Rifle May-June 2022

I was never lucky enough to have met Roy Weatherby (1910-1988), who died when I was 20, but find it easy to admire a man who had the fortitude and moxie to push forth his dream of the “perfect” rifles and cartridges. Whether or not the shooting public believed such rifles were worthwhile at the time, and many of them did, Weatherby pressed forward and realized his dreams in spite of often going into great debt to procure exactly what he desired – a robust, multi-lug locking system on the bolt that would prove especially strong for his magnum cartridges. This nine-lug pattern first appeared in the mid-1950s when the iconic Mark V rifles began showing up. ...Read More >

More than 30 years ago, Speer Bullets began intense research to advance its bullet plating process that electro-chemically attaches (electrodepositing) pure copper molecules one at a time to a lead core, commonly referred to as bonding. Speer’s production capacity is huge and the process is very precise and impressive. ...Read More >

During a lifetime of rifle shooting, I’ve sent thousands of bullets through paper targets. Now in my senior years, more of my bullets are aimed at steel targets. I see matters as follows: paper targets are for quantifying matters such as shooting groups for load development or sighting-in. Steel targets are for fun and marksmanship practice. Those latter two are synonymous in my book. ...Read More >

Behold the lowly wood screw! Its purpose and use in gun work are obvious. The principle of the spiral thread goes back a long way. Archimedes described its use as a form of edge around 250 BC. The Romans were the first to use wood screws as fasteners, with each one being hand cut. Leonardo da Vinci invented a machine that cut fairly uniform threads in the fifteenth-century. It was further perfected during the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s. ...Read More >

From the get-go, it was apparent Swarovski’s new EL Range 10x42mm Rangefinder binocular is for the hunter/shooter enamored by involved technology – more pointedly, folks who lean heavily on smartphones to run their lives. I’m not that person. I can barely operate my cell phone, so I’ll do the best I can here in explaining what these technologically-packed binoculars can do for hunters. ...Read More >

When it comes to gunsmithing, Mike Bryant certainly paid his dues. He started out with a bunch of varmint hunters, trying to place all those rounds into those tight, five-shot groups downrange. Hooked with that idea, the next step was having guns rebarreled for his needs, and then he got into serious benchrest shooting. Interest grew to the point where he purchased his first Jet bench lathe, built his own 30x50-foot shop in 1997, then growing his hobby into a full-time business. ...Read More >

The world of rifles has witnessed many a turning point over the past two centuries. As is common with turning points generally, some of the most important were not recognized as such until years later. ...Read More >

Although I make a living shooting, testing and evaluating a variety of firearms, it’s not often that I have the opportunity to write about a company and its guns that are historical and truly special to me, such as Marlin and its outstanding leverguns. Marlin guns were used by my ancestors dating back to at least the 1880s on the Arizona frontier. It seemed natural that as I grew up, I would be shooting vintage Model 97s and 39s, various Model 1894s, 1893s, 336s and 1895s. As an adult, habits are hard to break and Marlin rifles have been carried countless miles in the field. ...Read More >

It seems that in the single-shot arena, High Walls come and High Walls go. By High Wall, I mean originals and replicas of the rifle Winchester Repeating Arms officially called the “Single Shot” or “Model 1885 Single Shot.” Along the way, the generic term High Wall was applied, evidently to differentiate between Winchester’s two versions of the same basic action. One had high side walls which were trimmed down to give a low side wall model. It seems that the “low” version was chambered for smaller cartridges while the high version was made for every sort. Winchester’s Single Shot was chambered for around 80 different cartridges. ...Read More >

Mossberg produced a lot of .22 rimfire rifles, but perhaps the most important were those used to train American military recruits during World War II. Mossberg adapted its civilian .22 Long Rifle Model 42M to military use in 1941 as the Model 42MB, a good many of which went to Great Britain to serve as a stopgap while it designed the Model 44 U.S. specifically for America’s military. ...Read More >

In the late 1800s, May 15 was a big day in the English sporting calendar. Not as big as August’s Glorious Twelfth perhaps, but big enough, for May 15 was the traditional opening of rook season. ...Read More >

Until relatively recently, many centerfire bolt actions followed the same pattern, originally devised for military actions back when all military rifles had wooden stocks. Most early actions used the same basic design, featuring an integral recoil lug under the front end, with a hole in the middle for the front action screw. This drew the lug firmly into the stock’s mortise, usually preventing the stock from splitting after repeated recoil, though sometimes a transverse steel bolt was placed somewhere behind the lug. ...Read More >