmit usable light diminishes as you increase power.

The first requisite of a magnifying optic is that it resolve images clearly. Resolution is a measure of the level of detail you see through a scope. High-resolution optics can distinguish fine detail, separating small objects that, to the naked eye, appear as one at distance. A minute of angle (an inch at 100 yards), is about the limit of resolution for unaided human eyes. A second of angle is a sixtieth of a minute of angle.

In spotting scopes, you’ll sacrifice brightness and resolution for reduced weight and a slim profile.

Given good lenses, boosting magnification improves resolution. So does increasing lens diameter. At high power, a small lens won’t deliver a picture clear or bright enough for you to distinguish what big glass would make plain. A man named Rayleigh came up with a constant that, divided by objective lens diameter in millimeters, yields maximum resolution in seconds of angle. Here’s how it works.

Say your spotting scope has a front lens diameter of 60mm. Dividing 60 into the constant, 114.3, yields a resolution of 1.9 seconds of arc. That figure determines the useful magnification limit of your eyepiece. As your eye can resolve 60 seconds, you divide that by 1.9 and get 31. So, for that scope, magnification of 31x is the usable top end. More power will make the picture bigger, but not clearer; you won’t see any more detail. If you bought a bigger scope — say, one with an 80mm objective—you’d hike the power limit to about 43x (114.3/60 = 1.4; 60/1.4 = 43).

Light Transmission And Other Considerations

High magnification means dim images at dawn and dusk. Light transmission is commonly expressed as the diameter of a scope’s exit pupil — that pencil of light making its way to your eye from the ocular lens. Calculate EP by dividing objective diameter by magnification. For example, our 60mm scope with 20x eyepiece offers an exit pupil 3mm in diameter. The bigger the lens, the bigger the exit pupil, if power stays constant. Increase magnification, and the exit pupil shrinks. A bigger exit pupil brings more light to your eye, which can dilate to 7mm in total darkness. As you age, your pupil becomes less flexible, and 6mm may become a more practical maximum. In dim hunting light, 5mm dilation is more likely.

In bright light, your eye doesn’t dilate, it constricts. A tiny exit pupil gives you as broad a shaft of light as your eye can use under brilliant sun. At dusk, a generous objective lens helps you. But the biggest spotting scope practical for field use, one with an 80mm lens, delivers a 5mm exit pupil only at 16x!

Today’s scopes offer a much wider range of magnification than previously possible, which makes them powerful tools for the hunter or shooter.

Lens quality and coatings matter a great deal, and the best are expensive. The price spectrum for spotting scopes reflects real differences in scope and image quality. Still, optics that offer fine resolution and efficient light transmission shouldn’t require a second mortgage. You’ll get them now, even with mid-priced scopes, provided you insist on fully multi-coated lenses. That means all air-to-glass surfaces are coated with compounds that reduce light loss due to reflection and refraction. (Uncoated lenses shed up to four percent of incident light at each surface.) You might also consider ED (extra-low dispersion) or APO (apochromatic) or fluorite lenses. They’re commonly available on top-quality scopes.

While, in my view, most big riflescope objectives deliver fewer benefits than liabilities, you’ll get real value from added lens surface up front in a spotting scope. I prefer 80mm lenses, but 65mm scopes by the likes of Swarovski, Leica, Zeiss, and Nikon are great alternatives, where weight matters.

Another useful feature on spotting scopes is variable power. For hunters, 15-45x is ideal. Keep it at the low end to quickly find an animal you’ve spotted with your naked eye or binocular. Once on target, you’ll appreciate a choice of magnification to match distance and wind and light conditions. I’ve used a fixed 25x Bushnell while guiding hunters. It also served me well on the smallbore circuit, showing .22 bullet holes in targets 100 yards off without undue distortion in mirage or disturbing movement in wind. For hunting, Leupold’s 12x-40x adds versatility. A 15-45x is more useful than any 20-60x afield. Higher power makes sense only at long-range paper, from a very steady support, and then only occasionally.

Less Is More

Because the laws of physics apply to riflescopes as they do to spotting scopes, you should have little trouble picking a sight for long shooting. But remember that a riflescope is for aiming, not viewing, and that its weight and bulk become one with the rifle’s. It must also endure recoil. Many shooters choose scopes that are unnecessarily powerful.

Too much magnification handicaps you in several ways. It shrinks the field of view, so you won’t find the target as quickly as with less. On a hunt, you may not see the huge buck in the shadows to the side of the most obvious animal. High power reduces exit pupil diameter, so, in dim light, the target image won’t be as bright. The magnification that makes that target bigger also bumps up the amplitude of reticle movements due to muscle tremors and heartbeat. Reticle quivers you might not even notice at 2½x become violent dips and hops at 10x. At 20x, you’ll see so much chaos in the tighter field, the target might bounce in and out of view as you try to tame that reticle. A scope helps you when it shows movement you can control. It’s a liability as it amplifies movement you can’t. Instead of applying gradual pressure to the trigger, you wear yourself out fighting the jitterbug image in your sight. As eyes and muscles tire, an accurate shot becomes impossible.

Parallax appears as the apparent movement of the reticle when you move your eye off the scope’s optical axis. Every scope is set for zero parallax at a certain distance, typically 100 or 150 yards in sights designed for centerfire rifles.

Magnification also shows you mirage, a good thing on days when mirage is light and the target is in reasonable range. But, on hot days, when you’re aiming over great distance, the target may appear as a dim, shapeless object stuck below the surface of a raging river.

In general, the least magnification that gives you a clear target image is the best magnification. I use 4x riflescopes for most big-game hunting and think it adequate to 300 yards. A 6x works fine for me at 400. Of course, you’ll want more magnification for small animals like prairie dogs. Deliberate shooting at paper bull’s-eyes and steel gongs brings out powerful glass. I’ve used 16x, even 20x, scopes to advantage in good light, when there’s time for a solid position and precision trumps all else. In smallbore matches, a 20x Redfield served me well. I needed that much power to hold on a .22 bullet hole at 50 meters, or shade to the bottom-right quadrant of an X-ring the size of a bottle cap at 100. I’ve used 25x to good effect on bull’s-eyes, but am inclined to think 20x would have served, too. Higher power is very hard to use.

Variable Power And Adjustable Objectives

These days, variable scopes offer wide four-, five- and now six-times power ranges; that is, the highest magnification is four, five or six times that of the lowest. So, instead of the 3-9x that once awed sportsmen with its versatility, you can get a 3-12x, a 3-15x, or a 3-18x. Or bump up to 4x on the bottom to get 20x or 24x on the top. Such scopes feature 30mm tubes. These may or may not have a bigger erector assembly (the tube with lenses and magnification cams held inside the main tube). Those with erector assemblies of standard size for one-inch scopes give you more windage and elevation adjustment. That’s an advantage at long range, though a scope performs best with its optical axis close to its mechanical axis.

Keep objective lens diameter modest. The 42mm is big enough unless you insist on very high power. Remember that, with a variable scope, big glass up front enhances brightness only at high magnification. At 7x, a 42mm lens delivers all the light your eye can use in the dimmest conditions. In bright light, your eye won’t be dilated. The 3mm exit pupil of a 14x scope with a 42mm objective is enough.

For long shooting, you’ll want an adjustable objective, so you can focus the target and eliminate parallax at the target distance. Parallax appears as the apparent movement of the reticle when you move your eye off the scope’s optical axis. Every scope is set for zero parallax at a certain distance, typically 100 or 150 yards in sights designed for centerfire rifles. At that range, you can move your head up and down or sideways behind the scope, and the reticle will stay on target. At other distances, you may see the reticle off-center when it really isn’t, that is, it wouldn’t be if your eye were directly behind the scope. Adjustable objectives let you zero out parallax. Traditional AO scopes have a sleeve on the objective bell. A knob on the left-hand side of the turret is more contemporary and easier to use.

Reticles And Scope Weight

As for reticles, simple is good. For long shooting, a “range ladder” on the lower stem of a standard crosswire or a plex can provide useful aiming points. You’ll want them beyond 400 yards or so. While a fine crosswire yields precise aim, it can cost you a shot if it’s not easy to see in dim light. Avoid jungles of tics and hashmarks and multiple lines that clutter your field. They slow your aim. Picking the wrong intersection has caused many a miss — and the more marks you see, the more likely you’ll make that mistake! The mil-dot is as complex a reticle as I like. Shooters who learn to use it can do well at distance.

Keeping it relatively simple is the best approach with reticles. A few tics are fine, but avoid cluttering your field of view.

While most reticles in scopes marketed stateside have second- or rear-plane reticles, the standard in Europe has been first- or front-plane reticles. Both have advantages and drawbacks. A rear-plane reticle stays the same apparent size (crosswire thickness) throughout the power range of a variable scope. This is good, because most hunters don’t want the reticle to grow in thickness as they boost power for fine aim at distance, nor do they want one that gets thin and hard to see when they dial down for close shots in timber. On the other hand, a first-plane reticle stays the same size in relation to the target as you change magnification, so you can use it as a rangefinding device at any power without recalculating.

Before committing to a scope, consider its weight and dimensions. Besides adding to your burden afield, heavy scopes can slip in their rings under stiff recoil. A long eyepiece can force placement of the scope too close to your eye. Scopes with little “free tube” between bell and eyepiece limit your options for ring location.

Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from Mastering the Art of Long Range Shooting.

The .22 LR And Its .22 Rimfire Cousins

Wayne van Zwoll

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November 13, 2018

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In its second century of use, the .22 LR proved to have the staying power many of its close relatives lacked.

What Were Some Of The Early .22 Rimfire Cartridges:

.22 Short (1857)
.22 Long (1871)
.22 Extra Long (1880)
.22 Long Rifle (1887)
.22 WRF (1890)
.22 Remington Special (1890?)
.22 Winchester Automatic (1903)
.22 Remington Automatic (1914)
.22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire (1959)

Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson developed the first successful .22 round in 1857, after trying to adopt Flobert’s cartridge to the petulant Hunt-Jennings lever-action rifle that would sire the Henry. Smith & Wesson’s rimfire, essentially the .22 Short, was made then much as it is now. A thin sheet-metal disc was drawn into a tube with a closed end, a rim “bumped” onto that end and the fold filled with fulminate of mercury. The fulminate exploded when hammer or striker crushed the rim against the barrel. Smith & Wesson fueled their .22 cartridge with 4 grains of black powder and chambered a revolver for it.

Savage-B-Series-Hardwood-2 — The .22 Long Rifle came in 1887, after the Short and Long. New subsonic hollowpoints are accurate and lethal.

Flobert’s round became the BB (Bullet Breech) Cap, its 16-grain bullet at 750 fps ideal for indoor target fun. The CB (Conical Bullet) Cap, circa 1888, was a BB Cap with a pinch of blackpowder and the Short’s 29-grain bullet. The .22 Long Rifle preceded the CB Cap by a year. Introduced by the J. Stevens Arms & Tool Company, it comprised 5 grains of blackpowder behind a 40-grain bullet. The Long Rifle post-dated the .22 Long, which arrived in 1871, with the Short’s bullet on a case later adopted by the LR.

In the late 1880s, these rimfires evolved to use semi-smokeless powder. Smokeless loads came on its heels. Remington announced “Kleanbore” priming for the .22 Short in 1927, years after the Germans developed “Rostfrei” non-corrosive priming. A high-speed LR load emerged at Remington in 1930. From 1880 to around 1935, a few companies loaded the .22 Extra Long, first with 6 grains of blackpowder in a hull a tad longer than the LR’s. Its 40-grain bullet loafed out the muzzle at 1,050 fps.

Savage-B-Series-Hardwood-4 — The .22 WMR arrived in 1959, and expanded options in bullets improve both accuracy and terminal performance.

Other early rimfires with about the same pep include the .22 Remington Automatic, developed in 1914 for that firm’s Model 16 self-loading rifle and dropped in 1928. Like the .22 Winchester Automatic, made until 1932 for Winchesters’ 1903 auto, it fired a 45-grain, inside-lubricated bullet .222-inch in diameter. Cases would not enter S, L or LR chambers. Friskier by half was the .22 WRF. It sent inside-lubricated 45-grain missiles at 1,450 fps, and interchanged with the .22 Remington Special that followed.

By far the most popular, useful and efficient .22 rimfire cartridge is the Long Rifle. Hunters know high-speed loads have twice the punch of the Short, and 60 percent more than the Long. But at 100 yards, the 40-grain LR bullets land 3½ inches below a 75-yard zero, courtesy a miserable .115 ballistic coefficient. Subsonic solids in .22 LR Match ammo have dominated rimfire bullseye games since I began competing decades ago. New subsonic hollow-points give small-game hunters match accuracy and a mild report for close shooting in settled environs.

In 1959, the .22 LR got a big brother. The .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire sent 40-grain bullets at an advertised 2,000 fps. That claim proved optimistic, and 40s are now listed nearer 1,900. But frisky loads with 30-grain bullets clock 2,250! Pointed polymer tips have flattened the arcs and tightened groups for shooters sweet on the .22 WMR — and I’m one of them!

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the July 2018 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

More On Rimfires:

The .22 LR: Mini, Mighty And Many
Best .22 Suppressor Choices To Mute Your Plinker
The Quintessential 22 Pistol: The Colt Woodsman
Collector’s Corner: The Browning SA-22
The .22 LR For Self Defense: Good, Bad Or Crazy?

A Different .22: Savage B Series Hardwood

Wayne van Zwoll

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November 6, 2018

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Savage’s B Series Hardwood has elements of fine rimfires now gone — and modern day improvements.

Why the B Series Hardwood is a top rimfire:

Stocked in walnut-stained hardwood.
21-inch sporter barrel.
Adjustable iron sights.
Drilled and tapped for scope mounts.
Adjustable AccuTrigger.
Chambered in .22LR, .22 WMR and .17 HMR.

I sat on a fence rail, the rifle heavy, its walnut smooth in my hands. It smelled faintly of Hoppes. The barn squatted as if tired of supporting its roof. Boards rotted at the bottom splayed out, pressed by a manure pack so deep the sheep almost bumped their heads entering the doorway. A dirt-poor farmer tended this 80 acres. He showed me where to sit and promised he’d find some more ammo … but did I have enough for today?

“Yes,” I said, though at 50 cents a box, it hadn’t come cheap. I slid a handful into the borrowed .22.

Tiny tunnels threaded the sheep pack, laced through the rotted boards and snaked through the apron of grass outside the pen. I watched them as carefully as later I would scan deer trails, and slots in the bush for Cape buffalo. A rat’s head in the tight, milky field of the Weaver J4 hiked my pulse as would bigger game through better glass in a life yet to spool out.

Rimfire rifles still bring shooting and hunting to youngsters. Quiet, accurate cartridges and recoil that barely nudges the clavicle gives marksmanship a chance. “You can’t shoot well if you pay attention to the bang,” observed the man who owned the .22. One day he handed me a long-barreled Navy Krag. I fumbled a .30-40 cartridge into the box and snapped it shut. I stroked the silk-smooth bolt, struggled to align the iron sights on the oil can in the furrow and staggered to the blast and the hammer-blow of the metal butt. The oil can didn’t move.

“Missing big and noisy is still missing,” he said. “Hitting with a .22 is better.”

The 10-shot rotary magazine fits flush between the action screws, and the forward latch is properly recessed.

Alas, rifles like his lovely rimfire would soon be too costly to build. Someone bought the single-shot bolt-action in the rack beneath the moose in the local hardware — the one new .22 that, at $16.50, I thought I might someday afford. A simple, honest rifle of steel and walnut, it was replaced by tinny .22s with pot-metal and polymer parts, in crudely fitted, shoddily finished stocks. Gone was figured walnut. Iron sights became more expensive and, as scopes gained traction at market, went away.

While not sudden, changes in rimfire rifles were marked and irreversible. Used-gun racks that had once bristled with fine target rifles lost them. Classic models that had defined the market left it.

Craftsmanship Not Forgotten

Alas, these rifles are unlikely to return. If you recall 22-cent gasoline, you know these rifles I’m talking about — and perhaps mourn them. If you’re young, you’ve read of them. They’re now seldom loaned to boys picking off rats. But once in awhile, something comes along to remind us of them.

More On Rimfires:

The .22 LR: Mini, Mighty And Many
Best .22 Suppressor Choices To Mute Your Plinker
The Quintessential 22 Pistol: The Colt Woodsman
Collector’s Corner: The Browning SA-22
The .22 LR For Self Defense: Good, Bad Or Crazy?

The Savage B Series Hardwood, new for 2018, is such a rifle — though its description didn’t spur me to jubilation. The catalog noted that B Series rifles have “… an ergonomically designed stock, higher comb, top tang safety and target-style vertical pistol grip.” The rotary magazine and AccuTrigger are also standard.

Savage’s AccuTrigger, introduced in 2003, appears on all seven B Series rifles.

The B Series is not the B-Mag sextet bored for the bottleneck .17 WMR. It’s a more traditional family of rimfires, all seven members with identical bolt mechanisms and 10-shot spools. Six come in .22 Long Rifle, .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire and .17 Hornady Magnum Rimfire, and one in .22 LR only.

B Series rifles won’t shame early post-war .22s — those that, if produced today, would cost many shekels indeed. These new Savages emphasize value and affordability, place performance over esthetics at prices that won’t give you the vapors. Six of the seven Bs wear black synthetic stocks. The outlier that caught my eye has real wood and open sights: true “yesterday” appeal. I requested a sample in .22 WMR.

At 5.5 pounds with a 21-inch barrel and 13.5-inch length of pull, the B Series Hardwood hardly pops from a spec sheet. In hand, this rifle gets better. The sample’s stock has a red-orange hue, not unlike aged French walnut. It’s very well finished, the pores filled, surface scratch- and ripple-free, details crisp. The grip lacks traditional curve but is long enough for big paws. Its slight swell (both sides) naturally and comfortably positions my palm. Generous comb fluting accepts the heel of my hand.

Stippling on the grip and high on the forend is well placed for secure but relaxed hold. Below a ridge midway along the forend, seven near-vertical grooves add purchase for your left palm — or for your mitt as you kick about the bush for cottontails on crisp December mornings.

Here is one of the author’s 100-yard groups from the B Series: fi ve 30-grain CCI hollow-points in 1.1 inches.

The relatively tall, straight comb instantly aligns my eye with the low-mounted Bushnell scope I attached to the rifle, but it’s not too high for iron-sight use. “Iron” is a misnomer here, because the open sights are not of steel. The front is a simple blade integral with a base secured to the barrel by two screws. The height-adjustable rear sight is also fastened by twin screws. Its top section can be removed to let a scope’s objective bell crouch low.

By the way, the tubular steel receiver is drilled and tapped for Weaver bases; it’s not grooved for clamp-on rings. Held to the stock by machine screws fore and aft of the rotary magazine, the bolt has dual extractors in its recessed face. The polymer 10-shot box with polymer spool fits flush and is secured by a recessed front latch that operates easily but with authority — and there’s no rattle. Feeding the spool isn’t like sliding cartridges into a tube; each must be pressed against a stubborn catch. Shucking cartridges into and out of the chamber, there’s also a hitch. And loading single cartridges through the port is only for small, nimble fingers. That said, in short order I got used to these minor balks.

The cast alloy guard, attached by the rear guard screw and, behind, by a wood screw, straddles the AccuTrigger, which Savage introduced in 2003 and now uses in most of its rifles. In the B Series, it also serves as bolt release. The two-position tang safety is handy and it’s quiet and crisp in operation, but it doesn’t lock the bolt. I like the bolt handle: Long and straight and positioned at a comfortable angle, it has a substantial cylindrical head finely machine-checkered on its circumference.

You can get a B Series Hardwood in .17 HMR, too — a superbly accurate round built on the .22 WMR hull.

The B Series Hardwood balances well, its weight settling naturally between my hands. There’s a gunny, real-rifle feel to this .22. It leaps to cheek, steadies quickly and carries intuitively in the crook of my arm. Neither bulky nor too slender, the stock nestles naturally in my big hands. “Ergonomically” is one of many overused words that profligately waste syllables without clearly describing anything. But if there’s an “ergonomically fine” rimfire stock, Savage has approached it here. The B Series Hardwood is graced with QD swivel studs, so I can cinch up a Brownells Latigo sling for accurate fire from hunting positions.

Proof Through Plinking

At the range, I wound up giving the Savage more attention than went to the $4,000 big game rifle on the bench for accuracy trials. The .22 Magnum was just more fun! After zeroing at 35 steps and poking a .4-inch group, I trotted a target to 100. Bullets in a wide range of weights and styles drilled groups that would have sent prairie dogs dashing for their holes!

CCI 30-grain poly-tipped loads delivered the tightest knot: 1.1 inch. But other light-bullet options, like the Speer TNT load marketed by Federal, punched four of five holes inside an inch. Competitive loads from Hornady, Remington and Winchester yielded similar results. Federal’s 50-grain hollow-points at 1,530 fps could hardly match the 2,250-fps launch of 30-grain poly-tips, and struck lower. But groups hovered near 1.6 inches.

At ordinary rimfire ranges, those 50s may kill game like groundhogs and foxes more reliably than faster bullets that trump them in the charts. At 75 yards, it’s toting 175 ft.-lbs. of energy — about twice as much as a high-speed 38-grain .22 LR hollow-point!

The tubular B Series receiver is drilled and tapped for scope mounts (here Weaver). It’s not grooved.

Long besmirched by reports of mediocre accuracy, the .22 WMR has benefited hugely from new bullets that not only snug groups on paper but upset with lethal effect in game. That said, the .17 HMR, on the WMR’s case, clearly nips tighter knots. And in competition, .22 LR match ammo has often blessed me with 0.25-inch five-shot groups in the 50-meter X-ring. Perhaps I chose the .22 WMR chambering here because it has struggled so long for the acceptance it will never have.

All told, Savage’s B Series Hardwood looks comfortable in my rack. Its feel and features earn it a place beside earlier rimfires now too costly to build. And in some ways, it’s superior. At a retail price of $439 for the .22 LR version and $459 for the .17 HMR and .22 WMR, it’s the most expensive of the clan. But then, without its hardwood stock and open sights, it would be just another .22.

For more information on the B Series Hardwood, please visit: www.savagearms.com

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the July 2018 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

Redhawk vs. Super Redhawk: Which Is Ruger’s Best .44 Magnum?

Wayne van Zwoll

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October 1, 2018

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Ruger's Redhawk and Super Redhawk are both classics, but chambered in powerful .44 Magnum does double-action revolver outshine the other?

Ruger Redhawk .44 Magnum Specs:

Capacity: 6 rounds
Barrel Length: 4.2 to 7.5 inches
Overall Length: 9.5 to 13 inches
Weight: 47 to 59 ounces
Frame: Stanless Steel
Finish: Satin
Front Sight: Ramp
Rear Sight: Adjustable
MSRP: $1,079 to $1,159

The author’s .44 Magnum Redhawk has a 5 1/2-inch barrel. Ideal balance, one-hand control, lovely lines.

Some people choose powerful firearms for the reason adolescent boys crave muscle-cars: image. My drift to 1911 pistols and large-frame revolvers was instead pragmatic. My pork-chop paws engulfed smaller handguns. Finger curled about the trigger like a shrimp, my leading knuckle crowded the muzzle. But to give pocket guns a fair shake, I ran the numbers. Ruger’s LCP and LCR measure about 5.2 and 6.5 inches in length. My hand tapes 8.7.

Revolvers that fit me date to the 1840s, though I don’t. Economic depression followed the panic of 1837. In 1841, Samuel Colt’s Paterson plant closed. Colt found work with Samuel Morse, until in 1846, a visit from Samuel Walker of the Texas Rangers turned his attention again to guns. The resulting Walker Colt was a 4 1/2-pound .44, to be manufactured at Ely Whitney’s plant. Few were shipped. Short months later, Captain Walker fell to a Mexican lance at the Battle of Juamantla.

The Redhawk grip frame is one with the cylinder frame. Springs operate parallel with the cylinder pin.

War clouds fueled development of Colt’s 1860 Army. The 1873 Peacemaker followed, an instant success. The .45 Long Colt, initially loaded with 28 grains black powder behind a 230-grain bullet, earned its deadly reputation with a 40-grain charge, a 255-grain bullet. The U.S. Army adopted this single-action sidearm in 1875. Three years later, Colt bored its 1873 Model P Peacemaker Single Action Army for the .44-40, already available in Winchester’s 1873 rifle. That dual chambering profited both firms, ensuring a ready supply of .44-40 ammunition across the West and absolving customers of packing two loads.

Find Out More About Ruger Firearms

Meanwhile, Smith & Wesson saw promise in double-action revolvers. In 1905, a full decade after smokeless powder arrived, it built a .44 Special revolver for a black-powder load, 26 grains driving a 246-grain bullet through nine 7/8-inch pine boards! The .44 Hand Ejector appeared in 1907. The .44 Military Model of 1908 became the “Triple Lock,” as it latched at the breech, forward of the extractor and between yoke and extractor shroud. Refinements followed. The Fourth Model, or 1950 Target, got the attention of an Idaho cowboy, who began crusading for a revolver cartridge to upstage the .357, announced in 1935 on S&W’s .38/44 frame. Elmer Keith’s .44 Special handloads presaged an even more potent round.

As the .357 got its zip from a case slightly longer than a .38 Special’s, so the .44 Magnum gained its edge on the .44 Special. In 1954, Remington’s first factory loads hurled 240-grain bullets at 1,350 fps, effectively doubling the blow of the .45 Colt. Smith added steel to its 1950 frame, hiking pistol heft from 40 to 47 ounces. The Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver went public in 1956.

An adjustable, blued, square-notch sight (RH and SRH) contributes to a crisp picture, accurate aim.

Sturm, Ruger came late to the revolver game but quickly showed Bill Ruger’s genius. The .357 Blackhawk appeared in 1955, the .44 a year later. These “Flattops” anchored a single-action series that’s still strong at market. A medium-frame .357 double-action arrived in 1970, but the big news from Ruger that decade came at its end. During the NRA show in San Antonio in May 1979, the company unveiled its Redhawk, a six-shot DA .44 Magnum. That year was Sturm, Ruger’s 30th — and most profitable. Sales reached $68.9 million, the net topping $7.9 million. Those figures surpassed 1978 returns by 15 and 13 percent. Clearly, Ruger was producing what shooters wanted.

Struggling into solvency after college, I wasn’t then able to snare a .44 Redhawk. But it was soon in my sights, an alluring combination of strength and elegance, tradition and innovation.
Engineers Harry Sefried and Roy Melcher made the Redhawk what it is, but Harry credited Bill Ruger with the offset ejector rod. Breaking with tradition, it’s not in the frame’s center and doesn’t rotate coaxially with the cylinder. So located, it permits a beefier frame next to the rod. The steel there is nearly twice as thick as it would have been with a frame-centered ejector. Another departure from the norm is the cylinder latch. Instead of a sliding tab, it’s a button that releases when depressed. I prefer it, as firing with gloves on big hands can accidentally move a fore-and-aft latch.

The Redhawk’s crane locks into the frame, where it’s held much more securely than if relegated to a forward under-barrel lug. Ruger described this as a “triple-locking” (not Triple Lock!) revolver, the cylinder secured “front, rear and bottom.” In this respect, the Redhawk was more rugged than any other DA then on the market. Sefried observed the lockup “would last about indefinitely.” The barrel has plenty of brawn, too, with 3/4×20-pitch threads.

A flat-nosed hammer falls on a transfer bar. A single coil spring powers two linkages: one to push the hammer, the other to return the trigger. Smith & Wesson DAs have two springs, a system Sefried said increases trigger pull without adding hammer thrust. Colt’s two-legged flat spring yields a lighter pull but does not assist the hammer. Bill Ruger insisted on a trigger-weight setting “in the range of conventional double-action revolvers,” so I shouldn’t have been surprised when Redhawk pulls I weighed came in at 6 1/2 pounds SA and 11 DA. Both were smooth and felt lighter. According to Ruger engineers, the Redhawk reliably ignites primers with a DA pull as light as 7 pounds.

For the Redhawk, author likes the Galco DAO (here) and Phoenix holsters. Note strap tab, tension screw.

Introduced with barrel lengths of 5 1/2 and 7 1/2 inches, the .44 Magnum Redhawk arrived as the “logical evolution of the now-famous line of Ruger double-action revolvers.” But it was also an “entirely new firearm, representing the most significant advance in the development of heavy frame double-action revolvers in many decades.” The company also noted, “With the accuracy and power of the .44 Magnum cartridge [the Redhawk will] be widely used as a hunting revolver.” It’s since been chambered in .357 and .41 Magnum, and in .45 Colt. Ruger’s latest catalog lists the .44 Magnum with hardwood grips and 5 1/2- and 7 1/2-inch barrels, including a Hunter model with scope ring dimples on the 7 1/2-inch rib. There’s a .45 Colt/.45 ACP version with hardwood, a .45 Colt or .44 Magnum with Hogue Monogrips. Both have 4 1/4-inch barrels. A new round-butt, hardwood .357 holds eight shots behind a 2 3/4-inch barrel.

In past years, this pistol has been listed with blued chrome-moly steel, but now all versions are of brushed stainless. Sights are blued C-M. The replaceable front blade has a red plastic insert, the adjustable rear a white-outline square notch.

Scoped, a 52-ounce Super Redhawk becomes a two-hand gun. It’s still a handgun, and easy to carry.

When life became unbearably hollow without a Redhawk, I yielded. The price had climbed well above the 1980 MSRP of $325. My consolation: it has kept rising. Good things seem never to go on sale, and I suspect the current figure ($1,079) will soon be eclipsed. I picked the 5 1/2-inch .44 because I like wood grips and think a 5 1/2-inch barrel gives a big revolver visual and physical balance. Recoil is more violent in shorter, lighter .44s, which also sacrifice sight radius. A 7 1/2-inch barrel brings heft from 49 to 54 ounces, quickly making the Redhawk a two-hand gun. Even if I almost always use two, it seems to me a handgun shouldn’t require both.

Unlike later Ruger DAs built with separate grip frames, the Redhawk’s grip is integral with the frame proper. There are no sideplates. You can disassemble the Redhawk without tools, but I used a screwdriver to release the grips. A pin fell — from where I could not tell. Read the instructions, Dummy! The manual confirmed what I’d suspected. The pin has no function in the assembled pistol; it secures the mainspring and strut during disassembly.

Firing the Redhawk won’t put you to sleep, but the hardwood grips are thoughtfully shaped and mercifully smooth. They slip slightly in your hand as the gun rotates up in recoil, absorbing bite. While pliable rubber absorbs shock, it also ensures that all the kick reaches you before it leaks energy moving the pistol. Redhawk sights give me the square, sharp image I like in irons.

Bill Ruger is credited with designing a stout “triple-locking cylinder” that stays tight after much use.

In range trials, my Redhawk has printed pleasing groups with bullets of 180 to 300 grains. Nixing shots I pulled or wobbled out, I managed to threaten the 2-inch mark at 25 yards with the loads at hand.

Load	Group (in.)
Remington 180-gr. SJHP	2.1
Hornady 200-gr. XTP	2.2
Speer 210-gr. Gold Dot	1.9
Federal 240-gr. JHP	2.2
Winchester 250-gr. PTHP	2.4
Black Hills 300-gr. JHP	2.3

Vertical spread between loads reflected the wide velocity range. Unlike rifles, handguns typically send heavier missiles higher into close targets. Trajectory disparities due to bullet speed and profile matter less than do exit points in the recoil cycle. Fast, light bullets exit early in the muzzle’s climb. Slow, heavy bullets leave later.

For some time, I figured any DA enthusiast with a Ruger Redhawk had all the handgun he or she needed. But then a Super Redhawk followed me home.

Introduced in 1986, just seven years after its predecessor, the Super Redhawk distinguishes itself with an extended frame, essentially a barrel collar. Besides adding beef to the barrel-frame juncture, this frame has more steel in the top strap and around the ejector rod. It’s long enough to support a scope. Ruger machined it for scope rings and has furnished them on every SRH except the Alaskan, with its 2 1/2-inch barrel. That fistful of recoil didn’t debut with the first Super Redhawk, which featured hard synthetic grips with wood insets, and barrels of 7 1/2 and 9 1/2 inches, chambered only in .44 Magnum. Weights: 53 and 58 ounces.

Author used a range of loads (180- to 300-grain bullets) in accuracy trials. These guns aren’t fussy.

The Super Redhawk embodies features of the Redhawk — same triple-locking cylinder and offset cylinder notches that dodge the thinnest points in the cylinder. Same cylinder latch button and transfer bar ignition. The rear of the frame, the guard, trigger and hammer appear at a glance identical. Sights are the same too, albeit the SHR has an island ramp in the front, not a barrel-length rib. Both .44s have six-groove rifling with 1-in-20 right-hand twist.

Internally, however, the two revolvers are quite different. The Super Redhawk has the “peg” grip frame of Ruger’s GP-100 instead of the Redhawk’s traditional full-size grip frame. All three coil springs behind the standing breech of a Redhawk operate nearly parallel with the cylinder and barrel axes. The biggest spring in the Super Redhawk is pretty much centered in the grip and runs parallel to it.

The SRH has not been chambered in .357 Magnum or .45 Colt; but since its introduction, Ruger has added the .454 Casull, .480 Ruger, .41 Magnum and 10mm Auto to the original .44 Magnum chambering. Of course, you can fire .45 Colt ammo in revolvers bored for the Casull. While Super Redhawks in .44 Magnum, .41 Magnum and 10mm have the fluted cylinders of the original, .454s and .480s lack flutes. All SRHs now feature Hogue Tamer Monogrips, to help absorb recoil and ensure a secure hold with wet, cold or gloved hands.

Content with my 5 1/2-inch Redhawk, I had little need for its longer, heavier progeny. Then, short months ago as I write this, Ruger announced a “distributor exclusive” for AcuSport. This 52-ounce Super Redhawk, available through any dealer served by AcuSport, wore a 6 1/2-inch barrel. Long enough to tap the potential of the .44 Magnum, and wring hunting accuracy from iron sights or scope, it seemed to my eye a perfect match for the leggy SRH frame. You don’t have to need a revolver to buy one. Though the price of Super Redhawks had risen from $510 at its debut to a starting MSRP of $1,159, I bit.

Revolvers have brought to bag only a few animals on my big game hunts, so by any measure I’m a rookie in this arena. But scoping the Super Redhawk with a Bushnell LER 2-6x variable gave it a lethal look indeed. So equipped, it was clearly a use-two-hands, find-a-rest handgun. Still, it balanced well and, unlike longer revolvers, this .44 felt more like a pistol than a carbine.

Rifle-like accuracy! The Super Redhawk shot this knot with SIG loads, nearly equaled it with others.

I usually zero big-bore handguns at 25 yards, for point-blank aim to 75. That’s near the effective reach of traditional bullets at 1,100 to 1,400 fps. Federal, for example, loads a 280-grain Swift A-Frame to 1,170 fps. Zeroed at 25, it hits an inch high at 50 yards, 3.7 inches low at 75. Federal’s 225-grain Barnes Expander at 1,280 fps reaches 50 yards just half an inch high and drops 2.8 inches at 75. These bullets fall 8.6 and 6.9 inches at 100.
After zeroing my Super Redhawk over a Caldwell bag, I tacked another target at a scope-friendly 50 yards and again took aim. Four bullets clustered inside 1.1 inches! Alas, fifth-shot gremlins would not be denied, and my final hollowpoint opened the group to 1.8. To my delight, a second series shot into 1.5 inches. I’m not skilled enough with a handgun to expect better. Nor is the SRH finicky. It herded all types and weights of bullets into snug knots. Black Hills 300-grain JHPs at 1,150 fps and 240-grain SIG JHPs at 1,300 delivered five-shot groups under 3 minutes of angle.

Now, 3-minute accuracy from a stock revolver with off-the-shelf ammunition would ordinarily put spring in my step. In this case, it posed a dilemma. I had just assured my editor at Gun Digest I could write compelling narrative about a revolver I prized above all others. One good gun. My Ruger Redhawk was now one of two good guns. Perhaps their common genesis, manufacture and features will ensure that both appear in the final copy. Both deserve the honor!

This article is an excerpt from Gun Digest 2019, 73rd Edition. Click here to learn more and get your copy of “The World’s Greatest Gun Book.”

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Hot Shot: Weatherby Krieger Custom Rifle

Wayne van Zwoll

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September 11, 2018

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Weatherby partnered with Krieger to improve the riﬂe that made Roy Weatherby famous.

How the Krieger Custom Rifle is a cut above the rest:

26-inch fluted barrel from Krieger.
Cut rifling.
Weatherby Mark V action.
Oversized bolt knob.
Cerakote finished metal.
Hand-laid stock with an aluminum bedding block.
LXX adjustable trigger.

The color grabs you first. Not the matte-black, gel-finished synthetic stock, but the metal. Barrel, receiver and bottom metal wear Cerakote, in flat dark earth that borders on bronze. Barrel flutes and bolt (body, shroud and handle) are black. All told, it’s a fresh, striking look. The oversize bolt knob catches your eye, too. Semi-gloss black and profiled for a perfect cosmetic fit, it’s faster and more positive in operation than Weatherby’s standard knob. And to top it all off, the floorplate wears a distinctive KCR logo that adds to the rugged elegance.

The 26-inch cut-rifle Krieger barrel is fluted and threaded. Chamber specs, installation is done by Weatherby.

What you can’t see also defines the Krieger Custom Rifle. Its hand-laid stock boasts a long alloy bedding block for increased rigidity and more uniform action-stock seating. Last year, Weatherby tweaked the profile of all Mark V stocks, reducing grip circumference, adding a right-side palm swell and giving the forend a sharper, slimmer profile. They’re subtle changes, but palpable. The LXX trigger (for the firm’s 70th year) is also a recent upgrade: It now has a wider face, is factory set at 3.5 pounds and the pull adjusts down to 2.5 pounds.

Most distinctive is the KCR’s fluted, 26-inch barrel. Of medium contour, it’s manufactured and cut-rifled to .0001-inch groove tolerance in the shop of ace barrel-maker John Krieger. The bore is hand-lapped to 16 micro-inches in the direction of bullet travel, the muzzle threads get a protective cap and the barrel is cryogenically treated there, too.

All Weatherbys have a 1-MOA guarantee. This Range-Certiﬁ ed KCR comes with data for best loads.

“Boring and rifling impose stresses on barrel steel,” Pete Paulin told me many moons ago. “Deep freezing relieves them. During bullet launch, a barrel expands radially and in length. Cryogenic treatment eliminates forces that skew expansion and contraction.”

While the principle has been used since 1940, he explained, it didn’t become practical for barrels until he refined a process in 1992. It begins with a bath at -300 degrees Fahrenheit (absolute zero, or 0 degrees Kelvin, is -457 degrees Fahrenheit). Slow cooling prevents cracking. Like Paulin, John Krieger says “cryo” is no sure fix for ho-hum groups, but it won’t cause any damage and often improves accuracy.

The idea for a Mark V with a cut-rifled Krieger barrel came by way of Adam Weatherby, now the company’s CEO, on a visit to the Krieger shop early in 2017. John readily agreed to send finished barrels, bored to Weatherby’s specs, to its headquarters and assembly center in Paso Robles. But they aren’t the first Kriegers on Weatherby rifles. In fact, button-rifled Criterion barrels, once a Krieger product, have been installed on Weatherbys since 1999 and are standard on Mark Vs now.

It’s All About The Barrel

All Mark V stocks got a recent overhaul: a slimmer grip with palm swell, a crisper proﬁ le and more intricate details.

Rifling a bore can be done with a cutter, a button or a hammer-forging machine. The cutter was developed in Nuremburg in the late 15th century. It’s a small hook in a hard, bore-diameter steel cylinder. Most commonly now, a rod pulls the hook, removing a very thin slice of barrel wall with each pass. The rod indexes to deepen each groove, and the cutter’s rotation setting determines rate of twist.

“A single-point cutter imposes little stress on the blank,” John Krieger says. “But the process is slow.” Like leather seats in a fine automobile, cut rifling pairs with upscale custom rifles. It’s also standard in test barrels Krieger supplies to the ammunition industry manufacturers.

Much faster is the tungsten-carbide button. Mounted on a high-tensile rod and rotated by a head set to the desired twist, the button is pushed or pulled through the finished bore by a hydraulic ram, “ironing in” grooves. The most popular rifling option for .22 rimfires, buttons have an advocate in Steve Dahlke, who by 1982 was making barrels for John Krieger. Now president of the separate Criterion shop, he also supplies buttoned centerfire barrels.

The author likes the appearance and feel of the KCR’s oversize bolt knob for faster, more positive cycling.

Hammer-forging, pioneered on barrels for German MG 42 machine guns, is also speedy. A short, thick barrel blank is fed into the maw of a machine that costs more than the annual GDP of Angola. The machine “kneads” the blank around a mandrel that, like a button, wears rifling in reverse. The hammering produces a terrific din, and enough floor vibration to stagger a horse.

The barrel emerges about 30 percent longer via this process. Its slick bore has finished dimensions, though radial stresses can be hard to remove. Roy Weatherby may have been the first American rifle-maker to hawk hammer-forged barrels, later standard on Mark V rifles.

As for twist rate, “it’s better to over-stabilize a bullet than give it too slow a spin,” John Krieger says. “Lead-free bullets and those with thick jackets are longer than soft-points hunters used 50 years ago, and they require sharper twist.”

Accuracy Through Action

Roy Weatherby and Fred Jennie designed the Mark V Magnum action in 1957. It still features a nine-lug bolt.

Accuracy starts before the bullet meets rifling. A parallel throat acts like a piston sleeve: It must allow easy passage of all bullets, “but it can’t be oversize,” cautions John Krieger. “A little bullet wobble ruins accuracy.” As long throats keep a lid on pressure, Roy Weatherby used them to hike bullet speeds.

The uniformity of finished bores may be checked with an air gauge, a probe that moves through the barrel with air pressure “feeling out” variance down to 50 millionths of an inch! In addition, John Krieger lops an inch of barrel from the muzzle before crowning because “bore finishing can leave a flare.” The KCR has a recessed target crown to protect the bore lip and ensure perfectly square bullet exit.

The KCR’s Mark V action is a refined version of the mechanism Roy Weatherby engineer Fred Jennie developed to accommodate the .378 Weatherby cartridge after its 1953 introduction. To see how a current Mark V rifle comes about, I visited the Paso Robles assembly floor. The KCR had yet to emerge then, but the staff was boxing up rifles in the spanking-new 6.5-300 Magnum. Charitably, Ed Weatherby said: “You might as well build one.”

This 0.6-inch knot was the ﬁ rst the author shot with ballistic tips.

He’d have been foolish to turn me loose in that shop. Instead, a handful of skilled rifle builders guided me through 36 shop operations to bring a Mark V from 33 parts to completion. In the test tunnel, it drilled a 0.7-inch knot. “All Weatherby rifles must now meet a 1-MOA standard,” confirms Adam. “Rifles marked ‘Range Certified’ come with a proof target from Oehler’s Ballistic Imaging System, and load data developed by Weatherby for that rifle.”

As I’ve known John Krieger for years and used his barrels on other rifles, I requested a sample of the KCR right away. It comes in four Weatherby Magnum chamberings: .257, 6.5-300, .300 and .30-378. Noise and recoil have become less appealing with age, so I was pleased the crew shipped a .257. One of Roy’s favorite cartridges, it was also one of his first. In fact, its 1944 debut predated his rifle company! Factory-loaded ammo appeared in 1948. The .257 was on Norma’s list when it began supplying Weatherby ammo in 1951. Norma currently lists seven loads under Weatherby’s label, with five bullet weights.

Under The Hood

At 3,870 fps, the 80-grain TTSX bullet in the .257 Magnum is faster at launch than any other load for any Weatherby cartridge. Three 100-grain spitzers at 3,500-3,600 fps also qualify as hotrods. But to get ballistic coefficients above .400 and weights suitable for elk, and to better tap the .257’s case capacity, I turned to 110-grain AccuBonds at 3,460 fps, 115-grain ballistic tips at 3,400 fps and 120-grain partitions at 3,305 fps.
Roy Weatherby’s notes on the .257 during his African safari came to mind.

Unveiled in 1945, the .300 Wthby. was ﬁ rst loaded by Norma in 1951.

“The 87-grain bullet seems to have more killing power at 100 yards than does the 100-grain.” Still, his unvarnished reports later showed that light bullet at nearly 4,000 fps didn’t excel in all situations. Thus, it’s no longer loaded. I have limited field experience with this hot .25, but bullets in all weights are much better now. A deer I shot in Idaho at 325 yards dropped as if lightning-struck when my 100-grain Hornady pierced its ribs.
After the KCR arrived, I attached a Burris Veracity 2-10×42 scope in Talley mounts. This 30mm glass, with focus/parallax dial and mid-height target knobs, is long enough and heavy enough to dominate lightweight rifles, but it’s an ideal fit for the leggy, 8.5-pound KCR.

At the range, this rifle cycled smoothly and in all other ways behaved without fault. My Timney scale registered trigger weight at the specified 3.5 pounds, exactly. The big bolt knob was a delight. All groups stayed inside the 1-inch maximum, including five shots with the AccuBonds at 0.6 inch, the best three-shot group went to the ballistic tips. I’m still working with it, but 0.6 MOA is mighty fine accuracy. Also, successive bullets went to the same place even as their blazing speed hiked bore temperatures.

Yes, the KCR — one of three new Mark Vs in a field of 18 — is expensive. But in my view, it ranks among Weatherby’s best. Top chambering? I’m fond of the .300 Weatherby. On the other hand, this .257 is so civil in recoil that it’s hard to believe that the three loads I fired bring an average of more than 1,300 ft-lbs. to 500 yards, and the most accurate will keep all bullets inside the mouth of a coffee mug at that range!

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the June 2018 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

Practical Overview Of 6.5 Creedmoor Ballistics

Wayne van Zwoll

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June 5, 2018

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Practical Overview Of 6.5 Creedmoor Ballistics

6.5 Creedmoor ballistics are a thing of beauty and make the cartridge more than simply a long-range flyer.

What makes the Creedmoor so ballistically talented:

Designed with long-range match shooting in mind, 6.5 Creedmoor ballistics are among the best in caliber.
Improving 6.5 Creedmoor ballistics, excellent bullets with very high ballistic coefficients.
Their BCs helps them slip air resistence while minimizing wind drift.
Given its exceptional sectional density, 6.5 Creedmoor excellent hunting round that packs a punch when it reaches its target.

Among small-bore cartridges with headline status these days, the 6.5 Creedmoor ranks among the most unlikely—and the most useful! It emerged from the house of Hornady in 2008, brainchild of senior ballistician Dave Emary, who tapped competitive shooters like Dennis DeMille for ideas on 1,000-yard cartridges. A long-range marksman himself, Emary necked the .30 T/C hull (another Hornady product), to .264. The compact case kept overall length within limits imposed by short actions. Dave applied powder technology from Hornady’s then-new Superformance Ammunition, to get blistering velocity.

The 6.5 Creedmoor is more than a flat-shooting, light-recoiling target cartridge. It’s also ideal for deer and antelope. Not long after it hit shelves, Todd Seyfert, at Magnum Research, shipped me a rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor on a long 700 action. Its carbon fiber barrel had a stainless core rifled by Kreiger. GreyBull Precision provided the stock and a 4.5-14x Leupold. Prone with a sling, I was soon hitting plates at 500 yards.

In New Mexico, my hunting partner called a coyote across a mesa. At 250 yards, the dog collapsed to the bite of my 129-grain SST. That rifle also toppled an elk with one shot at longer range than I’d ever before killed an elk. Civil, accurate, and potent, the 6.5 Creedmoor challenges the .270 Winchester at the muzzle.

Downrange, the high ballistic coefficients of the 6.5’s 129- and 140-grain bullets give it an edge. Truly versatile, the Creedmoor has more sauce than a 6.5×55. Its 1.92-inch case accommodates VLD bullets in short magazines better than does the superb, but under-sung, .260 Remington. Light recoil and efficient burn suit it to compact, featherweight hunting rifles. Pressure is 60,190 psi, standard rifling twist is 1:10.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in Wayne von Zwoll's book Mastering the Art of Long Range Shooting.

More 6.5 Creedmoor
- The Epic Rise of the 6.5 Creedmoor
- Top 10 Sharpshooting 6.5 Creedmoor Rifles
- Top Brass: 11 Best 6.5 Creedmoor Ammo Options
- Bragging Rights: .308 Winchester vs. 6.5 Creedmoor

What Three Dozen Elk Cartridges Taught Me

Wayne van Zwoll

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September 4, 2015

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One shot with an iron-sighted Marlin in .32 Special (Hornady ammo) killed this elk at 130 yards.

From the .30-30 to the .375, myths abound. Here Wayne van Zwoll shares some observations and experiences about what makes the best elk cartridges.

The century-old .30-06 still ranks as a favorite among elk hunters. Modern loads make it deadlier.

Many moons ago, in a tight Oregon meadow blackened by lodgepole shadow at dusk, he slipped silently through bleached grass and stood to watch the motionless lump at forest’s hem. Dead air kept its scent from him, short yards away. Then the lump shifted…

I had sat out the day’s end glassing a distant elk. It had ghosted into the conifers without showing me antlers. Time was up. I shifted slightly for a last-minute glance about…

When our eyes met, mine got wide. The bull, seemingly close enough to touch, stared back, antler tips ivory arcs against the inky forest. Slowly, rifle bobbing to my pulse, I cheeked the stock and peered through the scope. Dusk had stolen the dot.

He didn’t move.

After a frantic search for the dot against the elk’s dark shoulder, I dropped the scope field to the grass. The dot appeared faintly in my peripheral vision. It vanished as I jerked the re-barreled Mauser up onto the elk and pressed the trigger.

A 180-grain Speer handload dropped the bull.

Forty-two years later, the .300 Holland & Holland still ranks among my favorite elk rounds. But I’ve used 36, if memory serves, and carried on elkless hunts rifles chambered to other cartridges. They’ve all helped shape my views on elk loads. Constrained by the one-bull-per-year-per-state limit imposed on elk hunters everywhere, I’ve used no cartridge exhaustively. So these notes are hardly authoritative.

Even if by sunny good fortune you were directed to test one cartridge on elk and permitted to take several bulls in a season, you’d have a hard time drawing unassailable conclusions. Each shot is unique. A bullet’s effect has less to do with the effectiveness of the best elk cartridges in design, or even the bullet itself, than with range and shot angle, animal size and the missile’s track inside. Besides, myriad loads are possible for any one cartridge. The .30-06 appears in about 80 types of factory ammo. Many times that number of handloads can be fashioned, with bullets and powders that continue to proliferate.

Is the .30-06 a good or even among the best elk cartridges? Land sakes, yes! It’s been felling elk for more than a century under a wide range of conditions. Surveys I’ve taken of thousands of elk hunters put it neck-and-neck with the 7mm Remington Magnum in popularity.

A huge success since its 1962 debut, the 7mm Rem. Mag. turns up in elk camps as often as the .30-06.

A better choice for elk hunting than Remington’s big 7mm is tough to find. Introduced in 1962 with the Model 700 rifle, it featured 150- and 175-grain factory loads. Neither seemed to me ideal for elk, though Wyoming outfitter Les Bowman and the Remington company promoted the round masterfully. Its flat arc and relatively light recoil appealed to hunters. Still, many considered 150 grains on the light side for elk. The 175’s weight throttled its muzzle velocity; a nose profile better suited to alder thickets sapped speed and energy downrange. Ballistically, the heavy 7mm load delivered no more reach or punch than a 180-grain spitzer stoked to redline in a .30-06. I asked a Remington troll why Big Green had chosen the 175 over a sleek 160-grain bullet that could be driven much faster but held significant in-flight advantage over a 150 Core-Lokt. “We had a lot of 175s available,” was the reply.

Since then, a raft of racy, controlled-expansion 160-grain 7mm bullets have appeared in factory loads and as components. They (and a broader selection of 140s and 150s) have given Remington’s iconic magnum more reach, ferocity and versatility.

Some years ago, I followed the echoes of a bull elk into an Oregon canyon. He climbed out ahead but paused on a rim trail. I flopped prone and fired my Model 70. At the crack of that 7mm Magnum he collapsed, spine severed between the shoulders. I’d held a tad high, thinking 300 yards of gravity would tug my bullet into the lungs. Not so. That slippery 160-grain Swift Scirocco lost only a hand’s width.

The author killed this last-day Colorado elk at 250 yards with a Ruger rifle in .300 Win. Mag.

The .300 Winchester appeared a year after Remington’s 7mm. Oddly enough, given expectations of the rabble, it was not the .338 Winchester necked down. Its 2.62-inch case and short neck gave it more capacity than other (2.50-inch) short belted magnums of the day. It hurled a 180-grain bullet as fast as the 7mm Remington could a 160. Arcs are nearly identical for the same bullet style, but of course the heavier .30 hits harder. A 160-grain 7mm Core-Lokt Ultra in a current load brings 1,580 foot-pounds to 400 yards – plenty to kill elk, but well shy of the 1,750 delivered by the .300’s 180.
One of several .300 Winchester Magnum rifles I’ve owned was a 1963 Model 70 with tiger-tail walnut – a rare find in those days of fence-post wood before the 70’s 1964 overhaul. Accurate and slick-cycling, that Winchester was my go-to elk rifle before I sold it in a fit of insanity. Another pre-'64 .300 went the same way. I’d trade my pickup to get them back.

Just as fetching was the Winchester Model 70 Alaskan with a 25-inch barrel in .338 Winchester Magnum. A fellow rimfire competitor used one for elk. I managed to snare a fine example at a gun show and hunted with it. After one singularly unproductive day in the hills, I bounced a herd of elk in a ‘pole patch. Racing after the thunder, desperate for a wink of antler and a shot alley, I heard a branch snap behind me. I spun to see a bull slipping off to the side. My .338 staggered him; a second shot put him down; I fired a third to finish him. He’d taken more than 7,000 foot-pounds from the first hits, both in the chest. A departing elk can be hard to anchor! The .338 with 225- or 250-grain pointed bullets (Nosler’s 210 Partition too) can bring a ton of energy out to 400 yards. In recoil, the .338 reminds you of its horsepower.

The 7mm, .30 and .33 magnums beg the use of stoutly constructed bullets to ensure penetration through thick bone and muscle up close. Once, in Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness, I chose a 200-grain Winchester Power-Point over stronger missiles because it drilled tighter groups. One dreary afternoon while descending a mountain on horseback, we spied a bull elk across a cut. He was moving by the time I’d swung off Paint and jerked my rifle free. I triggered the Model 70 as he galloped toward cover. The bullet caught him mid-rib, ranged through the heart and balled up, perfectly mushroomed in the far shoulder.

With a 180-grain bullet at 3,100 fps, the popular .300 Win. Mag. shoots very flat and drives bullets deep.

The .338 is a fine pick for quartering shots. Also, its 225-grain bullet flies flatter than a 180 from a .30-06, so it stretches far. Better still by ballistic measure: Weatherby’s .340, its 1962 debut buried in the tickertape strewn for the 7mm Remington and .300 Winchester. The .340 is a blown-out, necked-up .300 H&H, left full length. It blasts a 250-grain bullet downrange faster than an ‘06 can throw a 150! At 500 steps the .340 hits like a .338 at 400. Shintangle Montana timber in knee-deep snow yielded an elk to my long-limbed Weatherby Mark V in .340. That 250-grain Nosler packed far more foot-pounds than needed.

In truth, many elk hunters are over equipped. To kill an elk you need not land enough energy to rock an armored personnel carrier. But that misconception is common. After years of reading about and dreaming of record-book bulls, we labor up the mountain with visions of cudgel-thick antlers that, upside down on a tall mule, furrow the earth. Said elk will appear at great distance, quartering steeply into a fir jungle, a heartbeat from gone.

While you may get this shot, a powerful cartridge hardly guarantees a kill. Once, when topping a hill, I refused to fire at a magnificent bull, statue-still, facing me at about 300 yards. My rifle: a Lazzeroni bored for the short, stout 8.59 Galaxy, a ballistic match to the .340 Weatherby. Alas, though the air was still and the bull patient, a landform hid the bull when I eased to a sit. In vain, I tried to calm the crosswire offhand. Rather than risk a crippling shot, I let the elk walk.

On another morning my Galaxy took a lesser bull. He absorbed the heavy .33 bullet with a slight shudder then moved on into the forest – where he died in seconds. I’d seen the same reaction in a bull shot with my .375 H&H. The 300-grain softpoint destroyed both lungs at close range. The elk galloped off, nosing into the duff a short distance off. These and other encounters have convinced me that no hunting bullet knocks elk down. Elk fall when they die – when vital organs no longer function – or when bullets strike nerve centers or break supporting bone. One of two bulls I’ve taken with a .30-30 collapsed when the softnose smashed vertebrae behind his skull. Instant kill. (By the way, that’s a shot I take only when very close. A hit in surrounding tissue can doom the animal to a slow death.) Lung-shot elk succumb most quickly when struck by bullets that do the most damage.

Left to right: Winchester’s .270 is gentle in recoil but lethal. The .270 Weatherby and .270 WSM add punch.

Occasionally elk have died more quickly than I expected. One, lung-shot by a client with a .270, reared as might a horse then fell backward, planting its long beams in the ground. No further movement. Another bull, struck mid-rib by a 140-grain .280 bullet, simply crumpled. I can’t explain those kills. More often elk hit well will leave as if untouched. Given an accurate shot with an appropriate bullet, the trail should be short. But you’ll do well to keep firing as long as the elk is upright. One bull trotted off after I drove a .270 bullet into its forward ribs. A second shot to the spine between the shoulders dropped the beast. My first missile had blown a big entrance hole but damaged only the near lung – evidence that bullet was too fragile for elk. Had I not fired again, the animal would doubtless have escaped to die later.

Bullet design in elk cartridges can matter more than bullet energy. Shot placement trumps both. Dashing at last light after a bull crippled in the front legs by another hunter, I fired when the elk paused, killing it with a 100-grain softnose from my .250 Savage. While such a bullet is hardly ideal, it’s adequate if you take care with each shot. A rancher I know has killed dozens of bulls with his .250. Another friend has used a .25-06 to take 20 elk, without losing one.

Once, a fellow bringing his young son on his first elk hunt asked if he should loan the boy his .30-06. “He has his own 6mm Remington, but isn’t that a bit light?” I allowed that it was, but added that the recoil of an ’06 might cause flinching. “Accurate shots kill elk.” Next morning we climbed into the Utah hills where the boy laced a 6mm Nosler Partition through an elk’s heart. The animal died right away.

Sometimes power is comforting. On a stormy morning in the northern Rockies, I climbed a ridge across from a herd of elk I’d spied at dawn. Unable to approach the bull on the herd’s far flank, I paralleled the animals until the bull moved apart in a logging slash 300 yards out, just shy of timber. When the Swift A-Frame from my .358 Norma Magnum struck, the elk crashed as if the earth had been jerked from under it. Essentially a .338 Magnum with a bigger mouth, the .358 Norma can push 250-grain bullets faster. It put an exclamation point on that lung shot.

The main problem with such potent cartridges is that they kick hard in rifles light enough to carry all day in steep places. So, I’ve hunted elk with less ambitious rounds. On a particular Wyoming hunt, a pair of bulls piled off a timbered ridge ahead of me and split. I crashed headlong after the left-hand animal hoping for a shot as he lunged down the steep face through the lodgepoles. Suddenly, a sliver of rib came clear. Rifle braced against a tree, I sent a bullet from the 6.5×55 and heard it hit. The bull labored – as did I – through more deadfall. Another glimpse, another 140-grain softpoint, and the elk collapsed.

A year later, a 7mm-08 got me an elk in that same canyon. I managed to find one more bull there when the .270 WSM came to market. I believe this was the first elk taken with it. Another stubby powerhouse, the .300 Remington Short Action Ultra Mag, also came my way before I’d heard of it dropping an elk. Again, I was fortunate to bring back a bull.

More recently, with a Montana rifle bored for the largely unsung .280 Remington (circa 1957), I climbed under a bleak, black sky toward timberline. Still-hunting through stunted pines at dawn, I caught the bobbing of an antler tine through the cover. Unaware but alert, the five-point eased up-slope. I angled toward him getting an offhand shot at 60 yards. Two more 140-grain TSX bullets sailed after him as he crashed then rolled into a very steep canyon. Even when you know a hit is fatal, follow-ups make sense – if for nothing more than to limit the climb packing out!

Dating to 1873, the .45-70 can be loaded stiff in modern rifles. It’s a deadly elk round in close cover.

Many elk have fallen to traditional lever-action Winchester and Marlin carbines bored for the likes of the .30-30 and .32 Special. Commonly considered marginal, they’re deadly at iron-sight ranges. You must simply decline long shots and quartering pokes – as bullets for such rifles were designed for deer hunting – not to drive the length of a bull elk. Hornady LEVERevolution ammunition, with pointed bullet tips of resilient polymer, offer higher starting velocities and flatter trajectory than flat and roundnose loads. Still, one of my biggest bulls fell to a blunt .30-30 bullet.

A young guide and I had hunted most of the day in sleet, through obnoxious shintangle. Wet and cold, we led the ponies onto a ridge and bellow into the hills at last light. The long, quavering note brought a reply, faint and far off. “We’ll hunt there tomorrow,” he said, and bugled again. To our astonishment a reply came instantly and louder. “He’s coming!”

I scrambled uphill under the pines as the bull brayed again. Short minutes later he crashed into view, charging down toward us. At 55 yards, the 170-grain softpoint drove into his chest. He spun and stopped behind a screen of brush as I cycled the Marlin. Silence. I waited, then lizard-slow, crawled to the side. A slot opened to his rib. I fired. He lunged. I fired again. He fell.

On another elk expedition I’d have been lost had the bull appeared at 200 yards. But a well-placed .32 Special bullet – a pointed Hornady – took a Wyoming elk handily for me at 130 steps. I’d muffed a chance earlier in the day, hiked far, then sat to rest near a trail juncture. Glassing the slopes around, in a burn I spied a branch that curved up. Odd. Other limbs on those fir skeletons drooped.

Then I saw the ear and backline of the bull. He was staring at me. I centered the bead in the aperture and aimed tight to the tree. At my shot, the elk rocketed off. Apprehensive, I climbed to the trail. A scarlet spray on the snow confirmed a lung hit. The six-point lay dead just 50 yards away.

Hunting with such rifles and elk cartridges adds challenge – and thrill – to any hunt. I recall sneaking into a bedded bunch of elk through yellow Colorado aspens. Tension mounted at each step as I skirted cows almost near enough to touch. When my scent detonated the herd, I missed with the Marlin 1895 before the departing bull’s hide winked one last time in a sun-dappled alley. That .45-70 bullet connected.

Having killed a handful of elk at very close range (one with an arrow at seven yards), I remember well the day I carried a Mark V rifle in 7mm Weatherby Magnum. It had been a frustrating hunt, mostly in rain, in tough country. On the last afternoon my companion spied an elk slipping into hilltop cover far away. We closed on foot to a patch of cedars 340 yards across a brushy valley from the spot. Glassing, I saw brief movement. The elk had bedded, risen, bedded again. With no time left to wait, I marked as best I could its location, then stalked in. When cover I had marked vanished from valley-bottom view, I groped uphill through cedars thicker than they’d appeared. Careful steps put me at the hem of the target thicket. Then – a spot of color! The tip of a tine. Seconds passed. Soon my scent would reach the elk, sending it out the back door. I eased sideways, my movement glacial. A patch of hair in a grapefruit-size gap told me the elk’s body position. At a mere 14 yards my TSX zipped through the shoulder.

While a 7mm spitzer at 3,250 fps was hardly necessary there, it was no handicap. In most elk country you can’t count on close shots. A .270 Weatherby proved just right for a bull years earlier in the Bob Marshall Wilderness on a snowy slope with lots of elk and no stalking cover inside 250 yards.

The time I hunted with Middle Fork Outfitters in Idaho’s Frank Church Wilderness, I chose a Model 71 Winchester chambered for the wildcat .450 Alaskan. This old lever action had a receiver sight and was ideal for the close cover in which I almost got a shot. Alas, a cow winded me and took the herd to another drainage. Some days later at timberline, we spied a scattering of elk on a ridge far below. The bull looked big. “Take the Ruger,” insisted my pal Ken Nagel, handing me a No. 1 barreled to 7mm WSM. As time was short, I relented, then raced down toward the elk. But the herd beat me to a pass and lined out toward thick forest below. I scurried to a bush on all fours, snugged the sling and searched frantically for antlers as the elk bunched to negotiate deadfalls. I found a slot. The bull paused, but a cow stood behind. I waited. The cow moved. I pressed the trigger, dropped the lever and shoved another round home as the thud of a hit floated back 330 yards. The bull allowed another hit, then fell. There would have been no shot at all with the iron-sighted 71.

While I’ve guided hunters to record-book bulls, most of my hunting has happened where any six-point elk is a prize. My two best bulls, both still-hunted, dropped to a Remington CS Model Seven in .308 and a lightweight re-stocked Springfield in .30-06 Improved. Each animal traveled a short distance after a lethal first round. Each required a finisher.

Favorite elk cartridge? I’ll confess to several. In a hammerlock, I’d probably howl “.308 Norma!”

It’s no better than the .35 Whelen Improved that floored a Washington bull in cover, or the 7mm Dakota that tumbled an Arizona six-point atop a desert plateau, or the mild-mannered 6.5 Creedmoor that killed a New Mexico elk farther than I’ve shot any other. But if versatility is the gauge, Norma’s .308 Magnum with 180-grain spitzers at 3,000 fps is hard to beat. In mid-weight rifles its recoil is brisk but not obnoxious. Bullets fly flat as a .270’s, but hit much harder. Controlled-upset missiles like Federal’s Trophy Bonded, Swift’s A-Frame, Norma’s Oryx, the Barnes TSX and Nosler’s Partition and Accubond drive to the off-shoulder of quartering elk bounced in thickets. Why not the .300 Winchester? A ballistic twin, it’s much more popular. But I prefer the slightly shorter case and longer neck of Norma’s round.

Truthfully, such distinctions are meaningless.

Naming runners-up is just as hard. How about the 7mm and .270 Weatherby Magnums, the .300 Holland & Holland, the .300 Ruger Compact Magnum or .300 SAUM? The .30-06? If Remington’s 7mm Magnum or some WSM hikes your pulse, or you’re enamored of the .280 Improved or a wildcat like the .30 Gibbs, you’ll get no quarrel from me. The best elk load for your rifle is what’s chambered when a bull appears in your sight!

How To Zero a Hunting Rifle

Wayne van Zwoll

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July 24, 2015

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No matter how steady your hunting rifle, hitting at any range presumes a proper zero.

Flat-shooting loads beg a 200-yard zero, for point-blank range to 250 yards—or more.

Zeroing, or sighting in, is simply aligning the sights (scope) on your rifle so the bullet hits where you aim at a certain distance. A rifle cannot be manipulated to change the bullet’s path. It is the sight alone that is to be adjusted. Windage and elevation adjustments move the rear sight or a scope’s reticle so it directs your eye to where the bullet hits at a given distance. You pick the range.

Because a bullet follows the bore axis out the muzzle, it will fly nearly parallel to the line of sight until gravity pulls it unacceptably off course. Bear in mind that a bullet’s path is never perfectly straight. Gravity grabs the projectile as soon as it exits the rifle. In zeroing, you adjust the sight so your straight line of vision intersects the bullet’s parabolic path not far from the muzzle, then travels below it until the two merge at the zero distance. Beyond that, the bullet drops ever more steeply away from the line of sight.

It’s a common misconception that a bullet rises above line of bore during its flight. It does not. It cannot. Sight-line is not parallel to bore line, but, rather, at a slightly converging angle. The line of sight dips below bore line and the bullet’s arc. Sightline never again meets bore line. Both are straight and, after crossing, diverge. A bullet hits above sightline at midrange, because sightline has been purposefully angled down through its trajectory. The bullet falls to intersect it at greater range. If the sightline were parallel with the bore, it would never touch the bullet’s arc.

The most useful zero depends on the bullet’s trajectory and on how far you intend to shoot. For most big-game rifles, a 200-yard zero makes sense. Sight in there with a .30-06 or a similar cartridge, and your bullet will stay within three vertical inches of point of aim out to 250 yards or so. A three-inch vertical error still gives you a killing strike in the ribs of big-game animals. The 200-yard zero permits “dead-on” aim as far as most marksmen can hit in the field. At 300 yards you’ll have to shade high.

Why not zero at 250 or even 300? Well, with flat-shooting rounds like Weatherby’s .270 Magnum, you can. A 200-yard zero puts its 140-grain bullet only 1½ inches over sightline at l00. Adjust the scope so the rifle shoots three inches high at l00, and you’ll reach 300 yards with a mere one inch of drop! By the same logic, a zero for the likes of the .30-30 is best kept short of 200 yards, otherwise the bullet’s steep arc will put it a whopping five inches high at its apex (some distance beyond 100).

This Hill Country Rifles .270 puts bullets almost two inches high at 100 yards, a useful zero.

The best zero for a .30-30 carbine may have less to do with the limited range of the cartridge than the more limited range at which you can shoot accurately with its iron sights—or the even more limited distance you can see in typical whitetail cover! While a 150-yard zero is reasonable, a 100-yard zero may be even more practical, especially if you hunt where most of your shots come very close.

You’re better off zeroing hunting rifles so you won’t ever have to hold low. Remember that shots too long for a point-blank hold with a 200-yard zero are uncommon. Most game, even in open country, is killed well inside 300 yards. I recall a fellow shooting over the back of a magnificent bull elk at 200 because he’d zeroed his .300 Weatherby at 400.

One reason many hunters like to zero long is that they overestimate yardage in the field. One fellow told me recently that his .30 magnum could outshoot any rifle between 800 and 900 yards and that he had toppled a buck at 700 steps by holding just over its withers. Now, even a congressman would have blushed spinning that yarn.

The flattest-shooting cartridges land their bullets nearly three feet low at 500 yards, when the rifle is zeroed at 200. To keep a .270 Weatherby bullet (muzzle velocity 3,375 fps) from sagging more than a foot at 700 yards, you’d have to zero at over 600! That would put the bullet roughly two feet high at 300 and 400. It would be plunging so rapidly at 700 that, if you misjudged range by just 10 percent, you’d miss the deer’s vitals!

When zeroing, you’ll save time and ammunition separating the task into two stages, bore sighting and shooting. Bore sighting isn’t necessary. It’s merely a short-cut to the end of the shooting stage. Shooting is necessary. A rifle that’s only bore-sighted is not zeroed!

Zeroing Your Rifle

Wayne fired this 300-yard group with a Ruger American .30-06, with an eight-inch hold-over.

First shots to zero should be at 35 yards, whether or not you’ve bore-sighted. After each shot at 35, move the rear sight or scope dial in the direction you want the bullet to go until you hit point of aim. (Mind the dial arrows! European scope knobs typically turn clockwise to move impact up and right, while clockwise rotation on scopes built for the American market moves impact down and left.) Now, switch to a 100-yard target. I prefer that bullets from flat-shooting big-game rounds hit two to 2½ inches high at this range. Depending on the load, the rifle will then put its bullets close to point of aim at 200 yards.

After satisfactory results at 100 yards, move the target to 200 or your zero range. During the last stages of zeroing, make sight changes only after three-shot groups. A single shot can be misleading.
Windage and elevation dial “clicks” or graduations are engineered to shift bullet impact a precise measure at 100 yards. That’s most commonly ¼-minute of angle. A minute of angle is 1.047 inches at 100 yards (but shooters know it as an inch at that range), two inches at 200, and so on. A target scope may have graduations as fine as 1/8-minute; scopes intended for long shooting incorporate coarser elevation detents—½-minute or even 1-minute clicks—to lift point of impact with less dial movement. A greater range of adjustment results, as well. When you can’t turn the dial past zero, you also avoid the possibility of “full rotation” error, which can cause spectacular misses. European dials are typically marked in centimeters.

Another method as fast as counting clicks to move bullet impact, is to secure your rifle so the reticle centers the target as it did when you last fired. Then, without moving the rifle, turn the dials until your reticle kisses the previous bullet hole.

Gun Digest EZ2C Targets. — Tip: Don't go to any range without a pack or two of Gun Digest's high-visibility EZ2C Targets! Click here to order.

Even with a benchrest, it’s easy to make a bad shot. In fact, a bench can give you a false sense of stability, prompting fast, sloppy shooting. No matter how steady you think you are, check your position before each shot and fire carefully. Call your shots. To learn where your bullets really hit at long range (and how great their dispersion), fire at 300, then 400 yards. For hunting, that’s as far as you’ll likely have occasion to shoot. If longer pokes are on the agenda, find a place to test your rifle and your zero farther downrange. It’s worth the trouble! There’s no reason to fire at game farther than you’ve tested your loads and your holds on paper!

Tactical rifles in .338 Lapua and .50 BMG, built to hurl match bullets at targets very far off, have been joined by sporting rifles with exceptional reach. Zeroing at long range introduces a couple special considerations most hunters needn’t consider. One is the range of dial movement on the scope’s elevation adjustment. Consider installing a slanted Picatinny rail, one whose front end is lower than the rear. Such a rail has “gain” and puts the scope at an angle to the bore, so that, when you center the dial in its range, the scope’s axis (line of sight) crosses the bullet’s path farther away. You get a longer zero without using all the adjustment. The more nearly centered the erector assembly (which holds your reticle), the better. A lens gives you the best picture through its middle. Barrett supplies rails with gain for its .50-caliber rifles.

Hunting rifles with 200-yard zeros won’t do well at a 1,000-yard match, because shooters would have to aim several feet over the target frame. There’s too little elevation adjustment in many scopes to get a 1,000-yard zero. If you could dial in enough lift to achieve a 600-yard zero with your .30-06, you’d still have to aim 17 feet high to hit a 1,000-yard bull’s-eye! Of course, a truly long-range zero comes with severe mid-range penalties. Even that 600-yard zero would put ’06 bullets 2½ feet high at 300 yards!

.338 Lapua Mag: The Ultimate Long-Range Round?

Wayne van Zwoll

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March 17, 2015

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.338 Lapua Mag: The Ultimate Long-Range Round?

The .338 Lapua Mag. dates to 1983, when Research Armament Industries, in the U.S., outlined plans for a sniper cartridge driving a 250-grain .338 bullet at 3,000 fps. The sleek FMJ missile would penetrate five layers of body armor at 1,000 meters (1,094 yards).

RAI chose the Rigby case, for its modern rimless design and great capacity. But the .416 was born in a gentler time and configured for a maximum pressure of 47,137 psi.

The .338 Lapua (left) has a big advantage downrange over the .300 Winchester and .30-06.

The new .338 would exceed that limit. To guard against unacceptable case stretching and possible separation, the Rigby’s hull would get a thicker, harder web. RAI contacted BELL (Bell Extrusion Laboratories) of Bensenville, Illinois, to make the brass.

Alas, the first batch didn’t meet specs. In 1984, after building a test rifle and procuring bullets from Hornady, RAI looked to Lapua for help in pushing the project forward. Shortly thereafter, financial difficulties forced RAI out. The .338-416 project was officially cancelled.

Lapua found it worth pursuing. Partnering with Accuracy International, a young British firm, Lapua changed the dimensions and composition of the Rigby hull to brook pressures exceeding 60,000 psi.

Not only was the web thicker, brass hardness was engineered in a gradient from hard to soft, base to mouth. Lapua designed a 250-grain FMJ bullet, designating it the “LockBase B408.”

The .338 Norma (left) and parent Lapua are champs at four-digit yardages. Snipers agree!

The .338 Lapua was registered, in 1989, with the CIP (Commission Internationale Permanente pour l’Epreuve des Armes a Feu Portatives). Europe’s CIP is the equivalent of SAAMI (Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute), in the U.S. Both organizations provide manufacturing standards for the firearms industry.

Data for the .338 Lapua specifies a maximum pressure of 60,916 psi (piezo measure). During its development, the 300-grain Sierra MatchKing was not yet in production.

Lapua’s 250-grain LockBase VLD bullet, and the 250 Scenar, met the 3,000-fps target, generating about 4,890 ft-lbs at the muzzle. A hunting load hurling a 250-grain Nosler Partition clocked 2,940 fps. Current loads with 300-grain Sierra MatchKings exit at 2,710 fps. Lapua’s 300-grain Scenars reach 2,750 fps, carry 5,000 ft-lbs.

The Best Rifles are .375s!

Wayne van Zwoll

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February 13, 2015

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Designed for cordite powder, the .375 has a sleek, tapered case that feeds easily. A wide variety of softpoints and solids makes it truly versatile.

Disagree? Few others can boast a century in the greatest game fields!

A hundred years ago, the English gun-making firm of Holland and Holland introduced the .375 Belted Rimless Nitro Express. It arrived Stateside in 1925, when Western Cartridge Company began loading it. As the .375 H&H Magnum, it spawned the .300 H&H Magnum. Around 1926, up-scale New York gun-builder Griffin & Howe began barreling Magnum Mausers to .375.

Wayne used this BRNO rifle in .375 for buffalo n Australia. He fired Norma Africa PH ammo featuring Woodleigh bullets.

In 1937 it became a charter chambering in Winchester’s new Model 70. Remington offered the .375 H&H in its 725 Kodiak (though fewer than 100 were built, all in 1961). Actions for the .375 must accommodate its 3.60-inch loaded length. Cases measure 2.85 inches, base to mouth. A rimmed form of the .375, for double rifles, also appeared in 1912: the .375 Flanged Magnum Nitro Express. But the belted round works fine in hinged-breech mechanisms. Steeply tapered, with a shoulder angle of less than 13 degrees, .375 rounds slip eagerly into a double’s open breech, and feed silkily in bolt rifles.

In his book, “African Rifles and Cartridges,” John Taylor praises the .375 H&H: “I’ve had five of these rifles … and have fired more than 5,000 rounds of .375 Magnum ammunition at game…. One [rifle] accounted for more than 100 elephant and some 411 buffalo, besides rhino, lions … Although my formula gives this rifle a Knock-Out value of 40 points, I must regretfully admit that does not really do full justice to it.”

Taylor recalled a buffalo he’d shot with a 300-grain solid from his .375 double. “The bull dropped to the shot but in an instant was up again … I gave him the left barrel fairly in the center of his great chest…. He crashed on his nose [and] keeled over — stone dead.”

With .375s I’ve downed buffalo and elephant. Woodleigh solids, loaded in Norma ammunition, drive deep. At 350 grains, they carry more weight and length than standard 300-grain bullets. The stout Trophy Bonded bullets (Federal) and Swift A-Frames are my pick for softpoints.

One Woodleigh solid from Wayne’s Mauser at 16 yards dropped this elephant. The bullet entered between the eyes, penetrated to a hip.

In full-throttle loads, they bring two tons of energy to 50 yards. Still, the .375 can be chambered in a rifle as lively as a .30-06. Most hunters can point such a rifle more deftly than they can a heavier if shorter, double. And they can fire it without fear of turning their cheek or shoulder the color of old cheese. Part of the reason the .375 is so popular for dangerous game is that it can be fired accurately by people of average build and shooting experience — in rifles of modest weight.

Quick handling and high magazine capacity make first hits faster, and put more bullets into crippled animals than might be possible with ponderous big-bore rifles. A couple of years ago, I dashed around a bush to the cry of a tracker who’d come suddenly upon the leopard we’d been trailing. My .375 — a Montana Rifles lightweight — came up like a shotgun and all but fired itself. The cat rocketed into the air with broken shoulders. It died as it hit the ground.

My favorite .375s? Certainly that Montana, which has also taken buffalo and eland and a big giraffe — which weighed almost twice as much as a buff! An old Model 70 with Redfield receiver sight downed my first buffalo and still ranks high. Sako’s handsome Kokiak has a nose for the target; its laminated stock is among the most comfortable I’ve used. Remington briefly marketed a Mauser in .375, and I snapped one up. It’s a classic, with features — a positive extractor, dead-certain feeding — that made early .375s so effective.

For decades, the .375 H&H brooked no rivals. In the 1940s Roy Weatherby came up with his own .375 Magnum on the same case, but blown out, with a radiused shoulder. Despite a velocity edge of 200 fps, it couldn’t compete with the Holland round. (Recently it has returned to the Weatherby stable). A few years ago, Hornady trotted out the .375 Ruger. Developed to work in .30-06-length actions, it has roughly 10 percent more capacity than the .375 H&H Magnum, thanks to a wider body with little taper. Its .532 head diameter is the same as that of the .375 H&H; but the .375 Ruger is rimless. It pushes bullets 5 percent faster, from a hull .27 inch shorter.

Still, in every game field worldwide, you’ll find cartridges for your .375 H&H rifle. It may be another century before another .375 can make such a claim!

Going the Distance with the Sharps Rifle

Wayne van Zwoll

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November 10, 2014

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Hunters, settlers and soldiers boosted their reach and firepower with metallic cartridges and Sharps rifles. Even today, the renowned rifle is popular looking to connect with distant targets.

Loading from the breech had been a dream long before the advent of the percussion cap. As legions of mechanics struggled with repeating actions, Christian Sharps built a stronger breechloading single-shot. The New Jersey native had apprenticed under John Hall at Harpers Ferry Arsenal. In 1848, he received his first patent, for a sliding breech block. The tight breeching held promise for hunters, because it could handle cartridges that would hit hard at long range.

Sharps: The Buffalo Rifle

Sharps rifles played a signal role in the act of clearing the plains of large animals. It was a period of shameless killing and insatiable appetites. The U.S. Army turned a blind eye to the slaughter, as it advanced its own aim to bring recalcitrant Plains Indians to heel. Starving tribes capitulated.

In a 1930 edition of the Kansas City Star, hunter George Reighard explained how he shot bison:

In 1872 I organized my own outfit and went south from Fort Dodge to shoot buffaloes for their hides. I furnished the team and wagon and did the killing. [My partners] furnished the supplies and the skinning, stretching and cooking. They got half the hides…I had two big .50 Sharps rifles… .
Usually, I went to the top of some rise to spy out the herd, [then I’d] sneak up to within good ranges. Between 200 and 350 yards was all right…I carried a gun rest made from a tree crotch…
The time I made my biggest kill I lay on a slight ridge behind a tuft of weeds l00 yards from a bunch of 1,000 buffaloes… After I had killed about 25 my gun barrel became hot and began to expand. A bullet from an overheated gun does not go straight, it wobbles, so I put that gun aside and took the other. By the time that became hot the other had cooled, but then the powder smoke in front of me was so thick I could not see through it; there was not a breath of wind to carry it away, and I had to crawl backward, dragging my two guns, and work around to another position on the ridge, from which I killed 54 more. In 1½ hours I had fired 91 shots, as a count of the empty shells showed afterwards, and had killed 79 buffaloes, and we figured that they all lay within an area of about 2 acres of ground. My right hand and arm were so sore from working the gun that I was not sorry to see the remaining buffaloes start off on a brisk run … .

That expedition yielded “a few more than 1,000 buffaloes in one month.”

The last half of the 19th century was the most productive period in firearms history, albeit progress came in fits and starts. Christian Sharps fielded several forgettable rifles before his company came up with its powerful, long-range “buffalo rifles.” The first patent model Sharps was an 1841 Mississippi rifle with a new breech that featured a vertical sliding block operated by a guard-bow finger lever.

Six rifles have been produced under the Sharps name: Models 1849, 1850, 185l, 1852, 1853 and 1855. The last four were “slant-breech” rifles, the breechblock operating at a 112-degree angle to the bore. Some military versions had a “coffee mill” in the buttstock (most soldiers of the day used it to grind grain).

During the late 1850s, Sharps rifles were shipped by abolitionists to Kansas “Free Staters,” to get votes against slavery. A shipment of 200 carbines got to John Brown. In the West, the Sharps rifle became known as “Beecher’s Bible,” after a news item described abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher’s observation that, “You might as well read the Bible to buffaloes as to those fellows who follow Atchison and Stringfellow; but they have a supreme respect for the logic [of] Sharps rifles.” When the Civil War broke, the Sharps enterprise was producing 30,000 guns annually in a factory driven by a 250-horsepower, single-cylinder Corliss steam engine.

The Sharps Rifle was potent when used on the American Bison. Unfortunately, it was almost too potent for its own good.

The Model 1859 was followed by new models 1859, 1863 and 1865. The strength, accuracy and potent chamberings of Sharps rifles would endear them to hunters. The Civil War put them into the hands of Colonel Hiram Berdan’s Sharpshooters. Initially, these troops were equipped with muzzleloaders, and Berdan’s request for breechloaders brought only surplus Colt’s revolving rifles. These he refused, and his men threatened mutiny! They finally got Sharps, though these lacked the double set triggers Berdan had ordered. At Gettysburg, 100 sharpshooters and 200 Maine regulars held Little Round Top against 30,000 Confederates. They fired nearly 10,000 rounds in 20 minutes!

As government contracts dried up after the war, the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company shifted its focus to sportsmen. The New Model 1869 was the first cartridge Sharps with no provision for outside priming. It came in .40-50, .40-70, .44-77, .45-70 and .50-70. Only 650 were produced before the Model 1874, announced in 1870, replaced it. The 1874 in myriad forms would remain popular for 12 years. Christian Sharps died of tuberculosis, in 1874, but the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company, built on patents Sharps had bargained away to Penfield, chugged along.

The Model 1875 Sharps rifle incorporated patents by Rollin White and Nelson King. A Long-Range version shown at the Philadelphia Exposition was bought there for $300 by Colonel John Bodine. It remains the only surviving specimen, as no other 1875s were made. But Charles Overbaugh and A.O. Zischang, who had helped design the rifle, delivered a replacement.

The Model 1877 had a leaner, rounder action. Locks and barrel blanks came from Webley of England. Like the Model 1874 Creedmoor that would hand Americans their victory over the Irish in the first Creedmoor match, it excelled at distance. Fewer than 300 Model 1877s were built, in three grades priced at $75, $100 and $125. Overbaugh made 73 into scheutzen rifles. Denver dealer J.P. Lower sold 75 as “special Model 1874s.” These became known as “Lower Sharps” rifles.

Hugo Borchardt joined Sharps soon after the Model 1875’s debut. Like Nelson King of Winchester fame, who became plant superintendent at Sharps, Hugo Borchardt turned his hand to rifle design at the firm. He earned $1,855 for his first rifle, the Sharps Model 1878. The first 300 Borchardt rifles went to the Chinese government in 1877. Its action also showed up in hunting and target guns priced as low as $18.

In May 1879, Hugo Borchardt sailed to Europe seeking military contracts. He got none. Sharps’ efforts to field a repeating rifle came to naught, and the company scrambled. Retailers were given huge markdowns on re-barreled Sharps rifles. Carlos Grove & Son, of Denver, took 270 Model 1874s at $15 to $17 each! It was the beginning of the end. The Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company vanished from Connecticut records in 1905.

The Sharps rifle most celebrated is the 1874, which, if you’d bought one with double set triggers in 1878, would have cost $44. Replicas can bring a hundred times as much now. The movie Quigley Down Under introduced the Sharps to people who’d never heard the name. Following the film, in which its star, Tom Selleck, drills a bucket far away, the Quigley Match emerged in Forsyth, Montana. A bucket-shaped target, 44 inches wide at the top is 1,000 yards off—a long shot for a scoped bolt rifle. For a blackpowder Sharps, iron sights and round-nose bullets at 1,400 fps, it is indeed a challenge! Still, many shooters hit that bucket regularly!

Despite the Sharps Rifle being a more than 150-year-old design modern manufacturers continue to product the timeless firearm. Above is a specimen from Shiloh Sharps out of Montana. — Despite the Sharps Rifle being a more than 150-year-old design, modern manufacturers continue to product the timeless firearm. Above is a specimen from Shiloh Sharps out of Montana.

Surely the best known—and most debated—of Sharps feats occurred at the frontier town of Adobe Walls in the north Texas panhandle. Buffalo hunter Billy Dixon was one of just 28 men sleeping in the tiny settlement on June 26, 1874. At dawn, 700 Comanche warriors led by chief Quanah Parker, killed three whites before the remaining defenders barricaded themselves in buildings. Most were hunters, well armed. They repulsed the charge with withering rifle fire, but they were badly outnumbered, and many of the Comanches had repeating rifles.

Two days later, some warriors still lurked, like circling wolves, on the perimeter of Adobe Walls. As legend has it, about 15 appeared on a bluff nearly a mile off. Billy Dixon, renowned for his marksmanship, was urged to take a shot with the local saloon owner’s .50-bore 1874 Sharps. Dixon had used this rifle during the initial attack, so, when he took aim, there was more than hope at play. Still, onlookers were astonished, when, seconds after the blast, one of the Indians fell off his horse. The distance was later surveyed at 1,538 yards. Possible? Yes. Probable? Certainly not.

Wind drift aside, that bullet would have been descending so sharply that a range estimation error of just 50 yards would have caused a miss. Whether or not you believe Billy Dixon hit a Comanche at more than 1,500 yards with a blackpowder Sharps, you’ll have plenty of company!
The Sharps 1874 has come to rival the Winchester 1873 as a signature rifle of the post-Civil War West.

Shiloh Sharps, a Montana company that now builds Sharps rifles after their original design, put an 1877 Sharps on its list, in 2013. Given the high quality and attention to detail lavished on the company’s 1874s, from Old Faithful hunting rifles to Creedmoor target versions—and the strong demand for them—the 1877 likely will build a list of backorders.

Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from Mastering the Art of Long Range Shooting.

Best Scope Magnification: How Much is Too Much?

Wayne van Zwoll

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December 20, 2013

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Best Scope Magnification: How Much is Too Much?

In general, the least magnification that gives you a clear target image is the best scope magnification.

Too much magnification handicaps you in several ways. It shrinks the field of view, so you won’t find the target as quickly as with less. On a hunt, you may not see the huge buck in the shadows to the side of the most obvious animal.

High power reduces exit pupil diameter, so, in dim light, the target image won’t be as bright. The magnification that makes that target bigger also bumps up the amplitude of reticle movements due to muscle tremors and heartbeat.

Reticle quivers you might not even notice at 2½x become violent dips and hops at 10x. At 20x, you’ll see so much chaos in the tighter field, the target may bounce in and out of view as you try to tame that reticle. A scope helps you when it shows movement you can control.

Too much magnification can be a liability. For big game, 8x may be all you need—ever! — Too much magnification can be a liability. For big game, 6x may be all you need—ever!

It’s a liability as it amplifies movement you can’t completely control. Instead of applying gradual pressure to the trigger, you wear yourself out fighting the jitterbug image in your sight. As eyes and muscles tire, an accurate shot becomes impossible.

Magnification also shows you mirage, a good thing on days when mirage is light and the target is in reasonable range. But, on hot days, when you’re aiming over great distance, the target may appear as a dim, shapeless object stuck below the surface of a raging river.

In general, the least magnification that gives you a clear target image is the best magnification. I use 4x rifle scopes for most big-game hunting and think it adequate to 300 yards. A 6x works fine for me at 400.

Of course, you’ll want more magnification for small animals like prairie dogs. Deliberate shooting at paper bull’s-eyes and steel gongs brings out powerful glass.

I’ve used 16x, even 20x, scopes to advantage in good light, when there’s time for a solid position and precision trumps all else. In smallbore matches, a 20x Redfield served me well.

I needed that much power to hold on a .22 bullet hole at 50 meters, or shade to the bottom-right quadrant of an X-ring the size of a bottle cap at 100. I’ve used 25x to good effect on bull’s-eyes, but am inclined to think 20x would have served, too. Higher power is very hard to use.

These days, variable scopes offer wide four-, five-, and now six-times power ranges; that is, the highest magnification is four, five, or six times that of the lowest.

So, instead of the 3-9x that once awed sportsmen with its versatility, you can get a 3-12x, a 3-15x, or a 3-18x. Or bump up to 4x on the bottom to get 20x or 24x on the top. Such scopes feature 30mm tubes.

These may or may not have a bigger erector assembly (the tube with lenses and magnification cams held inside the main tube). Those with erector assemblies of standard size for one-inch scopes give you more windage and elevation adjustment. That’s an advantage at long range, though a scope performs best with its optical axis close to its mechanical axis.

This article is an excerpt from Mastering the Art of Long-Range Shooting.

Long-Range Shooting: Rifles That Shoot Far

Wayne van Zwoll

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October 31, 2012

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Long-Range Shooting: Rifles That Shoot Far

Prone in prairie grass, Wayne steadies a heavy-barreled .33 wildcat on a Remington action. The 4.5-14X Leupold is standard GreyBull fare. It has given him saucer-sized groups at 780 yards.

Riflemen crave more hits at greater distance. This hardware surely marches to that beat. Wayne van Zwoll provides long-range shooting tips on the rifles that really reach out there.

His group measured 14 inches by 36, less than a vertical minute of angle at 1,760 yards—a mile! But even 300-grain .338 match bullets drift in wind.

“Three feet. And it was a still day.”

Preston Pritchett began building rifles on his own actions five years ago, in his machine shop near Prague, Oklahoma. Disarmingly modest, he talks with a drawl, engages you with a boyish grin. Pritchett’s specialty is heavy rifles that shoot exceedingly well at long range. Testimonials abound, like this one from a Montana hunter:

Wayne handloaded for the .338 Norma (a shortened .338 Lapua) and a rifle on a Remington 700 action with Krieger barrel, Pacific Tool bolt, and gunsmithing by Freudenberg. It’s a solid long-range outfit.

I’ve been running 155 [-grain] Scenars at 2,980 fps … with a 5-25X Schmidt & Bender PM2 … . I’ve taken 96 coyotes [16 at] over 500 meters. The longest shot [was] 1,120 meters.

That hunter also claimed a “five-shot group at 750 meters that went just under 2½ inches.” These days, high-velocity ammo and powerful optics encourage even casual riflemen to shoot far. F-Class competition for amateurs has joined traditional long-range events like the Palma Match. But what features enable rifles to hit reliably beyond normal hunting ranges? Say, 1,000 yards?

Pritchett shrugs. “A good barrel and a rigid action. We like Krieger barrels cut-rifled 1:11 for .308s, 1:9.35 for the .338 Lapua. We’re particular about crowns.” Short and long actions for Pritchett’s Surgeon rifles are built on site, with CNC tooling and an electrical discharge machine that holds tolerances to half a tenth. That’s half a ten-thousandth of an inch. Eight-inch receivers vary less than three-tenths, end to end.

A magnum receiver weighs 19½ pounds before milling.

“We cut all our actions from bar stock. We thread the barrel shank and mill the action face and lug abutments with the receiver secured in one fixture,” says Pritchett. “Surfaces stay square and true.”

Final machining follows heat-treating to 40 C Rockwell, to eliminate heat warp. Each bolt is machined from 4140 bar stock and tapers slightly to the front to limit play. Nitride treatment of bearing surfaces prevents galling. An Picatinny rail adds 20 minutes of elevation to the short-action, 30 minutes to the long-action. You can zero a Surgeon rifle at distance without running out of clicks or moving the erector tube far from the sight’s optical axis.

Short-action rifles wear the Remington extractor, long-action bolts a claw fitted inside the right-hand lug. “It throws the case out in a low arc to target knobs on scopes,” Pritchett uses Jewell and Remington triggers and McMillan stocks, pillar bedded. Charles Cowden of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol chose a Surgeon rifle with a Schmidt & Bender 5.5-20X Tactical scope on the agency’s sniper course. His groups measured “.2 minute at 400 yards, .4 minute at 500 yards, .3 minute at 600.”

A bullet may have to travel far across Alberta stubble. This hunter took care with his shot and made it good. Cartridges like the .270 and .280 and the 7mm magnums excel here.

Accuracy from Alignment

All Preston Pritchett likes in a long-range rifle shows up in the long-action, 16-pound Remedy he loaned me. Equipped with a two-pound Jewell trigger and a 4.5-14X Leupold LRT scope, this .338 Lapua put my first three factory loaded Hornadys into a .2-inch hole.

“It’s just 100 yards,” shrugged Pritchett.

Indeed. But not all long-range rifles shoot that well up close. “Groups can improve as bullets go to sleep,” says D’Arcy Echols, who builds the most consistently accurate magnum hunting rifles I’ve seen.

In 1996, Echols was turning out four exquisite, walnut-stocked sporters a year from his Utah shop. To produce more affordable rifles, he committed to a mold for a high-end synthetic stock with classic lines.

The GreyBull/Leupold scope dial is machined to your specific load, so you can turn it to a known distance, hold center, and plant a bullet right there. It has 1/3-minute clicks for increased range.

His Legend is a Winchester Model 70 with many refinements: re-machined receiver belly, bolt face, receiver face, recoil lug seats and lugs; lapped locking lugs; new pins in the trigger, ejector, and bolt stop to remove play; reconfigured ramp and rails; stainless five-round magazine box and follower engineered to the cartridge; custom bottom metal; steel scope rings machined to receiver contours and secured with five 8×40 screws.

Echols attributes the performance of his rifles to tight tolerances. “I surface-grind receivers on a mandrel between centers, so each is within half a thousandth of parallel with the bore.” A special gauge ensures perfect bore/chamber alignment. Most Legend rifles weigh around nine pounds with mid-weight, 26-inch Krieger barrels in .300 Weatherby, “though we’ve built some .300 Winchesters.”

Echols lets bullets coast just .125-inch before engaging the lands, a third of the start they’d get in Weatherby rifles. “The throat—that unrifled section of bore in front of the chamber—can be short or long, parallel or funnel-shaped,” he explains. “It allows the bullet shank to protrude from the case without engaging the rifling, and it gives the bullet a running start. Funnel-shaped throats, from blackpowder days, allow more bullet waggle than do parallel throats .0005-inch over bullet diameter.”

The funnel throat for the .300 Winchester Magnum is .3-inch at the rear of full-depth rifling, .315 at the case mouth. A parallel throat that allows the bullet to slide like a piston offers more guidance than does a tapered throat. But because bullet diameters vary, parallel throats must not be too tight.

The closer a bullet’s fit in the throat, the less critical is throat length.

“A long-throated rifle is said to have free-bore, but there’s no dimension that defines that, so the term is really meaningless,” D’Arcy says. “Besides, the most critical factor in accurate shooting at long range is the shooter.”

Texas gunmaker Charlie Sisk agrees.

“Most rifles shoot better than most shooters,” Sisk observes. “You can’t flinch. Also, the rifle must be held exactly the same every time. The striker sets up vibrations as it falls, before the bullet exits. Pressure from the rest and your hands affect those vibrations, as well as barrel alignment as it vibrates during bullet passage!”

For really long shots, the .50 BMG is hard to beat. Here a class of shooters practices with their Barrett .50s at the NRA Whittington Center near Raton, New Mexico. Yes, they rattle the windows.

Among rifle components, Sisk says the barrel matters most. He told me, “I use Kriegers and Liljas. Others are good, too. It’s as important to have all components — barrel, receiver, mount, rings, scope — pointed at the same spot. That’s not as easy to achieve as it sounds. Few factory rifles have trued actions and perfectly aligned barrels with concentric chambers. Scopes and mounts lack the stress-free fit you need for accurate shooting at extreme range. Minor flaws in hardware that don’t show up at 100 yards become visible at 300, astounding at 1,000. Distance magnifies problems.”

Chamber dimensions affect accuracy. To accept all factory ammo, whose dimensions vary, and to allow easy loading under field conditions, chambers in hunting rifles are generous. Their dimensions also hinge on the reamer’s condition.

“A well-used reamer may produce a chamber .012-inch smaller in diameter than one cut with a new reamer,” says Charlie.

Because brass stretches, loose fit doesn’t matter to hunters. But, for tight groups at long range, you’ll want a snug chamber fit. Ammo matters, too.

“I spin bullets to sift out those with variations in jacket thickness,” says Sisk. “Once, after spinning, I measured groups from the best and worst lots. The most uniform bullets printed groups a third as big as the others.” He favors Berger bullets and Sierra MatchKings. “Concentric bullets at uniform velocities deliver the best accuracy. High ballistic coefficients minimize drift.”

Springfield Armory built this rifle, a .308 that delivers tight groups at distance. The “tactical” rifle is gaining popularity, though, for long shots, the bolt-action still rules.

Sisk emphasizes that stiff barrels and actions deliver the best accuracy.

“Long barrels have more flex than short ones of the same diameter. That’s why some very accurate rifles have stubby barrels. I also like relatively sharp rifling twists. Heavy bullets spun fast may give mediocre performance at 100 or 200 yards; they take awhile to stabilize. But, at long range, they shoot flatter and with less wind deflection than light, quick-stepping bullets; groups, measured in minutes of angle, actually improve.”

I met Rick Freudenberg years ago on the Seattle waterfront, near where he builds target rifles that drill tiny groups. His own hunting-weight .30/284 shoots into half a minute.

“I like it because it delivers .30-06 velocity from a more efficient case.”

He’s built .308 rifles for Palma matches, using three-groove Lilja barrels with a 1:13 twist and a 155-grain Palma bullet in front of Varget powder. He also favors the 6.5-284 with Sierra’s 142-grain MatchKing.

“At 3,000 fps, both these loads shoot flat, with tolerable recoil.”

Freudenberg has also used muscle rounds like the .330 Dakota and .338 Lapua. A .300 Dakota on a Kelby action with a McMillan stock is “competitive at 600 to 1,000 yards with 190-grain MatchKings.”

For matches like the Palma, with its iron-sight stages, Freudenberg boosts sight radius with a 31-inch barrel.

“Irons or a scope,” he says, “you need a mirage band (an elastic strap from receiver to muzzle to keep heat waves from distorting the sight picture), for extended fire. I’ve also used a tube from a roll of Christmas wrap on my scope’s objective.”

Freudenberg says many shooters don’t get the reticles square with the action.

“Tilt the scope a bit or cant the rifle, and you won’t see much effect at 100 or 200 yards. But at 1,000, adjustments will move point of impact off-axis, and you won’t be able to shade reliably for wind.”

One thing these accomplished riflesmiths agree on: disciplined practice from field positions is the only way to ensure hits at distance. Holding the rifle still and releasing each shot cleanly will improve results more dramatically than can a rush to new hardware.

Bullet Ballistics 101: Pressure, Velocity & Distance

Wayne van Zwoll

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September 14, 2012

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Bullet Ballistics 101: Pressure, Velocity & Distance

Bullet Ballistics - Rifle — With 55,000 psi under your eye, stout lockup, flawless steel and perfect headspace matter.

Bullet Ballistics: Pressure

When a primer spits fire into the powder charge and burning commences, gases form, increasing pressure inside the case and (because pressure produces heat), accelerating the burn. On a bullet ballistics graph, you’ll see a pressure peak after a short horizontal line showing the delay between primer detonation and powder ignition.

After that peak, which typically happens within a millisecond (1/1,000 second) after the powder starts to burn, the pressure curve arcs back down. This decline is relatively gradual as the bullet moves forward, increasing the bore volume behind it. The faster the powder, the steeper the curve on both sides. The area under this pressure/time curve translates to bullet velocity. Two to three milliseconds after the striker hits the primer, pressure has dropped to zero. The bullet is on its way.

A 180-grain bullet from a .300 Weatherby Magnum exits the muzzle of a 26-inch barrel about 1 1/4 milliseconds after it starts to move. The following bullet ballistics chart shows what happens (data adapted from a pressure/time curve in the excellent text Any Shot You Want, a loading manual by Art Alphin’s A-Square company).

Bullet Ballistics Chart

Time (seconds)	Pressure (psi)	Velocity (fps)	Distance (inches)
0	0	0	0
.0001	12,000	60	.02
.0003	36,000	500	.60
.0005	60,000 (near peak)	1,400	2.80
.0007	42,000	2,350	7.40
.0009	24,000	2,970	13.80
.0011	6,000	3,250	21.30
.0013	100	3,300	26.00

Billet - Bullet Ballistics — Surgeon rifles start as solid steel billets. Receivers easily endure 60,000-psi – and more.

Bullet Ballistics: Peak Pressure

A few things to note: First, peak pressure comes when the bullet has moved only about 3 inches, even with the slow-burning fuels appropriate for a .300 magnum. Pressure drops off fast, too, losing 90 percent of its vigor in the next 18 inches of barrel. But the bullet continues to accelerate even as pressure behind it diminishes. Between 14 and 21 inches, pressure loss totals 18,000 psi.

But bullet speed increases 300 fps! With very little pressure remaining at the muzzle, the bullet is still accelerating! The value of a long barrel is clear, even if nearly all of it is used to control the tail of the pressure/time curve.

Bullet Ballistics: Pressure/Distance & Pressure/Time

A pressure/distance curve differs from a pressure/time curve in slope, but it has the same general shape: steeper at the start than at the finish. The area under a pressure/distance curve represents the energy available for the bullet. However, the energy generated is not all available downrange. A lot of it is lost in thermal (heat) transmission, expansion of the case into the chamber wall, bullet/rifling friction and bullet rotation.

Plotting a load’s pressure/distance curve helps designers of gas-driven autoloading rifles because these rifles must tap the gas at some point in the bullet’s travel. Too much pressure, and the slamming can damage rifle parts. Too little, and bolt travel is insufficient to clear the fired case.

Shotgun - Bullet Ballistics — Thin barrel walls and lightweight receivers make lively shotguns. Pressures are modest.

Bullet Ballistics: Velocity

Measuring gas pressure proved as difficult at first as measuring bullet velocity. Then, in the mid-1800s, Alfred Nobel and an American named Rodman came up with solutions to that problem at the same time. Rodman’s, the crusher system, is still in use.

Rifle - Bullet Ballistics — Cases of rimfire ammunition are thin, limiting pressures. Rifle lock-up: One lug is enough.

It’s a factory procedure not easily or safely performed in a home shop. A small cylindrical piston is slid into a hole in the barrel of a test gun, and a copper or lead pellet is inserted snugly between the top of the piston and a stationary anvil. When the rifle is fired, the piston pushes against the pellet or crusher, shortening it.

The difference in crusher length before and after firing is then converted mathematically to a pressure range, in units of CUP or LUP (copper units of pressure or lead units of pressure).

Copper crushers are generally either .146 in diameter and .400 long to start with, or .225 in diameter and .500 long. Choice depends on application. Copper crushers work best in centerfire rifles and handguns that generate substantial pressures. Lead crushers (.325 x .500) typically register the low-pressure loads in rimfire guns and shotguns (though small-diameter copper crushers can be used too). Crushers are calibrated in a test press.

Pounded by high pressures, crushers don’t register peak pressure accurately because the flow of copper is slower than the change of pressure in the chamber. Also, the moving piston must be brought to a halt, which skews a reading in the opposite direction.

Bullet Ballistics: CUP

Copper units of pressure (CUP) and lead units of pressure are not the same; nor can they be interchanged with another common unit of pressure, pounds per square inch (PSI).

A CUP value may coincide with a PSI value; for example, SAAMI lists 28,000 as maximum average pressure for the .45-70. Both CUP and PSI units apply. But maximum average pressure for the .243 is 52,000 CUP and 60,000 PSI. Most cartridges show similar discrepancies. Sadly, there’s no easy way to convert CUP to PSI or vice versa.

A modern device for pressure measurement in firearms is the piezoelectric gauge. It registers an electric charge delivered through a transducer when a crystal is crushed. Pressure applied to the crystal yields a proportional transducer reading in pounds per square inch.

Conformal transducers are installed in the barrel, just like crusher pistons, and become part of the barrel. External transducers can be mounted on the barrel, then removed for replacement or calibration checks.

Another pressure tester that’s become popular among shooters is the strain gauge. Developed for consumers by chronograph guru Ken Oehler, it’s essentially a length of wire you glue to the outside of the chamber wall. When you fire, the chamber expands and the wire stretches. That stretch translates into pressure. It does not equate with readings from a crusher or a piezoelectric gauge.

Is It Possible to Overdo Gun Drills?

Wayne van Zwoll

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September 6, 2012

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Dry fire gun drills — Dry-firing your big game rifle from hunting positions hones shooting fundamentals.

Practice. It’s the way to get good at just about anything. Gun drills can even help you get good at doing the wrong thing.

Lones Wigger, the most decorated Olympic rifleman ever, once told me he practiced gun drills up to four hours a day for the U.S. Army Marksmanship Training Unit.

.22 Caliber is perfect for gun drills — An understudy rifle trains you gently. The .22 rimfire may be the world’s most useful round.

“More importantly, I practiced the right things. Every shot must be well executed. If you’re too tired of shooting to shoot well, it’s time to quit. A sloppy shot is practice for more sloppy shots,” he said.

You’ve seen people blaze away as if success depended on a high count of empty hulls. AR-15s and autoloading pistols encourage careless shooting – though they’re not responsible for it.

Another accomplished Olympian, Gary Anderson, dry-fired his .22 rifle so much, he reportedly peened the chamber lip to the point a cartridge wouldn’t enter.

“Launching a bullet is a small part of the shooting routine,” he told me. “Most of the important stuff happens first. Where the bullet goes depends on what you do before it’s free of the rifle, or even out of the case. You can become a very good shooter without hearing a bang.”

Position, breathing and trigger squeeze – even follow-through – can all be done in gun drills as easily with an empty rifle as with live ammunition. You learn to call shots better dry firing because there’s no recoil to disrupt the sight picture when the striker falls. You see clearly errors in shooting form. Action cycling and recoil recovery beg real shooting; but they’re easier to learn than the foundations of a shot.

Recoil can prevent you from mastering good shooting form. And if you fire only from the bench in your gun drills, you’ll get a false measure of your ability to shoot from unsupported positions. Your finger will become conditioned to make one steady press, when in the field you may have to interrupt the pull as your target suddenly moves, or wind or your pulse bounces the rifle.

Gifted shooter Annie Oakley built her reputation with .22 rifles. She shot often, but not from a bench.

Just holding a rifle can help you hit. As a young competitor, I watched television and studied for school exams while strapped into a sitting position with my match rifle. Its weight (13 pounds) stretched and strengthened the muscles and ligaments supporting it.

Reading is another way to improve your shooting without ammo or gun drills. I’ve written several books on rifles, optics and ballistics, hoping some shooters will tire of watching reality television and pick them up.

Other tomes, some of which tutored me in the shooting sports, have a wealth of information little tapped by shooters who spend many times their cost for new guns, optics and ammo. Handloading manuals from Nosler, Hornady, Barnes and Speer, Vihtavouri, Hodgdon and the like give you reams of data and juicy information on bullet travel. Use ‘em.

If you depend on gun drills alone to perfect your marksmanship, you’ll likely be disappointed. No rifleman who must earn a living doing something else can spend enough trigger time learning that way. Even if you lean on an understudy .22 rifle to reduce ammo cost and shoot where centerfires talk too loud or reach too far, you’re still constrained.

Jack O’Connor wrote of dry-firing every day at a black brick on his neighbor’s chimney. For iron sights, I’ve used a black thumbtack on the living room wall.

Dry firing and reading about rifles can make you an expert without making you flinch during a gun drill. The bang is truly an afterthought.

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Apply the author's tips about gun drills to the information in the Gun Digest Book of Long-Range Shooting. That starts with reading, reading, reading. Then hit the range with a new perspective on gun drills and long-range shooting.

Click here to order the Gun Digest Book of Long-Range Shooting at GunDigestStore.com for the best price.

Big Game Hunting Bullets that Disintegrate?

Wayne van Zwoll

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August 30, 2012

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Big Game Hunting Bullets that Disintegrate?

DRT Hunting Bullets — Dynamic Research Technologies hunting bullets are designed to disintegrate. This 79-grain tungsten bullet has turned to dust in gelatin.

Percentage of retained weight may appear the reigning measure of expanding bullet performance in game, but the last deer I’ve shot fell to thin-jacketed hunting bullets of ordinary construction. And in Missouri, Dynamic Research Technologies (DRT) is making big game hunting bullets designed to, well, disintegrate into tiny particles.

“We’ve found they kill better than deep-driving softpoints,” says Dustin Worrell, who runs DRT. “In fact, we’ve used them on nilgai.”

Traditions designs still make for effective hunting bullets — Though costly “controlled expansion” bullets nab headlines, traditional designs like this are still deadly.

Hunting the big, tenacious Indian antelope in Texas, the DRT crew clobbered 11 with 79-grain spitzers from their .223s. Locals, who recommend heavy bullets from .30 magnums, were astonished.

The DRT hunting bullets that put those nilgai on the skids had tungsten cores, Worrell concedes.

He said, “But the tungsten is sintered. It doesn’t stay in one piece. It turns to dust during penetration, just like bullets we make with cores of copper and tin alloys. The tungsten adds weight to bullets of ordinary dimensions. Its particles are heavier too, so drive a bit deeper. But we don’t expect exits. By the time a DRT bullet gets halfway through vitals, it’s pretty much the consistency of powder!”

Such bullets date to the 1990s, when Harold Beal explored frangible metal cores at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His goal: deadlier .45 ACP service ammunition.

In 2005, John and Dustin developed machinery to make hunting bullets using Beal’s patents under license. Dustin and company have focused recently on muzzle-loading bullets, which they test on deer on their Missouri whitetail ranch.

His records show deer don’t run as far when struck with DRT hunting bullets as when hit with polymer-tipped hollowpoints. The 170-grain 45-caliber DRT fits an ordinary sabot. A thin (.030) tin cap tops the sintered core at the base of a big nose cavity. Accuracy from a rifle I benched averaged an impressive 2 minutes of angle.

Hunting bullets from Kalahari — Norma’s new Kalahari loads use lead-free bullets designed for quick upset on plains game, deer.

We joined a hunting party headed to the woods with T/C muzzleloading rifles. In three days, we took nine deer with the DRT hunting bullets. I killed a “management buck” and a doe. Hit in the forward ribs, the buck dashed about 30 yards and piled up, dead in mid-stride. The doe lasted a couple of jumps.

“These bullets needn’t plow through the lungs, or even reach them,” said Dustin, as he autopsied a deer on the meat-pole one evening. “We’ve killed deer with .223 bullets that didn’t enter the chest. That burst of energy as the bullet disintegrates imparts shock that ruptures blood vessels in the liver and other vital organs.”

The high velocity of the lightweight .45 DRT bullet no doubt heightens that effect. Have thin-jacketed lead-core bullets of traditional design been too quickly abandoned for hunting bullets that weigh almost as much expended as at the muzzle? Could be.

One of the deadliest deer hunting bullets I’ve ever used is the 165-grain 30-caliber Sierra hollowpoint. It opens violently, but blasts through scapulas.

In elk, it’s better slipped through the ribs than driven to the point of the shoulder. Ditto for softnose classics like Winchester’s Power Point – an overlooked bullet that’s been around since I started hunting 45 years ago. I’ve taken elk with it, handily.

The same goes for Remington’s Core-Lokt. And Hornady and Speer softpoints that get less press than so-called “controlled expansion” bullets.

Hunting bullets from DRT — Explosive 170-grain DRT (left) and deep-driving 265-grain Swift A-Frame .45s each have advocates – and applications.

Honestly, all bullets are designed to expand predictably – that is, in a controlled manner. With materials and engineering, hunting bullet makers manipulate upset. Penetration comes at the expense of wound channel diameter and fast energy release.

Some hunters like exit wounds; I prefer hunting bullets than drives through vitals but balls up just under the off-side hide. For heavy game, I favor softpoints with the moxie to splinter the near shoulder but carry on through the lungs.

I don’t care much how hunting bullets look when I pluck them from an animal, because I’ll not use them again. I do care about the damage inside. Weight retention seems to me over-rated.

The famous Nosler Partition typically loses 40 percent of its weight as the nose breaks apart in tough going. But that shattered nose shreds the vitals as the bullet’s protected heel drives on, commonly exiting.

As the DRT people have found, violence between the ribs is the lethal agent.

Wayne van Zwoll

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