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Resistance See other Resistance Articles Title: How Big a Gun Do You Need? We Americans like to do things in a big way. Big houses. Big cars. Big boats. And, yes, big guns. There are good arguments for all this, of course. The big house accommodates more guests. The same is true of large cars and boats, both of which are also more “crashworthy” if worse comes to worse. And anyone who has ever been faced with something large and dangerous at the muzzle end will tell you that a big gun is far more reassuring than a little one at such moments. And yet, there is a strong argument for downsizing. A great many of our readers have improved their quality of life by moving from a big place in the city to a smaller home in more rural America. Smaller cars and boats are more economical, more convenient, more nimble, and often more fun to pilot. Similarly, smaller firearms are handier, more convenient, produce less fatigue when carried afield all day, and are often faster and more efficient to deploy in close quarters such as thick brush. The first thing to consider is power level. Some situations demand more powerful guns than others. If you live in “big-bear” country, you definitely want a very powerful rifle. Most professional hunting guides would consider the 7mm Remington Magnum or .338 Winchester Magnum to be the absolute minimum caliber for facing grizzly or polar bear. If your backwoods digs are on the African continent and nasty-tempered Cape buffalo or rampaging elephants are in your backyard, you actually NEED an elephant gun in the .375 Magnum or larger class. Indeed, the game laws of most African countries specify the .375 Holland & Holland Magnum as the minimum caliber for the humane hunting of the pachyderm. Fortunately, most who read this publication have much smaller wildlife pests to contend with. Any gun shop owner can tell you how many neophyte hunters come in asking for a .300 Magnum or 7mm Magnum rifles with which to hunt deer. Unless the country is very open and extreme long shots are the rule – in which case the flat trajectories of these powerful cartridges start to make sense – you simply don’t need this power level to cleanly kill anything smaller than a large elk or a moose. Indeed, any hunting guide or conservation officer can tell you that every day, moose and elk are cleanly killed by hunters with run-of-the-mill .30-06 hunting rifles. Loaded with the proper bullet, a .30-06 or even .270 is ample for any non-dangerous game on the American continent, not to mention the common black bear. Shotguns? I’ll agree that the 12-gauge is the most versatile shell. At the same time, that’s a lot of gun for some people. The legendary shotgun expert Francis E. Sell was a big fan of the less powerful 20-gauge, and found that with the right load, it was ample for ducks and geese, let alone upland birds. However, that was in the days of lead shot. The steel shot mandated long ago for waterfowl hunting (to keep spent lead out of the water and out of the bellies of living birds) does not penetrate as well as lead, and this has caused waterfowl hunters to increase their firepower. The small 20-gauge shell is rarely seen in duck blinds today, and the standard 12-gauge 2¾'' shell, substantially more powerful than the 20, has given way to the 3'' Magnum and now the 3½'' Magnum, with many serious duck and goose hunters preferring the massive 10-gauge Magnum for pass shooting on the waterways. This is one area where power cannot be sacrificed, simply because of the steel shot rule. Nitro-Pak Preparedness Center Thank you for supporting LRC with your online orders On the other hand, lead is legal for hunting pheasants, partridge, turkey, and so on, and of course for deer in jurisdictions where the fish and wildlife laws forbid rifles and allow only shotguns for white-tail hunting. For upland birds, it’s hard to argue with Sell’s logic that at reasonable ranges, the lighter, faster-handling 20-gauge will get you on the rising bird more quickly than a heavier 12-gauge shotgun. “Deer slug” shotgun ammunition has improved by leaps and bounds. Remington’s all-copper sabot round has proven to be a deadly deerslayer in the 20-gauge size. Thus, with the exception of waterfowl hunting, the shotgunner’s needs can be better met than ever with something smaller than the big, traditional 12-gauge. Rifles In the last generation, we have seen a sea change in sporting rifle configuration. When I was young, the Winchester Model 70 Featherweight and the Remington Model 600 carbine were about your only choices if you wanted a lightweight but still very accurate bolt-action hunting rifle. Today, the Featherweight is still available, and Remington’s Model 7 is the best seller in this category. I’ve been very pleased with Ruger’s equivalent, the Model 77 Compact; the sample I tested would shoot three rounds of premium-grade .243 hunting ammunition into one inch at 100 yards. Yet these delightfully accurate rifles, delivering the same power as their bigger brothers when chambered for .308 Winchester and similar cartridges, are as easy to carry all day as a much less powerful Winchester Model 94 lever action, chambered for the shorter-range .30-30 cartridge. Often called “mountain rifles,” these lightweight bolt guns have kept pace with technology developed for hikers. Lighter boots, lighter packs, lighter tents, lighter everything. Another technological parallel between the sports of riflery and hiking is improved weather resistance. Today’s telescopic sights for rifles are more secure against the elements, keeping their nitrogen filler inside and reducing the likelihood of fogging. The traditional wooden stock absorbed moisture and warped, sometimes pressing against the rifle’s barrel and altering point-of-bullet impact. Today, numerous space-age materials including Kevlar have largely replaced wood on working high-tech hunting rifles. They do not change dimensions with temperature or inclement weather. Rust was always the bane of sporting arms carried afield in fair weather and foul; today, stainless steel barrels and actions make rust much slower to accumulate, though stainless is by no means rustproof. Rifle barrels tend to be shorter nowadays. A carbine, or short-barreled rifle, has historically been seen as a short-range firearm. The reason a longer barrel was equated with greater accuracy was largely that in the old times, the rifle mounted iron sights. “Sight radius” – the distance between front and rear sight – was a definite element in determining how much accuracy a rifleman could deliver downrange. The greater the distance between rear sight and front, the less aiming error there was as perceived by the human eye. The easiest way to increase this accuracy was to increase the distance between the sights, and in turn, the easiest way to do that was to lengthen the barrel, since the front sight was located just above and behind the muzzle. Today, optical sights are more the rule than the exception. This means that the sight radius advantage of a longer rifle barrel is eliminated from the equation. In Iraq or Afghanistan, if the soldier’s rifle carries the issue red dot electronic optical sight by Aimpoint, his accuracy will be exactly the same whether he is firing an M4 with a 14'' barrel or an older M16 with a 20'' barrel, all other things being equal. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Ada (#0)
Personally I'm fond of the 44 mag. Handgun and scoped rifle, tis a nice pair. Of course a plain wall won't stop a 44 caliber bullet. LOL.
"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that its people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms....The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson
It all depends on the target and the purpose.
A little of everything is my rule of thumb.
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