Gun Digest September 2022

It doesn’t take much to get me monologuing about how the dings and scratches on a gun determine that firearm’s real value … because I believe that’s where the memories are stored. And chances are good that, as a loyalist to Gun Digest, getting you to buy into that sentiment is a pretty easy sell—and you’ve heard me say it before. But recently, I’ve been pondering about what attracts me—well, each of us, really—to a specific gun. More specifically, what is it about a gun that grabs our attention and ultimately leads us to point and say, “That’s it: That’s the one I want to take afield and make the memories with.” The first gun I ever bought was a Browning Gold Rifled Deer Hunter slug gun, wearing metal of a matte…

HISTORICAL NOTES The .25-06, originally a wildcat cartridge, was picked up by Remington and added to its commercial line late in 1969. The wildcat version dates back to 1920, when it was introduced by A.O. Niedner. Remington has stuck to Niedner’s original configuration of simply necking down the .30-06 case. The Remington Model 700 series bolt-action rifles were the first to be offered in the newly adopted cartridge. At the present time, Barrett, Remington, Ruger, Savage, Winchester, Weatherby, Mossberg, Howa and almost every other manufacturer of bolt-action rifles offer at least one version in .25-06. In addition, the Ruger single-shot has been available in this cartridge, but has been supplanted by the .257 Roberts and 6.5 Creedmoor. This round became a very popular number, but that has waned recently. GENERAL COMMENTS The .25-06 is a…

This column is dedicated to defensive handguns, related gear and their application. But what if you want a pistol suitable for self-defense, but also one you could use to hunt deer or feral hogs? With the cost of ammunition—and everything else—these days, that’s a valid question, and one pistol costs half as much as two. What type of pistol or, more importantly, what defensive pistol/cartridge combination, is suitable for hunting game animals weighing 100 to 250 pounds? Since this is about the size of humans, and since defensive pistols are intended to stop humans from doing bad things, it might seem that any defensive pistol could do the job. But there’s a difference. A pistol shot that’s not fatal can effectively stop an attacker. When hunting, the object is to kill—and to…

A lot of firearm designs have robust firing pins—but not all. Finding out the hard way is … well … hard. Still, even when I gunsmithed for a living, it felt wrong to dry-fire on an empty chamber using the firearms I knew to be robust. I ended up making my own snap caps with silicone goo in the primer pocket of fired and deprimed cases, with no powder but bullets in them. (I epoxied the bullets in place after I used them a bunch.) Most snap caps have a short service life. The all-plastic ones usually break at the rim after even a modicum of use. The firing pin impact doesn’t help there, either. Ideal ones would be all-brass or copper, lathe-turned to shape and fitted with spring-loaded primers. Can…

Many of the best things in life are also the simplest. When you pare down an item’s features to only those you absolutely need, its true functionality shines. Translate that idea to the wide world of riflescopes, and you can see some scopes decked out with all sorts of crazy appointments, having grown to the size and weight of a framing hammer. It’s nice to come across a riflescope that’s utterly reliable, compact, bright and clear without weighing a ton or requiring extra-high mounts. Leupold’s Patrol 6HD is just such a scope, being both simple and bold, with all the features you need and nothing you don’t. Over the past couple of decades, Leupold has worked diligently to improve its lens quality, and it most definitely shows. Among its product lines,…

The art of long-range shooting has changed over the past quarter century, to the point where hitting a 1,000-yard steel plate has become rather uneventful. Our barrels, actions, triggers, optics and mounting systems are better than they’ve ever been, and we’re seeing more consistent results than we ever have. We have ballistic calculators that can solve trajectory and wind drift problems precisely, and our projectiles have the best, and most honest, ballistic coefficient values ever seen. Although my passion is reloading my own ammunition, I must admit the fact that today’s factory ammunition is the best I’ve ever seen … but there remains that “control factor” associated with handloading. The last ammunition crunch has only reinforced that fact, as I watched a lot of shooters scrambling to find a suitable substitute…