Guns of the western history makers

This Muzzle-Loading Game

2011-03-27T08:30:00.000-07:00

This Mussle-Loading Game

R.O. (Slim) Ackerman is one of the top authorities

on the care and feeding of front loaders,

flintlock or percussion, rifle, handgun or fowling

pieces. Here's the full story--all you need

to dnow to become a muzzle man.

by. R.O. ACKERMAN

It is indeed appropriate that an article covering the basics of muzzle-loading shooting tedhniques should be included in the 25th ed. GUN DiGEST Long before the appearance of the first practical breechloaders, individual shooters were forming their separate opinions as to the best powder charge for a given caliber, the proper granulation, bullet fit, etc. No selfrespecting frontiersman would have loaded his muzzleloader the way it is usually depicted on television--by contrast, many black powder shooters were a marvel of precision.

This has carried over to the present day, when a new upsurge of interest in muzzle-loading has made this definitely on of the fastest growing of all shooting sports. Watch one of today's more experienced "charcoal burners" at an important match, and you will quickly realize that precision and uniformity are the key words of success in muzzle-loading shooting, as they are in handloading metallic cartridges.

Admittedly, there are differing schools of thought on the technical aspects of this sport, as with any other. The type of person who takes it up in the first place is a rugged individualist, with the attributes of patience and an inquiring mind. Demanding concentration itself, the sport is a haven of relaxation for the professional man who needs to leave his problems at the office or the clinic.

Rare indeed is the muzzle-loading club which does not include at least one doctor--be he lawyer, dentist or surgeon. Their anual dexterity finds an additional outlet in the hand-crafting of many shooting accessories, a bonus hobby that's an important and happy part of muzzle-loading shooting.

One of the first questions asked by the newcomer to the sport is how to determine the powder charge for his rifle. Herein Lies one of the sport's controversial issues, so in fairness I'll outline the different approaches--but first things first, ok?

   Right here and now let me warn against the unwise practice of taking Grandpappy's old "hawg rifle" out of the attic, pouring down anundetermined amount of aged powder from the old horn or flask, stomping down a ball with the finesse of a bulldozer and letting her rip. This is funny read it in Mark Twain if you read it in Mark Twain, but in real Life it is more intelligent--and far safer--to have the old smoke-pole competely disassembled, cleande up and inspected by a competent gunsmith first, and I mean one who understands and specializes in muzzleloaders! There isn't a state in the Union which doesn't have one, except possibly Hawaii.

   The reason for this warning is not so much that the old relic may blow up. Much more likely is that ancient threads have rusted away, so that a drum or a nipple can fly out with infuring force.

   Another strong warning-- equally obvious to the initiated. After a knowledgeable gunsmith has pronounced the old rifle safe and sound (perhaps with a replaced mainspring and nipple), do not shoot it with anything other than the black powder for which it was designed. If you pour in the powder from a couple of today's shotgun shells you'll lose more than just the rifle. In spite of repeated warnings, people keep doing this--but only once for each person!

MATCH AIR RIFLE TEST(4)

2011-03-25T19:20:00.000-07:00

Five high-performance spring-air target

rifles get a Test Report workout-Anschutz,

Winchester and three different Feinwerkbaus.

by JOHN T.AMBER/THE GUN DIGEST

These match air rifles are invariably furnished with micrometer-click rear sights, fully adjustable for windage and elevation, and with detachable interchangeable posts and apertures. These are excellent sights, if my limited experience with this lot of 5 rifles forms a basis for judgment, but I can say that they answered the helm in every respect whenever I wanted to move the point of impact. There is one thing to watch out for, however--disregard the markings on the elevation and windage knobs and simply move the sights in the U.S. fashion--the direction you want the shots to go--and you'll be OK. That is, clockwise for impact movement to the left, and counter clockwise for bringing the point of impact higher, and vice versa. Apparently some of these peep rear sight discs are assembled without any lubricant, and apparently tightened with a torque wrench! I had to use heavy pliers to remove a couple of them.

Target grade air rifles are now offered with an amazing variety of accessorics in general, almost to the point where they have about as many gadgets available as a rimfire or centerfire match rifle. With the latest FWB sent to us by Air Rifle Hq,. the kit contained the following items:2 spacers, each about 3/8-inch thick, to lengthen the vertically-adjustable buttplate; a "clearing" lens of about 1 1/2x for use in the globe front sight; another 1 1/2 power magnifler, combined with an adfustable aperture and a yellow filter, that Siebert-make last item very much--I'd bought two of them years ago in Germany, and they do much for my old eyes when I'm trying to use iron sights. An extra grip cap, this in addition to the grip cap already standard on the FWB 300, which has a small shelf of sorts running around the perimeter, and which acts nicely as a hand stop.

Small combination tools are standard with all of these rifles, these for adjusting the triggers, etc,. and the Anschutz is furnished with a cleaning kit as well--a pull-through, plus a couple of brushes, etc.

The 10-shot groups illustrated-- one for each of the 5 rifles--were selected to show how well the rifles can shoot. Some practice groups were, of course, much worse, but when I did my part and conditions were reasonably right, the targets shown resulted. These rifles will put 10 shots in to much smaller holes from a machine rest or in the hands of younger, keenersighted shooters.

RWS, H&N and Anschutz 177 pellets were used in testing the 5 rifles. RWS and H&N pellets were packed loose in small tins and packed individually as well. The Anschutz pellets were on hand only in the latter form.

Examined under a strong glass, it seemed to me that the H&N pellets showered a trifle less uniformity from one to another in comparison with RWS pellets, but I found no difference in their shooting. True, in the loose packing a few dented or deformed pellets were found--which is guarded against in the individual packaging--but these were easily detected and not used.

Minor imperfections were visible on all pellets examined, and I could see no real difference between the loose pellets-- of any brand--and the singlepellet pack. Aside from virtually all single-pack paleelts being uniformly good, it has been said that the more expensive (about twice the price) single-pellet packs carry pellet packs carry pellets selected by trial as showing superior accuracy. I couldn't detect any difference, but mine was a relatively brieftest,

MATCH AIR RIFLE TEST(3)

2011-03-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

Five high-performance spring-air target

rifles get a Test Report workout-Anschutz,

Winchester and three different Feinwerkbaus.

by JOHN T.AMBER/THE GUN DIGEST

In any case, I got the best performance from my light-barreled FWB M150. I have put probably 800 to 1000 pellets through this barrel, and it did seem to me that the ease of operating the rifle, the movement or vibration when the trigger is touched off--small though it is with any of these rilfles--was a bit less with the light FWB. In any case, I did seem to do a bit better with it also, from group to group. Another shooter, certainly, might have done better with one of the other rifles, but none of the others has had the same break-in shooting that this light FWB has run through.

I hadn't shot the heavier-barreled FWB150 nearly as much, but as evidence that breaking-in does help, it seemed to me that the handling and operation of this rifle was improving as I kept shooting. Group sizes ran fust a hair bigger than with the light 150, though the best groups with this FWB would hardly have made 10-shot possibles--on the old target!

The new FWB M300 performed just as well as the rifles previously mentioned, but I couldn't see that it shot any particular bit better, and I would certainly tell anybody who has a 150 to keep it and use it. The changes that have been made in bringing out the M300, while doubtless worthwhile and helpful to the match shooter, do not seem to me to be absolutely necessary to fine performance. I'll readily admit that I am no competition match shooter--far from it--and it may well be that the serious competitive air rifle shooter could well detect and make use of the differences built into the later FWB.

There's a 2-inch shorter cocking lever, and reportedly a 15% reduction in cocking effort, but I couldn't detect the changes, The new barrel is 2 3/4 inches longer, resulting in a longer--and lower--sight radius and line, the new trigger offers 4 adjustments, and the stock has been redesigned via a better pistol grip, etc. I did like the new stock treatment better, especially the more vertical, closer pistol grip and the higher combline.

These and many other aspects of the new Faninwerkbau match rifles--plus a great deal of information on munerous other air rifles--match grade and sporting--will be found in Air Rifle Headquarters'1970-71 Full Line Catalog. Its 48 pages are loaded with excellent data on the history, care and feeding of air guns--and it's free!

The Winchester333 and the M250 Anschutz shot just as well as the others, again in my own experience. I was fust a bit surprised at the excellent shooting qualities of the M333. I had thought that the break-open barrel system would not give quite as good a performance as the solidbarrel types certainly do, but I could detect no trace of difference in group to group. All of these 5 rifle, by the way, were shot during the same period--within a few hours of each other on the days when they were fired.

All of these match rifles have adfustable triggers--for weight of pull, for initial take-up and over-travel, etc. Most of them have a fair amount of initial take-up before the actual release point is reached, but I found this easy to get used to, being an old military-pull man anyway! As received, all these 5 rifles have a fair bit of trigger over-travel unless the adjustments are used to get rid of it; in this respect the Winchester M333 exhibited a trigger pull that most U.S. shooters would be more at home with--there was some initial take--up, but the trigger letoff itself was considerably crisper than with the others, and the after travel of the trigger was at a minimum. I made no attempt to adjust the triggers on any of these rifles, not having time to do them all, therfore I felt that to adjust one for my personal taste would work an infustice on the others.

MATCH AIR RIFLE TEST(2)

2011-01-12T17:37:00.000-08:00

Five high-performance spring-air target

rifles get a Test Report workout-Anschutz,

Winchester and three different Feinwerkbaus.

by JOHN T.AMBER/THE GUN DIGEST

Because of our extremely wet spring this year, I haven't been able to get in as much shooting with these 5 air rifles as I'd hoped, but I have done enough, I believe, to let me find out just how they perform--at least in my hands and with my aging eyes, I'll have to admit. All of this shooting was done with iron sights, of course, in that these are the only type of sights legal for organized competitive shooting, as in the Olympics or in ISU matches. I was rather surprised myself by making some fairly good groups at the standard 10-meter distance using flat top posts, but I feel more confident when I'm using aperture fronts; and I think I did do just a bit better with the apertures.

Just about all of this air rifle shooting had to be done on weekends, and I sim;ly could not get the wind to stay still on any day. I tried to shoot when there was a minimum of wind but invariably there was a bit of a breeze blowing, even if only of a few miles per hour. In spite of the breezes, I got 10-shot groups that were almost always in one ragged hole, but very few of them would have made possibles--the new ISU target is a tought one!

These match air rifles don't require the break-in period that lower-cost air arms do if the latter are to perform at their best. It generally takes some 1,000 rounds to get the average air rifle to operate at its smoothest and to schoot most accurately.

However, I did notice a gradual easing of functioning with four of the rifles, as you'll read later. Accuracy itself was excellent from the very beginning.

MATCH AIR RIFLE TEST(1)

2011-01-06T20:33:00.000-08:00

Five high-performance spring-air target

rifles get a Test Report workout-Anschutz,

Winchester and three different Feinwerkbaus.

by JOHN T.AMBER/THE GUN DIGEST

I've had an opportunity this spring to make a side-by-side comparison of 5 different target-grade air rifles, all in 177 caliber, and all in perfect working order.

   Several years ago, while in Germany. I bought one of the Model 150 Feinwerkbau air rifles in target-grade, this one with the lighter barrel, and with the Tyrolean form of buttstock--that is, the one we would normally call a schuetzen-type with a cheedpiece that lets the cheek lie snugly in possition for offhand shooting. A year or so later, John Weir(then with Winchester-Western's German office), knowing of my new intersest in match air rifles, obtained and sent to me another FWB 150 model, this one with the heavier barrel, and with the regular target stock--the one with the straight, high-comb line.
   Toward the end of 1969 Winchester sent us one of their Model 333 match-grade air rifles, along with the proper array of target sights, etc. This is of break-down barrel type, as opposed tto the solid-berrel systems of he FWB rifles, a system also used by Anschutz.
   Then, early this year John Marsman of Savage sent me one of their Model 250 Anschutz 177 match rifles, and a bit later Robert Law of Air Rifle Headquarters, following a phone talk with him, shipped over to us one of the new model Feinwerkbaus, now designated the Model 300. The Model 300 shows a number of refinements over the earlier M 150, but in all mafor essentials it's the same rifle.
photo by http://airgun-academy.pyramydair.com/

Gun Digest 2011

2010-12-31T19:41:00.000-08:00

Gun Digest 2011

Product Description

BIGGER. BETTER. MORE OF WHAT YOU WANT!
IT’S GUN DIGEST 2011!
THE WORLD’S GREATEST GUN BOOK SINCE 1944
Long regarded as the shooter’s best resource, Gun Digest is jam-packed with the kind of entertaining information on guns and shooting that you just won’t find anywhere else. From in-depth field reports on the newest guns and gear to fascinating discussions of collectible arms, you’ll find it in Gun Digest 2011.
IT’S ALL HERE! Rifles, Handguns & Shotguns Engraved & Custom Guns
Ammunition Air Guns Gunsmithing Supplies Black Powder
Women’s Products
So join us this year as we take a fond look at the greatest handgun of all time, the 1911, on its 100th birthday – and discover other great guns along the way!

About the Author

Dan Shideler is the editor of Standard Catalog of Firearms, Modern Gun Values, The Official Gun Digest Book of Guns & Prices and several other firearms-related titles. He lives in northern Indiana.

S-M Make-up

2010-12-31T19:33:00.000-08:00

by WARREN PAGE/THE GUN DIGEST
   The Steyr-Mannlicher barrels, please note, are hammered or coldforged over a mandrel. Steyr has been using this process on military orders for years, so they know it from muzzle to chamber. The residual outside spiral marks of the multiple hammers are left at the butt section (30mm in diameter for standard calibers, 35mm for magnums) as evidence of this. Though of conventional chrome-moly steel, the work-hardened tubes should resist erosion well. Evidently the Steyr people thind they have a highly accurate barrel since I got to shoot one fancy group with an experimental 7.62 NATO target musket, meant for ISU or Olympic competition; even with iron sights it made an impressively tight cluster at 300 meters.
   The action of these new rifles is it self stiff, being tubular and with minimal cutouts for magazine and ejection ports. The bolt body is round for smooth function, the bolt face is rather conventional in today's terms with a plunger ejector and a spring supported extractor slicing through the cartridge-shrouding wall. The lock up is halfway back, with 6 lugs ahead of the bolt handle (three rows of paired lugs means a 60-degree bolt lift) to give an area of 60 square millimeters of bearing surface for standard rounds or 93mm for mabdtagnums. The safety slide is handy at the right rear, locking both firing pin and bolt handle; the firing pin shows very short travel; and the action is well gasproofed. I had absolutely no functional problems with action or feed, will offer no opinion as to how the midpoint lockup will work with hot handloads until I can have a rifle long enough to brew up some.
   We were told, over hot chocolate swimming in whipped cream, that all the centerfire models will be coming along as rifles with 23 5/8-inch barrels, and the SL,L,and M types for the nonmagnum rounds will also be turned out with 20-inch carbine barrels and full length or "Mannlicher" stocks. It will be interesting to see if the New Steyr-Mannlicher carbine sets people to slavering the way those old Mannlicher-Schoenauers did. The old one had a lot of romance about it. The new one is based on hard commonsense.
   The guy who designed it is that way. A young chap named Horst Wesp, he is the type who knows what makes a computer tick, has the gumption to throw old engineering ideas out onto the courtyard cobblestones and to try radical new approaches. He had the persuasiveness, too, to swing all of Steyr along with him, to overturn the thought habits of roughly 70 years. Without benefit of broad lapels, square-toed shoes or two bushels of hair, Horst is a modern fellow. I just want to be around when he has his first encounter with a band of U.S. rifle nuts!
photo by auctionarms.com

Range and Field Trials

2010-12-30T15:20:00.001-08:00

by WARREGN PAGE/THE GUN DIGEST

My second exxperience with one of the New Steyr-Mannlichers started at Steyr itself. The commpany’s Dr. Breitenfeld drove over to Vienna to tear three of us, Pete Kuhlhof, Pete Brown, and me from the pastry shops where we were committing slow suicide on Sachertorte and assorted other shipped cream goodies. Out at the plant range he handed us three identical M-series sporters. Each was barreled in 7x64, each was equipped with a Helia 4x scope in a quick-detachable style of mount which, believe it or not, proved by later events to be capable of removal and return to dead zero. That range has target butts out to 1000 meters but mercifully the Steyr engineering crowd, who were anxiously wondering shether or not these American gun-scribblers could hit anything smaller than a chocolate cake, expected us to check out the rifles’zero only as far as 300. That’s 330 yards, shich is a fair approximation of reasonable maximum hunting rang expectancy, though as it turned out later on, I had to stretch the 7x64 a mite to drop a stag, the red deer or hirsch, well beyond 350 meters.

Everybody hit the chocolate cake. One guy, whose name I shall refrain from mentioning, luckily had two holes cutting each other at 300 meters. He promptly quit while the was ahead. In my judgment, all three of the rifles were capable of shooting 1 1/2 MOA (minute of angle) with factory fodder, and who needs better?

During the next few days, I really came to know my borrowed 7x64 since it was slung on my shoulder shile I huffed up and down, mostly up, the assorted Alps that make up Donnersbachwald, the revier or hunting areajointly controlled by the Mannlicher outfit and the Semperit tire people. With it I nailed two very nice red deer, and two chamois as well, the better of which carried hooked-back horns of record-book dimensions. So I got to know that rifle even better than I did my guiding fager, Nicholas Hochsteiner (that means high rock, and he certainly never messed around with any of the lower rock piles). If it hadn’t been for that exercise in futility known as the Gun Control Act of’68 I’d somehow have sneaked that rifle home from Steyr too. It was very evidently a better fifle than the one lugged by my unnamed friend who shot the 300-meter doublet, since with if I bagged 4 head of prime game, and he only one with his!

The 7x64 or 7mm Brenneke, let me interpose, is an earlier germanic forerunner of the 280 Remington (some say contrived as an answer to our 270) , but which user heavier bullets than either, There’s a pinch of optimism mixed into the ballistic dope, perhaps, since the Torpedo-style 162-gr. bullet from the 7x64 is supposed to have 230 foot pounds more energy at 300 meters than our 165-gr . bullet from the 280 has at 300 yeards, but whatever the numbers the 7x64 is a good killing cartridge. I used the 173gr. H-Mantel Copper-Pointc as put up by RWS. Far and away too much slug for a 50-55 pound chamois or even a 450 pound stag, it dropped game like a 16 pound sledge.

Then I contrived later range experience with the New Steyr-Mannlichers, two of’em. One was a 7mm Remington Magnum (S type) withh which John Olson of Stoeger had just clobbered an Ontario moose. Stuffed with Remington 175-gr. PCL loads it shot consistently at 1.75 MOA. OK for any quantity-loaded ammunition. One of the M series rifles, a 30-06 that came straight out of the box and was fitted with a scope right there on the range, hung around 1.75 inches with the 125-gr. Remington varmint load. With handloads using the 180-gr. Nosler over a rather mild dosage of Dupont 4064, 46.5 grains of it, shot very close to the magic minute of angle mark. These rifles are clearly going to deliver first rate hunting accuracy, and on the basis of my experience to date, will also hold zero well.

Five Action Lengths

2010-12-30T04:43:00.001-08:00

by WARREN PAGR

The true novelty of this rifle lies entirely in the idea of relating action length to cartridge length. As practicing gun nuts you are presumably familiar with the fact that no American made action is turned out in more than two lengths. One European type (the Czech-made BRNOs in the ZKK models) has been available in three lengths. As gun nuts you’re a all aware of certain basic facts: that a standard or 30-60-length-action, roughly an inch longer than those intended for the 308 family of rounds, is also inevitably proportionately heavier and slower to operate (where and when when weight is not needed); that an action long enough to handle the 375 H&H looks pretty silly digesting a 222; that, conversely, jamming a cartridge into an action length which is marginally short for it—the 6.5 Remington or 350 Remington magnum into the M600, for example—may place ballistic limits on the round’s performance by limiting the case volume. That’s why you can now buy the normal-length M700 rifle in 6.5 Remington Magnum, for example.

What the people at Steyr have done is to plan 5 basic actions, all alike save in longitudinal dimensions (and also in the fatness of the magazine area, naturally) tailored for each of 5 categories of cartridge. Four of these rifles, the centerfires, are in production as this is typed; the rimfire will be along during 1970 and will in most details save length duplicate the centerfires’ operating principles.

The SL series, shortest of the 4 centerfires, has been made for three years. I first tested one in 1967. Equipped with a Weaver V9 scope and weighing only 7 1/2 pounds it shot better than most rifles hefting half again as much. Remington factory loads with Power-Lokt .224" bullets punched clusters as tight at .769" on the average; handloads with Sierra match bullets came up .488" for the average of five 5-shot spreads. This is a shooting iron, believe me. Its length is structly for the 222, 223, 222magnum family since the SL magazine will accommodate rounds no longer than 65 mm or 2 5/8 inches.

The L version is one size longer, with a 76-millimeter magazine, 3 inches in our terms, and equivalent spread between the receiver bridge and the ring so the action throw is appropriate to such rounds as the 308, 243, the 22-250, and, of course, the shortcoupled metrics. Longer yet is the M series, which boasts a 92.5 mm magazine length and like action throw, to handle cartridges like our 30-06 and 270, the 7x64, and the 7.92x57, 7x57, or the 6.5x57 when their bullets are seated properly out, not shoved down against the primer hole as they must be through our "compact" or 722 lengths of action. The big one is called the S type. Its functioning length is indicated by the measurement on its magazine, 101 milimeters. That of course means it’ll take the pony-car magnums like the 264 Winchester, 7mm Remington, the 458 Winchester and the 308 Norma. It handles the shorter Weatherby cartridges, but not the 460 or 378. It will digest Holland & holland rounds (300 and 375) or others of like dimension, and of course will swallow the European blockbusters like the 8x68 , 6.5x68 or 9.3x64. Only one thing bothers me about the S type. To accommodate all those elephant-jarring rounds in its magazine, it has to be a mite portly, some might say fat, around the mid-section. Other-wise it and the little SL com out of the same pasture.

Heart of the S-M

2010-12-13T03:40:00.001-08:00

by WARREN PAGE

Heart and core of the New Steyr-Mannlicher—they want it called that because the design was solely conceived within the Steyr works—is a complex moulding of a synthetic developed by the Bayer people and called Makrolon. Now before you start cussing plastics consider these points. Makrolon is self-colored, so the blue-black matches the rifle’s metal parts even if you manage to cut the surface. It is stable under any humidity or wetness variation, and over temperatures from a minus 150 Fahrenheit to 275 above zero, which is more than 50 above boilling. You’re not about to encounter temperatures beyond either, not during this life. It will neither scratch like aluminum nor rust like steel. It is tough beyond belief. After watching an engineer pound on the table with parts made from Makronlon I tried to go him one better by whanging a steel chair leg with the one long thin-walled piece that in aBew Mannlicher constitutes the triggerguard floor section, and magazine liner-box. I hurt my hand, not the synthetic.

The same substance is used for the detachable rotary-spool magazine(modeled closely after the original Schoenauer feeding device)that slickly feeds the New Mannlicher with, in any given caliber, one more round than is usual today in commercial bolt action magazines of that caliber. Five 30-60 cartridges, for example,not four. Four fat magnums, not three.

The Makrolon element becomes heart and core of the New SteyrMannlicher for these reasons: 1) it permits the magazine, trigger guard and floorplate weight to be kept minimal, thus keeps gross weight down; 2) by eliminating a whole slew of complex milling/stamping operations, it permits magazine and guard parts to be made for several different lengths of rifle action (actually 5) without shoving the retail price up through the roof; 3) it makes possible a stiffer rifle since the recoil lug can be positioned so that it bears at the rear of the whole action, not under the breech end of the barrel, to keep receiver and barrel “working” as one unit. Without Makrolon, in fact, the real newness of this Mannlicher would’ve been impossible.

THE NEW MANNLICHER RIFLES

2010-12-12T00:31:00.001-08:00

by WARREN PAGE

The new mid-lugged, low-lift 60-degree Steyr-Mannlicher action-with a mere nod to herr Schoenauer-comes in five basic lengths, derives much of its excellence and strength from engineer Horst Wesp and a tough plastic called Makrolon. Field&Stream’s editor wrings out several of the new fifles, both on the range and in the Austrian gebirge for red deer and chamois.

THE TOWN OF STEYR is located in Austria where join the Enns and the Steyr rivers, at the confluence of the greatest brown trout stream and the best water for the pike-like huchen in all of Europe. The people of Steyr seldom yodel on street corners, but lederhosen are as common as ordinary pants and wearing one of those Tyrolean-style hats rivals brandishing a beer mug as a local occupation. Steyr should be a tourist town, but it isn’t really. What Steyr is famous for is a great works, where iron and streel, swords and plow-shares, have been pounded out since the early Mikkle Ages, where firearms have been made for the past 105 years. It’s all very well for the local Chamber of Commerce to point out that the industrial combine of Steyr-Daimler-Puch makes jillions of trucks and tractors or more jillions of motorcycles, but that gets no more tumble than do the trout in the beautiful Enns, What everybody does know is that Steyr is the home of the Mannlicher rifle.

Ferdiand Ritter von Mannlicher—the “von” indicates that he was a nobleman—has perhaps never been so glorified as Paul Mauser in the field of bolt-action rifle development, possible because his designs were primarily produced only at Steyr and, Mannlicher being a complete patriot, chiefly for Austrian army use. His first repeating bolt action, an 11mm Austrian or.433 " is datede 1880. In that same year Mauser had about perfected the famous 1871-'84 repeater with which the Prussians overwhelmed the French. It could be argued that Mannlicher’s rifle was the better, though more complex to manufacture, since in one version its magazine held 20 rounds!

As far as I know the two great designers never foined forces, but Mannlicher dreamed up as many significant ideas as did Mauser, including, for example, feeicient straight-pull designs like the Model 1895 Austrian which we still see floating around, While he did not go as far into the automatic pistol field, like Mauser he ended up designing automatic rifles, Regardless of the country of usage, ass of these were produced at Steyr.

But of all the military items, the model to become best known among sportsmen was the 1900 Greek Mannlicher-Schoenauer, on which engineer Schoenauer had collaborated to work up the spring-driven spool magazine, a device that has guaranteed smooth feeding for Mannlichers ever since. It is this 1900 version, with its complex multiple-piece bolt and mid-point hadle, which was sporterized in carbine form, weighing only 6 pounds 9 ounces in 6.5x53 with a slim, fulllength stock, with close-lying or spoonshaped bolt handle. These packets of graceful potency earned the respect, even the love, of our fathers and their fathers before them, The light, slick, handy Mannlicher, in either rifle or carbine form, imported into this country then as now by Stoeger, attracted scads of would-be- owners.

The name Mannlicher has honestly earned its luster in sporting circles. Karamoja Bell hunted ivory with a 6.5, slew hundreds of bull elephants with it. The 6.5 carbine went with early north-country hunters like Sheldon and piled up Yukon game amazingly, the long 160-gr bullet doing well even at mild velocities. I recall seeing my first Mannlicher-Schoenauer when I was about eleven, the prized possession of one of the oldtimers who introuuced me to the outdoor world. He had never killed anything larger than a whitetail deer with it, but from the way he handled it, he very evidently would never have swapped that carbine for an 8-cylinder Wills SteClaire and a pretty new wife!

The traditional Mannlicher-Schoenauer, despite its two grave drawbacks—the midway positioning of the bolt handle gardly helps repeat-shot speed and the split-bridge receiver provides major scope-mounting limitations—is still desired by tradition-minded European hunters. They now have available calibers like 7x64 and 8x60, more potent than the original 6.5x53, 7x57 and 8x56 combinations of the early 1900s. So the Steyr plant is still turning them out, in very limited numbers. For a while, anyway.

What is really coming off the machining lines in quantity is a New Steyr-Manlicher, and I mean new—or neue, as we say in Austria—New, because the design is not only new to Steyr after some 70 years but is new in its approach to several basic design problems common among sporting rifles.

photo by zastava-arm.rs

1956-1967

2010-11-27T22:42:00.001-08:00

by Dr.EUGENE SOCKUT

The post-Sinai Campaign period saw another modernization of Israeli military small arms. The 8mm Mauser 98 was relegated to a second line position, replaced by the new Belgian 7.62 NATO FN FAL assault rifle. First produced in belgium, these were later made in Israel under contract from FN. in time most of the Mauser 98 irfles were rebarreled to the 7.62 NATO caliber. Bolt action rifles are still favored by many Israeli soldiers because of their greater accuracy.

Officially, the Italian Beretta 1951 9mm semi-auto postol is the standard Israeli army handgun, but few are in service. Handguns are low-rated in Israeli military thinking; the Uzi SMG is portable enough to replace them, they feel. Handguns such as the 38 Enfield revolver, the 455 Webley revolver, as well as the Colt 45 auto postol are in common use among Israeli officers. The Israeli Police seem interested in the 9mm Colt Commander.

In the 1950s Israel manufactured a few revolvers resembling the Smith and Wesson Military and Police Model. These used the rimless 9mm Parabellum cartridges in half-moon clips quite like those used in Colt and S&W 1917 revolvers chamberred for the 45 ACP loads. These revolvers served to demonstrate the level of quality production that Israeli Military Industries had achieved. Most were distributed as special presentation pieces.

Uzi Submachine Gun

2010-11-27T01:38:00.001-08:00

by Dr. EUGENE SOCKUT

The 1956 Sinai Campaign established the reputation of an Israelidesigned and made 9mm Parabellum submachine gun called the “UZI” (pronounced OOO-zee). It was named after its designer, Maj. Uziel Gal, who had served time in jail under the British rule in Palestine for making submachine guns for the Jewish underground. Production of the weapon began in 1951.

The Uzi has some very desirable characteristics. For example, the gripsafety acts on the sear, resembling that on the Clot 45 pistol, plus the usual trigger safety which also serves as the selector button. These help to prevent accidental discharge if the gun is dropped or jolted, features wery useful for paratroopers, “tankers,”or mobile infantry. It uses a grip magazine, again like the Colt 45, a convenience for night warfare, taking advantage of the “hand finds hand” concept. The grip also provides added protection for the 25,32 or 40-round magazine since a part of the latter is surrounded by metal. The Uzi has no external moving parts when the gun goes throgh the firing cycle, thus reducing the chances of jams if placed against an object.

An unusual feature is the comparatively long barrel (10") in relation to the 25.2" over-all length of the weapon. This is achieved by machining a recess in the blot for the barrel. Thus bolt metal surrounds the barrel on three sides, helping to hold the weapon steady, damping upward climb during full automatic fire. The extensive use of metal stampings and heatresistant plastics insures ease of fabrication. Maintenance is relatively simple. For example, the barrel may be easily removed by unscrewing the barrel-locking nut by hand. The most widely-distributed SMG in the Western World, the Uzi is also, many experts say, one of the finest made anywhere.

The Uzi is made in Israel by IMI(Israeli Military Industries) and in Belgium (under license) by FN. Because of its many excellent characteristics it is the standard NATO sbmachine gun, being in service in Belgium, West Germany and the Netherlands. It has also found acceptance in South America, Africa and the Far East.

photo by : word.guns.ru

1948-1956

2010-11-26T20:50:00.001-08:00

by Dr. EUGENE SOCKUT

Israeli Prime Minister David BenGurion reflected that it was more efficient reflected that it was more efficient from a political and military standpoint to place such elite units as the Palmach under a single unified command. This was accomplished in November of 1948. Gen. Yigael Yadin, succeeding Gen. Yaakov Dori (Israel’s first chief of staff)established the structure of the new army. It was to be essentially one of reservists led by a small professional nucleus. Moshe Dayan, a protege of Ben-Gurion’s, and regarded as a military and organizational genius at an early stage in hiscareer, was put in command of Israel’s southern front with Egypt in 1949.

Dayan felt that the morale, training and equipent of the army needed rejuvenation, that an elie unit would act as an ideal to emulate and help to establish a spirit of compettitiveness. The unit was formed and named Battalion 101 By 1953 its successful exploits had a beneficial effect on the army, and Ben-Gurion soon promoted Dayan over other senior officers to be Chief of Staff.

Now Dayan began his full reorganizational concept in earnest. He recommended that:

1. Every officer should have paratroop or commando training.

2. The army was to be primarily a combat force, with every soldier undergoing combat duties.

3. A military college in Israel was to be immediately established for officers with the rank of major and above, and most officers were now to be Israeli trained.

Dayan’s insistence on these three recommendations met some opposition, but in time they were all accepted as standard army policy.Experience has proven the value of his viewpoints.

In time, Arab raids and the Arab blockade of Israele shipping in the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aqaba triggered the outbreak of the Sinai Campaign of 1956. It was in this campaign that the new concepts of training and tactics established by Dayan proved highly successful, Israeli forces slashing across the Sinai peninsula in less than a hundred hours! But again, diplomatic pressures and the threat of economic sanctions forced the Israelis to pull back from the Sinai, as it had in 1949. Then Great Britain threatened to intervene unless the Egyptians were given back this vast desert. Dayan, in the field with his victorious troops, helped them swallow this bitter political pill.

Photo by en.wikipedia.org

1948-Israeli War of Independence

2010-11-26T19:48:00.001-08:00

by Dr. EUGENE SOCKUT

During November of 1947, The United Nations divided the country originally promised by the League of Nations divided the country originally promised by the League of Nations to be the Jewish National Home into one Arab and one Jewish state. The Jews, desperate to resettle the survivors of the concentration camps of Europe, accepted this decree but the Arabs did not. With the departure of the British military forces in May of 1948, 8 Arab armies invaded Israel. Every able-bodied Jewish man and woman sprang to the defence, but the tremendous shortage of weapons and the chaotic mixture of calibers and types of guns made the small arms situation critical. Some Enfield 38 revolvers, 303 SMLEs, and Sten SMGs were taken from or secretly bought from departing British soldiers. Sympathetic Irish troops “lost” two tanks which the Jews found. Captured German infantry weapons, such as the MG42 LMG, Mauser rifles, Luger and Walther 9mm pistols, were brought home in bits and pieces by Jewish Palestinians who had fought with the Allies. Small numbers of light arms were brought in by plane and ship, many of them surplus American weapons collected in the U.S. by Jews and their sympathizers. Among these were Colt 45 autos, Springfield and Garand 30-60 rifles, M3s and Thompson submachine guns. Even two B-17 bombers were flown toward the Holy Land, one never getting further than the Azores. The FBI and the U.S. government seemed o wink t these shenaniigans, but the British tried to stop these arms shipments even after Israel achieved independence.

Because of the small arms shortage many ingenious Rube Goldberg shotcuts were attempted. For example, the necessary machinery for making Sten barrels was not at hand. Old rifles were cannibalized and their barrels shortened and altered to fit Israelimade Sten guns In time, these were replaced by barrels locall produced. Another development was the fitting of Enfield rifles with Israeli-made grenade launchers. These were humorously stamped U.S.A. (Yiddish for Unserer Stickle Arbiet or Our Bit of Work.

Another hastily-engineered product was the melting down of kitchen utensils into calings for hand grenades by the trapped Jewish forces in th besieged city of Jerusalem.

Because of the shortage of such essential items as mortars, cannon and bazookas, the Israelis came forth with a mortar called the Davidka (Little David), designed by one David Leibovitz. These proved a godsend. Some 36 of them were fabricated from sewer pipe and steel rails, their projectiles making a tremendous noise when they landed. Though militarily ineffective they created panic among the enemy, who feared that the Jews had developed an atomic bomb! Nevertheless, effective as some of their arms were, the need for first class military hardware remained acute in the early stages of Israel’s War of Independence.

The landing of large amounts of Czech-made light arms in operation Haseda (stork) helped ease the shortage, enabling the Israelis to open the road to Jerusalem and break the siege of that beleaguered city. These Czech arms consisted of 8mm Mauser rifles and MG34 LMGs, while another bonus was the shipment of large quantities of Polish hand grenades.

The end of Israel’s War of Independence found the Israeli military in control of a mixed bag of light arms. It was felt that the 8mm Mauser rifle, the 9mm Sten and the 8mm Besa Medium MG were best suited for the young state’s defence needs, so these were accepted as standard. In time, Sten guns and Mauser rifles were entirely manufactured in Israel. Large amounts of non-standard weapons remained in stock, however, and were issued to regular army troous. The British SMLE303 rifle, a popular non-standard weapon, was issued in large numbers to regular army and border-defence settlements.

photo by : jewishsearch.com

1939-1948

2010-11-26T03:21:00.001-08:00

by Dr. EUGENE SOCKUT

The Hagana Command knew that erlatively few guns, spare parts, and munitions could be secretly gleaned from British Army depots, and that this small number could not meet their arms needs. Yehuda Arazi, a mysterious figure in Hagana undercover word, negotiated a secret agreement with Poland for 8mm Mauser bolt action rifles and “Browning Type” meedium machine guns of good quality, plus some Radom 9mm Parabellum pistols. Luckily, the British did not believe Arab reports that large planes had landed near their villages during the night. Needed raw materials were secretly imported for the Hagana underground workshops, which were expanding into production of light mortars and hand grenades. Submachine guns such as the 9mm Sten could now be manufactured along with the ammunition needed for them. Weapons were secretly stored in cellars, holes in the ground, and in the inner walls of buildings in the expectation of the conflict that all feared would follow the end of WWII.

During May, 1939, the British issued a “White Paper” restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine. Moshe Dayan and some 42 Hagana men were imprisoned in the fortress at Acre because of their opposition to this policy. However, in 1941 the British position in the Mid-East was threatened by the pro-Nazi Vichy French governments of Syria and Lebanon. The British needed their immediate neutralization to prevent General Irwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps from linking up with a feared Vichy French thrust through Palestine. Ironically, the British were again forced to use the people who they dnew would and could do the job.

Jewish volunteer Commando units were asked to protect the roads and bridges leading into Palestine. Dayan and his fellow prisoners were released and assigned to this task on the northern borders of Palestine. In one engagement, Dayan was looking through his field glasses when struck by a sniper’s bullet that drove one lens into his left eye, hence dayan’s famous black eye-patch. Another soldier seasoned during these battles was Yitzhak Racers, Shimon (Koch) Avidan and Israel Karmi. During the Hitler period German Fews had fled to Palestine by the tens of thousands. It was from these immigrants that the special units were formed. Armed with captured German weapons and uniforms, they gave an excellent account of themselves. A fictionalized version of their exploits was told in the Hollywook film Tobruk.

Toward the end of 1943,parachute units of Jewish Palestinians, who had come from countries under Nazi domiwas raging another battle against the edicts of the British White Paper was being waged in Palestine. Jewish underground forces were divided into three groups: the Hagana, representing the majority of the population; the irgun Zvi-Leumi, a large right-wing group formed by Vladimer Jabotin sky, developer of the Jewish Legion of WW I, and the smallest group, the Lechi (fighters for the freedom of Israel) or Stern Gang, as the British called them. During WW II, unlike the Hagana and the Irgun, the Lechi (led by Abraham Stern)considered the British just as much the enemy as the Nazis, attacking British facilities and personnel with the same gusto the Irish Republican Army displayed during the “Irish Troubles.” After the war, the Irgun and then the Haganajoined in attacks on the British in palestine.

The small arms of these underg. round forces ran the gamut of weapons available around the world. As a general rule, French arms prevailed in the north because of its proximity to the Vichy French battlefields. British arms were found in the rest of Palestine. Milk cans, cut in half, then rewelded and hermetically sealed, were a favorite hiding place for arms since they could be safely placed underground. The Sten SMG was most desired because of its simplicity, protability, and the ease with which it could be broken down and hidden in the skirts of female members of the resistance groups.

Special Night Squads

2010-11-22T07:05:00.001-08:00

Spring of 1938 saw a new Britishled Jewish force called “Special Night Squads,” commanded by a brilliant British Army intelligence officer, Order Charles Wingate. Captain Wingate was a Bible-toting Protestant whose pro-Zionist opinions soon got him into trouble with the British Imperial Staff. The Special Night Squads atracted the brightest and bravest of the Hagana men, and daring commando raids testing new military tactics were the order of the day under Wingate.

Captain Wingate’s actions and attitudes toward the Jews won him their love and respect—as well as the nickname Hayedid(friend). Wingate recalled the past military exploits of such Jewish generals as joshua and Gideon. Because the topography of the land had changed so little since biblical times, the tactics of those early Jews (sharp thrusts,mobility and carrying the battle to the enemy) were still valid. Wingate was later to find fame in masterminding the defeat of the Italians in Ethiopia during World WarII. He died in the Far East after organizing and leading a group called Chindis or “Wingate’s Raiders,” who fought against the Japanese in the Burma campaign. Today, in Israel, his name is still spoken with reverence, for Orde Charles Wingate, more than any man, helped to mould the character of the future army of Israel.

by Dr. EUGENE SOCKUT

1936-1939

2010-11-20T05:44:00.001-08:00

Assisted by the Fascist Powers, a full scale Arab revolt broke out in 1936. Attacks were made on British forces stationed in Palestine under the League of Nations Mandate. These forces were there, ostensibly, to help form a “Jewish National Home,” but in actuality the British used the principle of divide-and-rule among the Arabs and Jews. Raids were made aginst British communications systms, police posts and army bases, against Jewish settlements. The British, reluctantly, were forced to rearm the Jews. Quasi-military units, called “Supernumerary Police,” were immedeately formed. These troops were issued such standard British military equipment as the SMLE 303 rifle, the Webley 455 revolver and the Lewis 303 MG. Meanwhile, the Hagana, which had changed its tactics from static defense to mobile offensive warfare, considered the Supernumerary Police an excellent training vehicle for future officers. One of the men the Hagana called to duty with the S.P. was young Moshe Dayan, then honeymooning in England. Meanwhile, the Hagana organized mobile field platoons, called “P.U.S.H,” placing and active duty lasted for a period of 6 months. Many of Israel’s future leaders were trained in these field units, among them Dayan and Yigal Allon (later to be Deputy Prime Minister of Israel), learning the new tactics of fluid warfare and surprise attack. A technique called “Hammer and Anvil” was developed whereby the anvil unit would ambush and engage an Arab force until the hammer group, led by Dayan, would join the conflict and crush resistance. Much in formation on firearms, logistics and tactics was cataloged for futrure use. An interesting development was a “cloth cartridge catcher” for the 9mm Hispano Suiza submachine gun. This device caught the tell-tale ejected shells.

UZI Submachine Gun

2010-11-20T04:41:00.000-08:00

The Israeli Army 1920-1936

2010-11-20T04:13:00.001-08:00

In 1920 the region of Tel-Hai in northern Palestine saw large-scale attacks by Arab bands against Jewish settlements. In one of these battles the Jews lost Josef Trumpeldor, one of the founders of the Jewish Legion and the only Jew ever to win a commission in the Czar of Russia’s army. The need for a larger Jewish defense organization became apparent. A new group called the Hagana (Hebrew for"defense")replaced Hashomer. Hagana members were trained in the use of small arms and unit warfare;some of the arms were bought in vienna. As usual after a war, these were surplus military weapons of the period—the Austrian 1907 Roth-Steyr 8mm pistol, the 1912 Steyr 9mm pistol, and The Austrian 1888/90 8mm straight pull rifle and the Austrian Schwarzlose 8mm machine gun M07/12 were also used by the Hagana.

“Our task is not to kill, but to defend ourselves,” Became the motto of the Hagana. Havalagah (restraint)described the mood that prevailed among these settlers, who could best be described as “reluctant warriors.”

In 1929 disturbances broke out once again. After a 7-year period of relative peace, Arab mobs incited by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem attacked isolated Jewish settlements. It soon became aparen to the Hagana high command that their forces would have to be quickly expanded to meet the new challenge. The country was then divided into 20 regional centers, each commanded by a trained officer, to furnish needed protection to the isolated settlements. Special training courses for officers were immediately instituted to enable he Haganah to cope with the new situation. Since light arms continued to be bought from many sources, ammunition supply became a nightmare. Pistols, for example, ranged from the lowly 22 rimfire to the 455. Extablishment of secret underground workshops to make small arms, components and ammunition relieved this problem to a certain extent.

The Israeli Army 1904-1920

2010-11-12T18:23:00.001-08:00

by Dr. EUGENE SOCKUT

Spurred on by these early successes, dozens of new Jewish setlements were built in the areas of Galilee, Samaria and Judea. It soon became necessary to expand the Shomrim into a larger and better-trained force called Hashomer. Carridge rifles and pistols became more prevalent though no standardization of weapons was feasible. Mauser, Luger and other pistols of 7.62 and 9mm Parabellum calibers were in service as well as various 25, 32 and 380 semi-automatic pistols. Large caliber revolvers of Russian and British design became common after the end of WWI.

The out break of World War I had found the allies in a life and death struggle with the Central Powers. One of these was Turkey. One of these was Turkey, whose empire extended throughout the Middle East. Palestine and Trans-Jordan, part of this empire, were promised to the Jewish people in exchange for their support of the Allied Powers. The Arabs, whose support was also sought,were promised the larger portions of the empire, these later to become Iraq,Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf sheikdoms. The Emir Feisal, leader of the Arabs, welcomed this arrangement between Arab, Jew and Englishman, but the honeymoon was to prove short lived.

During WW I, Jews fought in an Allied unit called the Jewish Legion. They were armed with the standard British infantry small arms of the period—the SMLE Mark I bolt action rifle, the Webley 455 top-break revolver, and the Levis 303 machine gun. Tranining and tactics were decidedly British, Organized by a brilliant Jewish soldier, Vladimir Jabotinsky, the Legion consisted of such units as the 1st Judean Regiment—raised in the U.S. by David BenGurion, and the Third Palestine Battalion, soldiered by Jews from Palestine. These units fought under Field Marshall Allenby, and were commanded by a pro-Zionist colonel named Patterson, a regular British army officer. Arab soldiers were led by T.E. Lawrence, the famed Lawrence of Arabia, who was simultaneously pro-Zionist and pro-Arab.

After the Armistice of 1918, the British disbanded the Jewish units and confiscated their weapons. How ever, experience with British military methods of logistics, training and tactics was to prove invaluable in the future for the Jews of Palestine. Some British light arms were “liberated” by the returning soldiers.

The Israeli Army 1878-1904

2010-11-09T21:09:00.001-08:00

by Dr.EUGENE SOCKUT

Prior to 1874, most of the Jews living in Palestine were native born. A few traced their ancestry back to the Jewish-Roman Wars of 70 A.D., which resulted in the destruction of the Second Jewish Commonwealth, and changed the “land of milk and honey”into a desolate, eroded place—land not to be independent again until the birth of modern Israel in 1948.

During the 1870s, Jews began retruning to the Holy Land, driven by their belief that the rebirth of an independent Jewish nation promised by the prophet Isaiah was at hand. Though many Jews had hone to the Holy Land throughout the exile, the first successful mass movement began at this time. This phenomenon was called Zionism, a rebirth of Zion, the Land of Israel. A gathering in of the scttered Jewish people was its goal.

The small arms of these early Zionists were representative of the period, consisting mainly of black powder muzzle-loading and cartridge guns of mixed origin, but chiefly European.Because of incessant Bedouin Arab attacks, the pioneers constructed defense walls around their settlements which resembled the stockades of the early American pioneers. Like the early American settlers, they found it necessary to train themselves in the use of small arms. This led to the development of a defense force called Shomrim (watchmen), whose duty was to guard the settlement’s livestock and rields. In the historical exhibition of the Hagana Museum in Tel-Aviv, there can be seen, along with ancient muzzleloaders, a “shilalee,” hand carved by an old rabbi tired of being set upon by Arab ruffians as he went to prayers.

The Israeli Army

2010-11-09T17:23:00.001-08:00

a history of its small arms, tactics and training.

What enabled a nation of less than three million people to defeat a foc backed by a populace almost fifty times their number? Arms, yes, but much more than that—Israel’s secret weapon is the fantastic spirit of her people, their firm belief that they cannot lose a battle, much less a war. by Dr. EUGENE SOCKUT : THE GUN DIGEST

THE HISTORY of Israeli military small arms procurement, development, manufacture and use is directly related to the establishment and growth of the Third Jewish Commonwealth in hisory. In biblical times, as well as today, the land of Israel found itself surrounded by a succession of would be conquerors. Situated at the crossroads of three continents—Europe, Asia and Africa, Israel,s very geographical position made it mandatory for them to take up arms for self-defense.

Three times in the past 22 years the world witnessed events as miraculous as the biblical military victories of Joshua over the Philistines. In the Arab-Israeli Wars of 1948,1956 and1967, tiny israel succeeded in vanquishing enemies whose numbers of men, quantity and quality of war materiel should have resulted in the total destruction of the Fewish State. What factors contributed to the ability of a nation of 2.5 million to defeat forces backed by populations almost 50 times its size? Tracing the small arms history of the Yishuv, (Hebrew name for the Fewish commuity of the Holy Land)best illustrates the ability of a people to persevere against insuperable odds and emerge victorious.

photo: balagan.org.uk

The National Rifle Club

2010-11-07T17:32:00.001-08:00

introduction and notes by John T. Amber

The story of an 1886 shoot between the last of the great muzzle-loading marksmen and the breech-loaking upstarts from Walnut Hill.

WE ARE particularly pleased to reprint this account of a great event in shooting history from the 1886 pages of Firest & Stream. It was the occasion, apparently, of the first shoulder-to-shoulder contest between the die-hard advocates of the muqqle-loading rest rifle and several noted marksmen using the newfangled breechloaders (these las had only been in use generally for some dozen years.)

Mr.Murray Leyde of Painesville, Ohio, an old friend, was kind enough to send me a photo copy of the old account. In it I learned exactly how string measurements were made in that period, clearly and withcut question—as you will learn in your reading of the report. It had been assumed that the technique was pretty much as the anonymous correspondent has it, but here is the exact methodology outlined. Briefly, each shot in the string was measured from the intersection of the diagonal lines to the bullet hole, then the 10 measurements were simply added together

It is difficult to compare these old string scores with today’s targets—most commonly measured from center to center of the bullet holes farethest apart—unless a reproduction to a know scale of the old target is available for measuring. In the present instance we have two of them to assess.

Fletcher’s first string measures 2 5/8" center to center, the string total 9 7/16 " as the table shows. Brown’s third string measures 3 9/16"—almost a full inch greater than Fletcher’s—but Brown’s string score on histen shots is 9 13/16", or only 3/8" worse. Fletcher’s group is quite obviously a better one than Brown’s, but simply reading the string measurements would not have revealed the graphic difference.

Another nice bit of source data given in this 1886 report is the quite exact load information put down for most of the contestants, to say nothing of the drawing that depicts, to scale, the variety of bullets used by 15 of the marksmen.

Further comments will appear in the text, set inside brackets.

Other Garcia/Berettas

2010-11-07T05:09:00.001-08:00

by JOHN T. AMBER

The AL-2 gas- operated autoloader (make in 12-and 20-gauge) has some new touches this year. Buttstock and fore-end show more checkering, in a new pattern, treatment of the now capped pistol grip has been improved, and the fore-end offers a wider, more hand-filling form. Field guns show new de luxe engraving, with additional amounts on Skeet and trap models. Easy and virtually complete disassembly of the AL-2 permits quick cleaning and inspection, a much-neglected job with some other autos. Extra barrels are readily exchanged, too, without tools or initial factory fitting.

The AL-2 offers extra safety, too—live shells can e removed from the magazine without shuffling them through action, and a heavy, hardened steel block cams the firing pin back until the bolt is lully home.

The rest of the large Garcia-beretta line continues in production—there’s an inexpensive single-barrel folding gun in 12 or 20; another single made in 12 gauge only, the TR-1 or TR-2, and an excellent buy in a trapgun at its low $160 cost($185 for the vent-rib TR-2); the fine Beretta BR series, a range of side-by-side doubles in 12- and 20-gauge, I consider Best Buys in their type class: the GR-4, made with single selective trigger, ventilated rib, auto ejectors and a semi-beavertail fore-end, is an especially good value.

The Beretta SL-2, a recrently-introduced pump 12 bore that exhibits numerous excellent features, appears to have been taken off the Garcia list, perhaps pro tem.

Beretta will be delivering a single barrl trapgun before long, Dick Wolf has told me. This will be on the BL frame, their boxlock gun, and the tentative designation is the Mark II.

Garcia-F.I.

2010-11-06T05:49:00.001-07:00

by JOHN T. AMBER

The two rifles on our back covers are from Firearms International, an organization well and favorably known, that was recently acquired by Garcia.

The smaller rifle seen is the Sako Vixen, called by F.I. the “most accurate production rifle in the world.” Well, that’s a claim that takes in anawful lot of territory, but it is true that a Sako rifle, a 222 right off the shelf and without tuning, once set a world records at 100 yards in a National Bench Rest Rifle Assn. shoot—10 shots in the Light Varmint class making a target only .209" center-to-center.

Will they all do that well, sans tuning and whatever? I doubt it. Yet no one can deny that’s a mighty nice performance, and it is indicative of what the Sako L-461 actioned rifle can do, and it is equally true that the L-461 action—with or without Sako barrel—has been a much-sought-after item for many years—when it could be bought! They were a scarce unit for a long time, but the supply seems to be in better shape nowadays. The Sako Vixen rifles are made in only three calibers—222,222 Magnum and 223. The rifles come in three styles; a standard Sporter, a Heavy Barreled version, and in Carbine form, with full length or Mannlicher stock and a 20" barrel. The others use a 23 1/2" barrel.

The other Sako pictured on our back cover is the Finnbear (L-61), made only as a half-stocked sporter and in such bigger calibers as 270,30-06 and most of the belted magnum calibers, including the newly added 375 H&H. A rugged and well-built action, the Finnbear, and very well suited to the more potent big game loads.

The rest of the Garcia F.I. line continues pretty much intact, though there have been some product changers since a year ago. The Sako Forester bolt acion and the Finnwolf lever action rifles show no change, nor does the F.N. Supreme bolt action rifle line.

The AYA shotgun line—a sidelock double and three boxlock side-by-sides-has been dropped, it appears, and the Lasalle auto and pump shotguns are no longer listed. The Musketeer rifles, Mauser-actioned, have been retained, and a new line of doublebarreled shothuns—with outside hammers—has been added to the list. The "Overland" arms are made by Rossi in Brazil, suppliers also of the Regent Gallery Model 22 slide-action rifle and Presentation revolvers (22 LR and 38 Special), new on the F.I. list

F.I. still carries the Gaucho, Star, Astra Cadix, Regent, Taurus and Unique handguns—revolvers and autos—but not in quite as full an array as before, thanks doubtless to the stringencies of the GCA 1968 in good part.

picture by: common.wikimedia.org,shooterforum.com

Beretta BL Series

2010-11-06T02:52:00.001-07:00

The other over-under double gun on our front cover is one of Garcia’s BL series, a line of high quality boxlock guns in the popular price range—a gamut these days that runs from about $200 to $500, with a few models at the top end commanding a price a bit higher.

There are 5 models in the BL group, and all of them have several features of construction in common, important aspects they all share. First there’s the low profile of the BL reciver, achieved through an unusual—perhaps unique—method of hinging and barrel lockup. The hinge pins are located at a point alongside the middle of the lower barrel, not underneath as with so many other overunders. There are no underlugs on the Beretta BL barrels, thhus a considerably shorter receiver, top to bottom, is obtained. This makes for a gun easier to handle, lighter over-all, stronger and, because the mass of the receiver is around the barrels, not below them, recoil is reduced and a second shot can be got off faster.

Recoil—felt recoil, That is—is reduced because thrust is more directly rearwards, and lessened muzzle lift means getting back on the sightsfaster for that second shot.

A second common factor in all BL guns is barrel construction. Barrels, of chrome-moly steel, are processed at the Beretta factory through all steps from the raw, forged solid billet through boring, reaming and chambering to the point where they’re ready for insertion into the Monobloc breeches. All machining is done on the Monobloc, none on the barrels, where the attachment of lugs, ribs,etc., requires shot heating and the attendant danger of distorsion and alteration of tensile strength. In addition, the Monobloc technique of mounting barrels results in a much stronger system.

A third feature of all BL Berettas is a clever and foolproof barrel selector system.

In many double guns, the top-tang sliding safety combines with a button or whatever to let the shooter switch from top barrel to bottom—or vice versa—and in this system it’s necessary, usually, to shove the safety back to the ‘Safe’ position before changing barrels. Not so with Beretta’s BL doubles—the changeover can be made instantly, whether the safety is on ‘Safe’ or not. An excellent idea, and one that could well let you kill that bird that you could have failed to grass with a selector button you had to fumble with.

Mainsprings in all BL guns are of coiled type, made of the best Swedish steel; breech faces are grooved to deflect and carry gases away if a primer fails, and all BL guns show careful attention to excellent fit of wood to metal, of meticulous filing, stoning and smooth-working assemble of internal parts for perfect functioning and dependable operation.

From here on, however, the BL grades differ: BL-1 is a 2 trigger gun, made without a barrel rib, but the front trigger is hinged, a feature usually found only on guns with a much higher price tag—this lets you find the rear trigger faster, and also keeps your trigger finger from banging into the back of the front trigger when the rear trigger is touched off.

The BL-2 is like the BL-1 but has a single selective trigger, and both are available only in 12 gauge field grade, with 26",28" or 30" barrels.

The BL-3 comes with a ventilated rib, nicely matted, a single trigger of selective type and plain extractors. Engraving on the BL-3 is of better quality and more extensive, and new this year are BL-3s in 20- and 28- gauge, offered in both 3" Magnum chambering and as Skeet guns with 2 1/2" chambers. A 12-gauge 3" Magnum is also on the list, as are 12-gauge Skeet and trapguns. These target type BL-3s are &25 extra, but that also covers special sears, a manual safety, middle sights and straighter stocks, with Monte Carlo combs, and a trap-style recoil pad on the BL-3 Trap Gun.

The BL-4 (the style shown on) and the BL-5 are alike except for the latter offering a fully engraved, gray-finished receiver, better quality wood and finer, more extensive checkering. Both have auto ejeectors, all other features of the BL-1,BL-2 and BL-3 guns mentioned, and both are available in the some wide choece of gauges listed for the BL-3.

Standard stock dimensions for all five BL 12, 20 and 28 Field and skeet grakes are:1 1/2"x2 1/2"x14 1/8" but trapguns have a trigger pull length of 14 3/8", with drop figures of 1 3/8" by 13/4". All can be had with extra sets of barrels, though differing a bit with in grades as to chokes, lengths and price, of course.

picture by: the spoting life.net, shotingtime.co.uk,proguns.com

Garcia Guns 1970 (3)

2010-09-09T06:29:00.001-07:00

All other SO over-unders—which start with the SO-2 (I don’t know why there isn’t an SO-1!) and run through the SO-3 and SO-4—are equally the well-built and offer the same functional features as does the SO-5. The essential differences are in the embellishments and visual aspects of one grade against the other—the wood quality, the engraving, the checkering and so on.

What does this Iuxuriousness cost? Well, the SO-5 guns carry a catalog price of $1750, to which you’d and something for the options mentioned Extra barrels ordered with the SO-5are $460. The SO-2 grade lists for #950, extra barrels $365, while the SO-4 and SO-4 guns are in between. Whatever grade, a fair amount of money is involved,no question about that. Still, just ablut everyone of you reading this owns an automobile in one price class or another, and in a year or three you’ll be buying another. You’ll spend anywhere from a minimum of $2000 or so up to $5000 and more (and these figures might rise to $3000-$6000 if inflation keeps up, as it looks like doing). yet in a few short years most of those new cars will be ready for the junkyard. In the interim, more thousands of dollars will have been spent on fuel and care, heavy insurance charges, tires and the like.

Now, that doesn’t happen when you buy—invest is a better and truer term—a really first class shotgun, believe me. Let’s say you put $1500 or so into a fine smoothbore, and that you give it decent care over the next 5 or 10 years. At the end of that time, say 10 years or so, it’s an absolute verity that your top grade double gun is going to be worth more than you paid for it, assuming that the dollar is going to continue to lose value—which is just what it has been doing for 150 years or more, notwithstanding the temporary reversals of the trend brought about by such catastrophes as our Great Depression of the 1930s.

Don’t you wish—those of you who were young men or a bit beyond that in the late 1930's—that you had bought a Parker VHE or a Model 21 Winchester when both could be had at a full retail price of about $150?

That price bought either of these fine—if relatively plain—guns with fancy wood, beavertail fore-end, single selective triggers, auto ejectors and ventilated ribs—plus a quality of workmanship and detailing hard to come by in American firearms to day.

I know! That $150 or so wasn’t burning a hole in many pockets in 1938-1940, but I don’t imagine that a spare $1000-$1800 is much more readily to hand today. Nevertheless, these are the money machanics I’m pointing up; how to solve ‘ em is where you come in.

Gee, I wish I’d had sense enough in 1939 to buy one of those Parkers at $150, or one of their GHE or DHE grades at…

Two brand new Berettas are on the Garcia list for 1970. These, the SO-6 and the SO-7, are side-by-side doubles that equal the top grade So-4 and SO-5 over-unders in quality and lavishness of treatment generally, in the variety of chokes and barrel lengths offered, and in the optional constructional details and dimensions to be had on special order. We’ve not as familiar with these latest Berettas as we’d like to be, but Berettas in this quality and price bracket ($1360-$1820) leave little to be desired and nothing to criticeze.

Garcia Guns 1970(2)

2010-09-07T06:46:00.001-07:00

The SO-5 locks are of the fullydetachable sidelock form, of extremely

simple and rugged construction. All friction surfaces are specially hard-

ened, and all inside action parts are hard chrome-plated. Barrel locking

is by means of two lugs extending from either side of the upper barrel into mating slots in the standing breech, these locked in place by a modified Greener crossbolt system

Barrels for the Crown Grade Berettas are made from the best barrel metal to be had—Bohler Antinit(rustless) steel, made in Austria—and that’s true of all SO-series barrels. Made normally in 26- and 28-inc length and 12 gauge only, the regular boring in improved cylinder/modified and modified/full respectively. On special order, though, barrels can be had with any choice of choking, and from 26 to 30 inches Ventilated ribs are furnished on all SO-series guns, and all have a matted, knurled top to kill glare. SO-4 and SO-5 ribs are hand matted. Barrels may be ordered with chrome-plated bores, if desired.

Two triggers are sual on all of the SO-series over-under doubles, but selective single triggers are available Auto ejectors are standard, as is an auto safety, but a manual safety may be ordered.

All SO Beretas carry hand-cut engraving, but the SO-5 grade will illustrate. carries the finest and most lavish. The deep relief chiseling is perfectly executed and covers virtually all metal except the barrels, in cluding screw heads, tangs, fore-end release, etc. The thumb-piece of the top-snap opening lever is filigreed(pierced)and engraved, and a superbly done gold crown is inlaid in the broad top lever.

Garcia guns 1970 (1)

2010-09-06T05:55:00.000-07:00

by JOHN T. AMBER
Here's full descriptive data on the Beretta shotguns and the
Sako rifles that appear on our front and back covers,
plus a rundown on the full Garcia-Beretta-FI lines in general.

   Garcia Sporting Arms Corporation--which became the sole distributor of
Beretta shotguns last year, and took over Firearms International more re-
cently--furnished us with the Beretta and Sako arms pictured in full color
on the front and back cover of this 25th Silver Anniversary edition of the
Gun Digest.

   One of the world's finest overunder shothuns, the Beretta Crown Grade
SO-5, was selected for one of the two smoothbores shown on our
front cover. The SO-5 is the top overunder shotgun in Beretta's extensive
line, and everyone is a masterpicec that exhibits the combined skills and
artistry of the gunsmith, the stocker and engraver. Only the finest and
fanciest-figure Curopean walnut is used, the checkering is extra fine-
line, and the most careful, painstaking attention is lavished on inletting,
fitting-up and jointing to the metal. Buttstocks and fore-ends are cut from
the same bland, of course, for full matching of grain flow and color. A
hand-rubbed oil finish is standard, but glossy or wax finishes are optional.
The standard stock on the Crown Grade is a pistol-grip type that measures
1 1/2 inches drop at the comb bose, 2 1/2 inches at the heel, with a
14 1/8-inch pull length. However, on special order stocks can be made to
the customer's specifications, and straight-hand or pistol grip as desider.
read more

Collecting

2010-09-01T20:12:00.000-07:00

The Gun Digest

   The some extent, all riflemen and hunters are collectors. My armory
consists of many rifles, combining the best skills and craftsmanship that
modern manufacturing can produce. All shoot and shoot well. They are
not antiques in any respect and, by some standards would not be called
a collection. They aren't used very often. and certainly not enough to
justify their cost and care. Yet, they are among my most treasured pos-
sesions--their value being primarily intangible. Since there is more than
one rifle in the rack. and since valueis measured by more than more
utility, by my definition it has to be a collection.

   Most collcetions of things aren't worth much in cash, and will hardly
ever alter history. Their value is measured in other ways. It is of such stuff
that museums are made, filled with wondrous things that stir the imagi-
nation and kindle stange fires. The past should be preserved. Not to
escape the present, but to bring contentment for things accomplished and
condition the perspective of the future. I think this applies equally to
the advertising arts as well as the masterpieces of the gunsmiths.

   When I think of the adventurous scenes of hunters and campfires,
black bear and elk that once graced thousands of firearms advertising en-
velopes, it makes me wonder how many postal clerks, circa 1910, might
have been stirred to less mundane activities after seeing dozens of these
covers pass through their hands. I wonder if any one of them quit his
job, bought a rifle, a box of new somkeless shells, and left for the
North country....I think I would have.

Care and Cleaning

2010-08-30T02:13:00.000-07:00

The Gun Degest

   In the beginning, questions may arise as to the best means of storage
and display or, if a somewhat soiled cover is obtained, a bit of judicious
cleaning may be necessary.

   The best help in both these respects will usually be from a local
stamp dealer. Like some gunsmiths and sporting goods dealers, he is apt
to spend as much time giving worthwhile advice on sundry matters as he
does working.

   The ideal arrangement is to provide protection for the cover yet make it
possible to view both sides of the envelope, should advertising be so
imprinted. This can be done cheaply with transparent glassine envelopes.
Higher in cost are book-like cover albums similar o photo albums. Several
dozen covers may be effectively stored in such albums. Each cover is
encased in a slip-through acetate pocket so hinged that both sides may
be examined. Whichever the choice, protection from soiled hands and care-
less handling is provided. The covers may be old and brittle, They are
scarce and care should be taken to preserve them.

   Do not mount covers with cellophane pressure tape. This otherwise
useful product starts disintegrating in a few months. It will stick to and
stain any paper product to which it is attached or that comes in contact
with it.

   Firearms covers obtained through dealers or at auction are usually quite
clean but sometimes pencil marks are found on the envelopes. The collector
may find these distasteful, but such markings can be effectively
erased by a soft art-gum eraser. In fact, the art-gum eraser can be trusted
to accomplish most, if not all, cleaning of soiled areas caused by grease or
other dirt. Liquid cleaners should be avoided since they may adversely
affect the envelope paper, the glue holding the cover together, or the
inks used in printing.

   Framing a group of firearms covers is another way to provide both pro-
tection and an ttractive display. Arranged formally or informally, perhaps
with an original or a photo copy of an advertising broadside or circular,
a small collection would provide a touch of color and nostaalgia suitable
for den or gunroom.

Sources of Supply

2010-08-24T22:51:00.000-07:00

The Gun Digest:by Robert F. Denny

   Quite possibly there are hoards of such firearms advertising stacked
away in attics or correspondence bins of some old hardware stores. The
treasures that may be found for the price of an hour's conversation and a
cup of coffee could amaze the collector. Should nothing result, the time
spent would be in good company.

   A better source is the dealer in United States stamps and covers.
Occasionally a dealer will be found who is not aware of the increasing
interest in firearms advertising and, therefrome, covers may be obtained
at a lower price. The number of such naive dealers is slowly diminishing.

   Members of the American Stamp Dealers Association are a good
source, and can be counted on to provide fair and reasonable service.
Here are some men I've dealt with:
   Samuel C. Paige,45 Bromfield St., Boston, Mass. 02108
   W. T. Pollitz, 45 Bromfield St., Boston, Mass. 02108
   Charles J. Molnar, 1246 Summit Drive, Cleveland, O. 44124
   Stanley H. Waite, 3 Washburn Terrace, Brookline 46, Mass.
   Harrington's Stamp shop, Deansboro, N. Y. 13328
   E. N. Sampson, Box 162, Hammond, N. Y. 13646
   Frank S. Landers, 155 Woodbury Rd., Huntington, L.I., N.Y.
   R. H. Hess, P. O. Box 3145, Inglewood, Calif., 90304

"Sticky Mosin Nagant Bolt? Making your Mosin Rock part 1" M91/30 M38 M44...

2010-08-24T05:49:00.000-07:00

Color Covers

2010-08-21T06:20:00.000-07:00

     In the 1890s covers were most often printed in but one color. The cover
in fig. 10, dated 1893, is printed in a light brown. Blue, black, orange, and
red were also used, perhaps others.

     As the years passed, however, monochrome printing evolved into bicolor
and, by the early part of the 20th century, hunting and game scenes
blossomed out in multicolor lithog graphy. Soon all shades and color
combinations were in use. In most instances inks were carefully chosen
to picture the hunting and wild game scenes in natural color. The results
exemplify the high standards of lithographic art attained at that time.

     Colors chosen for the printed messages and trademarks reflected the
individual companies' taste. Winchester, for example, used bringht red for
most of its inscriptions. Observant readers will recognize that the same
color is still used by this company today.

     A lithographers catalog picturing samples of firearms advertising available
to manufacturers of rifies, powder and cartridges would be invaluable
to the collector. My efforts to locate such a treasure have been futile.
Many dealers and philatelists and a few firearms enthusasts know
of their existence, but no one has much additional information. Perhaps
this article will provide the impetus to someone to investigate the story
more fully.

Infinite Variety

2010-08-19T04:59:00.000-07:00

By Robert F. Denny

     Desings were as varied as they were tasteful. Some, as figs. 3 and 4
denote, were intended to be only artistic. Others (figs. 5 and 6 ) are
adventurous. The hard-sell of presentday advertising is approached in figs.
7 and 8, the soft-sell in fig. 9. Occasionall humor and danger were indicated.
One cover pictured a wellequipped rifleman and a brown bear
high on a rocky ledge, apparently hunting each other.

     Women received attention, too. Several covers show lady trapshooters or
ladies afield with dog and gun. All were properly attired, of course, as
befitting the sport.

     Winchester and Remington, as might be expected, seem to have been
the most prolific with envelopes of various designs. They certainly offered
some of the most adventurous illustrations ever to pass through a postman's
hands. What spirit of restlessness must have been generated in the
hearts of some by the picture of a hunter on snowshoes tracking game,
or the view of three elk, one with a massive head, crashing through a
primitive forest.

      Designs were chosen to exemplify the company's stock in trade. The
J. Stevens Arms and Tool Company often pictured a target shooter, offhand
position of course, equipped with the then new Stevens'Pope target
refle. Open field scenes, bird dogs,or people engaged in trapshooting
were pictured to advertise shotguns. Game birds were a favorite of gun
powder companies. Other covers pictured wild turkeys. Indians on horseback,
campfire scenes, bears, cougars, and bird dogs; all tatefully and artistically
crafted.

     Early covers usually pictured only a finely engraved cut of a shotgun or
rifle. Verbal descriptions of course, were included.

     Advertising was often printed on both sides of the envelope. Figs. 4a
through 6a illustrate the attempt to obtain a mazimum amount of the advertising
from a minimum amount of envelope. Generally the front of the
cover presented the hunting or the wild game scene, the back of the envelope
reserved for the printed message. Occasionally, smaller illustration
of firearms were also printed on the back in conjunction with the printed matter.

     Few covers provided complete illustrations or pictorial matter on both
sides. One cover, issued by Peters depicted a wild turkey covering half
the face of the envelope while the reverse side was illustrated with 10
different cartridges and shotshells. Both sides are in full color.

Issuing Companies

2010-08-15T06:39:00.000-07:00

     Perhaps every firearms, gun powder and cartridge manufactruer issued
envelopes to their retailers and jobbers. The list below is undoubtedly
incomplete. It represens all such companies that can be accounted for
through personal acquaintance with some 60or70 advertising covers.

     Firearms: Winchester, Remington, Ithaca, Sauer, Hunter Arms Company
(L.C.Smith), Stevens, Savage, Colt, Parker, Marlin and Iver Johnson.

     Cartridges: Remington, UMC, U.S. Cartridge Co. and Peters.
      Gun Powder: Hercules, Laflin and Rand, DuPont,Atlas,Hazard and
Sycamore.

       The Hardware or sporting goods stores that had use of such advertising
prebably numbers in the hundreds or housands since I have seldom
seen two covers that originated from the same retailer.

Airsoft gun collection

2010-08-05T20:05:00.000-07:00

Development and Usage

2010-08-04T07:42:00.000-07:00

   classichuntingcollections.com

   It is doubtful if any one factor was responsible for the development of
such advertising media as the lowly envelope. The fad blossomed about
1890 and continued for a period of about 30 years.
   Undoubtedly advertisers and lithograpers were influenced to a great
extent by the popularity of the illustrated patriotic covers that were
sold by the millions during the Civil War. They may have reasoned that
if people had enfoyed looking at envelopes of the then current war
propaganda that they might enjoy attractive hunting scenes or a picture
of a new rifle. If such works of art also included a pitch for a new product
they were justified.
   Firearms and gun powder were not the only products so-advertised.
Tool,hardware, farm implement and carriage companies also did their best
to out-advertise each other. About 1910 the automobile industry began a
similar campaign. Soon tire chains and carburetors,engines and gasoline
were pictrued, in color, on the fronts and backs of commercial envelopes.
   However, it appears that most of the firearms advertising covers
were seldom seen by the buying public. As the photographs show, most
envelopes were eventually sent to dealers and wholesalers. Apparently
few were used for the billing of customers or personal correspondence.
From the collector's point of view, perhaps, it is good that this occurred.
Most individual recipients would have had little reason to preserve an
envelope for the enfoyment of a future generation. It was the practice of
industrial concerns in those days, however, to file both letter and
envelope as records of correspondence. These were preserved until such
time as the company disbanded or made an effort to clean out its files.
   Such advertising was not restricted to the United States. As figs.
1 and 2 illustrate, various firearms companies with international sales issued
such envelopes, appropriately printed in the proper language, to their foreign
distributors. Such covers are rare today; the only two the author has seen
are those illustrated.

by: The Gun Digest

Price and value

2010-07-22T20:53:00.000-07:00

by: classichuntingcollectibles.com

The prices came as a shock. After one auction I obtained a copy of the

auction prices. I obtained a copy of the auction prices. My mail bids, guessed

at in haste and with little knowledge, were low by one-fifth! Since then,

however, I've purchased similar material for as little as fifty cents. At

the other extreme, I' ve seen covers with price tags up to $11.50 and

heard of some that were sold for $20 and $25. Like many other artistic

and historic objects, there appear to be no accepted price standards .

Through experience and inquiries,however, certain general statements

about prices and pricing can be made.

Prices realized for such covers at auctions are usually somewhat

higherthan open-market costs. To some extent, this is caused by the

excitement of auction proceedings--auction fever! More influential,

however, is the generally better-quality material offered at auctions.

Average over-the-counter prices are about $4.00. Unused envelopes,

thatis, covers that do not indicate positive routing through a Post Office at

the time of issue, usually cost about $1.00.

Pricses for firearms covers in the past have been generally

established by the stamp trade. The philatelist, for example,if interested in

advertisingcovers might very well pay $5 for an illustrated cover, irrespective

of the merchandise advertised, That the cover illustrates firearms is immaterial.

              Dealers' prices are based primarily upon three factors: 1) scarcity,
2)condition, and 3) demand. Unfortunately, all covers displaying firearms
are scarce. Auction prices also indicate that some collectors of firearms
covers haves have rather high incomes. Covers dated in the 1880s or '90s
bringhigher prices than those of the early 20th century. In all instances,
covers that have been through the mails and postmarked have much higher
price tag than unused covers. To the philatelist, the reason is apparent. To
the firearms enthusiast, however, postal usage is of little concern so
long as a guarantee is obtained that the cover is a genuine original. Given
two covers with identical designs, one in multicolor and the other
monochrome, the colored cover would reap the highest bid.

             condition relates to the over-all neatness of the cover, the stamp,
andthe postmark. Clean, unripped advertising covers convey higher prices
than soiled and damaged covers Strangely enough, the postage stamp
affixed to the cover, wxcept in rare instances, does not affect cover value
It seems That stamps used for most mail at the turn of the century
have little more philatelic value than the common postage stamps used today.
Condition of the stamp and postmark however, if it distracts from
the cover's over-all neatness, adversely affects price.

              Demand for such covers from the rifle fraternity has been pretty
light,probably because of a lack of acquaintance with them. Doubtlessly
this will change. There is, however, a steady demand from our philatelic
brethren, but it does not seem to increased as fast as coins or antique firearms.

           United States stamps and covers in good or excellent condition,
particularly those of the 19th and early 20th century, in spite of war, famine
anddepression, have always increased in dollar value at a rate comparable
to or exceeding that of other investments. There is no reason to believe
that firearms advertising cover will not react similarly.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Gun Digest
1971 Silver anniversary Deluxe Edition

THE GUN DIGEST: Initial Acquaintance

2010-07-17T05:47:00.000-07:00

by http://www.classichunting/ collectibles.com

My discovery of such mementos of the past and the collecting of them

began about two years ago, the result of a short-lived interest in philately

or stamp collecting. I joined a philatelic society or to and soon my mailbox

was filled with auction catalogs and lists of postal material. In one

of these I saw my first firearms asvertising cover, an envelope displaying

the Winchester 94 and extolling its manifold virtues. Other covers pictured

other firearms,hunting scenes, game animals and related material,

the advertisers arms and ammunition manufacturers and gun powder companies.

I discovered also that these gun cover illustrations were in full color!

In all my previous reading of gunbooks histories of firearms makers

and arms magazines I was surprised that no attention had ever been given

to advertising envelopes. I had never seen this illustrated maerial.

Like the proverbial bloodhound, I was off on a new trail. Dozens of

questions came to mind. When were advertising envelopes first used and

who used them? Who printed them? Who collected them and who had

them for sale? How many different kinds were there? What their current prices?

Firearms Advertising Envelopes

2010-07-11T03:03:00.000-07:00

by Robert F.Denny

by http://www.classichunting/ collectibles.com

A NOT SO surprising result of the increasing population and decreasing

hunting and shooting opportunities is the large number of one-time hunters

and riflemen slowly being metamorphized into collectors.

The fields and forests that used to offer an evening woodchuck hunt, or

the gravel pit that witnessed many a black circle being punched out of an

NRA target, are distant memories they're now too far away or have

become housing developments.

Our shooting has become sporadic, relegated to the one or two times a

year we visit the country. To preserve our memories of shooting we seek

other fields of interest to occupy our free hours, but, given the opportunity,

our leisure-time interests still center around firearms.

The collecting and study of shooting and firearms materials has mushroomed

in the past 15 years. Witness the number of gunbooks available,

many of them monographs on subjects thought to be of little previous interest.

Any collector of firearms or cartridges can atest to the increasing

scarcity, and cost, of items that, a few years ago, could be bought at

junk prices.

Demand has also resulted in reproductions of firearms catalogs, advertising

broadsides, leaflets and calendars. The neophyte collector soon realizes

that there aren't many things related. Too often, if he does think

of something different or unusual, cost or space quickly deter him. Who has

room for a collection of muzzle-loading cannon, or the price of three or

four Pope rifles?

There is one field however, that has been largely overlooked. This is

the collecting of firearms advertising envelopes. Compact and still relatively

inexpensive, these envelopes (or covers as the philatelists call them),

are most attractive and informative to the firearms historian.

Last Season Hunting

2010-07-03T22:54:00.000-07:00

gundigest:
picture: http://www.bukmanager.com/


                      I got my first taste of this late season hunting a few years ago in Idaho
when I drew for one of the late hunts. I'd know that the bucks started shedding
sometime in November, but I didn't think they'd be so far along by
the time the season opened on the 8th. Andy Hagel, one of the country's leading
taxidermists, and, incidentally, no relation to the writer, and I wanted to
make the hunt together. We couldn't get loose at t he same time for an earlier
seaon area, so the late hunt was it.
                Anyway, soon after we arrived, two things were immediately obvious: the
antelope were all out on the flats where there wascgn't even a wrinkle in
the ground for miles on end, and most of the big bucks had already lost their
headgear. Many of the hunters were not aware of this because the antelope
(which has true horns, not antlers), sheds only he outer shell, not
the central core. These are often mistaken for horns. I'm sure we saw at
least 500 antelope on that trip, but we'll never know how many were
bucks. Some of the smaller bucks still had horns, but they were safe as far
as we were concerned.
                The first evening we located a fairish buck with horns of about 14"-
14 1/2 " but it took us three days of following him around to finally get within
range when he made the mistake of going down a draw th avoid us.
We were there when he came out and I clobbered him as he ran flat-out
across the plain. His horns were hanging on only because the hide at the
the base was still stuck to them;you could turn them in almost any direction.
Andy wound up killing an even larger buck that had only the cores
with their new growth starting up, just so we could see what we had. To
top it off, neither of these bucks were fit to eat. They were snake-poor, the
meat was blue, and you could smell them a country mile away.
                       In the fall of 1968 I got in on the same kind of a deal in Montana, but
this time I was lucky. I drew for both antelope and deer in one of the areas
where both special non-residenet deer and antelope permits are issued. I
missed on the antelope permit, but got a deer permit, thereby saving myself
$35. My son, who lives in the Big Sky country, did have an antelope
permit for the same area, but could not get away until after the first of
November. We hunted antelope from the brakes of the Missouri along Fort
Peck Reservoir to Highway#200, and from Jordan on the east to the Mussleshell
river on the west. There were antelope ther, although I've been in
places where there were a hell of a lot more, but there were few bucks
that still had their horns. He never fired a shot because the only two we
saw that were big enough to be interesting, and that still had something
beside the cores sticking up, were on a posted ranch.
                    For a state that specializes in special non-resident antelope permits,
knowing full well that 95% of the antelope hunters will be looking for
heads, Montana is hitting the nonresident a low blow in allowing their
season to run after the bucks have lost their horns. Idaho does no better,
but does not specialize in non-resident antelope permits; Idaho gives the
homefloks the backhand punch.
                 Anyway, plan to hunt antelope as early as the season allows, and if you
want some of the finest stalking offered on the American continent, try
hunting them in the rough country.

Mountain Pronghorns

2010-07-02T00:21:00.000-07:00

Gun Digest :
     In many places antelopes stay in the high, mountain country surrounding
their winter range all summer. really good bucks, too, and often alone.
Some are found at unbelievable elevation if there is such suitable habitat
as high mesa country. high sage slopes and basins and long, open ridges--
country that has plenty of room with-out too much timber. I've seen plenty
of antelope in this kind of country at elevations bordering 9,000 feet. In
some cases antelope are seldom if ever hunted, Only if the season is
still on after the first snows his the hight country, driving them down into
the lower foothills and flats, do they feel the hunting pressure their flat
land relatives are subjected to every year.
     However, most sntelope stalked in the foothills and rough brakes are
forced there by early-season hunting pressure. Hunting in this kind of
country is usually better on the second day, of thereafter, than it is on the
first day. If the weather stays warm and sunny many if these antelope
will stay back in the hills untuk a big storm pushes them down onto the valley
floor again. Sometimes you can go into this rough, hill country after
the first week or two of the season, after they have settled down, and get
some of the finest hunting of all.
     this , of course, depends on when the season opens. Where seasons open
any time in September there will still be antelope back in the hight country
unless an unusually early snowstorm pushes them down, but they don't
like snow in the rough country for some reason. When snow comes they
head for the flats for the winter. Late in the season you'll find few antelope
at hight elevations or even in the foothills. The fact is, antelope hunting is to
be avoided any time after the last week in Octiber.
     At least two antelope states have certain areas with either late seasons
or where closing dates are well up in to November Nearly all of Montana's
antelope seasons run untill November 10, which, as we'll see later, is too
damn late to hunt antelope if you are looking for horns. Idaho has for several
years had two antelope areas that haven't opened until early November;
in 1969 it's November 8 to 23. All of these areas, in both states,
permit drawing for permits by nonresident hunter who have bought a
general big game license: Montana has several areas open to non-residents
via a special $35 non-resident antelope permit.
     What's wrong with this setup? Two things: At least 95% of the non-resident
antelope hunters anywhere are trophy hunters to some extent, and a
large part of the resident hunters also look for horns to shoot at. But what a
lot of antelope hunters don't know is that any time after November 1 many
of the nucks are starting to shed their horns: more importantly, in an average
year in most areas, nearly all horns have been dropped by November 10!

Refles and Loads

2010-06-24T08:26:00.000-07:00

THE GUN DIGEST:
There is little difference between refle-cartridge requirements for rough
country antelope hunting and those for flat country hunting. and those
for flat country hunting. The main consideration is this--you will be
packing your rifle over a lot of tough miles on your own two feet,even
though some of it may be on top of a pony. Down in the flatlands, where
most hunting is done from some kind of gas buggy, weight is of little conse-
quence. Fact is, maybe the extra weight of a heavy barrel, from the
standpoint of accuracy and holding qualities, will be the advantage you
need to make a long shot good.
The rifle to be used in the rough stuff, especially if it is high country,
should not weigh over 9 pounds complete with scope, and 8-8 1/2 is better.
A good 4x scope is as good as any, but if you like a variable and want to pack
the extra weight and bulk, they're OK too. As magnification, you'll have
just as much use for high power in rough country as on flat land. The
higher powers will often be of more value in hill country than on the flats.
Heat waves over flat land raise merry old hell with long range clear sighting
when you have too much power, especially on a hot, sun-bright day. With
some kind of crosshair type reticle, not coarser than medium, there is little
use for more than 4x. If the antelope is so far away you can't see him fairly
plainly, he's too far off to shoot at anyway. If you miss him with a good clear
4x it won't be because you can't see him well enough!
Cartridges suitable for hunting antelope in the rough stuff are much the
same as those best fitted for any other kind of pronghorn shooting. They're
not very big animals, few bucks dressing ou at as much as 100 pounds,
and they aren't hard to kill. Sure, he has his full share of vitality, and when
you sprinkle bullets around the edges and starr adrenalin pumping through
his system, he may go a long way, but he is small and it doesn't take much of
a bullet to penetrate his vital machinery. Most antelope that escape have
been shot in the legs or have been wounded inadvertantly, the hunter as-
suming that only those shich drop at the shot were hit.
Considering these things,it has always seemed to me that the prime
requirements of an antelope cartridge are these:that it shoots as flat as pos-
sible, be as accurate as a good varmint cartrighe, and that it uses a bullet
which exppands very rapidly, even at extreme ranges. Which all points to
high velocity and, in most cases, fairly light bullets. The magnum cartridges
make top-drawer pronghorn medicine because they fire bullets of good bal-
listic coefficient that shoot extremely flat from here to there and are drifted
off target less by the wind along the way.
On average, the range at which antelope will be shot in rough country
is not as great as it is in flat country. There is more cover and the nature
of the terrain makes much closer stalking possible. Howere, if you have a
carrtridges that shoots extremely flat,from here to there and are drifted
off target less by the wind along the way.
On average, the range at which antelope will be shot in rough country
is not as great as it is in flat country. There is more cover and the nature
of the terrain makes much closer stalking possible. However, if you have a
cartridge that shoots extremely flat,so much the better; if you beed the
extra range you've got it, and if you don't, it doesn't matter.
Perhaps one of the finest antelope cartridges of all times is the time-
tested 270 Winchester with 130-gr. bulles. The various 6mm numbers,
especially the new 240 weatherby, are all good pronghorn cartridges, as
are the 6.5mm remington and the 264 Winchester. The 7mm Remington
Magnum and the various wildcats of the same configuration are outstand-
ing for flantness and long range accuracy. Last but not least, there are the
various 30-caliber cartridges ranging from the 30-06 to the 300 Weatherby.
In fact, all of the Weatherby line except the 224 (which will certainly kill
antelope but is not recommended) and up to the 300, are outstanding for
this kind of long range work. Certainly the big 30s are far more powerful
than needed for antelope, but they do have the flat-shooting, wind-bucking,
bullet-expanding accuracy required for long-range shooting at game of this size.
Most of my antelope hunting has been in rough country, and I don't re
call ever killing one at over 300 honest yards. The first one was shot nearly
30 yeares ago with an old 30-40 Krag rifle and a 180-gr. handload. Most of
those I've killed since have been taken with various 7mm cartridges, from
the 7x57 to the 7mm Mashburn Super Magnum.
On average, and in most places, the pronghorn antelope always was and
still is an animal of the plains and flat,sage-covered benchlands. But many
antelope hunters would be amazed if they knew how many antelope there
were in the rough, broken country around the edges of the flats where
they hunt. For the most part, these hunters wouldn't go after them if
they did know they were therw. The popular trend is to pursue them with
a 4-wheel drive rig, with an occasional short hike to the top of some height
of land to tht on be country, then maybe a short stalk. Some of this is
brought on by guides more intersted in the number of hunters they can
handle in a season han in the pleasure of the hunt or in the quality of the
game their hunters kill. The result is that many who have hunted antelope
frequently don't know there is any other way to hunt them.
Few flat land hunters realize that whil they're chasing antelope until
their tongues hang out a foot, trying to get a shot at fust any kind of ante-
lope, some of their more hardy kin are having the time of thier lives stalking
the big bucks back in the foothills.

Indian Style

2009-12-17T03:08:00.000-08:00

When hunting antelope in flat country, where both
the hunterand thehunted can see for miles with little
cover available, we are inclined to forget good stalking
procedure; to see without being seen. We drive to
some little rise where we can see for miles in every
direction, take a good pair of binoculars or a spotting
scope and glass the country so far away that if there
are antelope there--even if they see us-- they're
seldom disturbed. Then we try to figure how to get to
them for the final stalk ( if any ) , and drive off in some
other direction in a big circle and ry to come within
range without spooking them. In mountain hunting the
same technique will buy you only disappintment.
This rough country antelope hunting is true stalking
from start to finish. You don't walk the ridges and climb
every high point to glass from its top. If you do that you'll
stick up like a sore thumb, to be seen by every antelope
anywhee in the area. Do't do it unless you've finished
glassing every ridge, sidehill and basin within a mile or
so, and want to study country so far away that antelope
there won't see you or pay any attention to you if they do.
In this kind of hunting you stay below the skyline.
If you are traveling in the same direction the ridges run,
up or down, stay below the crest, taking only an occasional
peek to glass the country beyond. If you are walking the
contours, as is usual with hunting rough country , you
don't just pop up onhigh part of the ridge and sit on its
top to do your glassing. When you top a ridge, no matter
which way you are traveling, pick a spot where there is
brush, high grass, an outcrop of rock, anything to break up
the bare line of the ridge. Find something you will blend in
with, something to help break up your silhouette.
Then you ease up to the top very slowly, sometimes on your
silhouette, Then you ease up to the top very slowly, sometimes
on your hands and knees or your belly, and you slip the binocular
or spotting scope over the top slow and easy like. You keep
moving up until you can see everything here is to see from
that point. Then, and only then, do you cross the top and move
on.
In this type of hunting you may find the antelope within spitting
distance when you poke your head over a ridge. If you've done it
right, they may not even knwo you are there. You may also spot
them--which is more usual--far out of range, feeding or bedded
on some wide slope, on the top of some ridge or bench, or down
on the floor of some high basin. In any of these situations you'll
be able to plan and execute your stalk in much the same manner
as in hunting sheep. Always remember to keep the wind right, stay
off the skyline, and,if you come up close for the shot, keep
quiet--don't talk aloud. Antelope also have sensitive ears and they
believe what they hear, too. If you must say something, whisper!

Watch the Wind!

2009-12-15T21:03:00.000-08:00

When stalking antelope in rough country, especially high
rough country along the toe of mountain slop where the wind
whips around in unpredictable directions, don't let it get
behind you. An antelope doesn't like your smell any more than
a sheep, deer or elk does, and you smell pretty bad to any
of them. When hunting antelope in flat counry you can pretty
well forget about wind direction because they depend mostly
on their sight to locate danger,and on their speep to keep it at
a safe distance. Most antelope country isflat or rolling, and
they've aleady seen you before you're ready to shoot,so their
winding you is of little consequence. This is especially true if
the hunting is done from a car. Game laws notwithstanding,
most pronghornsare killed from a vehicle or with the hunter
no more than a few feet from it.

I believe that many antelope hunters are much more worried

about how far the wind will drift their bullet than in whether

the buck smells them or not. This attitude can easily get you

into trouble in rough country.

On the last anteloope hunt I made the wind gave me a bad

time on the only buck I saw that might have been worth shooting.

I'd drawn my ticket for a unit that was all very rough country. In

fact, bighorn sheep lived in some of the canyons that ran off into

the river brakes. Higher up the ridges were open, dry and rocky,

with big basins filled with sage and clumps of aspen. I'd been

hunting in this country for nearly a week, looking for one of the

trophy bucks that the Fish and Game boys had told me were there.

I'd done it on my own hind feet, too, wearing my boots thin in 10to15

miles of up-and-down hunting every day. Up to then I'd seen a grand

total of three antelope. two does and a lonesome little fawn. Then,

late one afternoon, I found where a small band had come down off

the mountain, going into the rough brakes at the edge of the sheep

country.

I snooped around over the sharp little ridges until, finally, I

stuck my head over a sagebrush and saw several does. They were

about 175 yards below me on a hat-sized flat spot on the steep

sidehill. Working up until I was sitting behind the sagebrush, I

waited to see if there was a buck around. Suddenly one came

prancing up the hill from where several other does were feeding.

Bucks were in the rut and this one's attention was divided

between two girl friends, one in each bunch. He gave me little

chance for a shot as he dashed from one doe to the other, and he

wasn't very good anyway. At last I decided maybe I'd better

take him, for this might be the last day I'd have to hunt.

On his next visit to the does he stopped, facing me, a doe tight

on both sides of him. I put the crosshair of the 240 weatherby

scope at the base of his neck, a perfect shot at the range.

Then I saw a bunch of rabbitbrush twigs waving in the

magnifiedfield of the scope, right over the buck's neck

and chest. I knew that the 95-gr. Nosler, traveling at

just under 3400 foot seconds, might be deflected by that

brush, anout halfway out, and I might hit one of the does

instead. They didn't know I was there so I'd just wait him out.

Then, as I watched, a little puff of wind came from behind me.

An old doe that had been acting as lookout threw her head in

the air, blew a warning blast, and took off. The whole bunch went

over the lip of the bench in a cloud of dust, and that was that.

I lost that round of rough country antelope hunting by a tiny gust

of wind from the wrong direction at the right time, but that is what

makes stalking all worthwhile. The moral is, the wind is there, so

keep it in mind because antelope have pretty good noses and they

pay strict attention to what they smell and can't see.

Rough Country Antelope(2)

2009-10-31T19:27:00.000-07:00

This kind of pronghorn pursuit is hunting at its best; hunting
where you can stald them in the same manner you'd stalk Stone
and Dall sheep in much of northern British Columbia, the Yukon
or Alaska. Anyone who has ever hunted sheep soon finds that
antelope are every bit as hard to stalk as sheep, especially in rough
country. An antelope won't go into the rough stuff as far as a sheep
will, nor as high, but once he's been spooked where he normally lives,
down in the flat lands, you'll find him just as farsighted, alert and hard
to get on to as any ram.
Antelope in the rough stuff do have one habit that make them easier
to stalk than sheep, and that is their refusal to brush up in the timber
where you can't see them. Animals of the wide open spaces, they're
bound to stay where they can see what is going on around them--especially
after they've had a good scare! I've shot them in rough country pockets,
with fairly heavy bunches of scattered timber around the edges, but
they could usually see a couple of hundred yards in every direction.
These were bands that hadn't been disturbed, either. In any event, if you
get high enough so that you can look down into the pockets of onto the
benches or wide open hillsides, you'll have no trouble spotting them.
Then all you have to do is figure out how to stalk them to within
rifle range. That's all!

Rough country Antelope(1)

2009-10-31T00:47:00.000-07:00

Hight country pronghorn pursuit is antelope hunting at its
best. Up here you can stalk them as you would a Bighorn
sheep--and they're every bit as hard to come up on.
by BOB HAGEL

W E HAD BEEN climbing the rocky sage slope for nearly half an hour,
and the first pale, pink glow had just started to spread in the morning sky
above the jagged peaks to the east. Far below, where the long slope of
bench land drifted dounward from the toe of the Lost River Range to
Idaho's Pahsimeroi river, it was all but totally dark.
Domn there on the antelope flats the gleam of headlights traced
meandering, snake-like courses as vehicles pkcked their way between
the dry draws, around heavy patches of sage and greasewood. These
were antelope hunters, hoping somehow to find a herd in the gathering
light before someone else saw them first.
As the first streaks of gold tinted the summits of the peaks above, long
before there was shooting light down on the flats, the crackle of spasmodic
rifle fire drifted up on the thin morning air. Perhaps some trigger-happy
eager-beaver had momentarily frozen a band of pronghorn in the glare
of the headlights; maybe they had been reading about the "grey ghosts
of the plains." Whatever the reason, it would produce but two things:
cripppled or frightened antelope.
This was what we had expected, what we were ready for. As the
growing light revealed details below, the twinkle of headlights was
replaced by trails of dust spiraling upward as speeding wehicles
twisted this way and that try where we sat. With the number of
cars, pickups and feeps streaking across the flats, many of the
antelope failed to make it but, for the most part, the herds gained
the foothills. Some of them took a vigilant stand in the middle of
some high mountain face where they were almost impossible to
approachwithin rifle aange. Others dissolved into the draws that
twisted back into the broken, timbered lower slopes of the range,
foining other small bands already feeding in the seclusion of the
rough brakes.
This was the first day of the antelope season. Tomorrow
there would be few antelope left on the flat benches near the
floor of the valley, and those that were there would be next to
impossible to approach.
As the day wore on we stayed in the rough country, above
and beyond the reach of the 4-wheel-drive hunters. We sat
with binoculars, sweeping the foothills and watching the antelope
drift into pockets protected by rocky ridges or moving behind
the cover of fir and mountain mahogany. When a little band settled
doun we'd glass them until we agreed there was nothing that
looked good; then we'd locate another bunch.
Before the sun slid behind the ridges to the west, we'd killed
a pair of bucks that were both over the 14" mark. We'd passed up
a dozen or so more that were not much smaller. if there had been
any record-class heads about, we'd have had every opportunity
to size them up and collect them.
Not all sections offer this kind of antelope hunting, but there is
a lot more of it than many hunters realize. It may not be as scenically
spectacular as the country that rises from the sage flats toward the
crown of Idaho's 12,655-foot Mt. Borah, but there are often rough
mountains or brakes around the perimeter of the antelope range that
afford the same type of hunting.

Colt's Competiors

2009-10-25T23:42:00.000-07:00

Colt's Competitors

After Samuel Colt's patent ran ort on his revolving cylinder principle in

1857, Remington, Smith & Wesson and a number of other manufacturers

had turned to making pistols witha revolving cylinder. Some gained a

degree of popularity in the West, but the Colt remained predominant. The

earlier caplock pepperbox pistols, with no separate barrel and cylinder,

presented the apperance of an elongated multi-bored cylinder from which the

balls were directly fired. They were cheaper than most orthodox revolvers

and gained some popularity in the Far West, especially among the miners.

As the metallic cartridge repeating arms gained in popularity the Spencer

and Winchester became the early favorites. When Winchester's Model

1873, the first repeater to shoot centerfire reloadable cartridges, came on

the maket it gained great popularity. As one of the points in its favor,

the cartridges were of the same calibers (except for the 45) used in Colt

Single Action Army revolvers.

The progress and variety of arms after 1873 was tremendous. Fine single-shot
rifles for hunting and target shooting became available along with
improved repeaters. Derringers and pocket pistols in the populated areas
replaced the big holster pistols, and the carrying of any sidearm went out of style.
By the 1880s prominent Easterners were looking westward to invest
in the newly opened land. Among these was Theodore Roosevelt who,
in 1883, purchased several ranches near Medora, Dakota Territory.
Among his favorite guns while in Dakota was a 45-120 Sharps, a Model
1876 Winchester in 45-75 caliber and an ivory handled Colt Single Action
Army 45.

Once the Indian hostilities had been reasonable controlled, attention was
directed toward building up the settlements, extending the transportation
and communication systems, and developing the land into its most
profitable uses. Hunting to provide food and competitive shooting
for sport dept firearms as a vital implement in every western home.
The establishment of law and order in rough new settlements and
self-pro-tection in the town or in the open called for the presence of a gun.

In all this great shifting of the population from east of the Mississippi to
the west, guns alone did not "Win the West." It took courage, perseverance
and sweat. But the way was made possible and easier by a tool of man's
ingenuity--the gun. Actually many kinds of guns gave dependable service
in bringing a good way of life to this land. Here it is possible to mention
only those which played the most prominent roles.

The historian Augustus C. Buell wrote: In all the annals of the frontier and
pioneer, of struggles that wrested the continent from its savage owners and
made it a freehold of civtlization, the rifle has been the instrument of destiny
and the symbol of progress."

If there was any way to produce an orderly society and to write the history
of this nation other than by raw courage and superior weapons, that way could
not found.
REF: THE GUN DIGEST

The 45-70 Springfield

2009-10-24T23:34:00.001-07:00

Although western military commanders
had urgently petitioned their
superiors to send them Spencer repeating
rifles and carbines, very few
ever were issued. The standard weapons
used in the Indian Wars of the
late 1870s and 1880s were the Springfield
45-70 trapdoor rifles and carbines
and the Colt Single Action
Army 45 revolvers. Some "44 American"
and 45 Schofield" model
Smith & Wesson revolvers were also used.
It was with the 45-70 singleshot
Springfields and Colt 45 revolvers
that Ceneral Custer's command

was armed when they were trapped
by Sitting Bull's Sioux on the Little
Big Horn and upwards of 300 brave
cavalrymen gave up their lives. Custer
had left his fast shooting Gatling guns
back at his base camp.

On July 17, 1876, a young scout
for the Fifth Cavalry had his big opportunity.
In a duel with the Cheyenne
Chief Yellow Hand, William F.
Cody killed his adversary and
promptly removed the scalp-lock, declaring
it to be "the first scalp for
Custer!" Cody, better known as Buffalo
Bill, started out using Sawken
and Mississippi rifles, Colt cap and
ball pistols and, later, his favorite,
a 50-70 Springfield rifle he affectionately
called "Lucretia Borgia."
In his later showmanship days Cody
used Winchester repeating rifles,
especially the Model 1873.
By the late 1870s the Indian Wars
on the plains were near an end. The
famous Indian fighters General Nelson A.
Miles and General George
Crook were in the thick of this fighting .
After the plains Indians were
driven onto reservations, the scene
of major Indian war activity shifted
to Arizona, and it was not until 1886
that the Apache reign of terror was
broken by the surrender of Geronimo.
Indian hostilities were not the only
dangers that plagued the West. Towns
like Abilene, Dodge City, Deadwood,
Panamint City and Tombstone had
their share of hard characters who
used their six-guns without conscience
or hesitation. Stage holdups were
commonplace. One shotgun-wielding
California stage robber named Black
Bart robbed 28 stages and somtimes
left a poetic note for his victims which
he signed "The Po-8." One such note

Eventually, lawmen like the Earps,
Bat Masterson, Wild bill Hickok,
John R. Hughes, Billy Breakenridge,
John Slaughter, Jeff Milton and others
were able to cool the ardor and
restrain the activities of the lawless.
For a mafouity of these lawmen the
Colt Single Action Army revolver was
a customary piece of attire. It is
doubtful that any would want to have
been caught with one of those Colt
models with a 16-inch barrel dramatized
as the "Buntline."

Ref: Gun digest

The Wagon Box Fight

2009-10-22T00:52:00.000-07:00

The tide of war swung back to favor
the soldiers on August 2 of 1867. At
what has become known as "The
Wagon Box Fight, " outside of Fort
Phil Kearny , Captain James W. Powell
and a detail of 31 men were attacked
by a great horde of Red
Colud's Sioux warriors numbering
several thousand. As in the Nelson
Story battle, Captain powell had had a
surprise for the Sioux. A short time
before, the command had been issued
S p r i n g f i e l d rifles converted by a
"trapdoor" breech from muzzle-loaders
to breechloaders of 50-70 caliber.
Powell's men had plenty of copper
cartridges and they poured such a
rapid and withering fire into the
Sioux that they were forced to withdraw
with great losses.

A tragic personal note in 1867

wasthe shooting of John Bozeman, for

whom the Bozeman Trail had been

named. Bozeman was killed by a

Model 1841 "Mississippi" rifle, which

had somehow come into possession

of a Blackfoot Indian.

Another costly repulse for the Indians

near Fort C.F. Smith on the

Big Horn River was further repayment

for the Fetterman massacre. In 1868,

at a fork of the Republican

River, in what was Known as "The

Beecher Island Fight," fifty cavalrymen

armed with breechloaders stood

off 700 Cheyennes. But there was

more hard fighting to come. The Indians

became more desperate when,

in 1869, the railroad which had cut

through their hunting grounds Iinked

East and West. With the railroad

come settlements and into the settlements

came hunters seeking quick

money by harvesting buffalo hides.

By this time Sharps and Remington

had developed strong breech-loading

rifles shooting long, powerful metallic

cartridges. Armed with Sharps

rifles 28 buffalo hunters and a woman

held off a war party of 1000 Indians

at Adobe Walls. Among these men

were Billy Dixon, a famous scout,

and W.B. (Bat) Masterson, later to

become famous as a lawman.

The goverment gave tacit approval

to the wanton destruction of the

buffalo herds. They reasoned that the

West was an area which providence

had provided for an expanding population

and once the Indians were deprived

of their food supply they could

be contained on limited reservations

and easily controlled. While idealistic

in conception, government ambitions

were somewhat brutal in their fulfillment .

Turning the empty plains into

farms and ranches, converting the

trails to railroads with towns and cities

strung across the continent was a

nice dream for the white man but the

nomadic red man was not readu to

give up his way of life'without a final

struggle. The 1870s and 1880s were

to see that struggle.

by:Gun Digest EDITED BY JOHN T. AMBER

Colts and Sharps

2009-08-29T22:55:00.000-07:00

Going into the latter 1850s the horse
soldiers in the West received some im-
proved weapons. Big Colt 44 Army
pistols, called the Dragoon Model,
replaced the old single-shot pistols.
These were caplock six-shooters
weighing 4 pounds and were hard
shooting weapons. Some were fur-
nished with an attachable shoulder
stock, making them into a "pistol-
carbine." This experiment, along with
an 1855 Model Springfield single- shot
caplock pistol with attachable stock,
proved unpopular; the soldiers pre-
ferred the reliable breechloading
Sharps carbines, very popular
throughout the West. Some were used
by the Pony Express, by stagelines
and others as well as by the military.
In 1858, the same year as the gold
rush to Pike's Peak in Colorado, the
Butterfield Overland Mail completed
its first run, providing a link in trans-
contiental travel from coast to coast.
Two years later the pony Express
started the drumming of hoof beats
between St. Joseph, Missouri, and
Sacramemto, California. oter, although
Riders of the Pony Express pre-
ferred the Model 1851 Colt Navy pis-
tol, a 36-caliber six-shooter, although
a few carried the big 44 Dragooon Colt,
106 having been furnished by the
army and 25 by citizens of Sacramen-
to. The Colt"Navy" pistols were so
named more for the baval scene en-
graved on their cylinder than for their
use by that branch of the service.
The army supplied 60 of the 54-cali-
ber Model 1841 "Missisippi" rifiles
for use at the Pony Expreess relay
stations. The riders preferred the
light 52-caliber Sharps carbines when
it was necessary for them to carry a
shoulder arm.
When General James H. Carleton
led his California Volunteers into Ari-
zona in 1862 to drive the Confederate
forces back into Texas, his men were
armed with 58-caliber Springfield ri-
fled muskets, Sharps carbines, Colt
36 Navy pistols, and sabers. Team-
sters were given the big44 Colt Dra-
goon six-shooters.
Life for the army became increas-
ingly difficult as all kinds of people
filtered into the West. More stage-
lines crisscrossed the teritory, with
Ben Holladay emerging as "The
Stagecoach King," but soon to be
succeeded by Wells Fargo. By this
time the Henry, the Model 1866 Win-
chester (both 44 rimfere caliber) and
56-52 Spencer repeating rifles had ap-
peared. These, along with the ever-
effective double barrel shotguns,
were often part of the armament used
by stagecoach guards "riding shot-
gun."
After the War between the States.
pioneers like Charles Goodnight
Jesse Chisholm drove herds of cattle
north to Colorado and Wyoming, and
to railroad shipping points in Kansas.
Not satisfied with this, in 1866 Nel-
son Story decided to drive a herd of
3000 cattle up to the fine grazing
lands of Montana. The Sioux had
Bozeman Trail through Montana were
undermanned no escorts were avail-
able, but Story had an ace in the hole.
Somehow he had managed to obtain
a number of the first Remington roll-
ing-block 50-caliber breechloaders to
be sent into the west, and when the
Sioux attacked theu received such a
hot reception from Story and his men
that they were driven off with severe
losses.
It was a different story in December
of 1866 when Brevet Lieutenant Col-
onel William J. Fettermen led a de-
tachmeny of 81 men on a scouting
mission from Fort Phill Kearnu, a fort
on the Little Piney hated by the In-
dians. Armed primarily with Civil
War muzzle-loading rifled muskets
and some Sharps carbines, Fetter-
man's command was surprised by
2000 Sioux and shot down to the last
man. James Wheatley and Isaac Fish-
er had accompanied Fetterman, wish-
ing to experiment with their new Hen-
ry 44-caliber 16-shot rimfire rifles:
they were later found slumped over
piles of empty cartridge cased and
brutally mutilated.

i

The Conquest of California

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The progress of this army may be
quickly summed up by stating that
they took New Mexico with hardly a
shot fired and quickly occupied that
vital territory. General Kearny, leav-
ing others to the occupation duties,
took a detachm in of about 100 men
and started out for C alifornia. A short
distance out of Sante Fe, Kearny met
Kit Carson on the trail. Carson was
returning from California to visit his
family in Taos. Akvised of the impor-
tant nature of Kearny's missionm, Car-
son agreed to turn around and guide
the soldiers to SanDiego for a ren-
dezvous with sailors and marines of
the Pacific Squadron commanded by
Commodore Robert F. Stockton. At
San Pascual, northeast of San Diego,
the Dragoons met a force of superbly
mounted Californianos and a desper-
ate fight ensued. They eventually
reached San Diego and, with a force
of men from the Pacific Squadron,
marched north to victories at the San
Gabriel River and at Los Angeles.
Fremont, in command of a force re-
cruited in northern California, took
so long on the way south that he ar-
rived just in time for the surrender.
Sailors and marines of the Pacific
Squadron were still using flintlock
muskets in 1846. Some had pikes and,
as has been mentioned, a group of
skirmishers had Colt revolving cylin-
der caplock carbines.
Following closely after the first ap-
pearance of U.S. soldiers in the South-
west under General Kearny, Col. Phil-
ip St. George Cooke was ordered to
build a wagon road from the Rio
Grande to the Pacific Ocean. Recruit-
ing a battalion comprised mostly of
Mormons, who had been stranded on
the way west while migrating from
Illinois, Cooke's "Mormon Battalion"
of about 400 men raised a lot of dust
and did a creditable job. One of the
conditions of their enlistment was
that they could retain thier arms when
mustered out in C"alifornia. They were
armed with an assortment of weapons,
mostly smoothbore muskets, but a
few of the fortunate ones had Model
1841 brass-mounted caplock rifles.
These excellent guns were 54 caliber
and are sometines called the "yager"
or "mississippi" rifle. they saw ser-
vice in many areas of the West and
were second only to the Hawken rifle
in efficiency and popularity.
While all this activity was going on
westward from the Missouri into the
Southwest, other trails farther north
felt the tread of venturesome Amer-
icans seeking a new life and land of
their own.
Following Captain L.E. de Bonne-
ville's expedition into Oregon in 1832,
the missionaries Whitman and Spald-
ing made the journey to christianize
the Indians. By 1846 the dispute
with England over the U.S.-Canadian
border was settled, and the Hudson's
Bay Company was forced to move its
posts up into British Columbia.
While they had been in the Oregon
Territory, however, many of those
"Northwest" flintlock trade guns
came into the hands of Indians of
that area.
With land in the Oregon Territory
open to homesteading, the trail to
Oregon through South Pass, Fort
Bridger and Fort Hall was rutted by
the passing of many wagons. In 1847
Brigham Young and his followers
swung southwest from Fort Bridger,
saw the great salt lake, and declared
"This is the place! " While the Mor-
mons in Utah obtained a number of
Colt cap and ball pistols and other
arms manufactured in the East, it
was not long before their own gun-
smiths were turning out weapons.
Among these artisans was Jonathon
Browning, father of John M. Brown-
ing, who was a greater western history-
maker than John Moses Browning,
whose inventions were eagrly sought
and used by Winchester, Colt, and
other prominent arms manufacturers!
By 1849 the stamped west got in
full swing--gold had been discovered
in California. Now the role of the
army was complicated and greatly ex-
panded. There were forts to build
and emigrants to be protected from
the Indians who were beginning to
get very restive over all this traffic
through lands which had been their
private preserves for years.

The Walker Colts

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The Walker Colts

These early Colt arms were to gain national recognition a few years later in the hands of the Texas Rangers under John C. Hays, Samuel H. Walker and others. During the conquest of California in 1846, a few Colt revolving cylinder carbines were issued to sailors of the Pacific Squadron when these men were used as skirmishers in the attack on Los Angeles. A party of’49era stranded in Death Valley was rescued by William Manly and John Rogers with the aid of a Colt caplock cylinder rifle.
From the early 1840s onward the Topographical Engineers of the U.S. Army began to play an important role in mapping the West and determining travel routes ,selecting sites for forts and settlements, and eventually mapping the route for the transcontinental railroad. One of the first to head a government exploration of the country lying between the Missouri River and the Pacific slope, was a young lieutenant of the Topographical Engineers, John Charles Fremont, a very controversial figure in western history. Altogether Fremont made five trips of exploration into the West, but only three were made in behalf of the government. Of these three trips we have good accounts, and through old records deep in the archives of the General Service Administration I have learned, among other things, a lot about the firearms Fremont selected for these journeys and where he bought them.
The first Fremont government exploration proceeded only to the Rocky Mountains, but the second expedition in 1843-1844 and the journey in 1845-1846 extended through to California. Fremont’s companions for the most part were voyageurs of French extraction, but he did have Kit Carson to guide him on all three trips along with Alexander Godey and a few others on whom he could fully rely, such as Charles Preuss , a German topographer. Not many guns showed up in Fremont’s purchases for the first trip, the men he hired usually supplying their own. Up the Missouri at Westport a shotgun and eight rifles were purchased from the Chouteau trading post along with some shot pouches, powder horns, powder, lead and percussion caps.

The Hall caplock carbine the Model 1836 flintlock horse pistol and the saber were the first military weapons to travel overland in the West, carried by General Kearny’s mounted infantrymen called “Dragoons.”
Fremont’s Arsenals

Before leaving Washington for his second trek in 1843 Fremont purchased from Charles Renard “one large Swiss rifle” at $40. In May 1843, he stopped in at the shop of J. & S. Hawken in St. Louis to have two brace of pistols “percussioned,” a rifle barrel dressed out and a new nipple installed. From William Campbell he bought a double barrel shotgun and along the route west he purchased several guns from individuals
By the time Fremont was ready to outfit his party for his third trip, across the western plains and mountains to California, he had learned the importance of good quality firearms.
From the gun store of Joseph Cooper at New York he purchased in April, 1845, the following:
1 Pair officers pistols in case, complete $50

3 rifles with German silver mounts, patent breech, hair triggers. Percussion bar action locks @ $20. $60
12 rifles as above with steel mounts and back action locks @ $ 20. $240
With the pair of pistols and the 15 rifles, Fremont bought woolen covers for the rifles, 6 extra locks and cocks, nipples, nipple wrenches and 5000”Best English percussion caps (probably Eley’s) Still on the lookout for good rifles, Fremont stopped in Louisville enroute west and on May 24 purchased from Dickson & Gilmore eight half-stock caplock rifles with the patent breech,along with some powder horns and percussion caps.
Reaching St. Louis Fremont was still in a buying mood, obtaining a rifle from Hoffman & Campbell. His most important purchase, however, was made on June 8, 1845, when he purchased the following from J.&S.Hawken:
27 rifles @ $20 $540.00
1 “ @ $22 $ 22.00
2 “ @ $30 $ 60.00
Repairs
No doubt Kit Carson, long a user of Hawken rifles, had convinced Fremont that these were the best guns for what lay ahead. The Fremont party, now well armed, proceeded on its arduous and dangerous travels westward. Fremont later stated that some of the rifles he bought in 1845 were obtained with the object of offering them as prizes for the best marksmanship, to be shot for during the journey.
On the Pacific slope, Fremont had repaired by Peter Lassen and John Sutter. He purchased supplies at various places including the Leidesdorff store at Yerba Buena and the store of Henry Mellus, where, on July 2, 1846, he purchased a pair of pistols, 5 muskets, powder, lead, flints and percussion caps.
This ambitious young son-in-law of Senator Benton held various military ranks, but other than his explorations John Charles Fremont’s services as a military officer and as a politican were unimpressive and controversial. He did earn a place in the history books , and guns were an inseparable part of his early career when he was known as “ The Pathfinder”
The Fremont journeys into California were not altogether in the interest of topographical information. War with Mexico was threatening and California was a rich prize—Fremont’s “explorations” could provide important information.
A moment of decision of decision was reached concerning the Mexican War and how the United States must react in the western territories. In May of 1846 General Stephen W. Kearny led his “Army of the West” out of Fort Leavenworth toward Mexican Santa Fe. Kearny’s command was made up of 1700 mounted infantrymen known as the First Dragoons. Each trooper was armed with a Hall breechloading caplock carbine, a Model 1836 flintlock horse pistol and a heavy saber.

The U.S. flintlock musket (top) is the type used by sailors of the pacific Squadron in the Mexican War. Below it, the popular Model 1841 caliber 54 “Mississippi” rifle.

Jim Bridger’s Hawken Rifle

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Jim Bridger’s Hawken Rifle

Very similar to the Howken rifle this caplock gun, new in the Los Angeles County Museum, way made by Philadelphia for General James H. Carleton. Frontier Dragoon soldier.

Jim Bridger’s Hawken is preserved at the Montana Historical Society, and Mariano Modena’s rifle may be seen at the Colorado State Museum. Many men who made western history did it with the help of a Hawken rifle. These were plain, well-made caplock guns,usually with a half stock, although some full-stock guns were made. The barrels were heavy and usually rifled to handle a ball of about 54 caliber. They were bad medicine for the grizzly bear, the buffalo, or the hostile Indian. I once had the good fortune to own a collection of seven Hawken rifles. Today a good specimen, which sold originally from $20 to $30, may bring several thousand dollars.

Contemporary with the Hawken rifles were plain caplock guns made for the Indian trade by H. E. Leman of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. These were rather short rifles with bar action locks and usually with a full stock under the octagon barrel. Indians liked to decorate them with brass-headed tacks. The largest group of these Leman Indian guns was originally in the U.S. Cartridge Company collection. While usually found in poor condition they are nevertheless valued highly by collectors.

By 1834 the old system of holding a trapper trading rendezvous in the mountains gave way to private forts at strategic locations. Ambitious merchants like the Chouteaus of St. Louis established trading posts at landings on the upper Missouri, such as Westport, whence trails branched off for Fort Laramie and Fort Bridger or ran southwest to Bent’s Fort on the Arkansas.
It was via Bent’s Fort that the Santa Fe Trail looped its way across Kansas and Colorado into New Mexico. This became known as the road of commerce while the Oregon Trail was the path of the home seeker; the Overland and California trails were known as the routes of the gold-seeker, mail and express; the Bozeman Trail became the bloody battleground of the fighting Sioux.

Lt. John Charles Fremont. Sometimes called “The Pathfinder,” he made five long trips to and beyond the Rocky Mountains in the 1840s.

Following the Santa Fe Trail with his caravan of trade goods Josiah Gregg in 1839 probably introduced the first of many Colt repeating firearms to travel along western trails. He later wrote: “Thanks to Mr. Colt’s invention I carried thirty-six charges ready loaded, which could easily fire at the rate of a dozen per minute.” Gregg referred to colt’s caplock cylinder rifles and pistols made at Paterson, New Jersey, and the practice of carrying extra loaded cylinders.

Guns of the western history makers

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gallery

In addition to the Stars and Stripes, the flags of Spain, France, England, Russia, Mexico, the Confederacy and the short-lived Bear flag of California have been raised aloft in our American West. This is an area with a history that started well before Captain John Smith was being ransomed for “two guns and a grindstone”at Jamestown in the early 1600s, or the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony were blasting away at turkey gobblers for their Thanksgiving dinners.
The first sound of gunfire in North America was in our Southwest when Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led a force of soldiers north from Mexico. He was in search of reported gold and other treasure, and his soldiers were armed with assorted weapons including some matchlock muskets and possibly a few wheel-lock guns. The year was 1540.

Soldiers have burned much of the gunpowder and written many pages of western history, but there were also the self-reliant Mountain Men, the hardy miners, pioneer settlers and early merchants of varied nationalities, the lawmen and the lawless. And, of course, there was the native—the Indian. For the western migration it was said the “The weak died along the way and the timid never started.”

Rivalries among the Indian tribes made it somewhat less difficult for the white men to secure a foothold on the North American continent, but the task was not easy.
Following the explorations of Coronado from Mexico into the Southwest men with a mission
Like Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, “the padre on horseback,” and the trieless Father Garces, In California there was Father Junipero Serra, a remarkable man among all pioneers in American history. With these pioneers of the cross came adventurous leaders like the borderlands frontiersman Juan Bautista de Anza.

Spanish endeavors in bringing Christianity to the native Indians and establishing settlements extended into the 1700s and 1800s In this period the primary weapons were the sword, the lance and the flintlock musket. Horsemen used a short flintlock carbine often called an escopeat. The flintlock ignition, it will be remembered, extended, it will be remembered, extended well over 200 years into the 1800s and indluded miquelet, snaphaunce and other variations of flintlock from.

Spanish settlements at Santa Fe. Taos. Tubac and Tucson attracted the caravans of trade ; and to San Diego, Monterey, Los Angeles, and Yerba Buena ( San Francisco ) came the sailing ships. Not only did the caravans of trade goods come up the trails from Mexico, but they eventually came overland from the Missouri. The ships of Spain, England, Russia and some other countries the waters of the blue Pacific.

Thus there came to the Southwest, and to the West Coast the stirrings of a great migration. Although the Pacific coastline was first dominated entirely by Spain, England soon had a foothold to the north of California; the Russians came across into Alaska and down into northern California; France claimed a great but little known section of West extending from the Mississippi to the coasts of what are now the states of Oregon and Washington. In all this reaching out to extend the empires of Russia, England and the European countries, the skirmishing was light, Indian troubles attained no great proportion, and the flintlock muskets of the various nations were used primarily to harvest the game which was in great abundance.

The pace was stepped up at end of the 18th century, and in 1803 France ceded to the United States its vast claim to western territory. Although up to this time a few rifles may have been brought in by traders, the smoothbore flintlock musket, or fusil, was the predominant firearm west of the Mississippi.

18th Century Army

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18th Century Army

A favorite firearm of this per-1800 period, and for 50 or more years thereafter, was a model we now call “The Northwest Gun.” These light fusils were made with a full stock under the round smoothbore barrel; they had an unusually large trigger guard; and the flint firing lock was the bar action type. They could shoot either a ball or shot and are generally thought of as trade guns.

The pelts of the beaver and the hides of the buffalo were major items of trade with the Indians, and inasmuch as firearms could enable the redmen to devote more time to the harvesting of pelts and hides, traders took the calculated risk of putting guns in Indian hands.

Shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in early 1803 the United States began planning to send an exploring party through this vast new domain. Captain William Clark and Captain Meriwether Lewis were chosen for this arduous adventure. They started from St. Louis on May 14, 1804, leading a party of 43 men, and were destined not to see that city again until September of 1806. With Lewis and Clark went a few of the new U.S. rifles, Model of 1803, made at Harpers Ferry. These handsome brass-mounted guns, with their short half-length forestock, hand round barrels with 54 caliber rifles carried by Americans across the continent to the west coast. Here we have a beginning of a great variety of firearms destined to serve thise with a pioneering spirit whose actions were to shape our western history.

James Bridger, one of the great guides of
The early West; founder of Fort Bridger.

Great events were in store for the first half of the 1800s, and guns were to figure importantly in almost all. The exploration of Lewis and Clark and some others had uncovered the potential of the western fur trade. In 1810 John Jacob Astor deciding this alone was a basis for expanding the American empire to the Columbia River basin. Soon St. Louis became the home of the nation’s principal fur companies.
The steamboat was a familiar sight on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and by 1820 was nosing up the Missouri, revolutionizing commerce toward the west.
Within five years the American Fur Company became a major factor in the push westward. Employed in the fur trade were great pathfinders like William Ashley, Andrew Henry, Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger, William Sublette, James Clyman, Joe Meek, Tom Fitzpatrick and kit Carson. All these men needed dependable guns – Jake and Sam Hawken of St. Louis were the men to provide them.
Sam Hawken joined his brother Jake at St. Louis in 1822 and their reputation for what became known as a sturdy “Mountain Rifle” spread rapidly. The name Hawken on a rifle was like the Sterling stamp on silver. Hawken rifles were the favorites of the bold group we call Mountain Men. Jedediah Smith carried one over his saddle when he led the first group of white men overland by the southern route, arriving at California’s San Gabriel Mission in 1826, Kit Carson owned several, one now the property of Montezuma Lodge No.1, F.&A.M., in Santa Fe, and currently on loan to the Museum of New Mexico. Another of Carson’s Hawken rifles was presented to Lt. Edward F. Beale, whose heirs later gave it to Theodore Roosevelt. It is now in the collection of the Boone & Crockett Club.