Foolproof Field Positions
Last year I wrote an article about finding rests in the field. This article is about what a hunter can do when these options aren’t available.
Last year I wrote an article about finding rests in the field. This article is about what a hunter can do when these options aren’t available.
“I’m your Huckleberry!” The phrase conjures up scenes of Doc Holliday facing down bad guys, eyes gleaming and fingers gently toying with the curvaceous grips of an unusual-looking revolver. And yup! This is the gun.
Spanning six decades of rigorous use and counting, the Bearcat has carved a name for itself as an All-American rimfire six-shooter.
The Tuffpak is made from a rotational molded high-density polyethylene. The unique shape of the case allows you to pack up to 3 scoped rifles or 5 shotguns with room for extra gear. I recently had the opportunity to use and travel with the Tuffpak case and afterwards I wish I had known about it sooner- especially when I used to compete.
The Liberator12k is a project that combines common hardware store parts, some steel tubing and 3D-printed parts to build a revolving-cylinder shotgun.
Built on the Browning’s X-Bolt action, the Max Long Range comes ready for long range.
President Jackson was notorious for settling his differences with his fellows via gunfire. Estimates hold Jackson as having participated in between five and one hundred duels over his long and craggly life.
Colt’s Manufacturing is following up on their recently redesigned and relaunched King Cobra with the new Carry model.
Smith & Wesson is rolling out three new Performance Center pistols, expanding the M&P Shield EZ series of easy-to-use .380 ACP pistols.
Keystone Sporting Arms is kicking off a new series of mini rifle replicas of World War I and II rifles starting with a Mosin-Nagant chambered for .22 LR.
One of Remington’s most practical rifles is the Model Seven Threaded, which features a short, threaded barrel, a hydro-dipped synthetic stock, and a one-piece scope base.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is making the move to 9mm Luger and issuing all-new compact and full-size Glock pistols to its personnel.
Rolling your own is cheaper than buying new ammo. You may even get a more accurate and reliable round. The bad news? If you don’t… Read More »Start Reloading the Right Way With Lyman’s 50th Edition Reloading Handbook
Hudson Manufacturing H9 owners may be able to source some parts including alloy H9A frames from KE Arms if there is enough interest.
The guys at Lee Armory know AKs. They run a manufacturing operation and have all the jigs, fittings and parts for building AK rifles. They… Read More »Do-It-Yourself AK Rifle: Lee Armory’s Build Class in Phoenix, AZ
Traditions Performance Firearms announced a new blank-powered arrow launcher at SHOT Show earlier this year called the Crackshot XBR.
The Virtus weighs and handles almost exactly the same as its centerfire counterpart which makes it a very affordable training and teaching tool.
Savage Arms is expanding their high-end AR-pattern rifles with the new MSR 10 Competition HD chambered for .308 Winchester.
Steyr obviously listened and took action to shooter inputs on their The L9- A1 pistol and the result is an upgraded A2 MF. The changes… Read More »Steyr Updates Pistol, Adds 6.5 CM Options, and Creates a Monoblock One Piece Barrel and Action Rifle – SHOT Show 2019
Glock showcased their Slimline series at this year’s SHOT Show and we were happy to get some first-hand experience with the new single-stack pistols.
Polymer 100 has introduced a new large frame Glock frame and a new modular pistol chassis that handles over 80 different pistol models.
The Taran Tactical booth at SHOT Show 2019 featured the STI/ Taran Tactical Innovations 2011 Combat Master Pistol used in the upcoming movie John Wick 3.
This year at the Industry Day at the Range, Bul Armory was showing off their newest SAS II Saw series 1911 with an extended 5.7-inch barrel.
Taurus has released the TX22, a polymer framed 22 long rifle pistol that is long on features.
Daniel Defense, industry leader in premium AR-based rifles, is launching their first-ever bolt-action rifle, with an all-new action, bolt and barrel system.
The popular firearm manufacturer Gunwerks has added an exciting new addition to their portfolio with a line of suppressors.
The MC1sc is a polymer-framed, striker-fired subcompact handgun with a staggered-stack magazine chambered for 9mm Luger, and it’s a first for Mossberg.
The NATO AK comes with the full suite of Rifle Dynamics upgrades. In a partnership with K-Var, they start with some of the best and make them better.
The Executive is a two-tone model with a matte black frame and stainless slide and barrel with machined laminate macassar grips.
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1918 independence of Poland, FB Radom is making a very limited run of Vis pistols using original specifications.
Senate Bill 9191 would require that anyone getting a state handgun license to have “his or her social media accounts and search engine history reviewed.”
Auto Ordnance is expanding their line of American military replicas with their newest “Airborne” and “Vengence M1 Carbines. These commemorative rifles features detailed World War II-inspired engravings.
Henry Repeating Arms has a flight of new rifles and shotguns that run the gamut from entry-level long guns for youths to high-end engraved premium guns.
Need an intro to patterning? It refers to where you’d like to break a target, using the height of the shotgun’s comb to change where the gun shoots.
Old West-style lever guns used to be deer hunting mainstay. From Florida swamps to Alaska woods, they’re great brush guns—but they can be so much more.
Remington is following on the huge success that is the TAC-14 with a semi-auto V3 TAC-13 12-gauge firearm. The compact package weighs just under 6 pounds.
Consider a Boyds Pro Varmint as a replacement for the Mossberg Patriot Predator Stock as a modular solution for shooting from a prone position.
This reticle was created for combat, competition, and hunting scenarios. It’s clearly made for fast, accurate holds.
Unlike most AR-10-pattern rifles, Savage Long Range guns feature non-reciprocating side charging handles, among other choice features.
Ever since we learned about the new 224 Valkyrie round from Federal and its alleged performance, the questions have been fast and furious. But how does this perform out of a 16 or 18-inch barrel?
This week, we got a chance to look at a Savage 10 GRS, which boasts a Berserk stock, suppressor-ready barrel and runs off Magpul AICS style magazines.
But, why I really love shotguns is because they are so versatile. Seriously, if you can find me any other gun that you can shoot a quail with at 15 yards and also shoot a whitetail with at 150, I will be very impressed. Not to mention all the different gauges, styles and brands.
Long-range hunting continues to gain in popularity. But just because you want to go long doesn’t mean dropping in bullets at 1,000 yards. Most deer hunters, for example, take their shots at 100 yards or less. Yet, if those same hunters could extend their range to 400 yards? Their chances at filling their tags would go up greatly.
There are only so many ways to get your favorite deer slayer from Point A to Point B and hunters should decide what the goal is before they pick a method. Is it a short jaunt in the dark to a treestand? A hurried march after work into camp? A slow, methodical still- hunt to a rendezvous with a hunting partner?
I love to look at Professional Hunter’s firearms; they show the rigors of day-to-day hunting life and are often beat nearly to death. While we all have our safe queens, I appreciate those beat up, well-hunted guns that invariably have a story to tell, be it that one shot that even surprised the owner, of those hair-raising tales of dangerous game at close quarters.
With a little creativity and practice, our hunting gear and/or Mother Nature can provide the same stability at a moment’s notice as the most versatile bipod sold.
Two things are certain in life: the changing of the seasons and hunters being out there when it’s happening. We can anticipate, prepare, and come out on top or get turned back to the truck early, defeated. Use these 7 tips to stay one step ahead of Mother Nature and her varying moods this year:
I have had some people ask me about my preferred setup for terminating whistle pigs, so today I am going to discuss just that.
Burris recently announced their brand-new Oracle rangefinding bow sight, a one-of-a-kind device that provides both the exact distance to the target and exact point of aim. We got our sweaty little fingers on it at this year’s NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits, and it looks like it could be a game-changer.
I still remember the moment. A package arrived at my remote home amidst the rough, high-elevation mule deer and elk habitat of my youth, dropped casually on the porch by the United Parcel Service driver. We lifted it, my brother and I, to a place of honor on the kitchen table, and carefully removed the contents from the packaging. Dashing to the back porch we pointed the new marvel at a distant hillside and exclaimed with glee at the result. It was the first laser rangefinder we owned, and it changed our hunting and shooting lives.
By now, most hunters have their own “secret recipe” for venison chili. Sometimes, though, I think those secret recipes can be confused with boring – especially if it’s the same way you’ve been fixing chili for years.
Instead, look to trying one of these three unique dishes, which are probably unlike anything else in your cookbook. They’re sure to bring a different flavor, and maybe inspire you to change up that old secret formula.
Turkey hunting gear can make or break a hunt. With gobblers having some of the best vision in the animal kingdom, and ears that can pick up details that humans can’t fathom, it’s imperative that hunters have the right equipment to get the job done.
Here is some of my favorite gear for 2018, which helped me harvest five turkeys just last season.
As Vortex’s entry level rangefinder, the Impact 850 outperforms its price point. As someone who does a variety of hunting, I look for diversity in my gear. I want equipment that’s going to function whether it’s spring or fall, archery season or gun season, and good conditions or poor. When it comes to a rangefinder, I’ll be looking for optics that can function for bowhunting deer, shotgun hunting turkey, and rifle hunting elk.
Talk to a hunter about eating antelope and you’ll get a wide range of responses, from complaining that it’s foul and tastes of sage to praising it with the highest of compliments. It’s one of the few cuts of wild game that inspires such debate.
Personally, I love antelope, and have a hard time understanding the complaints from those who don’t.
It’s incredibly lean, with fewer calories than a wild turkey and less fat than a whitetail. This is a common criticism from hunters, but it should be noted that other ungulates like elk and moose are even leaner than a speed goat. Sure, it’s no slab of grass-fed beef, but it’s no vegetable, either.
Sure Shot uses a different style of architecture in how a call is built, going back to the companies first patent, for a double reed call held together by rivets. Starting in 1959, they won pretty much every calling contest in the world for a decade straight. Since that first duck call, they have expanded into many styles of predator calls, and continue to be used by hunters around the world today.
Eberlestock has long been known amongst civilians for hunting packs, establishing a reputation for hell and back reliability. Arguably, no pack company has done more… Read More »Eberlestock Packs: Ideal for Hunting & the Military — SHOT Show 2018
The mere mention of the word obtains my undivided attention; it is the concept of a hunting adventure in the wild places of Africa, and is undoubtedly my happy thought. The word safari is taken from the KiSwahili dialect of East Africa, and it simply means ‘journey.’ It represents the challenge of shooting a big-bore rifle and being in an environment where there are animals large enough to take your life with ease. The CZ 550 rifle is, in and of itself, a journey, in that it has its roots in the Czechoslovakian Brno ZKK 602 rifle, and has come a long way to get to the current inception. That ZKK 602 is still revered among those who enjoy the big bore bolt-action rifles; the action is considered as rock-solid and reliable as a Mauser 98.
When you’re planning a hunting trip there are few very important considerations — what gun are you going to take? What does the weather look like? How much will the tags cost? Equally as important as what firearm you’re going to take is what binos will you take? For a mid-range 8X binos, the Vortex Viper HD 8×42 are hard to beat.
Here are some top gift ideas for the hunter and backcountry adventurer in your life. With candy canes and gum drops dancing in your head, it’s never too early to start scheming and dreaming of Christmas.
Learn how to mount a scope. If your equipment fails you on the shot of a lifetime, don’t let it be the fault of an over-glorified Walmart greeter.
On the minds of hunters all year long, the rut is a magical time to be in the woods. And although every day spent afield is a good one, mark these dates on the calendar as some of the best for 2017.
The whitetail deer has to be our most popular big game animal in the Continental Forty-Eight, yet the settings in which we hunt them, and the means with which we hunt them has got to be the most diverse ever. Entire volumes have been written on what makes up the consummate deer gun, and while I’m not going to attempt to define that within this article, I would like to talk about some ideas to optimize your existing deer rifle, or perhaps to choose a different rifle in order to try a different means of deer hunting.
Traveling to hunt is something I feel everyone should do at least once; it represents an adventure that can quickly make a hunter feel years, if not decades, younger. An unseen valley, an exotic species, perhaps the need for a different rifle or cartridge, it all adds a flair to the sport we love so much. Now, depending on where you call home, the destinations I’m about to list may or may not seem like an exotic place to hunt, but here are ten places that I’ve either fallen in love with or plan to in the near future.
There’s a lot of science behind creating the perfect venison cheese steak, from thinly sliced meat to slowly cooked onions. Venison sandwiches can be a thing of beauty, but they can also be a nightmare. There’s a fine line between the two when it comes to deer, and it’s usually crossed when the lean meat goes from tender to leather.
For deer hunters that have grown restless in their home state, finding a new area to hunt can be maddening. Instead of dropping your money on an expensive lease, though, look to one of these seven states as a potential public land whitetail destination.
Times change, and technology changes along with it. We hunters have an irrefutable connection with the past; we discuss our favorite cartridges — often with opinions based upon the experiences of our forefathers — and we long for the opportunity to recreate those hunts made famous in the hunting literature we adore so much. However, I feel that if our hunting heroes of yesteryear could’ve had the opportunity to use those tools that we now have available, they’d embrace them immediately. And among all the improvements we’ve seen in the last half century, I rate modern bullet development at the top of the list.
Legendary custom builder Ed Brown just unveiled their new hotness, a hunting- and competition-ready longslide 1911 chambered for 10mm Auto.
FLIR has expanded its product line with the ThermoSight Pro Series thermal weapons sights. These sights attach to a MIL-STD/1913 picatinny rail, and would be perfect for hunting feral hogs or predators at night.
Ashbury Precision Ordnance is now offering a lightweight, modern Remington Model 700 built on their accuratized Saber chassis that features AR components.
Like many North American hunters, I’ve never practiced shooting at moving game. My local range isn’t outfitted with moving targets, and my experience hunting deer has only given me two or three chances to harvest a walking or running animal.
I decided to make a Kydex cheek riser and install it on my rifle. I could have ordered one, but making it myself allowed me to customize it to my rifle. Plus, it’s way more fun.
New for 2017 is Kimber’s Subalpine Mountain Rifle, available with a Gore Optifade camo finish. Kimber also teamed up with Leupold to make matching scopes.
Primos’ new Gen 3 Trigger Sticks offer several improvements on the older generation, making an already excellent product even better.
The Dieback Thigh Rig minimalist hunting pack is for when your pockets aren’t big enough — and a fanny pack isn’t happening.
After a long battle, Pennsylvania recently passed new legislation allowing hunters to hunt with semi-automatic guns. The black rifle has gone mainstream.
The Remington 783 Scoped rifle and scope package might provide an answer to that dilemma of those looking for a good rifle at a great price. For less than $400, shooters get a quality rifle along with scope rings and a scope—everything they need to get deer season off to a good start. And, it comes with the scope and rings installed and boresighted.
Fall is here, your kids are back in school, and many of you are getting ready to hunt, and while you might enjoy that quiet time in the woods by yourself, I’m going to suggest that you shake things up a bit this year and let the kids come along to hunting camp.
Introduced earlier this year as the company’s first-ever semi-auto shotgun, the Stevens S1200 is powered using a very smooth, fast Benelli-esque inertia recoil system but comes with a very unBenelli-esque price—starting at well under $600, for a semi-auto shotgun.
The Traditions Mountain Rifle is a Hawken style traditional sidelock muzzleloader with a double tenon wedge system. It is deadly accurate with roundballs, and is absolutely gorgeous for the $520 price. If you have always wanted a traditional style muzzleloader, this new entry to the Traditions stable is probably the one.
The Traditions Lady Whitetail is a limited edition Pursuit G4 in a special pink Hotleaf camo. Built for the female shooter, or anyone who loves pink camo, my range test showed the gun to be reliable and accurate. At $515, this is yet another great value from Traditions Firearms.
While Hollywood gave screen stars Winchester rifles, many real-life heroes carried Marlin rifles. According to the company’s website, Annie Oakley, Captain Hardy, and William “Buffalo Bill” Cody all used Marlin rifles. And, today’s 1895GBL carries on the tradition of providing great lever-actions to consumers.
Want to get a rebate to save some money on a great rimfire rifle? Then take a look at this full review of the impressive Savage A17 autoloading rifle in .17 HMR, a handy little shooter that packs a lot of performance in at a great (and now even better) price.
Hunting a new kind of game for the first time can be intimidating. No matter how much you read and research, the most valuable knowledge can only be gained in the field. Waterfowl hunting always seemed like a big mystery to me; that is, until a few weeks ago.
With deer season just around the corner, I thought that now would be a good time to review the Kimber Hunter, which is their entry level deer rifle of a very high end line. If you are a regular here at GunsAmerica, you’ve probably seen the ad for the rifle running on our homepage, and they sent me a review rifle a few months ago. Now that summer is pretty much behind us, it’s time to start thinking new deer rifle, and if you have the budget, the $885 MSRP Kimber Hunter is an option you should seek out. Most people think 1911 when they think of Kimber, but the company started with rifles, and it is still a core component of Kimber Firearms today. The Hunter is the same action as the $1,400 Kimber rifles. If are have been looking for an upgrade this deer season, please watch the video.
A father and son go on a once-in-a-lifetime safari in South Africa and live out a dream hunt. Their story told in pictures, video and words.
Editor’s note: This article is a freelance submission from Ryan O’Neil, an avid hunter from Western, N.Y. You want an in-your-face, front-and-center, feet-down-beat-down, goose hunt?… Read More »Top Five Tips for Hunting Waterfowl
In this day and age of short magnums, super-short magnums, long cartridges, fat cartridges and everything in between, it seems logical that some of our tried-and-true favorites may have become obsolete. So, is there still a place for the “old” .30-’06?
Now is a great time to pick up your hunting rifle for hunting season at a great price, and Savage Arms has some outstanding rebate programs going right now!
Benelli has done with the Ethos what many companies have attempted but just couldn’t quite achieve—they ‘ve figured out how to bring truly high-end features to a firearm the average man or woman can afford. And that my friend, is no small feat.
Changing the stock on your bolt action rifle isn’t a difficult project. But if you’re like me, the prospect of taking a screwdriver to any part of your $600 gun can induce spontaneous trembling and cold sweats.
The new SWR Radius from SilencerCo is a highly capable rail-mounted rangefinder that gives lightning-fast distance ranging information out to a mile.
Primary Arms has a new higher-end series of riflescopes called the Platinum Series. The Platinum series is a big departure from their increasingly popular budget optics but that doesn’t make it any less of a value.
The Longslide 10mm 1911 from Republic Forge makes for not only great close-range performance but can also be pushed out to 100 yards distance due to its power and accuracy.
The Stoeger P3000 Pump-action Shotgun. If you need a waterfowl, hunting slug gun, or home defense shotgun, and are constrained by budget, this is a great way to pick up a brand new one for less than 300 bucks.
The 11/111 Hog Hunter’s popularity has been driven in part by the growing prevalence of feral pigs in the United States.
“Buy it. Try it. Use it. Abuse it.” And, “If you are not happy with your purchase, send it back to us for a full credit of your purchase good toward any other Factor Product.”
Ares Defense is getting ready to roll out an updated lineup of SCR with new Kryptek, Muddy Girl and Vista camo finishes on the stocks and handguards.
White River Knife & Tool has been successful because they’ve mastered both areas, they make reasonably priced knives that have an attractive and distinguishable artistry.
Mossberg had a couple of new shotguns to show off at SHOT Show 2016. These were all built on the tried and true 930 platform. One is a new compition gun that bares Jerry Miculek’s name and the other is a winter themed hunting shotgun. Both of these new lines are pretty cool and one of them is down right cold.
I’m sorry that I didn’t get this out quicker for those of you who have deer season kicking in this week in your state. This product, the Walker Game Ear, shocked me when I got to test it this summer, and I had in mind that I should run the story before deer season, because it is an absolute secret weapon. If you haven’t tried these things, they have super sensitive microphones embedded in them, so they not only protect your ears from your eventual gunshots, they also allow you to hear like…well, a deer.