Articles by Herschel Smith

I like the idea.  Keep the wood grain, but beef it up in areas where it needs it, making a new concept for chassis rifles.

The same concept, by the way, is used in engineered floor joists, i.e., press wood using glues, and there is no way the historic Southern White Pine floor joists can compete with engineered joists in strength.

Looking on their web site, it doesn’t appear to me that they sell this with the barrel or action – it only comes as a stock.

American Hunter.

Had this scope been a first-focal-plane (FFP) scope, it would not have mattered at what magnification the scope was set, and we likely would have had 300 pounds of meat to haul out. In a FFP optic, as the reticle is etched or marked on a forward lens in the scope, the holdover hash marks below the crosshair would have been the same value, placing a bullet in the same place at 4X as they would have at 12X. However, this was a second-focal-plane scope, which means the reticle was marked or etched on a lens in the rear, closer to where you look into the scope.

Being a SFP scope, the reticle on my 4X-12X Bushnell will always appear the same size as the magnification is adjusted, but changing the magnification does change the hash marks on the reticle in relation to the target. This is where some of you readers may want to start looking through your scope and twisting that magnification ring. In the story above, at 300 yards, the second hashmark represents approximately 10.5 inches (3.5 inches x 300 yards) of drop at 12X magnification. At 4X magnification, that second hashmark just turned into 31.5 inches (12X = 10.5 inches; 12X/4X = 3 times more value; 10.5 inches x 3 = 31.5 inches). This hold at 4X put the bullet 20 inches over the intended point of impact.

With a FFP scope, the reticle will grow and shrink as you adjust the power ring. This does little good on a scope with a standard duplex reticle, as your only holding mark is the crosshair itself, centered at any power. Where FFP is a help is when you have a drop reticle with hashmarks for simple holdover or when you are using a system such as MIL-DOT. If the scope on that rifle had been a FFP scope with MIL-DOT subtensions, the magnification power would not have mattered as the second hashmark would always be a 10.5-inch value at 300 yards.

That’s all well and good, but that reticle sure does appear small on any power for a FFP scope.  If you plan on shooting from one ridge to another, a FFP scope is the best bet.  If you plan on shooting east of the Mississippi, you’re probably better off with a SFP scope.  I’ve had a FFP scope mounted and wished I had a SFP scope.

But YMMV and everyone has his preferences.

This is an interesting idea.

I wouldn’t choose to replace the beautiful wood stocks on any legacy JM stamped Marlin 336, any of the modern Marlins, or any Henry.  We’ve discussed this before.  Fine Walnut stocks are too pretty to replace, and they make heirloom guns for the family.

On the other hand, if you have one of the polymer stock Henry rifles, it makes sense to consider something like this for hunting season for multiple reasons, e.g., water swelling of wood stocks in the rain, banging the stock around, etc.

Once again, I suspect that cubs were in the mix somewhere.

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A post shared by Jared C Erickson (@jarederickson1980)

The best deer cartridge you never shot!

Sorry, I can’t embed the YouTube shorts, just link them.

One can only hope that 35 Remington is next in line for Marlin.  Think 200 grains moving at around the same speed as the 30-30 160 grains, or in other words, 30-30 on steroids.

I like it.

But I do find it a bit off-putting that Marlin won’t formally announce their plans.  We shouldn’t be left to the vicissitudes of the rumor mill.

Watch the video.  Words couldn’t do better than he demonstrates in the video.

Whenever someone says to you, “Such-and-such piece of equipment is malfunctioning because you haven’t broken it in,” run for the hills.  Don’t buy it.  If you bought it, sell it.

You don’t do that with the brakes or other safety equipment for your vehicle.  Don’t do it with guns.

What a stupid thing to say to someone who purchased this firearm.

If I purchase a firearm, it’s going to work, and work correctly, immediately, or I won’t have it for long.  This failure not only puts the person at risk of needing it and not having it, but also of an inadvertent discharge, specifically not the fault of the owner.

Good grief. I don’t do Sig anyway. I see now for good reason.

These observations will be brief and to the point, and they apply to the A400 Xtreme Plus and 1301 (but I suspect to all their newest line of shotguns excluding over-unders).

The bolt carrier is very similar in design to that of an AR-15, with a firing pin held in place by a retaining pin, a cam, and the bolt carrier.  There are differences of course including dimensions, the spring on the fire pin, and the lack of gas return to operate the bolt (the Beretta gas system follows the tube).

But it has the look and feel of maintaining and cleaning an AR-15 at times.

Either Beretta learned from Eugene Stoner’s design and liked it and decided that it would lead to increased cycling speed, or they wanted American buyers to feel more accustomed to the system (or both).

There are numerous YouTube videos on this design.

Their over-unders are absolutely beautiful, but very pricey.

Recoil.

Rifled slugs are designed to be used in smoothbore shotguns. The rifled slug’s defining feature is a set of exterior grooves that resemble barrel rifling. Unlike barrel rifling, the slug’s grooves do not spin the projectile. Instead, the channels allow the slug to compress slightly so it can fit through a shotgun’s choke tube.

Sabot slugs lack the rifled slug’s exterior grooves because they are designed to be used in shotguns with rifled barrels or with a smoothbore paired with a rifled choke.

They go on to discuss various brands, including Remington Sabot slugs, Federal TruBall rifled slugs, Hornady American White Tail slugs, Winchester Super-X, and Brennecke Black Magin and Hefty Slugs.

I wouldn’t want to be behind a shotgun shooting Brennecke slugs unless my life was in danger.

The Hornady slug is 325 grains.  I’m left wondering why anyone would choose to shoot that over 45-70 at 325 grains.  Oh yea, stupid states like Illinois where shotgun and bow hunting are the only legal ways to harvest deer.

I don’t know the fate of HB 4386, but here’s the concern as expressed by the controllers.

“We are talking about cartridges that are as powerful as you need to cleanly harvest the animal without being excessively powerful so that there is accidental damage at distant targets that you can’t see,” Dale said.

Dummies.  South Carolina is a much more densely populated state than Illinois and this has never been a concern there.  The gigantic woods and corn fields of Illinois are the last place one should be concerned about “targets you can’t see.”

I know The Alaskan prefers Brennecke for dangerous animals.  If I lived there I’d probably practice with that – for one or two shots anyway.

Dean Weingarten.

A three-judge panel issued an opinion on the case in the Fifth Circuit on December 14, 2022.

The three judge panel refused to consider either the separation of powers issues, or the Chevron doctrine, claiming they were irrelevant because the panel ruled bump stocks were machine guns.

The Fifth Circuit was asked to consider the case en banc,  which is to say, before the entire court, by a member of the Court. A majority of the members of the Fifth Circuit agreed to hear the case, en banc.

The trend of the case follows the GOA case in the Sixth Circuit. The Sixth Circuit agreed to hear the bump stock case en banc. The Sixth Circuit split evenly, with eight members voting to rule the bump stock regulation invalid and eight-member voting to rule for the government.  In the case of a tie vote, the district court ruling was upheld. The GOA case was denied a writ of certiorari on October 3 of, 2022.

The Cargill v. Garland oral arguments were heard by the Fifth Circuit, en banc, on September 13, 2022.

There is a good chance the Fifth Circuit will reverse the opinion of the district court. A majority of the Court agreed to hear the case, starting fresh, en banc. If the Fifth Circuit reverses the opinion and finds for Cargill, the case will create a split in the Circuits between the Tenth, the Sixth, and the Fifth circuits.

This gives the Supreme Court a strong incentive to hear the case.

Maybe.

But it’s either cowardice or mere stupidity that anyone can look at the description of a machine gun in the law and conclude that a bump stock turns a semi-automatic rifle into a machine gun.

The Supreme Court isn’t immune from cowardice and stupidity.  Therefore, I hold out no hope that the SCOTUS will reverse this awful decision.

As I’ve said before, I have no bump stocks and no arms braces.  But that’s not the point.

It doesn’t matter whether I have them – the only thing that matters is whether free men should have to suffer the infringement of controllers who want to disarm them.  And … whether a federal bureaucracy has the authority to make law in lieu of the Congress.

I don’t know why he didn’t shoot (maybe licensing or permitting), but he certainly had nerves of steel to be bluff-charged by a bear like that.

Source.