Is The Trijicon Huron The Ultimate Whitetail Optic?

December 1, 2020

The Huron scopes come with a matte-black, nonglare finish on the 6061 aircraft-grade aluminum body. Trijicon exposes its scopes to a litany of abuse tests, so there’s no worry that rough baggage-handlers, bumpy ATV rides, or heavy recoil will ruin your scope.

In sub-zero conditions, the Trijicon Huron riflescope still put whitetails on ice.

The big news from Trijicon for 2020 is certainly the release of its groundbreaking Ventus, a portable rangefinder that doubles as a sophisticated wind mapping device. As significant an advancement as the Ventus is, it’s hardly Trijicon’s only new product for 2020: The company is offering a whole host of brand-new scopes for hunters and shooters.

Huron Scopes

One of the new Trijicon releases is the Huron line, a family of optics that’s aimed at (pun intended!) the white-tailed deer hunter. The whitetail is, far and away, the most popular big-game animal in North America, and approximately 80 percent of the hunters who head to the field each year do so in search of whitetails. As a result, it makes sense that Trijicon would make an effort to build the perfect deer scope … if such a thing exists.

If it does, it might be the Huron.

Trijicon optics have a reputation for superb clarity and excellent construction, but optics of that caliber don’t come cheap. In designing the Huron, Trijicon’s engineers set out to provide the same level of optical quality at a price that would be more palatable to the average deer hunter by providing them with every feature they need and nothing they don’t.

Trijicon’s Huron is available in four different magnification ranges: 1-4x, 2.5-10x, 3-9x, and 3-12x. All of these scopes come with Trijicon’s BDC Hunter Holds reticle. The 3-9x40mm (shown here) is also available with Trijicon’s Standard Duplex and German No. 4 reticles.

To be clear, the Huron scopes share the same military-grade construction and premium glass you’ll find in the company’s more expensive optics, so the Huron offers the same clarity, contrast and construction quality you’ll find on optics such as the AccuPoint. What the Huron doesn’t offer is Trijicon’s battery-free illumination tritium/fiber-optic lamps that are found in the AccuPoint line. The Huron offers AccuPoint-like clarity and light transmission in a package that costs about $500 less than the company’s flagship hunting optic. There are four Huron models available for 2020: 1-4x24mm, 3-9x40mm, 2.5-10x40mm, and 3-12x40mm. All are available with either 30mm or 1-inch tubes.

Trijicon is bucking the trend toward very large objective bells, but that’s not a bad thing. For starters, the notion that a very large 52mm or 56mm objective lens allows for better light transmission at dawn and dusk simply isn’t true. A 40mm lens with good-quality lenses and coatings will allow the shooter a clear view, even in low light.

The downside of those oversized objective bells is that they demand the rifle be mounted higher above the bore (and this, in turn, demands higher rings), and they weigh more than scopes with smaller objective lenses. Forty-millimeter objective lenses not only cut weight, they also allow the scope to be mounted closer to the rifle’s bore, and this prevents the shooter from having to increase comb height or break their cheek weld on the rifle to clearly see through the scope.

The compact 1-4x24mm scope measures just 10.4 inches long and weighs 15.9 ounces. At 17.8 ounces, the 3-12x40mm is very light for its magnification class, and that makes these optics ideal for sporter-weight rifles.

Weighing in at 18 ounces or less, the Huron line of scopes is ideal for lightweight mountain rifles such as this Christensen Arms Mesa Titanium. With the Huron scope mounted, this rifle—chambered in 6.5 PRC—weighs less than 8 pounds.

Huron scopes offer a long list of standard features that include MOA adjustments in both the 30mm and 1-inch models. They also come with Trijicon’s Easy-Focus Eyepiece so the diopter can be adjusted to match the shooter’s vision for a clear, consistent sight picture.

The scope body is made from 6061 aircraft-grade aluminum with a black satin finish that’s durable and glare-resistant, and the capped windage and elevation turrets can be adjusted without special tools. The fully multi-coated broadband anti-reflective glass lenses are equipped with an anti-scratch coating, and there are different second focal plane reticle options: Standard Duplex, German No. 4, and BDC Hunter Holds. The BDC Hunter Holds’ crosshair offers quick reference points for windage and elevation adjustments, and these scopes offer extremely wide fields of view (up to 33.8 feet at 100 yards for the 3-9×40; up to 95 feet at 100 yards for the 1-4×24).

Backed by Trijicon’s class-leading warranty, the Huron is a lot of glass for the money. MSRPs range from $650 to $699, and that’s a bargain for optics of this quality from a brand with such an outstanding track record.

Range-Testing the Huron

The Huron model I tested was the 2.5-10x40mm 30mm version with the BDC Hunter Holds reticle, and I tested it on an ER Shaw Mark X bolt-action rifle in 6mm Creedmoor. I knew part of the test would include a hunt in Canada’s far north for November whitetails, and the Mark X was the rifle I intended to take on that hunt—because, like the Huron, it promises excellent performance at an affordable cost.

The Huron’s 40mm objective lens allows it to be mounted lower on the rifle. Yet, the smaller objective doesn’t reduce low-light clarity.

Because ER Shaw builds all its rifles to customer specifications, I designed the Mark X rifle myself, mating the Shaw action with a 24-inch, matte-finish sporter target barrel with an 11-degree crown, a 1:8 twist rate, and a Grade 5 walnut stock. Together, the rifle and optic carried an MSRP of less than $2,000, but the performance was equal to guns costing much more.

With the Huron mounted on the rifle, Hornady’s 103-grain ELD-X and 108-grain ELD Match bullets averaged groups between 0.6 and 0.87 inch at the range, and recoil from the 8-pound rifle was essentially nonexistent. The Huron’s reticle is wonderfully free of clutter, offering a wide and unobstructed sight picture.

The BDC Hunter Hold reticle is a great option for hunters, because it offers clear holdover points for fast reference in the field. While hunting, you might not have time to fool with making click adjustments to find the right elevation hold. The BDC reticle is faster—and that can make a huge difference when you’re presented with a narrow window of time to take a shoe.

Unlike other hunting scopes, the Huron’s click adjustments are precise and easy to count. What’s more, resetting the zero on your scope is fast and simple. To do so, you simply zero the scope, lift the dial, turn to the “zero” mark, and drop the dial. It locks into place, and you’re re-zeroed without the need to fiddle with tools. Not only is the design wonderfully simple, it’s also precise.

Trijicon’s Huron 2.5-10x40mm and ER Shaw’s Mark X rifle in 6mm Creedmoor proved to be a deadly combination on Saskatchewan whitetails. This rifle shoots well under an inch with factory loads, produces little recoil, and the optic performed well in dim light.

Into the Great North

Trijicon rates the Huron effective from -20 to +140 degrees Fahrenheit. Temperatures were at the low end of that range when I arrived in Saskatchewan in November for my whitetail hunt.

On the first morning in the Safari Rivers Outfitters camp, the thermometer read -12 degrees F, making for a bitterly cold ride to the blinds scattered deep within the Northern Provincial Forest. The formula for hunting Saskatchewan’s huge whitetail bucks is relatively simple: Position yourself along a prime travel corridor … and hope that the drive to reproduce compels the bucks to move during daylight hours.

I had complete confidence in my rifle/scope/load combination, and I knew that if a deer showed, the 6mm Creedmoor would do its job. If you believe the stories regarding body size on these big, Canadian bucks, you might be compelled to consider bringing a .30-caliber magnum on such a hunt. But the reality is that while northern-tier whitetails are larger than their southern cousins, they aren’t that much larger.

Nevertheless, like all whitetails, they’re elusive and hard to find, and that’s especially true in the massive forested tracts of northern Saskatchewan. It’s easy to lose heart and hope when the bitter cold seeps in and the woods are still and frozen, but the knowledge that the deer of a lifetime (several lifetimes, maybe) could be just out of sight around the closest stand of pines keeps you going.

The daylight hours are short in these woods, and even in full sun, the forested canopy blocks the light. It’s essential, therefore, to have a scope that offers excellent light transmission.

Canada is tough on hunters and gear, and that’s why it was the perfect proving grounds for both the new Trijicon Huron scope and the ER Shaw rifle. As you can see, both performed well.

The concept that scopes “gather” light isn’t really true, but clear glass with good coatings goes a long way toward managing available light properly and providing hunters with a clear enough image to see their target.

As the days passed in the cold blind, I had several opportunities to test the Trijicon’s low-light efficiency, and it’s very good—on par with scopes costing much more. There’s very little color distortion, and the optic is clear, edge to edge. By the end of the second day, I’d thoroughly vetted the Huron as an observational tool in low light. Even so, I really needed to test it on game.

The first blind location was on a small ridge looking down into a winding creek that was frozen solid as steel pipe. The open understory was a mass of telephone-pole-straight pine trunks, and often, the only feature that betrayed the presence of an approaching deer was a horizontal, brown backline passing through the wall of vertical pines.

There was no shortage of deer in that pine forest, but the bucks that were hanging out around my quaint outpost in the big pine woods were immature. My guide, Joel, made the decision to move me to another area that was even deeper into the forest—far from anything resembling human habitation.

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When the sun “warmed” (a relative term, I assure you), and chickadees began peeking into the blind windows, I could see a pair of does 100 yards ahead of me. I hoped that they would bring in a buck, but after moiling around for over an hour, they vanished into the trees, and the woods fell silent.

At noon, I pulled my lunch bag from underneath my outer layer of clothing (to keep everything from freezing) and peeled the wrapper off my sandwich with the Shaw rifle across my legs. I’d just finished when I saw movement through the trees.

It was a buck, and although he wasn’t one of the giants that are sometimes found in these woods, he was mature and far better than anything I’d seen. I slipped the rifle into position on the shooting sticks and turned the dial on the 2.5-10x40mm Huron to max power.

The buck turned to the right, quartering slightly away from me. I slid the safety forward and held the crosshairs of the Trijicon at the seam between the buck’s leg and chest a third of the way up his body. When the rifle was steady, I exhaled sharply, settled myself and pressed the trigger.

The afternoon silence was shattered by the sharp crack! of the 6mm Creedmoor, and the buck fell, nose-first, into the snow. He then managed to regain his feet before vanishing out of sight. I listened for any sound: Other than a series of four or five thumps in the snow, there was nothing.

The Hornady bullet had passed through the deer’s lungs and broke the off-side leg, and the deer had barely made it out of sight before expiring. He was a better buck than I thought—fat, healthy, and with very dark main beams that reached around and nearly touched. By the time I reached him and snapped a few pictures, the day’s light was quickly fading, and I radioed that I had a deer on the ground and for someone to come and pick me up.

I came away from that hunt very impressed with the Huron’s performance, and it’s advantage to hunters that Trijicon is offering its high-quality scopes at a price that’s more manageable for the average whitetail hunter. The Huron is marketed as the “ultimate whitetail hunter’s scope,” and it performed exceptionally well in some very challenging conditions.

Trijicon Huron 2.5-10x40mm Specs
Tube diameter: 30mm
Tube material: 6061 aluminum
Eye relief: 2.4-3.3 in.
LengtH: 12.5 in.
Weight: 18.2 oz.
Finish: Satin black
Reticle: Trijicon BDC Hunter Holds
Adjustments: ¼ MOA
Adjustment range: 70 MOA total
Exit pupil: 0.58-0.16 in.
Focal plane: Second
MSRP: $699

For more information on the Trijicon Huron scope, please visit trijicon.com.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the September 2020 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

Henry Repeating Arms Expands Side Loading Gate Offerings

Elwood Shelton

December 1, 2020

Henry goes all-in with side loading gates, expanding its selection to nearly every model.

Say hello to the new Henry, same as the old Henry only different. No, no, the hallowed brand hasn’t reinvented the wheel with its brand-new catalog of lever-action rifles. All the favorites are still there, from the Big Boy to their All-Weather models. Only, now the modern-throwbacks will feature a rather startling modification—a loading gate.

Alleluia! So, it might not be true to the original Tyler Henry design—then again, steel receivers weren’t either—but boy oh boy does it improve the ease of use. Henry Repeating Arms got the ball rolling in 2019 with the “Kings” gate addition with the Side Gate Lever Action. It struck a chord. Now all of Henry’s .30-30 and .45-70 rifles, .410 bore shotguns, and revolver caliber Big Boy rifles in their blued steel, All-Weather, and Color Case Hardened finishes include the side loading gate. In all, the company is replacing 29 of what it calls “legacy” models with the upgrade.

Don’t fret if you’re a traditionalist. Henry hasn’t completely broken its successful mold. While the guns now all have side loading gates, they also retain the original removable tubular magazine based on Henry’s (the man) patented 1860 design. Best of both worlds. Given the modification came about due to customer demand, the loading gate will likely get more use. Why not? It’s a world more convenient.

“Ever since our fans and customers got a taste of a side loading Henry, the requests started rolling in immediately to include this feature on their favorite finish or caliber. These new models are going to make a lot of people very happy, and we are always going to have options for fans of our legacy configuration as well,” states Anthony Imperato, president and owner of Henry Repeating Arms. “The removable tube magazine is a core part of our product DNA, so that’s not going anywhere, and fans of the classic brass and octagon barrel configurations will always be able to get that from us.”

Along with the loading gate addition, the Henry also expanded its Single-Shot Rifle line-up to include two new chamberings—.350 Legend and .450 Bushmaster. The calibers are popular in regions around the Great Lakes, where only straight-wall rifle cartridges are allowed for deer season. In all, the break-action, hammer-fired rifle is now available in 10 calibers, also including .223 Rem., .243 Win., .308 Win., .44 Mag./Spl., .45-70 Gov’t, .30-30, .357 Mag./.38 Spl.

New Henry Rifles

Steel in .30-30

Color Case Hardened in .30-30 and .45-70

Steel Wildlife

Steel in .45-70

All-Weather in .30-30 and .45-70

Big Boy in .44 Mag/Spl, .45 Colt and .357 Mag/.38 Spl

Big Boy All-Weather in .44 Mag/Spl, .45 Colt and .357 Mag/.38 Spl

Big Boy Color Case Hardened in .44 Mag/Spl, .45 Colt and .357 Mag/.38 Spl

Lever-Action .410 Bore

Single-Shot in .350 Legend and .450 Bushmaster

For more information on Henry side gate loader rifles, please visit henryusa.com.

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Is It Time to Rethink Your Pet Load?

Philip Massaro

November 30, 2020

You needn't be a slave to your pet load.

We all have our favorite recipes we follow to the letter. But with new components available, you might improve your pet load with some tinkering.

For a handloader, one of the beauties of a canister-grade powder is that it’s consistent (within reason) from decade to decade. Rifle or pistol, if the brand and type of powder, primer, and make and weight of bullet stay the same, the load should give consistent performance.

I know loaders who reach for a recipe they’d cooked up during the late Carter administration, put it all together and head to the range or woods just as happy as can be. And frankly, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a pet load if it fits the bill and performs in a manner you’re happy with.

But, as with any other aspect of the shooting industry, great pains have been taken to improve both powders and projectiles. For the first time in shooting history, we can—with great confidence—grab an affordable rifle off the shelf, screw a scope on it and, with factory-loaded ammunition, print MOA groups. In fact, this might be the “golden age” of affordable accuracy. So, the results we obtained years ago with older components might warrant a revision; or, at the very least, some of the new components might deserve an audition.

Irrefutable Results

My favorite, old .300 Winchester (a Winchester Model 70 Classic Stainless that shoots rather well) likes a 180-grain boat-tail bullet and 68½ grains of IMR 4350 with a Federal GM215M primer. Hornady’s InterLock, Sierra’s GameKing, Swift’s Scirocco II—all will print sub-MOA at 100 yards with that same formula. The extreme velocity spread on these bullets runs anywhere from 30 to 50 fps. And while that might not make a huge difference inside of 300 yards, it will on a target rifle that you’d want to stretch out to 1,000 yards.

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With the longer ogive bullets such as the Nosler AccuBond Long Range, this rifle shows a definite preference for IMR Enduron 4955. With bullets of 150 grains, and especially the mono-metal bullets of this weight, the rifle likes IMR Enduron 4451. I’m not sure why, but this gun likes the newer powder designs with different bullets.

When the author starts a new load, such as the .280 Ackley Improved he took to Namibia, he usually picks a new powder.

I had a variety of load data for the .318 Westley Richards that was provided by the good folks at Woodleigh Bullets and tested in real rifles instead of universal receivers. However, the best results came from some data Nathan Chesney and I interpolated with the newer Reloder 16 from Alliant: It gave extreme velocity spreads in the single digits, and the velocity hit 2,475 fps with the 250-grain Woodleigh Weldcore. By contrast, many other powders were struggling to attain the 2,400 fps mark that the century-old formula called for. If Nate and I hadn’t been willing to experiment with a new powder, I’d have missed the sub-MOA accuracy and enhanced velocity this rifle delivers.

There are so many new powders and projectiles on the market that I’m sure there’s a “sleeper” somewhere in your gun safe; a rifle or pistol that has, up until the point at which you experiment with some new components, given only mediocre results. Some time at both benches could have you looking at that rifle or pistol in an entirely different light.

New and Proven Winners

Am I insinuating that the old pet loads are somehow invalid or obsolete? Not at all, although things are most definitely changing. Some of the older powders are being discontinued. For instance, IMR 4320, which was the factory propellant for the early .308 Winchester ammunition, will be leaving us soon. It’s a shame, because I have quite a few loads for different cartridges based on using this powder.

Nevertheless, it’s not the end of the world if this powder or, speaking more broadly, any single powder were to be discontinued. Looking at a burn rate chart, powders have been added that are very close to—although possibly not interchangeable with—some of the older classics, but with more-uniform characteristics.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” So saith “Ol’ Grumpy Pants” (my father), who still wears a sweatshirt from 1989 and is convinced that his old dot-matrix printer might come in handy someday. His mystical formula of a .308 Winchester with a 165-grain bullet over IMR 4064 has become the “song of his people,” in spite of the fact that I’ve shown him better accuracy with Hodgdon’s Varget and H380 or Alliant’s Reloder 15—and this is in his own rifle. He has redefined the concept of “stubborn” and simply likes his proven formula.

There was good data for the author’s .318 Westley Richards, but he decided to think outside the box for his ammo.

But I enjoy experimentation, and finding a new load—even with a proven bullet—with a new powder that might provide better accuracy or velocity is a labor of love.

Those new powder developments—IMR’s Enduron line, Hodgdon’s Extreme line, the newer powders from Accurate and Ramshot, as well as the new offerings from Alliant—have proved to be winners, and I can’t think of a single example of a new powder released in the last few years that hasn’t proved to be an improvement. They burn cleaner, offer copper-fouling remover and are much less sensitive to fluctuations in temperature. In addition, I’m seeing velocity spreads getting narrower all the time.

I’m not exactly abandoning my IMR4350 loads: I’ve found that the .30-06 Springfield, .300 Winchester Magnum and .375 H&H Magnum really like that powder (or any of the classics). However, because the IMR Enduron line has five offerings, and each is very close in burn rate to an existing classic powder, I’m slowly developing my own new data centered around those powders.

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Winchester’s new StaBALL 6.5 is a new powder that’s highly intriguing; it sits right in between the various 4350s (IMR, Hodgdon and Accurate) and IMR4831 and H4831SC. But because of the grain structure, it’ll take up less room in the case and meters wonderfully. It’s been showing an increase in velocity when compared with powders of similar burn rate, and it possesses all the copper-fouling reducers and temperature insensitivity the IMR Enduron and Hodgdon Extreme powders have.

Is Your Pet Load Obsolete?

While I could spend half the pages of this issue pontificating on this point, the recent developments in projectiles warrant some attention.

Component bullets, such as the Trophy Bonded Tip (newly available as a component) and Terminal Ascent from Federal for hunters; the A-TIP Match from Hornady for the long-range crowd; and the Gold Dot G2 for pistol fans are all fantastic designs that could re-inspire you.

We seek the best reloading gear—VLD chamfer tools, micrometer-adjustable crimp dies and seating dies, etc.—and, of course, we prepare our cases to be as uniform as possible. So, it stands to reason that we’d want the best projectiles and powders money can buy … or, at least, that we can afford.

Personally, I have those go-to pet loads that have never let me down, but I truly enjoy the new developments and using them in the field.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the March 2020 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

All Steel, Hammer Fired And Affordable: Sarsilmaz SAR 2000

Elwood Shelton

November 30, 2020

Move over other CZ-75 clones, the SAR 2000 is ready to give all comers a run for their money.

How Does The SAR 2000 Stand Up To Other Clones:

All steel construction for a hefty and durable pistol.
Respectable trigger, with a very crisp single-action break.
Priced competitively relative to nearly any other CZ-75 clone.

An echo of an echo, it’s difficult to tell where the CZ-75 starts and its clones end. By all rights, it’s among the most copied handguns to ever come down the pike, perhaps only overshadowed by the throngs of Single Action Army and 1911 riffs swelling the market. There’s a whole story about CZ-75 clones and how they multiplied like fleas on a feral dog. Sufficed to say, its proliferation is a testament not only to poor Combloc patent law, but the genius of the design. Imitation, flattery and all that.

Like so many European gunmakers, Sarsilmaz long ago succumbed to the CZ-75 siren song and has now introduced its crack at the old 75 to U.S. gun buyers. Well, the SAR 2000 is a reintroduction of sorts. Yanks have fawned over the Turkish concern’s double-action/single-action (DA/SA) pistols previously under the banner of Armalite, the unfortunately somewhat forgotten AR-24. Though this latest iteration is more closely related to the original Sarsilmaz DA/SA—the Sarsılmaz Kilinç 2000. Pretty much a dead ringer.

Following the original’s lead, the SAR 2000 isn’t a true-to-form CZ-75 clone. The 9mm has an Italian accent, taking a cue of another prolific 75 clone-maker, Tanfoglio—best known stateside nowadays for the EAA Witness. This is mainly seen in the fire control, which at times some shooters have contended was better than what came out of CZ. (That’s a barbershop debate point, not set-in-stone gospel.) The single-action especially won praise with a short take up, crisp trip and bearable reset. What more could you ask from a pistol whose first trigger pull (in double-action) hovers around 14-pounds?

As to the SAR 2000’s tale of the tape, it features a 4.5-inch hammer-forged barrel, recessed match crown and forged stainless steel slide—tri-top, with plenty of material shaved away. Forged steel frame too, which should strike a chord among traditionalists.

While dimensionally, the pistol comes in compact enough to conceal, it’s got the stuff to test waistbands. Unloaded, the SAR 2000 tips the scales at a robust 35 ounces, considerably more with a fully-loaded 10- or 17-round magazine (both are available). On the flip side, the pistol is a smooth shooter, with much of its heft devouring the already polite 9mm’s recoil. This gives it the chops as a budget competition gun.

The pistol’s ergonomics are solid as well. Grip rake is nearly identical to the CZ-75, and it boasts ample beavertail facilitating a fundamental high grip without fear of the SAR 2000’s bite. The front and back straps are lightly textured, rubberized panels do the lion’s share of keeping the gun in hand. No decocker either, just a relatively streamlined thumb safety, so it’s possible to run the pistol cocked and locked. As to the sights, no frills here—steel three-dot. But front and rear are dovetailed and upgradable.

The part to get very excited about with the SAR 2000 is its price, which in a word is “low”. The company’s black-finished pistol has an MSRP of $477 and the stainless-steel model an MSRP of $500. Given its assets, if it proves a shooter, the DA/SA qualifies as a value.

SAR 2000 Specs
Caliber: 9 mm
Height: 5.5 inches
Capacity: 17+1 or 10+1 rounds
Width: 1.4 inches
Overall length: 8.0 inches
Barrel Length: 4.5 inches
Weight: 35.2 ounces
MSRP: $477.77 black finish; $499.99 stainless steel

For more information on the SAR 2000, please visit sarusa.com.

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Terminal Ballistics: Shooting Through Walls

Philip Massaro

November 27, 2020

Have you ever wondered what a handgun bullet will do if it hits the walls of your home? Author Phil Massaro put together a backyard experiment to find out.

Drywall, insulation, plywood—what exactly do these materials and combinations of them do to the terminal ballistics of premium defensive bullets?

As someone who owns a handgun and is willing to take action to defend you and yours, you’ve certainly given thought to the possible consequences of firing that gun within your home. There are many premium handgun bullet designs that will give fantastic performance through all sorts of media.

But what happens in the event of a missed shot in the home?

I was intrigued to see what these premium bullets would do in a few “real-world” environments, such as an interior wall with studs or an exterior wall with drywall, fiberglass insulation and plywood exterior.

Do certain materials cause different behavior?
Will the premium bullets whistle through a door with enough apparent energy to wound, maim or kill?
What will it take to stop a handgun bullet?
What effects do caliber and bullet weight have?

While my testing was the “rudimentary/backyard” style instead of some controlled laboratory environment, it’s real … and there were some informative and eye-opening results.

Gathering Guns and Ammo

Officer Mark Nazi from the Catskill, New York, police force and co-owner of Double Eagle Tactical Training and I got together with some of our favorite handguns and a variety of makes and models of premium ammunition: S&W Model 36 in .38 Special, a Glock G45 in 9mm Luger, Mark’s personal-carry gun—a Glock G22 in .40 S&W—a Kimber 1911 TLEII in .45 ACP and … just to add some spice, my own Ruger BlackHawk in .45 Colt.

Once you hear that “bump in the night,” you need to be extremely cognizant of what might be behind your prospective target, because your home’s walls probably won’t stop a bullet.

Ammunition ran as light as the 110-grain bullets for the .38 Special (Hornady Critical Defense +P) to the 325-grain slugs in the .45 Colt (Choice Ammunition’s Bear load, featuring a wide, flat-nosed, hard-cast bullet). Barriers included one interior wall comprising two pieces of sheetrock screwed to a pair of 2×4 studs and an exterior wall comprising one piece of drywall, studs, fiberglass insulation and a plywood exterior.

(Now, before you start to find fault with these simple designs, please realize that we were not trying to build a home; rather, we wanted to find the effects of common building materials on premium handgun projectiles' terminal ballistics.)

We needed a way to stop our bullets—with minimal damage to the design. Mark brought along an old bulletproof vest that we attached to the back side of our mock wall, allowing it to move enough so as to not overly influence the shape of bullet. We recovered all but one projectile.

Massaro and Officer Mark Nazi mocked up both an exterior wall and interior wall for the penetration and terminal ballistics test.

Mark and I then discussed the average distance at which a shooter would be using a handgun in the house. We settled on 10 feet and set the targets accordingly.

Bullet Trio

Let’s start with this premise: Nearly all handgun bullets, including those from a .22 Long Rifle, will penetrate a couple of panels of sheetrock … unless a stud, pipe or electrical wire is hit. While wooden studs and drywall aren’t the only combinations used for home construction, they represent very common choices.

Accordingly, different construction materials will have varying effects on any bullet (for instance, masonry construction is much tougher than the thin wood paneling that was so popular in the 1970s) regarding its deformation and retained energy. However, observing the ferocity with which our test bullets whistled through both barriers, along with how much they moved the vest (which was stapled to the top of the target so it could rotate upward), showed us both the varying power levels of the cartridge/bullet combinations, as well as which bullets expanded regularly and which plugged up with material.

Mark Nazi of Double Eagle Tactical Training staples a used bulletproof vest to the rear of the mock wall in order to stop and recover bullets in this "backyard" terminal ballistics test. — Mark Nazi of Double Eagle Tactical Training staples a used bulletproof vest to the rear of the mock wall in order to stop and recover bullets in this “backyard” terminal ballistics test.

S&W .38 Special

I tried a trio of bullets in my snubnose S&W .38 Special: the 110-grain Hornady FTX Critical Duty, 130-grain Winchester PDX-1 Defender and the 158-grain Hornady XTP in my handload. Firstly, of all the cartridges tested, the .38 Special had the least visible movement of the vest. Secondly, all three bullets were nearly plugged with gypsum from the drywall.

More Ballistics Information:

Ballistics Basics: Initial Bullet Speed

How Does Barrel Length Affect Accuracy And Ballistics?

Truth About Straight-Walled Cartridge Ballistics

Working With Ballistic Gelatin at Home

Ballistics Basics: Bullet Efficiency And Ballistic Coefficients

Expansion was rather uniform, with expanded bullets measuring between .429 and .486 inch (from the original .357-inch diameter) and weighing just under or a bit over original weight (the drywall material added to the bullet weight). I don’t doubt the effectiveness of the .38 Special cartridge—especially in the +P guise—and although the 2-inch barrel of the Model 36 gives up a bit of velocity, in a crowded house, this cartridge came out as my favorite.

9mm Luger

The 9mm Luger offered a visible increase in momentum, pushing the 135-grain Hornady FTX bullet at slightly more than 1,000 fps from the 4-inch barrel (the 110-grain .38 Special load lists an equal velocity—but with a 4-inch barrel, not the 2-inch barrel of the Model 36), and it expanded to an average of 0.576 inch, retaining 131.8 grains of its original 135. This might have been an instance of velocity gain due to barrel length, but the visual impact of the 9mm into the vest had a definitive advantage over the .38 Special.

This is the exit hole through the second sheet of drywall on the mock interior wall.

.40 S&W

Bumping up to the .40 S&W, things changed radically. The interior wall offered virtually zero resistance, other than to start the expansion, but the exterior wall didn’t offer much more, because our bullet-stopper vest was flipping around. Mark carries the Federal Hydra-Shok 180-grain load on duty, and that load is well-proven throughout the law enforcement community, as well as the CCW crowd.

I could say the same about the 155-grain Federal HST load; that HST has been my favorite defensive bullet for quite some time. The 180-grain Hydra-Shok expanded from .400 to .717 inch, weighing 183.6 grains (picking up material through the wall). The lighter HST load expanded to .635 inch, weighing 158.2 grains. The .40 S&W has bridged the gap between the 9mm and .45 ACP for some time now and gives a great blend of low recoil and wonderful terminal ballistics.

.45 ACP

Turning to the classic .45 ACP, its additional throw weight more than made up for the diminished velocity, especially at the test distance we chose. The .45 ACP is my favorite all-around defensive cartridge.

There are also some wonderful projectiles available for the .45 ACP; and among those tested, there were a few that gave excellent performance. Regarding momentum: The visible movement of both the wall and the bulletproof vest was the greatest we’d seen as of that point, with most designs being nearly equal (from a visual standpoint).

As they showed me during a more formal test at the Federal plant in Anoka, Minnesota, both the Hydra-Shok Deep and HST gave stellar performances. Browning’s BXP load and the Sig Sauer V-Crown load (the latter being a bullet from Sierra) also had high weight retention and good expansion throughout the test.

.45 Colt (just because)

When firing the Choice Ammunition Bear load, the .45 Colt in my Ruger Blackhawk—replete with a 7½-inch barrel—showed an amazing amount of energy. It blew the vest 3 yards off the two combined walls, giving far and away the most dramatic impact. That 325-grain, wide, flat-nosed, hard-cast bullet retained 95 percent of its original weight, expanding to .548 inch in diameter and hitting our mock walls like a category 5 hurricane.

What Does It All Mean?

Well, Mark and I clearly established that neither the interior nor the exterior wall stopped much. Even the combination of the two didn’t offer much resistance. In fact, we added three more sheets of ½-inch plywood to the mix and, with the exception of the .38 Special, our premium bullets still escaped the obstacle we’d created. I can say rather confidently that firing through the exterior wall of the average house does little the terminal ballistic potential of a round and could very easily result in the death of someone standing on the other side.

Hornady’s Critical Duty FTX load in 9mm Luger gave good expansion through the wall, thus slowing down the bullet.

As basic as it was, this little experiment opened my eyes to just how careful one has to be when even considering using a firearm in the home. I want to know exactly where beds, couches, desks and seats—as well as any other possible location of a person in my home—are, and I want to be able to establish that from many different angles from within my home.

Premium bullets are exactly that: They give the best performance available. Of the bullets tested, it seemed the Hornady FTX design had the greatest tendency to plug with wall material and have its expanded diameter reduced—at least in comparison to the figures and conformation demonstrated by shooting these bullets into gelatin.

That said, I don’t think this casts any sort of a shadow on Hornady’s design, because the parameters of bullet design can’t possibly account for the post-penetration performance through all types of barriers. As is true for any soft-point bullet delivered from any firearm, the higher the impact velocity, the greater and more radical the expansion. With that expansion comes a decrease in velocity … and that might very well equate to a saved life on the other side of that wall.

Of all the cartridge/bullet combinations put through the "backyard" terminal ballistics tests, the author found that the .38 Special with Hornady’s Critical Defense 110-grain +P ammo had the least amount of visible overpenetration. — Of all the cartridge/bullet combinations put through the “backyard” terminal ballistics tests, the author found that the .38 Special with Hornady’s Critical Defense 110-grain +P ammo had the least amount of visible overpenetration.

I have a favorite handgun bullet, and I make no excuses about being such a fan: Federal’s HST is one of the best designs I’ve come across. Yes, the Hydra-Shok Deep solved many of the issues associated with the original Hydra-Shok design. However, the recovered shape, weight retention and wound channel of the HST, combined with the accuracy of Federal’s loaded ammunition, has earned that bullet a position at the top of my list.

There was nothing highly technical about this test—with the possible exception of the vest to stop the bullets. However, if you had to replicate it with wet newspapers, I’m sure it would work. Should you find yourself curious about the combination of handgun/cartridge/bullet you’ve chosen, you can easily replicate this simple experiment using sample materials of those used in your home.

It’ll make you a more careful—and more confident—shooter.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the April 2020 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

On The Trail Of The Kimber Open Country

Philip Massaro

November 25, 2020

For the discerning hunter looking for a rifle that goes the extra mile, the Kimber Open Country stands in a class of its own.

We’d spent the morning making a concerted effort to cross a creek—swollen with the recent rains—to no avail. Although we sat on the near bank, glassing a mule deer buck and his trio of does on the far hillside, they might as well have been on another planet.

My pal, Mike Mattly, and I decided to pull up stakes and try another location: a deep series of gorges that just seemed to appear in the South Dakota terrain … the ones those mule deer like to haunt. As the old saying goes, I’d rather be lucky than good.

We’d barely stopped the truck—in fact, it wasn’t in “park” yet—when two bucks bounded from their beds. Mattly gave what amounted to an order.

“Run!”

And run we did. With a near-cliff in front of them, the deer had to break either left or right, and we took a gamble to head left. It paid off, because the larger of two deer, a big-bodied 3×4, had slowed down just long enough to allow me to send a 140-grain Hornady ELD-X into his vitals. I stood in the South Dakota mud, looking proudly upon my first mule deer buck. The rifle I was testing performed so fluidly that I never gave it a second thought.

Mini Mauser

The rifle? Kimber’s Open Country. And, it performed so well on that mule deer hunt that I asked Kimber to send me another rifle for a more in-depth review.

Hornady’s Precision Hunter proved to be one of the best rounds of the bunch, printing groups between ½ and ¾ MOA.

For more than 40 years, Kimber has offered sensible and reliable rifles for the hunter who prefers to hunt the toughest terrain. Kimber offers lightweight actions, which still offer controlled round feed, claw extraction, a Winchester Model 70-style, three-position safety, smartly designed stocks (both synthetic and walnut) and a range of cartridges suitable for everything from paper and steel, prairie dogs, and right on up to buffalo and elephant. The Open Country rifle, part of Kimber’s Open Range line of hunting rifles, offers a well-balanced blend of match-grade components and ruggedness.

Built around the Kimber 84M short-action receiver, and offered in 6.5 Creedmoor and .308 Winchester, the Open Country is loaded with features a hunter will most certainly appreciate. My test rifle for this review, as well as the rifle I had on that South Dakota hunt, was chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor—a sound, if controversial, choice for hunting deer and similar-sized game, as well as for the target range.

Kimber’s 84M action is what I refer to as a miniature Mauser, in that the benefits of the non-rotating claw extractor and controlled round feed are there, but at a significant reduction in weight. The bolt features a beefier target-style handle, which affords a positive grip, even under stress (as the situation with that mule deer buck certainly was). A fast, second shot was no issue whatsoever.

Four 8-40 screw holes in the receiver allow for the attachment of scope bases. For the test rifle, I used Talley Lightweight one-piece bases and rings, mounting a Leupold VX-5HD 2-10x42mm riflescope with the CDS turret on board. Although the 84M action might be small, the Open Country wears a beefy, 24-inch barrel with deep flutes, threaded and capped for a muzzle brake or suppressor. I measured a diameter of 0.860 inch at the muzzle.

The Kimber 84M action is the perfect size and weight for the 6.5 Creedmoor and .308 Winchester.

Kimber equips the Open Country with a carbon-fiber stock finished in—you guessed it—the Gore OptiFade Open Country camouflage pattern. With a length of pull measuring 13¾ inches, the stock comes easily to shoulder (in spite of the fact that I generally prefer stocks about ½ inch longer), and the wide forend allows the shooter’s left hand to steady the rifle for the shot. In fact, at the widest part of the forend, the stock measures a full 2 inches, and that width sits in the palm very nicely, in addition to sitting nicely on a sandbag.

The stock has no cheekpiece and has a comb designed for use with optics. The Open Country rifles have no iron sights. They come equipped with a pair of sling swivels mounted on the forend, making the attachment of a bipod and sling simultaneously easy as pie. Two aluminum pillars help keep the stock affixed to the action, without risk of crushing the carbon-fiber stock from overtightening, and to prevent the action from moving within the stock.

While the stock of the Open Country is a light, strong design, I found the rifle to be just the slightest bit nose-heavy while carrying it, but it settled down nicely for the shot from field positions. Measuring 43 3/8 inches overall, the Open Country rifle is nice to carry, even in the woods, because it’s not long enough to get caught on tree limbs or to pose a problem in the average deer blind. Even so, its barrel is long enough to wring the proper velocity from both the 6.5 Creedmoor and .308 Winchester.

Tipping the scale at 8 pounds, 7 ounces (unloaded and with the Leupold scope onboard), the Open Country sits nicely on the shoulder. It stays put (when using a decent sling) and doesn’t wear a groove in your trap muscle. Nevertheless, it’s heavy enough to offer stable shots from common field positions, even the offhand shot I had to take on that mule deer buck. From the knee, or when leaning on a tree, fence post or other solid object, the rifle settles nicely.

Kimber provides a hinged floorplate, placing the release on the inside the trigger guard at the front.

And, I’ve come to love the mix of weight, magnification, clarity and ruggedness the Leupold VX-5HD 2-10x offers; and, in those Talley rings, it mounted perfectly, sitting no more than 1/8 inch off the barrel and aligning wonderfully with the comb of the Open Country’s stock.

Bone Up On Kimber:

Full-Sized Hot Rod: The Kimber 4-inch K6s Target
The Mighty Kimber Micro 9
Kimber Advanced Tactical Rifles Continue To Hit The Mark
Which Is Best: Kimber Micro 9 Vs SIG P938
Kimber’s Super Jägare 10mm 1911

The Open Country At The Bench

I could tell you that Kimber built an accurate 6.5 Creedmoor rifle, with the hopes of you making that “shocked” face, but I feel pretty confident that you’re aware of the accuracy reputation of the Creedmoor, in spite of the sub-MOA guarantee Kimber makes for this rifle. I could also allude to the fact that a sub-MOA guarantee in a rifle offered only in 6.5 Creedmoor and .308 Winchester is not a great boast in today’s market, but there are a good number of rifles on the market that don’t live up to the guarantees their tags make.

Happily, this isn’t the case with the Kimber Open Country.

I grabbed a wide selection of 6.5 Creedmoor ammo—both target and hunting bullets—to see what the Open Country was capable of in the accuracy department. I settled on three-shot groups (because this is a hunting rifle) and settled into the bench on a hot summer afternoon.

To measure velocity, I set up my trusty Oehler 35P chrono and began to have fun. None of the ammo I chose was disappointing; in fact, the worst of the three-shot groups measured 1.2 inches, and I have to attribute some of that to barrel heat on that 90-plus-degree day.

A Hornady ELD-X 6.5mm 143-grain softpoint handled this big-bodied mule deer very nicely.

The rifle showed a definite preference for Hornady’s Precision Hunter with the 143-grain ELD-X bullet, as well as the ultra-affordable American Eagle Match load and Choice Ammunition’s 140-grain Nosler AccuBond load. These three routinely printed groups just over ½ MOA.

Looking at the trio, you’ve got an attractively priced target cartridge, one of the best cup-and-core bullets ever designed in the ELD-X, and the terminal strength and hair-splitting accuracy of Nosler’s AccuBond handloaded in the Choice Ammunition load. What more could you ask for? Or, perhaps put a better way: This trio of factory loads will do anything you should be doing in the hunting fields with a 6.5 Creedmoor.

In South Dakota, I used Black Hills ammo topped with the 143-grain Hornady ELD-X, and the three-shot groups were sub-MOA. And, after I’d taken my mule deer, a young hunter used the rifle to take his first buck—at more than 300 yards. The Open Country is a shooter!

During the entire afternoon testing, I experienced no issues with either feeding or extraction, irrespective of muzzle velocity or bullet shape. The hinged floorplate—released via a button located at the front inside of the trigger guard—only released its contents when I asked it to; and the shape of the stock, combined with the mounts and that Leupold scope, made a bench session a pleasure.

Talley’s one-piece lightweight ring/base combination cradled the Leupold VX-5HD scope perfectly, mounting it as low to the bore as is practical.

The three-position safety gives a positive feel, with a definite click when switching between positions. In addition, the wider trigger gave great control at the range in the field, the trigger didn’t even come into play; it just did what I asked of it. Grabbing the Lyman digital trigger scale, I measured the break of the Kimber’s trigger at 3 pounds, ½ ounce, and that figure was very consistent. I like the width and the feel of the trigger, both from the bench and from other field-like positions.

The Oehler reported velocities in congruence with the advertised figures … or at least within the parameters I’ve come to expect for the Creedmoor, given the slight variations in barrel dimensions from rifle to rifle.

A Lifetime of Hunting

In a market flooded with sound and solid designs, where does the Kimber Open Country sit? Well, at just under $2,300, it isn’t an entry-level rifle, nor is it in the league of a custom rifle. I feel it sits in the league of rifles that offer a good value to the hunter who’s more concerned with functionality than appearances.

The rifle’s weatherproof coating sheds rain and snow wonderfully, the stock is a smart design (if the digital camo pattern suits your fancy), and the now-famous Kimber action provides a reliable platform for a lifetime of hunting. It’s not often that I get to test two different models of the same rifle, but I can honestly say they are consistent from model to model. In fact, there were two other Open Country rifles on that hunt, and all shot well and performed flawlessly.

Kimber’s controlled-round-feed action is scaled down, yet rugged, giving excellent performance in the field.

Regarding the choice of cartridge, I find the .308 Winchester to be a better all-around choice, simply for the additional bullet weight, should the hunter want to take the rifle for elk, moose, and bear. The 6.5 Creedmoor and cartridges of similar proportions have taken all three, but the bullet weight usually tops out at 140 to 143 grains, whereas the .308 Winchester will offer bullet weight up to 200 grains. Either way, the pair of cartridges is easy on the shoulder, equally easy on the wallet and shares a reputation for exceptional accuracy. Kimber’s Open Country is a great platform for either cartridge and makes for a serious rifle for the traveling hunter whose focus is deer and similar-sized game … especially when topped with good, versatile glass such as that Leupold VX-5HD.

I get to shoot, test, and hunt with a lot of different rifles, and I really enjoyed my time with the Kimber Open Country. If I had one thing to change about the design, I’d want about another ¾ inch of length added to the stock, but that’s common to almost every mass-produced American rifle I pick up.

Take a look at the Open Country; I think you’ll find an immediate friend.

Kimber Open Country Specs
Approximate weight (pounds/ounces): 6/15
Overall length (inches): 43.25
Barrel Material: Stainless Steel
Barrel Finish: Gray, KimPro II
Barrel Length (inches): 24
Twist rate (right hand): 8
Grooves: 4
Trigger: 3-3.5 pounds
Stock Material: Reinforced Carbon fiber
Stock Finish: Optifade Open Country
Recoil pad thickness (inches): 1
Length of pull (inches): Adjustable
Drop at heel (inches): 0.54
Drop at comb (inches): 0.43
Action Material: Stainless steel
Action Finish: Gray, KimPro II
Magazine capacity: 4
MSRP: $2,269

For more information on the Kimber Open Country, please visit kimberamerica.com.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the September 2020 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

How To Buy Or Build A Custom Precision Rifle

Frank Galli

November 25, 2020

The M700 Rifle from Ashbury Precision Ordnance starts out as a barreled action. Then, because they can be adjusted to particular specs, the chassis and other features were added by the author. The color was the main choice here.

If you're going to spend serious money on a custom precision rifle, make certain you get what you pay for.

What Features Do You Need To Consider On A Custom Precision Rifle:

Gain-Twist Barrels
Action
Trigger
Stocks

Production, semi-production, custom shop. We have several choices when it comes to purchasing a firearm. Most of the time, I speak about production- or semi-production-class rifles—products you’ll find on the shelf locally. Shooters like to be hands on, so buying rifles sight unseen can be a daunting task.

I’ve been very fortunate in my shooting career to work with some of the very best custom gunsmiths. The custom rifles in my collection have a lot of personality and some deep connections behind them.

Gain-Twist Barrels

Today, I still start with a barreled action—it’s the heart of every rifle. My first step is to decide what caliber I want. Then, I look to Bartlein barrels to customize the twist rate. Today, I’m entirely sold on this company’s gain-twist barrels.

Bartlein, because of its computer-controlled rifling machines, can do gain-twist barrels correctly—which is about a three-quarters transition. This means that for my 6.5-caliber barrels, I use an 8.25 twist at the chamber and finish at 7.5 as my exit twist rate. This small transition puts less pressure on the bullet while enabling on overspin of the twist rate.

Going custom with a full build, a Mausingfield action was put together with an AICS chassis—and an amazing paint job. The Mausingfield is a high-end action, so you’ll end up spending more, depending on its specs.

Why a gain-twist? Bullets are the weak link: They’re mass-produced from two dissimilar metals. As a result, the lead can slip under the jacket, thereby deforming it. In most cases, you take this shot to be a flier; in the worst-case scenario, the bullet will come apart midflight. Gain-twist barrels fix this problem.

The other benefit I’ve found is that when it comes to changes in bullet weight, they’re more forgiving. We want to balance the twist rate with the bullet weight. This is where the heavy-versus-light-bullet debate comes into play. I’ve found that the gain-twist barrels end this debate.

For instance, I can shoot 130-grain Prime ammo or use my 136-grain Scenar handload with my 260 gain-twist barrel for my Accuracy International AX. They’re two completely different loads that just happen to zero in the exact same place. And the accuracy? Sub-½ MOA. They only start to deviate from each other after 400 yards, when the weight and BC kick into gear.

This is the benefit of a custom barrel. I can decide every factor—from twist rate to profile or contour all the way to length. In most cases, I feel that 22 inches is optimal for me; in other cases, I might choose 25 inches.

Get On Target With Frank Galli:

Mils vs. MOA: Which Is The Best Long-Range Language?
Buying the Perfect Precision Scope
Shooting Positions: Variety Is The Spice Of Life
Riflescope Tracking: Why It’s Crucial To Test It
Long-Range Shooting: Becoming Your Own Spotter

Action

The caliber and barrel are my first considerations in a custom precision rifle. I then pick an action. I can go super-expensive custom or a little-less-expensive custom. Today, my main go-to custom action is Zermatt Arms’ Origin. The Bighorn action started locally here, in Colorado. It features a floating bolt head that’s also interchangeable. That feature, alone, is worth the $850 price of admission.

I see actions as a delivery device and not something I get overly obsessed with. The best case for me? A three-lug action, because those tend to be beefy (and yes, they also cost more). I also like shorter bolt throws when I can get them.

Trigger

Triggers are the main point of human contact with the rifle, so make sure to spend some time understanding the different options and features of the triggers out there.

Two-stage triggers are my preferred style; I like to marry-up to my trigger shoe so I can’t have it fire with just a look: I want to feel it take up the slack of the first stage, balance against the wall of the second and break on my command. I’m a tactical shooter who’s out in the field a lot. I need a trigger that can handle a certain amount of dirt and debris. Today, I run Trigger Tech or even Elfmann triggers.

There are a lot of choices in triggers, so explore them all and decide which one meets your needs. I’d rather use a 3-pound, two-stage Accuracy International trigger as opposed to an 8-ounce Jewell, but that’s me; it’s what I want.

Stocks

Think of a stock as being the same as your car’s seats, steering wheel and mirrors. How comfortable would you be driving eight hours in a vehicle in which the seat was stuck out of position? Imagine not being able to adjust your mirrors to your needs. Picking the wrong stock for a custom precision rifle is the same thing.

The semi-custom Sniper’s Hide Edition APO M700 comes with a test target to show you what you paid for. At an MSRP of $1,950, this rifle is a winner and has customized features pre-spec’d out.

Chassis offer off-the-shelf adjustability, whereas fiberglass stocks have to be made to order. Yes, this process takes a lot longer. It’s one of the reasons I think we’ve seen a decline in custom orders from companies that focus on semi-production rifles. This semi-production model is designed to be in the buyer’s hand quickly. Why wait four weeks or longer for a part when the entire rifle can be in your hands in half the time?

The reason is that custom-fit products are comfortable and have a value that transcends money. For instance, the McMillan A10 stock has been designed with smaller-statured shooters in mind; it’s meant to fit me better. I can choose the style and colors. I can add options and accessories that fit my needs.

Make it All Your Own

The point is that you don’t have to take what manufacturers offer. Instead, you can make your rifle all your own.

Custom precision rifles give us a mission and a goal. We research, we compare, and we’re forced to provide an objective to our decisions—what we’re looking to accomplish and how much we’re willing to pay to get it. And, when your custom-designed rifle is done, the sense of pride never goes away.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the April 2020 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

Super Sleeper: Why To Consider The .38 Super For Self-Defense

Richard A. Mann

November 23, 2020

A defensive CCW cartridge you’ve never considered: the .38 Super.

The story of the .38 Super starts in 1900, when Colt introduced the John Browning-designed M1900 .38 Automatic pistol. Interestingly, this was two years prior to the introduction of the 9mm Luger. The 9mm Luger was almost immediately adopted by the German military, but the .38 Automatic (ACP) was rejected by the U.S. military, which ultimately adopted the .45 ACP and the Colt Government Model in 1911.

Now, ironically, our troops are carrying 9mm pistols.

In 1929, Colt tried again with an improved version of the .38 ACP. This modernized cartridge had a new name—.38 Super—and the only improvement amounted to nothing more than the cartridge being loaded to a higher pressure: 36,500 psi, as compared to 26,500 psi. This resulted in a velocity increase of about 200 fps.

The King of Competition

Some mistakenly assume the .38 Super is based on the 9mm Luger. It isn’t; the .38 Super case is semi-rimmed, smaller in diameter and longer than that of the 9mm Luger.

The Super was only marginally successful until about 35 years ago, when it became a favorite of practical pistol competitors. In IPSC competitions, there’s a power factor that must be met. It’s calculated by multiplying a cartridge’s bullet weight by its muzzle velocity. Then, the product is divided by 1,000.

The Buffalo Bore 115-grain JHP load for the .38 Super is one of the best defensive loads available. With a muzzle velocity of 1,400-plus fps, it will out-penetrate just about any comparable 9mm Luger load.

At the time, 175 was the lower limit for “major class” (currently, the IPSC major power factor is 165). Competing with a “major” pistol was a huge advantage, because hits were worth an additional point. By using a barrel with a supported chamber in a 1911 pistol, competitors found they could make major with the Super. And, a 1911 in .38 Super held more ammo than one in .45 ACP.

For a time, the Super was the king of competition.

More Self-Defense Cartridges:

Medium-Bore Match-Up: .38 Special vs 9mm
.380 Vs 9mm: Reasons To Consider The Small ‘Nine’
.45 ACP vs 9mm: Which Is Better?
10mm Vs .45 ACP: Making the Right Choice

The Super for Defense

But what about the .38 Super as a defensive handgun cartridge? Texas Ranger Frank Hammer carried one, and my good friend and former Texas sheriff, Jim Wilson, is fond of the cartridge as well. For an auto-pistol cartridge, the velocity is high, and the recoil is noticeably less than you’ll feel from a .40 S&W or a .45 ACP. From an external ballistics standpoint, the Super might not be the equivalent of a big-block V8 but is, for sure, a supercharged small block.

However, ammunition options in .38 Super are not limitless and, on top of that, .38 Super ammo can sometimes be hard to find. I had a limited supply of .38 Super ammunition on hand from Wilson Combat and Buffalo Bore and fed it all through a Les Baer 1911 Commanche. I started with five, five-shot groups with each load from a sandbag rest at 15 yards. Two of the loads performed very well, and the other two delivered about average accuracy from a 4.25-inch gun at the tested distance. Even so, overall, the Commanche averaged 1.5 inches for 20 five-shot groups at 15 yards.

.38 Super Terminal Performance

Of course, this is well within any reasonable expectation for precision from a defensive handgun. The more important question is, What kind of terminal performance can be expected from a .38 Super?

On the left is the .380 Auto designed by John Browning; in the middle is the 9mm Luger; and on the right is the John Browning-designed—and Colt’s improved—.38 Super.

To find out, I tested three of the four loads I had on hand—one was an FMJ load—in 10 percent ordnance gelatin. On average, the major difference I found when comparing the .38 Super to 9mm Luger was a substantial increase in penetration. Looking at all the 9mm Luger loads I’ve tested over the years, the average penetration depth in 10 percent ordnance gelatin was about 14 inches. The average penetration depth for the three .38 Super loads tested was 2.5 inches—17 percent—deeper. (For what it’s worth, there are only about six quality defensive loads available for the .38 Super, so I tested half of them.)

This increase in penetration is due to two factors.

The first is the increase in velocity, which is about 200 fps when compared to 9mm Luger loads with the same bullet weight. The second is the reduction in recovered-bullet diameter. Due to the higher velocity, bullets fired from the .38 Super tend to deform, with a smaller frontal diameter, which averages about 1.4 times the original bullet diameter.

However, this slight reduction doesn’t negatively impact .38 Super terminal performance, because the higher impact velocity, combined with the dynamic expansion of the bullet, creates a larger wound cavity with the potential for more-serious wounding. This is another way of saying the .38 Super makes a bigger “splash” than the 9mm.

Grand Invention

When it comes to the .38 Super, I think there are several things to consider. The first is that, on average, it will out-penetrate the three most common defensive handgun cartridges (the 9mm, .40 S&W and .45 Auto) commonly chambered in semi-automatic pistols. The recoil of the .38 Super is more manageable than that of a .40 S&W or .45 Auto, and it has a higher velocity than the 9mm Luger. It also allows for a substantial increase in capacity when compared to a .40 S&W or .45 Auto. From the standpoint of the defensive handgunner, all these things are important … and this should make you wonder why the Super .38 is not more popular.

The .38 Super is a fantastic cartridge for the defensive handgun—especially if you’re looking for a handgun with more power than a 9mm and a higher capacity than a .45 Auto.

Colt, Rock Island, EAA and Llama all offer pistols chambered in .38 Super, as do many custom 1911 builders (such as Les Baer).

Regardless of its performance or popularity as a defensive handgun cartridge, we have to acknowledge that it’s yet another grand invention of John Moses Browning, who also gave us the .45 Auto, .380 Auto, 1911 and the M2 machine gun. Even after 100 years, those three cartridges and two firearms are still being trusted all over the world.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the 2020 Concealed Carry issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

3 Dry Fire Drills Enhanced By G-Sight ELMS

Gun Digest Editors

November 23, 2020

Adding accuracy and urgency to your dry fire regimen, G-Sight ELMS ups your handgun skills without the need for ammo.

Like playing Texas Hold’em by yourself, dry fire training isn’t a thrill a minute. Take away the bang and the hit downrange, well, you’ve got some pretty dry (pun intended) trigger time. That said, disciplining yourself to drop the hammer on an empty chamber on a regular basis has always been among the best things you can do to improve your skill as a marksman. Now it’s even better.

In the long-ago—less than five years ago—getting the most out of ammo-free practice was a subjective endeavor. Sure enough, the mechanics were there, honing sight pictures and schooling trigger pulls. But unless you had a sharp-eyed observer picking nits from draw to follow through, at best gauging improvement was a semi-educated guess. No longer, with devices such as the G-Sight ELMS (Expert Laser Marksman System) making alone time with your gun as fruitful as a high-priced class with a seasoned instructor.

What Is ELMS?

We’ve done a full review on what to expect from the G-Sight device previously. Suffice to say, we walked away impressed. But a thumbnail sketch of the system is in order.

There are two parts to the G-Sight ELMS, the laser diode and smart device app. The diode interfaces with your gun, providing what might be considered a virtual bullet—the laser beam. Chambered directly in your handgun, a pressure pad at the rear activates the laser when the firing pin strikes it, thus projecting the laser onto the target.

Getting the ELMS device up and running is as easy as sticking it in your gun’s chamber.

The other side of the equation, the ELMS app, displays hits. Utilizing a smart device’s camera, it records up to 10 shots giving you an idea of the precision of individual shots and the accuracy of groups. No matter how you cut it, it is a powerful tool.

There’s no substitute for first-shot accuracy. Certainly, many lethal-force encounters require multiple shots to neutralize a threat. However, a dead-nuts center-mass hit goes an incredibly long way in reducing the number of trigger pulls needed to save your skin. This is exactly what the G-Sight ELMS is built for and how it enhances any number of dry fire drills away from general bullseye practice.

Furthermore, you get instant feedback. Not only visual, via shot tracking on the G-Sight app, but also auditory. Hits on the target elicit a sweet ping, nearly as satisfying as knocking a steel target, allowing you to focus where you need to—on target and your front sight.

Drilling In With G-Sight

While general accuracy shooting—plugging away at the X-ring— is worth the time and is an enjoyable diversion. To get the most out of the G-Sight ELMS and dry fire in general, you should strive to work more true-to-life scenarios. No, not a combat roll behind cover. More along the lines of a textbook draw, presentation, trigger pull and follow through. We spell out three areas of practice ELMS enhances below. But, before the cart goes before the horse, a slight word of the aim of dry fire and ELMS work is warranted.

Similar to fielding endless grounders in baseball or running pass routes in football, the goal in ammo-less exercises is building muscle memory. And like those athletic drills, this isn’t accomplished by going full speed from the get-go. Instead, the majority of dry fire work is executed at quarter speed or less, allotting you ample time to perform every movement with the utmost precision. This includes the trigger pull, follow through and reset. There’s magic in the lack of urgency and speed.

Done over and over and over, you’ll program your body to perform these movements with an exactitude. When you pick up the pace this precision will manifest itself. But to start, the keywords are slow, smooth and accurate.

One last note before you start drilling with the G-Sight ELMS—do so safely. Always double and triple check you have no ammunition in your gun or magazines you’ll drill with. A good rule to follow is not to allow any live ammunition in the room in which you’ll practice. One lapse in discipline can cause a lifetime of regret.

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Presentation
Essentially, this is the foundation of any self-defense dry fire training. At its quick, it’s retrieving your handgun and orientating it toward the target—a skill that requires more practice than it sounds. Utilizing the G-Sight ELMS, this dry fire practice goes a step beyond, incorporating sight-picture acquisition, trigger pull and, of course, accuracy.

When practicing presentation, ideally you’re doing so in steps. That is, clearing clothing, grasping the handgun, orientating your support hand, drawing, etc. Each step of the process you take pains to ensure you’re executing each movement to perfection—including placing a perfect shot with the ELMS. As these slow and deliberate movements become second nature you can speed up, but never to past the point where execution degrades. Finally, when you’re at the point where everything is crisp, clean and relatively quick, you can add an element of urgency with the G-Sight shot timer.

Don’t cheat yourself working on presentation. If you’re practicing with your self-defense handgun, be certain you do so with the holster you’ll carry with and in clothing, you’ll likely wear.

Reload
Chances are in a self-defense situation you won’t need to reload, particularly with the excellent capacity of most modern pistols. But it’s not out of the realm of possibilities. Better safe than sorry, you should be confident and expedient in recharging your handgun with a fresh magazine, manipulating the slide and getting off an aimed shot. Given there are much different mechanics to emergency, speed and tactical reloads than presentation, the G-Sight ELMS goes a long way in honing accuracy on the last part of this practice.

Reload practice can be practiced standalone or as an extension of a presentation drill. Again, this is where smooth and accurate are at a premium, working each part of the movement in textbook fashion. G-Sight will give you a good gauge if you’re rushing—move too fast you won’t be on target.

Additionally, get into the practice of muzzle discipline with these drills. You’re responsible for every bullet that leaves your handgun, you don’t want any going where they’ll do more harm than good.

Malfunction
Handguns aren’t exempt from Murphy’s law. In turn, you might as well accept you’ll have to deal with a malfunction sooner or later. There are many:

Failure to feed
Failure to chamber
Failure to lock
Failure to fire
Failure to unlock
Failure to extract
Failure to eject
Failure to cock

Like reloads, addressing malfunctions requires movements that can throw off accuracy—especially given the amped up pressure.

We won’t go through how to set up every scenario here, give we have an excellent article on how to stage each type of handgun malfunction. Sufficed to say, G-Sight will give you guidance on where you stand in getting your handgun back in a fight productively. Be patient when practicing clearing stoppages, you’ll find they prove more challenging in maintaining accuracy. But over time you’ll also find you can place meaningful hits as quickly as if you were drawing from your holster.

Kicked To The Curb: Tales Of Recoil And Pain

Richard A. Mann

November 19, 2020

Some take it as a sign of manhood others of unnecessary punishment. One thing is for certain, nobody gets a kick out of excessive recoil.

Hard-kicking guns have been a source of pain and amusement for as long as hard-kicking guns have been around. Big-bore guns are often the hard-kickers … but not always: Lesser guns can pound your shoulder, too.

No doubt you’ve seen Internet videos of folks getting the snot knocked out of them. Sometimes, it’s a surprise, but sometimes, it’s an intentional joke. You might’ve even orchestrated such amusement (I know I have!).

Back in my law enforcement days, we were messing with the department’s new inertia-driven Beretta 1201 FP shotguns. These shotguns would smack you like your mamma used to, especially if you didn’t hold them tightly. One guy was bragging about how he was unaffected by recoil. (Yeah, well, there’s always one of those, right?)

We were shooting hand-thrown clays, and before I handed him the shotgun, I slipped a 3-inch magnum in the tube ahead of a couple of low-brass shells. After the first round of low brass, he turned and grinned to illustrate his magnificent level of manhood.

When the magnum load went bang!, he dropped the shotgun, squalled like a baby and screamed, “Did it blow up?”

Everyone laughed—except him. In fact, I’m laughing again as I write this.

The Gunsmith

I once communicated regularly with a custom builder who made some fantastic dangerous-game rifles. He even handloaded custom ammo for his clients and tested it in order to guarantee sub-MOA precision. I’m not sure you need sub-MOA precision with a buffalo rifle, but I’m damned sure folks will pay handsomely to get it.

At any rate, he called me one night and told me he thought he was allergic to ice cream. I asked how he arrived at that odd conclusion. He said that after dinner every evening, he would eat some ice cream. On several occasions, he’d pass out shortly thereafter. This seemed unusual, and I suggested he visit a specialist.

Come to find out, it wasn’t the ice cream: He’d had a concussion received from continually shooting too damned many rifles that kicked too damned hard. I’m not suggesting the average guy would become “allergic” to ice cream by shooting hard-kicking guns, but I’m confident that if you shoot enough of them, you will become, at a minimum, hypersensitive to shooting them.

Using proper shooting form is one way to mitigate heavy recoil. When shooting a hard-kicking rifle, don’t shoot it across your body—square-up behind the rifle.

Grandpa was right: Too much of a good thing is bad for you, and too much of a bad thing is dangerous.

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Masochistic Magnum Recoil

When I was just starting out writing about guns, I was invited on a turkey hunt. I’m not much of a turkey hunter and have never been much for shotguns—unless the attempted target is flying. There were several big-name writers on this hunt, and they all insisted on 3-inch magnum loads. I can only assume they were seriously pissed off at the turkeys (or maybe just seriously intent on impressing the “new kid”).

All the shotguns were fitted with optical sights, so they all had to be zeroed. In three shots, I had my shotgun—loaded with 2¾-inch loads—dialed in. The other guys? They pounded and pounded targets with little turkey heads on them for hours. Forget jelly-heads, we’re talking jelly-shoulders.

Eventually, they seemed modestly happy with their efforts, even though it was obvious some were flinching as if they’d been in the ring with Mike Tyson. Later that night, copious amounts of alcohol were consumed—I’m sure in an effort to deaden the pain. To add insult to injury, no one killed or even shot at a turkey.

By no means a big-bore, this .35 Whelen load packs a serious punch in a rifle that weighs fewer than 7 pounds—especially when fired from the bench.

One of those same writers came to use my range a few years back to pattern some turkey loads he was testing for an article. They were those sadomasochistic 3-inch magnums. He’d shoot a couple times, rub his shoulder and shoot a couple more. After about a dozen, he asked if I’d like to shoot some. I declined. He finished a couple of hours later, asked for some Motrin … and probably went home to cry in the privacy of his own home.

Yours Truly

I’ve never liked rifles that kicked hard and have spent much of my personal life and professional gun-writing career avoiding them. I’ve never wanted to shoot a gun just to see how hard it kicks and have wondered in amazement at those who do.

Still, the circumstances sometimes dictate a certain level of unreasonableness. On more than a few occasions, I’ve had to crawl behind a gun that was, let’s say, “unpleasant” to shoot.

The Griz-Killer

I’ve had a long love affair with the ultra-light rifles of New Ultra Light Arms. They were the first true lightweight hunting rifles. Although many have tried to copy these rifles, they remain the benchmark of that genre. I was provided with one in .35 Whelen to take to Africa on a plains game hunt. Excited about the rifle, the cartridge and the hunt, I got behind it at the bench.

Double-guns are often associated with hard-kicking cartridges. However, most double-guns are heavy, and a heavy rifle is one way to mitigate felt recoil.

I pulled the trigger, and … in all honesty, I peed myself just a little. The Hornady Superformance .35 Whelen load pushes a 200-grain bullet to just a shade more than 2,900 fps. Out of that 6.8-pound rifle, that’s almost 40 ft-lb of recoil energy! However, when it comes to recoil, recoil velocity also matters. That rifle/load combination had a recoil velocity 25 percent more than a .308 Winchester.

I emptied my bladder, wiped my watering eyes, manned-up and fired two more shots to get a three-shot group. Amazingly, it measured 0.68 inch, center to center! Fortunately, when shooting from field positions, the rifle was much more manageable, because that’s how those rifles are intended to be shot.

I bought the rifle but never used it again. Later on, I sold it to my best friend, who runs the Baptist Mission in Kodiak, Alaska—partly because I realized I didn’t need to be kicked that hard to kill anything, and partly because he needed a rifle in case he had a run-in with a bear. And, as it turned out, he used it to stop a charging grizzly at only a few feet. It now rides with him on his horse everywhere he goes.

Cowboying-Up

But that wasn’t the hardest-kicking or most-painful-to-shoot rifle I’ve ever fired. The most painful was a Marlin 1985 Cowboy that was chambered for the .45-70 Govt. Granted, .45-70s can kick like the devil when loaded with the heavy Buffalo Bore ammunition, but this rifle—with its hard-plastic butt plate—would bring a tear with every trigger pull, even when using the “anemic” Remington factory ammunition.

Although some will claim a 3-inch shotshell is infinitely more deadly than a 2¾-inch shell, the question is: Are they worth the substantial increase in kick?

I fired a box or two of ammunition through it—the rifle was astoundingly accurate—and sold it. Speaking of .45-70s and Buffalo Bore ammo, I used that combination on my first two African buffalo. However, those Marlin lever-guns had a nice, soft recoil pad. The recoil was forceful (maybe a tad less than a hard hit from a professional linebacker) but not unbearably painful. After about a half-dozen shots, I always got a headache.

As it turns out, those heavy loads are probably not needed for most of the game animals a hunter might use a .45-70 for. On an African safari in 2007, a buddy used those “weakling” Remington loads to take a very nice blue wildebeest. It ran about 30 yards and piled up.

The .500 Cyrus Recoil

The hardest-kicking rifle I’ve ever fired was when a custom gun builder convinced me to take a .50-caliber rifle he’d made to Africa. The wildcat cartridge he’d created was called the .500 Cyrus and was really rather ingenious.

Unlike the .50 BMG cartridge, which shoots a 0.510-caliber bullet, this cartridge fired a true 0.50-caliber bullet. This limited bullet selection, but he’d worked with a custom bullet maker to create some really revolutionary projectiles. Surprisingly, this monstrosity was short enough to fit in an action sized for the .308 Winchester.

The rifle, which was as beautiful as it was demonic, would launch a 345-grain bullet at 2,700 fps. In case you’re mathematically challenged, that’s 5,584 ft-lb of muzzle energy. But, here’s the thing: The rifle only weighed 8 pounds. This meant felt recoil was in the neighborhood of 60 ft-lb—three times that of a .30-06.

Even so, this rifle was incredibly deadly. I used it to take two eland and a blue wildebeest, all with one shot each. When I returned home, the custom builder offered to give it to me. I declined. I told him unless the world was once again infested with dinosaurs, I would never be mad enough at anything—ever—to pull that rifle’s trigger again.

Mitigating Recoil

After almost a half-century of shooting guns, some of which kicked like a violated mule, I’ve found only one foolproof way to avoid the pain: Don’t shoot hard-kicking guns. But, for those of you wanting to flirt with detached retinas and blown-out rotator cuffs, there are a few ways to combat violent recoil.

One way is to select a heavier rifle. On average, 2 pounds of additional rifle weight can reduce felt recoil by as much as 20 percent. You can also invest in one of those recoil pads that strap to your shoulder (for instance, Limbsaver makes one for about $35). They don’t reduce the recoil force, but they do help distribute it over a larger area, thus limiting the pain involved.

The push-pull technique is a good way to reduce felt recoil. It works, but it takes some practice to do it naturally and accurately.

Another method is a shooting technique taught to me by a Gunsite Academy instructor. He suggested pulling the rifle into your shoulder with your shooting hand while pushing the rifle away from your shoulder with your support hand. In other words, you create sort of a dynamic platform that applies the logic of “opposite force.” In practice, it works wonderfully well and can make a rifle that’ll knock you cross-eyed almost pleasant. On the other hand, it takes a good deal of practice to apply this method unconsciously and with accuracy.

Lastly, there’s no substitute for good shooting technique. Keep the butt firmly in your shoulder, and square your body up perpendicular to the rifle—don’t shoot hard-kicking guns across your body. In addition, make certain you maintain a good cheek weld—don’t let the comb of the rifle smack you in the face.

And, for the love of Elmer Keith, don’t crawl the stock and get your eye too close to the riflescope. That half-moon scar you see on the brow of some shooters is not called the “Weatherby ring” for nothing.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the May 2020 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

Colt Single-Action Army: Owning The Enduring Legend

Josh Wayner

November 19, 2020

The Colt Single-Action Army revolver remains among the most coveted handguns of all time. But what's worth spending your money on?

What Single Action Army Revolvers Are Available:

First Generation Colt SAA
Second Generation Colt SAA
Thrid Generation Colt SAA
SAA Clones

“God created men, but Sam Colt made them equal.”

That adage was more of a premonition than a witty saying. When you look into it, what Colt did with its original revolvers was to offer the individual the first widely produced and available compact repeater for means of defense and offense. It could be said that Colt designed the gun that popularized handguns in general.

The SAA is still produced today by Colt. It’s difficult to get this gun brand-new from the factory, but there are many thousands of fine examples available out in the “wild.”

An Uberti replica with bird’s-head grip (left) and a gen-3 Colt SAA with standard black Colt stocks. The beauty of the SAA is present in both, and they’re both highly functional, as well as esthetically pleasing. — An Uberti replica with bird’s-head grip (left) and a gen-3 Colt Single-Action Army with standard black Colt stocks. The beauty of the SAA is present in both, and they’re both highly functional, as well as esthetically pleasing.

There are three main generations of these revolvers. First-generation Colts entered production in 1873 and were manufactured right up until the beginning of World War II in 1941. These guns are some of the most prized today, and many are still in firing condition.

America’s Legendary Gun: First-Gen Single-Action Army

Because the SAA was in the hands of Americans during our most formative and transformational eras, it became endeared to the public. In fact, there’s hardly been a time when this gun has not had influence on the American psyche. Where older cultures have their swords, knights, samurai and archers, we, as a young nation, found our heroes in the gunslinger, cowboy … and occasionally in the “good-hearted” outlaw.

The SAA is America’s version of a magical weapon. Every imaginable figure in our history has been impacted by this gun: It was in the hands of Custer’s men at the Little Big Horn. It was in the waistbands and sashes of Mexican desperados. Native Americans learned to fear it on the frontier—and treasured them when they adopted them into their own cultures. Bass Reeves, the famous gunslinger and law man, had one in his holster. The story of the Colt Single-Action Armyis the story of American exceptionalism, ingenuity and struggle.

Stoic Heroism: Second-Gen Single-Action Army

The second-generation SAA began production about 15 years after World War II started. At the time, Colt didn’t generally see the SAA as a profitable venture. But the lure of the SAA made its rebirth necessary and was in no small part due to the fact that the postwar era was the “golden age” of Westerns.

Note that the replica (top) has a rudimentary safety lever built into the hammer. The original Colt (below) doesn’t.

The second-generation guns were produced until 1974. There was, again, a sputtering in the manufacture as it resumed in 1976 with what is considered the third-generation SAA. There was intermittent production in the 1980s, but it seemed the SAA was destined to be forgotten as the nation and the public’s shooting interest began to look at new forms of handgunning and competition shooting sports. The end, it seemed, had finally come for the storied “Peacemaker.” However, it again proved to be too important to the American spirit to die in history’s dustbin.

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The New Golden Era

Today, we live in what could be described as the “renaissance” of the single-action. Past times saw the SAA as a weapon on par with, or even better than, many competing designs. Because today’s weapons are extremely accurate, high capacity and lightweight, the SAA is something of a dinosaur, in that it’s not modular, is slow-loading and somewhat difficult to master.

The 1990s saw a dramatic increase in the popularity of cowboy action shooting—a sport that flew in the face of high-speed race guns and polo shirts covered in sponsor logos.

The rampant colt is only present on genuine Colt Single-Action Army revolvers. That pony adds a tremendous amount of value and is a status symbol for some.

The 1990s also became a significant decade of the American Western, for which the emphasis began to focus more on gritty realism and less on theatrical heroism. The 2017 Christian Bale film, Hostiles, is a perfect representation of the somber and brutal use of the Colt Single-Action Army on the American frontier.

Americans were not the only ones influenced heavily by the storied culture of the West. Some of the most famous Westerns ever made were filmed in Italy with Sicilians and Greeks filling in for Mexicans and Native Americans. The lasting cultural impact of these films (such as Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy), along with the star status of Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef, still influence film and story today. It just so happens that some of the largest manufacturers of replica SAA revolvers and many other contemporary weapons are in … Italy.

SAA Clones

Uberti is one of these major producers of SAA-type clones. It might surprise some, but many of the most significant and important guns on film weren’t authentic Colt revolvers. Virtually all the guns in Leone’s Westerns were made in Italy. Chances are that the SAA you see on screen is a replica, not an original Colt. For that reason, one could argue it’s the spirit of the SAA—and not the Colt rollmark—that makes it soldier on today.

A Cimarron Doc Holliday replica. This isn’t a replica of a historical gun; it’s a replica of the original movie prop from the 1993 film, Tombstone, which starred Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp and Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday.

While Colt Single-Action Army revolvers used to be made in a large variety of calibers, there are currently only a couple of versions offered new from the factory. Contrast this with what comes out of Italy: There are, quite literally, dozens and dozens of variations from Uberti, alone; it supplies three major American brands: Taylor’s, Cimarron and Stoeger.

Modern Problems, Modern Solutions

With the increased popularity of cowboy shooting sports came the desire to tweak and improve upon what were seen as the imperfections of the original SAA. One of the big issues was the fact that the hammer could not be lowered on a full cylinder.

The traditional way of loading an SAA was to follow this procedure: Load one, skip one, load four, hammer down. This ensured the firing pin came to rest over an empty chamber in the cylinder. Of course, this meant that for all intents and purposes, your six-shooter was now a five-shooter.

Brownell’s sells a dedicated set of SAA screwdrivers. It’s of critical importance to own a set when maintaining your own sixgun. A set such as this is made with special dimensions to match the screw slots, thus preventing them from getting marred.

Ruger came out with the Vaquero in 1993 to appeal to the cowboy market. While it’s cosmetically very similar, the gun is actually based on the company’s Super Blackhawk and employs the same style of transfer bar safety. This gun is not loaded the same way as an SAA. The Vaquero is different: All you have to do is open the loading gate, and the cylinder spins freely. You don’t have to touch the hammer to load and unload the gun.

The New Vaquero was introduced later. It’s much closer in overall dimensions to the Colt Single-Action Army, and the newer version is constructed out of modern materials using modern manufacturing methods—although it does borrow from tradition in some respects: It has nonadjustable sights and a fluted cylinder. However, unlike the SAA, it features the option of magnum chamberings (such as .44 Magnum).

Some of the most sought-after replica SAA revolvers came from a company called United States Fire Arms Mfg. Co. (USFA). The company is now out of business, but in its day, it made some of the finest replicas ever assembled. Unfortunately, the company made some bad investments in its product offerings and subsequently closed. Even so, these guns are still held in high regard, with some of them commanding prices that rival collectable Colts.

Typical loads fired in the SAA and clones are lead and not jacketed. While jacketed bullets can be used, traditional calibers such as .45 Colt and .44 Special tend to do best with traditional bullet profiles.

Standard Manufacturing recently came out with the simply named Single Action Revolver. The company boasts that it’s superior in every way to the originals in terms of both individual part and build quality. The price of one of these is comparable to a genuine new SAA from Colt, but it’s less than many gen-2 and gen-3 guns that are available on the collector’s and used gun market.

Is a Real Colt Really Worth It?

When it comes to what you get for your money, it all comes down to how you see value. Of all the manufacturers mentioned in this article, the only one that manufactures investment-quality guns is Colt. That’s not to say that the others are low quality—the exact opposite is true. It’s the fact that the “rampant colt” stamped on the side of a gun is worth more because it’s real Americana. The others are good replicas or in-spirit designs. Yes, they’re solid guns, but over time, they don’t carry the same value as a genuine Colt.

While there are many arguments to be made about what you get for the money, it can’t be said that a genuine Colt Single-Action Army is a cheap gun. Many currently command prices of anywhere from $1,500 to $5,000, depending on features and manufacture date. Today, the average price for a gen 3 is about $2,000. A factory-new Colt is listed at $1,799 on the Colt website. The MSRP for a matched set of Ruger New Vaquero cowboy action guns is $1,699.

The treasured Blue Box. Many collectors will pay a premium for the box alone. In fact, a matched SAA and original box can command a substantial price over an unmatched set.

Italian replicas from Uberti run as low as $400; on occasion, they can be had for less. As far as quality is concerned, there are differences in what each American importer offers. For instance, some of the imported guns lack recoil shields in the frame, which can lead to peening around the firing pin hole. And, you’ll pay more for a tuned competition revolver from Uberti: usually around $1,000, depending on the model.

Will the Real Single-Action Please Stand Up?

For some people, there’s absolutely no substitute for the original. In my opinion, a genuine Colt Single-Action Army is hard to beat in overall quality, material and construction, accuracy and investment. There are various levels of quality out there; most of this depends on age and collectability. Some of them aren’t worth shooting, because their value would be reduced. For the avid shooter, there’s something to be said about having the original—and the best. Depending on your attitude, these are either museum pieces or examples of living, fireable history that will turn heads at the range.

It could also be said that it isn’t necessary to possess the Colt brand; rather, it’s the spirit it instilled in the heart of every red-blooded American. Colt, itself, has a lot of competition from the replica business (it doesn’t actually produce a large amount of its most famous gun). A pair of Uberti revolvers on your belt will get you on the firing line for much less money.

Note the differences in markings between the two guns. The Uberti (top) has CIP markings common in European guns and lacks a rampant colt stamp, despite retaining the patent date stamping.

At the end of the day, the single-action revolver is not a truly modern weapon. It doesn’t really have a place on the battlefield or in a concealed-carry rig.

It is a symbol, though, and it represents the wild and untamable spirit of America and our adventurous and pioneering nature.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the March 2020 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

The Rare Pleasure Of Obscure Cartridges

Philip Massaro

November 18, 2020

The .300 H&H Magnum (left) is a rarity these days when compared to the .300 Winchester Magnum (right), but it can be fun and effective in the field.

Common vs. obscure cartridges: Sometimes it pays to paddle against the current. You might find the rarities the most fulfilling to shoot.

Why You Might Want To Shoot An Obscure Cartridge:

The challenge of producing key components, such as cases, to reload the ammunition.
A connection to historical hunts and hunters and the cartridges they used.
Fulfillment to experiment with the performance of cartridges and spice up your gun collection.

Because I’m both a handloader and an aficionado of metallic cartridges, the choice between buying a rifle or pistol chambered for one of the proven—and readily available—cartridges and one of the more obscure, yet “cool,” cartridges has been a struggle.

Yes, ammunition for the .30-06 Springfield, .270 Winchester and 7mm Remington Magnum are available at pretty much any store that sells ammunition, and they’re also very effective hunting cartridges, but it’s great fun to carry an equally effective, yet more obscure, cartridge you’re personally passionate about.

If you’re on any form of social media where cartridges are discussed or perhaps one of the hunting forums, you’ve surely seen the fervor (and sometimes, venom) with which certain cartridges are attacked and/or defended. Shooters will insist that 100 fps or 100 ft-lb of energy will make the difference between anemic terminal performance and blinding devastation.

The .30-06 Springfield, shown here with the 200-grain Federal Trophy Bonded Bear Claw, might be one of the most common and versatile cartridges available.

We hunters feel the need to quantify all things (John Taylor’s Knockout System is a great example of a demonstrative, yet admittedly flawed, means of quantifying the power of certain cartridges), but it’s silly to say that the .308 Winchester and .30-06 Springfield are as different as peas and apples inside of 200 yards. Further muddy the waters with an obscure or obsolete cartridge, and the sparks will most certainly fly.

Variety Is the Spice of … Ammo

I’ve long handloaded my own ammunition, even for the rifles chambered for the most common cartridges, so I’ll be the first to admit that my view of ammunition availability is skewed: I can usually make what I can’t buy. If you’re the practical type of shooter/hunter (as my father, “Ol’ Grumpy Pants,” certainly is), you can get through with just a handful of cartridges to hunt the whole, wide world.

If you had a good .22 LR, perhaps a .223 Remington or .22-250 Remington for varmints, a 6.5 Creedmoor or PRC for light game and targets, a common .30-caliber for larger game and a good .375 H&H for huge dangerous beasts, you’d be well-served. With the exception of the PRC (and even that is starting to change), all those cartridges are readily available at most places that sell ammunition, and I can’t really find a reason not to use any of the choices I’ve mentioned.

The author took a .280 Ackley Improved to Namibia—with great success. Had the ammo not shown up, there would have been no replacing it.

But if you’re the kind of sportsman who has a desire to experiment with the performance of a cartridge that’s not one of the most popular, yet is fully capable, or you’re the type of hunter/shooter who reads too many old hunting and shooting books (and I’m most definitely guilty of this), taking one of the vintage cartridges out in the field creates a definite connection to the past. So, while it might not make the greatest financial sense, owning some cartridge that’s a little “left of center” can bring quite a bit of joy.

Being completely honest, a good .30-’06 Springfield (capable of launching bullets weighing between 110 and 250 grains) can cover an awful lot of ground in the hands of an accomplished rifleman. While I’ve gone on record stating that the .30-06 Springfield is wonderfully boring and predictable, some want a different experience. In spite of its age—it’s a robust 114 years old this year—it remains the benchmark for the caliber, and it’s still one of the most popular cartridges ever developed.

Load Up On Reloading Info:

The Flexible And Forgiving .30-06 Springfield
The .45 Colt: A Wheelgun Classic
.300 Win. Mag.: The Answer To Most Hunting Questions
Tips For Reloading the .223 Remington

Should everyone be shooting it? Well, variety is the spice of life, but I own a .30-06 rifle in addition to a wide selection of others. Does this make that sweet 1895 Winchester in .30-40 Krag (which offers a performance level capable of taking nearly all the same game as the ’06) in the corner of the gun shop a silly purchase? Absolutely not! The available ammunition for the Krag will certainly not equal that of the Springfield, but if you know that going into the deal, there are steps you can take to feed the rifle. But remember: You’ve got to keep that Krag fed properly.

The .358 Norma Magnum (left) is certainly less popular than the classic .375 H&H Magnum (right), but if you enjoy the performance, there’s no reason not to use it.

So, let’s take a look at different sources for ammunition or components for that obscure cartridge you’ve become enamored with.

Shopping Spree

Certain companies have been instrumental in keeping the obscure cartridges alive, and there are means of making your own cases, if you’re so inclined. There are companies that specialize in brass cases for these cartridges (such as Bertram Brass from Australia and Roberson Cartridge Company in Texas), and I’ve leaned on their products a number of times.

I hired Hillbilly Custom Rifles of Vermont to build a .318 Westley Richards on a 1916 Gew. 98 Mauser action and made my own brass cases by cutting down and re-forming some .30-06 cases. They worked just fine, but there was just one issue: Many African countries require the headstamp of the cases to match the marking on the rifle; otherwise, they won’t allow the importation.

Don’t expect to find many camps with .338 Federal ammunition hanging around. Nevertheless, it’s still a versatile and effective cartridge.

I bought some properly headstamped Bertram cases and some from Roberson and had a great safari with that rifle in Zimbabwe. There’s just a limited amount of Kynoch loaded ammunition available (at a seriously high price), but I wanted to use the excellent Woodleigh Weldcore bullets in my own handloads.

Depending on the cartridge, you might (or might not) be able to make your own cases from another or have someone competent make them for you. But sometimes, you need to buy the cases. I’m in the process of having a .350 Rigby Magnum rifle built, and while it shares the same shoulder angle as the younger .416 Rigby, it can’t be made from that case. So, it’s Roberson to the rescue again; and, with a good set of dies, I can handload my own ammunition.

There are many examples such as this, and depending on the cartridge you’re passionate about, you can either revive a cartridge presumed to be at death’s door or have a chance to hunt with a wildcat. I would recommend the purchase of The Handloader’s Manual of Cartridge Conversions by John J. Donnelly—if for no other reason than to examine the possibilities of making brass for your obscure choice.

Author Massaro built a custom .318 Westley Richards (very popular a century ago), but the ammunition must be handloaded. Roberson Cartridge Company and Woodleigh Bullets offerings fit the bill.

Bullet sources for obsolete bore diameters can pose a bit of a problem, but the solutions are increasing. As I stated earlier, Woodleigh Bullets of Australia has long embraced the classic British cartridges of yesteryear, offering a selection of its Weldcore bonded-core soft-points, as well as its FMJ solids, in a wide array of calibers and weights. This manufacturer is well-versed in the classic cartridges (both Graeme Wright and Geoff McDonald are amazing information sources), and their reloading manual is invaluable.

Having good component bullets available for cartridges such as the .280 Ross (.287-inch), the .333 Jeffrey (.333-inch), the .425 Westley Richards (.435-inch), as well as the .475 NE and .475 No. 2, makes the difference between a wall-hanger and a functional rifle. Here, in the United States, Hawk Bullets offers some obscure bullet diameters in its lineup and also offers its customers the option of choosing different jacket thicknesses. I use the Hawk 200-grain .330-inch-diameter bullet in my .318 Westley Richards for deer and black bear, although I’ve yet to connect with the Hawk; they’re very accurate in my rifle.

Among the big hitters in the ammunition industry, Hornady has been instrumental in bringing back a good number of cartridges, providing good ammunition for certain cartridges that are most definitely past their prime (although it usually coincides with a modern rifle being available). The .405 Winchester (the darling of the 1895 Winchester), .450 Nitro Express, .250 Savage, .275 Rigby (specifically, the HV design) and the .348 Winchester are all available from Hornady in factory-loaded form, and their components are also available for most of these.

Mainstream or Obscure Cartridge?

I built a .318 Westley Richards because of nostalgia (it was a very popular, all-around cartridge in East Africa a century ago), but I could have easily attained nearly identical ballistics from the more-modern .338-06 A-Square. I’ll admit that the .338-06 offers a wider selection of bullets (the .318 WR uses a .330-inch-diameter bullet), and proper headstamped brass is much easier to obtain.

The author handloaded for the .300 H&H Magnum for a plains game safari. Although it’s obscure these days, its performance was wonderful.

However, I enjoy the connection to the history of the safari with the older cartridge. The same can be said for that .350 Rigby Magnum: I could probably come very close to the ballistics with the .35 Whelen (in and of itself a very useful cartridge) or matched it with the .358 Norma Magnum, but it’s all the stories I’ve read about Denys Finch-Hatton and Bror von Blixen-Fineke, coupled with the opportunity to shoot a genuine 1917 Rigby takedown rifle chambered for that cartridge, that set the hook.

Among the lever rifles, there are plenty of excellent choices, such as the .30-30 Winchester and .45-70 Government—both of which remain superb hunting cartridges—but because I’m a fan of the oddballs, I find myself scouring the gun shops for just the right Winchester Model 71 in .348 Winchester or an 1886 Winchester in .33 Winchester. I suppose I have an incurable attraction to these oddballs.

I believe there are instances for which a “traveling” rifle chambered for a common cartridge certainly makes sense ( … as if you’re going to find any spare ammunition in hunting camp). Odds are, it’ll be a common cartridge. Most African camps have some .375 H&H ammunition on hand, and American hunting camps will have some .30-06 and/or .308 Winchester or maybe some 7mm Remington Magnum or .300 Winchester Magnum. I’d be shocked to find any .338 Federal or 7mm Dakota stuff, but if you enjoy hunting with them, that’s the chance you take when you hunt abroad.

The author’s handloaded .318 Westley Richards worked perfectly in Zimbabwe. The recovered bullet is from a Burchell’s zebra stallion.

Do some research of your own. If there’s a cartridge that tickles your fancy, or if you find a used rifle in a gun shop, take a look at the difficulty of obtaining ammunition. Companies such as Choice Ammunition, Superior Ammunition, my own Massaro Ballistic Laboratories and others can give you the handloaded ammunition experience—from professional hands. Poke around the Internet for different sources for ammunition, and you’ll be surprised how much is actually out there.

Maybe that vintage .308 Norma Magnum or .350 Remington Magnum isn’t so hard to feed after all … .

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the March 2020 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

Why Would Anyone Want A 9mm Revolver?

Josh Wayner

November 17, 2020

No matter how you slice it, a 9mm revolver is always a compromise.

Why Doesn't the 9mm Revolver Live Up To Expectations:

In all but a few cases, the rimless cartridge requires moon or semi-moon clips to function in a revolver.
Reliablity can be an issue, because because firing pin depth and primer height is occasionally in question.
If a case has split in the chamber or a hot handload has flattened and expanded the cartridge case, clean ejection can be compromised.
Most factory loads are optimized for 4-inch barreled pistols, thus lose performance in snubby carry revolvers.
It's more difficult to make accurate 9mm ammo when compared directly to the .38 Special.

What image pops into your mind? Cowboys? Gunslingers? Your favorite Western film? Shooting wadcutters in a bull’s-eye match? Hunting game at bowhunting distances?

The vast majority of people don’t think of the 9x19mm cartridge when talking about revolvers. It offers some unique angles for revolver fans … and some deficiencies as well.

9mm Revolvers vs. Semi-Automatics

There are very few revolver designs that are truly optimized for the 9mm cartridge. Of course, there have been many attempts at viability. But, for the most part, revolvers use rimmed cartridges. The frame size, barrel length and many other small design elements give a heavy preference to the use of a semi-automatic when looking at small, rimless cartridges such as the 9mm.

In general, revolvers have never really been designed to use rimless cartridges. It would be a fair assessment to say that they’ve been adapted to that use only in circumstances for which it’s been necessary for military supply channels or commercial relevance.

Here, .38 Special loads (left) display heavy and tough 158-grain Buffalo Bore Outdoorsman bullets made of hard-cast lead. This is a potent load! The 9mm is noticeably shorter than the .38 Special and is easier to load and eject. Nevertheless, as far as dedicated ammunition for use in revolvers is concerned, it offers less.

There existed some problems, because many of the early guns didn’t have chambers cut that would allow them to fire without a moon clip holding the base of the cartridges in place.

It’s possible to use moon clips with both rimmed and rimless cartridges, depending on the revolver model. You insert all the cartridges together and, because they’re held together at the rims, they all eject at once as well. If the chamber is not cut to allow the use of single rounds, the rimless cases can fall deeper into the cylinder and would need to be punched out as a result. The gun would, of course, not fire in this case.

This brings us to the question of reliability in a revolver chambered for rimless pistol cartridges. In my experience, these tend to be the least reliable revolvers, because the critical dimension of firing pin depth and primer height is occasionally in question, depending on if a moon clip is used or not.

A brake on a 9mm? The recoil of the 9mm in a semi-auto is mild, and the slide and recoil process soaks up most of the energy generated by the cartridge. The 9mm in a revolver offers stiffer recoil for a few reasons, the most influential being that it has a great deal of velocity to build up in a very small case. The snappy recoil in a revolver, as opposed to the smoother recoil of the .38 Special (which can use bulkier and slower-burning powder), is noticeable by comparison.

A revolver is always a manual-ejection proposition. This can be a struggle with rimless cartridges, because most revolvers are designed to push cases out of the cylinder using their rim. Ejection with a moon clip is quite easy and fast; however, it can also be compromised if a case has split in the chamber or a hot handload has flattened and expanded the cartridge case. In that case, the entire gun can be taken out of commission instantly.

Despite the general consensus that revolvers are more reliable than semi-automatics (a fact that’s slowly changing these days due to advanced compact guns), clearing a complicated malfunction with a wheelgun can be next to impossible in the field. The internal mechanisms of many revolvers, while time-honored designs, are fragile compared to modern semi-autos that don’t suffer from issues such as cylinder timing and complicated internal lock work.

Load Up On More 9mm Knowledge:

Best 9mm Pistol Options for Every Shooter’s Needs
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Smallest 9mm Handguns for EDC

Why Are 9mm Revolvers still Made?

In my opinion, the sole reason that 9mm revolvers are still made is because of the popularity of the 9mm cartridge. It’s no stretch to say that it’s the most popular centerfire pistol cartridge in the world. It offers a tremendous number of benefits to a tremendous number of people and, as a result, it’s seen spectacular advances in bullet technology and in the guns made to fire it.

The revolver versus the automatic. The Glock 19X is lighter and about the same overall size as the PC 986—despite carrying more than double the ammunition. The 19X is also capable of generating higher velocity and less recoil. Revolvers are excellent, but the claim that reliability is superior is becoming less and less true in today’s pistol market.

The public has accepted the 9mm for its practical assets—great penetration, high capacity and low recoil. Today’s world is no longer a revolver world, because inexpensive and reliable automatic pistols can be had almost anywhere and offer the most benefits to the most people in cost, training and ammo availability.

If you’re a first-time handgun purchaser and are looking to buy a revolver for self-defense, the 9mm cartridge is not your best bet when it comes to reliability in a small self-defense gun. Options such as the .38 Special are far superior in this role. If you already own several 9mm pistols or are set up to reload ammunition for the cartridge, owning a 9mm revolver is more feasible.

9mm vs. Legacy Revolver Cartridges

The pressure at which the 9mm operates is designed to ensure reliable operation in semi-autos. The powder used and the taper of the case are there to ensure reliable feeding and ejection. This isn’t true of the legacy revolver cartridges that the 9mm competes against in a revolver.

The “Jerry Miculek” monogram on the side of this S&W is a blatant hint at the intended use of the revolver. Revolvers are popular in some forms of competition, but they require a completely different set of skills than do automatic pistols.

The primary competitor the 9mm faces in a revolver is a .38 Special. While many revolver rounds have come and gone over the years, the .38 Special has never lost relevance. Ammunition for the .38 Special in this role has become more advanced over time, and it’s quite good for what it is.

Today’s .38 Special suffers from several things, including a failure to evolve to meet the cartridge’s realistic end use. Most people who own and shoot .38 revolvers have them with barrels that are 2 inches or less. Contrasting this is most ammunition still designed to work at the velocities generated by 4-inch barrels—the typical standard for law enforcement for more than 70 years in the 20th century. What resulted from this are essentially two classes of .38 Special: one that addresses modern carry guns and one that makes use of slower-burning powders that never achieve significant velocity in small guns.

When looking at the 9mm in a small revolver, it does everything that the .38 Special can. However, it, too, suffers from the fact that most 9mm ammunition is designed around 4-inch barrels common on midsized automatics. The .38 Special generally has an advantage in available bullet weight and bullet types, because there’s no real 9mm ammunition offered specifically for revolvers.

Extracting with a full moon clip is fast and easy. Extraction without one is iffy at best—and impossible in some cases, depending on design. While magazines are flat and easily carried, the moon clip is bulky and easily bent if not stored safely. It’s also easier to hang up on pockets and pouches than a pistol magazine.

Extremely powerful options from companies such as Buffalo Bore allow the .38 Special to have a significant leg up on the 9mm with identically sized pocket revolvers. The .38 also has a generally higher threshold for accuracy because the bullets have substantially less “jump” through the cylinder gap into the barrel. That’s not to say 9mm revolvers are inaccurate; it’s just that they’re harder to make accurate when compared directly to the .38 Special.

Ammunition in .38 Special and .357 Magnum specifically designed for self-defense in a short-barreled revolver is typically superior to what is available for 9mm (given identically sized guns). You wouldn’t be bad off with a 9mm LCR, but if it were a first-time gun purchase or something you intended as a backup, there really isn’t a reason to go with 9mm (barring the economic factor or the idea of having a single pistol caliber for all your handguns).

As far as power goes, the 9mm falls into an odd space, because it can produce excellent velocity; but the fact that most factory ammo is not loaded nearly as hot as it could be severely handicaps its performance in a revolver. Factory ammo has to be powerful enough to allow an automatic pistol to cycle, but not so powerful that it could damage the gun.

The highest capacity found in a 9mm revolver is eight rounds. This is the same as many common carry guns that chamber the cartridge with seven in the mag and one in the pipe. It’s more common to find conversion guns that use a spare 9mm cylinder than it is to find dedicated 9mm revolvers.

With a 4-inch barrel on a revolver, you’ll almost always be able to produce higher velocities with identical bullet weights in .38 Special. However, if the same guns were to all use full moon clips, the 9mm would offer a significant advantage in terms of reload speed because of its much shorter case body.

So, Why Own One?

The revolver has become something of a specialized tool. For aficionados of the wheelgun, there’s nothing better than a slick S&W or Colt Python.

I don’t think the 9mm will gain a significant market share of the revolver business. As modern automatics continue to improve, revolvers have to continue to specialize or simply appeal to nostalgia to remain relevant. Many of the revolvers chambered for the ubiquitous 9mm are simply there to feed a niche market.

The Performance Center 986 offers a seven-round capacity. The gun is smooth and crisp, with a trigger to drool over. But it’s not more powerful than S&W’s own Shield 9 and is substantially heavier and with less onboard ammunition. Who’d benefit from a gun such as this? That’s up to you.

In more than one sense, the 9mm revolver will always be limited by the 9mm cartridge. I doubt there’s a company willing to make a high-pressure, revolver-only 9mm load—knowing that a novice or a devil-may-care shooter might, either by ignorance or design, chamber it in an automatic pistol and blow their hand off. It’s simply not feasible when the .38 Special and .357 Magnum already exist in relative abundance.

At the end of the day, the 9mm chambered in revolver will always be a compromise.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the April 2020 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

6.5 PRC Vs 6.5 Creedmoor: What Does What Better?

Elwood Shelton

November 16, 2020

Nearly kissing cousins, we demystify where the 6.5 PRC excels and when you should turn to the 6.5 Creedmoor.

What Are The Defining Points Between the 6.5 PRC and 6.5 Creedmoor:

The PRC has more case capacity and generates more velocity.
Generally speaking, this improves the cartridges down-range performance compared to the Creedmoor.
Additionally, it also make it favored by hunters.
The Creedmoor generates less recoil making it more adept at placing multiple shots in short succession.
While not moving as fast as the PRC, the cartridge is a proven hunter.

Plainly speaking, there’s been a lot of hubbub about the 6.5 Creedmoor. Granted, there’s good reason. The ballistically talented cartridge has extended the rifleman’s reach considerably, giving even novices a tool to more aptly hit at a country mile. But don’t act like the almighty Creedmoor is mankind’s first foray into the six-and-a-half, nor its most recent.

Scandinavians have packed iceboxes full of moose meat for nearly a century using the sweet little caliber (6.5×55 Swede). And it’s been in the long-range shooter’s quiver for quite a spell with wunderkinds such as the .260 Remington and .264 Winchester Magnum. More recently, the 6.5mm has taken on a new guise as a do-all beltless magnum—the 6.5 PRC (Precision Rifle Cartridge). While it hasn’t garnered as much fanfare as the 6.5 Creedmoor, the cartridge nevertheless has done its part in the meteoric rise of the 6.5. And in some cases, arms shooters with what some consider a much more appropriate tool.

So, exactly how does the 6.5 PRC vs 6.5 Creedmoor comparison shake out and which is better at what?

The History Of The 6.5s

In both cases, the cartridges have their genesis at Hornady, under the guidance of David Emory. The company’s former senior ballistician shepherded both the 6.5 Creedmoor and the 6.5 PRC through development and to market. And while the goal of the cartridges is somewhat similar, their origins are different and add symmetry to the 6.5 PRC vs 6.5 Creedmoor discussion.

As many have heard by now, the Creedmoor was born from long-range shooting competitions and back-of-the-envelope engineering between Emory and champion shooter Dennis DeMille. A bull session over the shortcomings of long-range cartridges—a majority of which were wildcats at the time—the duo hashed out a list of the characteristic for what would become the 6.5 Creedmoor. These included:

Good ballistic coefficient to buck wind and drag
Deliver higher velocity than other 6mm and 6.5 rounds
Low chamber pressure to extend case and barrel life
Low recoil
Easy to reload
Fit in an AR-10 and short-bolt action

While many shooters utilize the 6.5 Creedmoor for more than ringing steel—it’s a grand medium game cartridge—its birth came about through competition. For the 6.5 PRC, match gold was only half the aim.

George Gardner, owner of GA Precision, had a dual-purpose in mind with the supersized 6.5—hunting and Precision Rifle Series competition. A tough nut to crack, given the two pursuits are at odds by some accounts. Particularly when it comes to PRS rules, which dictate sanctioned cartridges cannot have muzzle velocities exceeding 3,200 fps. To this, he wanted the highest ballistic coefficient (BC) bullets compatible with the cartridge. Furthermore, Gardner also desired a cartridge compatible with a short-action receiver—all the more efficient in competitive situations. After a brief diversion—due to brass shortages—into the 6.5 SAUM (Short Action Ultra Magnum), the concept came to fruition in the 6.5 PRC.

More 6.5mm Info

Top 22 Sharp-Shooting 6.5 Creedmoor Rifles
Practical Overview Of 6.5 Creedmoor Ballistics
14 Red-Hot 6.5 Creedmoor Ammunition Options
The 6.5 Creedmoor Vs .308 Winchester
6.5 PRC: Extending The Rifleman’s Reach
Best 6.5 PRC Ammo Available Right Now
8 Affordable 6.5 PRC Rifle Options For Precision Work

Creedmoor And PRC Performance

Not miles away, but different enough, the development parameters for the cartridges define the 6.5 PRC vs 6.5 Creedmoor conversation. Where the Creedmoor was a harmonizing endeavor for a balanced competitive cartridge, the PRC was one pushing the redline without going over. In both cases, easier said than done. But difficult to argue successfully accomplished on both counts.

Essentially, the dividing characteristic between the 6.5s is their cases. For the 6.5 Creedmoor, Emory and crew turned to the Hornady-developed, though somewhat obscure .30 TC for the parent. What drew them to it were some admirable dimensional traits. In particular, minimal body taper and a 30-degree shoulder angle gave vital capacity to the 1.920-inch case allowing it to seat the long 6.5mm bullets to maximum COL (cartridge overall length), without displacing powder.

Again, Hornady looked in-house for a parent case for the 6.5 PRC—the .300 Ruger Compact Magnum. Providing just the right balance between the case-capacity to reach the 3,200 fps mark at the muzzle and size to operate flawlessly in a short action, the case proved ideal for the PRC project. As a side note, the PRC does not fit the technical definition of a short-action cartridge, with a maximum COL of 2.955. Nevertheless, it works in the abbreviated actions.

The 6.5 PRC has markedly enhanced capacity compared to the Creedmoor thanks to its parent case—around 28-percent—which adds up to more velocity—the 8-percent neighborhood. This adds up downrange. A quick example might shed some light. Take Hornady’s 147-grain 6.5 Creedmoor and 6.5 PRC Match loads, topped with identical bullets (Extra Low Drag Match), with identical BCs (.697 G1). The PRC pushes its bullet from the muzzle of a 24-inch barrel at 2,910 fps compared to the Creedmoor’s 2,695 fps. That’s a difference of 215 fps, at 1,000 yards this means around 50-inches less drop and push the mark at which the bullet goes sub-sonic by another 250 or so yards.

Trajectory comparision between Hornady's 6.5 Creedmoor 147 gr ELD Match and 6.5 PRC 147 gr ELD Match. Both have identical bullets, with an identical .697 ballistic coefficent. Yet, thanks to a greater velocity, the 6.5 PRC outperforms the Creedmoor downrange.

It doesn’t take a Camp Perry shooter to realize this is a boon to precision shooters. But hunters benefit as well. Velocity is the primary factor in the consistent expansion and penetration of modern hunting bullets. The PRC has it in spades, leading some to dub it the ultimate game cartridge in the caliber, capable of harvesting animals as large as elk.

6.5 PRC Vs 6.5 Creedmoor Usage

While performance certainly draws a bright line in the 6.5 PRC vs 6.5 Creedmoor debate, the cartridges’ applications once again unite them. Both are more than a qualified match and hunting options. Though, shooters organically seem to have defined which is preferred for each discipline.

While the 6.5 Creedmoor is more than capable of putting meat on the table, particularly—but not exclusively—deer-sized game and down, target and competitive shooters have tended to embrace the cartridge. On the flip side, the 6.5 PRC has dominated the hunting market with the majority of rifles chambered for it the sporting variety. Factory-loaded ammo too is also almost exclusively tailored to hunting.

Hornady A-Tip 11 6.5 PRC vs Creedmoor — The 135-grain, 6.5mm bullet—handloaded in the Creedmoor case—was efficient enough to stay supersonic out to one mile.

Performance at the margins is probably what has segregated the two 6.5s to their respective shooting camps. The PRC is most certainly among the tamest magnum cartridges on the market but does generate a greater recoil impulse than the Creedmoor. Match shooters work to track their hits, the less kick tends to make this more feasible. Hunters can endure a blink, but failure in terminal performance isn’t an option. As stated previously, the Creedmoor is a hunter, but the PRC certainly has a magnitude of peace of mind loaded in its larger-capacity case.

Cartridge Deciding Point

Laying out the 6.5 PRC vs 6.5 Creedmoor, which is really better at what? There’s a lot of ‘Meh…” in the answer. The PRC gives the shooter a bit more range and flatter trajectory while offering a little more security when used on big game. But the Creedmoor still goes the distance, in a less punishing fashion, and can still net you a wall hanger. Really, like all things firearms, the deciding point doesn’t so much come down to the cartridge as it does the shooter.

Expand Your Knowledge on Creedmoor Ammo

History of 6.5 Creedmoor – From Inception to Modern Success
A Detailed 6.5 Creedmoor 129 Grain Ballistics Chart for Hunters and Shooters
What’s the Difference Between 6.5 Grendel and 6.5 Creedmoor?

First Look: Prairie Storm 28- And 16-Gauge Loads

Elwood Shelton

November 13, 2020

Boasting Federal's cutting-edge shot and wad, Prairie Storm gives the classic bores a leg up.

In some places down South, if you aren’t shooting quail with a 28-gauge you’re plum cheating. Hitting just as hard as larger bores, its lighter payload tends to preserve meat, not to mention show what a sharp shot you happen to be. To boot, the ol’ 28 is about a pleasurable as you can get in the recoil department—no small potatoes for any volume wing shooting. No wonder, in recent years it’s crept out of it Dixy stronghold and gained advocates across the country.

Good news if you happen to favor this petite gauge, Federal Premium has expanded one of its most popular and potent upland ammunition lines to it and another classic bore. Prairie Storm is now available for 28- and 16-gauge, giving enthusiasts of these standbys an utterly devastating option for knocking down birds on the wing. Shot is part of the equation in the ammo’s effectiveness, the wad is the other.

To the latter, Prairie Storm utilizes Federal’s Flitecontrol Flex wad, an improvement on the original design. In particular, the wad now has slits to produce back pressure and release the shot, as well as reinforcement at the rear. The toughened up component delivers the same tight pattern shooters have come to expect from Flitecontrol, but in a system that works with ported chokes. A feature shotgunners have demanded for some time.

As to the shot load, it’s Federal’s renowned Flitestopper, a unique payload of 70-percent standard copper-plated lead and 30-percent Flitestopper lead. The latter has a raised cutting ridge on its hemisphere, giving it the unparalleled ability to slice through feathers and flesh, without loss or adverse effects on ballistics or flight characteristics.

At present, Federal offers four loads of Prairie Strom for the two gauges, all in 2 ¾-inch shells. For 16-gauge, there are No. 4, No. 5 and No. 6 shot options all with 1 1/8-ounce payloads. And for 28-gauge, there is No. 6 shot option with a 13/16-ounce payload. Across the board, the MSRP on 16-gauge ammo is $35.99 and for 28-gauge $34.99.

For more information on Prairie Storm, please visit federalpremium.com.

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Ammo Brief: Going The Extra Mile With The .50 BMG

Gun Digest Editors

November 12, 2020

Originally designed for Browning's heavy machine gun, the .50 BMG more recently has become an extreme long-range wunderkind.

What The .50 BMG Capable Of:

Armor-piercing capabilities when loaded with a sabot round.
Accurately achieving hits well past the 1-mile mark.
Pushing a 675-grain projectile 3,000 fps at the muzzle.

Historical Notes

The .50 BMG (Browning Machine Gun) was invented by its namesake and adopted into United States military service in 1918 for John M. Browning’s famous heavy machine gun. His attentions in this area were prompted by a battlefield need recognized during World War I. There have been other developments; and, at least once, the Pentagon considered dropping the .50 BMG in favor of more-modern and generally bigger chamberings. However, the .50 BMG has remained. The advent of saboted loads generating 4,500 fps muzzle velocities and having devastating armor-penetration capabilities, as well as its performance in the Gulf War, cemented its continued existence as a stable part of NATO’s arsenal.

Battlefield use is against light-armored vehicles to ranges of a mile or more. And, used against the unprotected foot soldier, it’s effective to several times that range.

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General Comments

There’s long been interest in the .50 BMG as a quasi-sporting round. Today, the most significant sporting use for this chambering is long-range accuracy shooting, with some competitions exceeding one mile, and there’ve been a couple of King of 2 Mile matches held. The 1,000-yard .50-caliber record, as of this writing, is a five-shot group of just under 2 inches on centers.

Several bolt-action rifles are currently available for the Big 50. The .50 BMG easily launches the 750-grain bullets available for it at 2,700 fps. The lighter, 647-grain bullets available can be launched at 3,000 fps. For obvious reasons, sporting rifles chambered for the Big 50 uniformly feature muzzle brakes and weigh 20 pounds or more. Recoil is harsh until the rifle’s weight approaches 30 pounds.

Commercial ammunition is available for the .50 BMG from PMC and Hornady, among others, that are loading both once-fired and new brass and calling their offerings “factory new.” Components and specialized tools and equipment to handload this cartridge are available to the advanced reloader.

Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from Cartridges of the World, 16th Edition.

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