Rifle November-December 2024

There are plenty of motivating reasons to purchase a safe. The most common is to protect guns against theft. Other reasons include protecting favorite guns and heirlooms from fire, keeping them out of the reach of untrained children and possible legal implications if reasonable effort is not made to prevent them from being stolen. In other words, as absurd as it sounds, some states and cities will hold you both civilly and criminally accountable if your guns are stolen and then used in a crime – in spite of you being the victim. ...Read More >

Have you ever had thrust upon you, a gun you didn’t really want? It seems kind of dumb to complain about getting a free gun in a complex capitalist culture, so I’m not really complaining. Yet, I wonder how often it happens to others and I suspect there may be true gypsy guns in the world that will pass from hand-to-hand until the sun goes nova because nobody really wants them and whoever heard of throwing away a gun? ...Read More >

Many rifle fans demand their guns to be in near-new condition. Lesser riflefolk aren’t so particular. We regularly repair overused rifles in order to have a new toy to play with. Yes, I and all the shooters I know play with our firearms, spending many happy hours studying, rebuilding and reshooting. It is truly sad that there are so many unhappy and ignorant people working day and night to end our fun. ...Read More >

Fans of Lucid Optics specifically, or prismatic optics in general, might be familiar with Lucid’s proven P7 Prismatic Combat Optic. When the company set out to refine the P7, there was so much new technology and features that were introduced, the company simply renamed it. The P8 was the result, an optic built around asymmetric lenses using a mixture of polymer and Extra-Low Dispersion (ED) glass, including improved multi-coatings, top-drawer, phase-corrected silver coated prisms and an upgraded reticle. The P8 is a fixed-power prismatic 4x optic providing impressively clear viewing in a surprisingly lightweight and compact package that includes a workingman’s price ($599.99 – usually lower on the open market). ...Read More >

Ask someone to name the longest-lived American single shot, and I suspect most would suggest the Winchester High Wall, the Sharps in its various incarnations, or perhaps the Stevens No. 44. All would be wrong. ...Read More >

There are a lot of very good rifles on the market these days. Some are highly accurate, some very shootable, some powerful and some are lightweight. But a rifle that is all of these things in one package? ...Read More >

Few rifles have become so hugely popular, developed such a loyal following and have been so controversial (more on that in a moment) as the AR-15-pattern rifles, which is the semiauto civilian version of the select fire military M16 and is often referred to as a Modern Sporting Rifle or MSR. In the U.S. alone, there are more than 100 manufacturers of AR-15 rifles. Trying to estimate how many have been produced and sold in the U.S. is virtually impossible. However, it appears to be in excess of 24 million, while the M16 production figures are probably close to 10 million. With current world unrest, match competitions and many other factors, it doesn’t look like the demand will subside anytime soon. Today, I want to take a look at Palmetto State Armory, which is a very fast-growing young company that is producing quality AR-15-pattern rifles at modest prices. But first, I want to briefly cover the roots of the AR-15/M16 rifles and the 223 Remington and 5.56 NATO cartridges. ...Read More >

The Browning X-Bolt rifles I have shot in the past have never failed to impress with their consistent accuracy. Browning has been offering fine Belgian and Japanese-made rifles for years, but the X-Bolt series proved a further refinement of earlier models and became renowned for flawless cycling and shooting tight groups with a wide variety of ammunition. ...Read More >

I grew up on a farm and one of my proudest possessions was a Marlin 39A lever-action rifle. Regardless of whether its magazine was filled with 22 Short, 22 Long or 22 Long Rifle ammunition, the little rifle sang a sweet song. Shots at most of the cottontails and other small game harvested with it were seldom farther away than 25 of my paces and Shorts seldom failed to drop them in their tracks. Those rascally crows were a bit shy, so my meager supply of Long Rifle was reserved for shots at long range, which in those days was 50 yards or so. Things have changed. ...Read More >

It weighed 7 pounds, had a pistol-grip stock and held six shots in a full-length magazine under a 20-inch barrel. You could buy one for $89.95 at a hardware store, or mail order from Herter’s for $67.50. Parcel post shipping to my door from Waseca, Minnesota, cost $1.10. I had memorized the numbers. But bucking hay at $1 an hour, I could only dream of a Marlin 336. ...Read More >