As America tires of war after war after war, a lot of cool military products are finding their way into the consumer market. Our friends at US Tactical Supply sent over our latest cool new toy right before SHOT Show, and we are just getting around to it now. It is called the “Hog Saddle.” Designed by a Marine Scout Sniper, the Hog Saddle has been adopted by the US Military with its own NSN number and has seen battle time in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Hog Saddle is basically a rifle vise that sits on top of a photo tripod as a rest for your rifle. It allows you to make shots that might otherwise be outside your ability to steady the gun. For a couple years now the Hog Saddle has seen great success in law enforcement circles, and you won’t meet a military sniper that hasn’t at least heard of it, and many have used one. The problem with the Hog Saddle, of course, is that it was made for the military, to be paid for with tax dollars, not real dollars. At $309 through US Tactical, it probably is worth the money, and it is made from CNC machined aluminum, but then again, so is a whole AR-15 upper, which is about the same price. The Hog Saddle is expensive, but it could pay for itself in one outing is on expensive guided hunts. You pay for the elk, or the gator, or the wildebeest, as soon as the guide puts you in front of it. Whether you take the shot, hit or miss, you pay the same generally. The Hog Saddle is an elite tool for elite operators, but it could also be the saving grace between an empty wall in your den or one graced with the trophy of a lifetime.

The most intimidating piece of reloading your own ammunition is the choice of a gunpowder. At $20-$30 per pound, powder is not the most expensive component in the whole operation, but it is the one that can get you in the most trouble if you don’t get it right. Powders can have a name, like Varget or Bullseye, or they can have numbers, like 4064, 231 or N150. Don’t worry, there is no guesswork to choosing the right gunpowder for whatever caliber you are trying to reload. But it is easy to get confused as to which is the best powder for a particular caliber and bullet. Some powder and bullet combinations will work better in your gun than others, but as long as you stick to the parameters in your reloading manual, including the authorized online manuals, you will end up with ammunition that is within the acceptable tolerances for your firearm. Right now gunpowder is almost impossible to find, but if you know where to look, you may find a powder that is less common, but that will work for your caliber and bullet. This article is primarily about brass cased centerfire rifle and handgun ammunition. We will get to shotgun reloading later.

Hold your rotten tomatoes for a minute ok. There are important reasons why we need to level the playing field when it comes to internet sales, and gun sales in particular. I will primarily address guns. But beware that this isn’t a “soundbyte” explanation. Our attention spans have grown so thin that anything longer than a Facebook status tends to fall on deaf ears, and lazy readers. If you care about the future of 2nd Amendment freedom, you should support a nationwide internet sales tax. It will force merchants to do some work collecting taxes for states in which they do not reside, but remember, these are internet merchants who have very little if any other overhead. We have organized 20 points, but they are not to be taken individually. However you can jump to the end if you have to check your Facebook.

With some things, once you try it you can never go back. That is the case with the Redring, a unique illuminated sight for shotgun sports. It doesn’t fit a Picatinny rail. The Redring is for shotguns that have what is called a “vent rib” on the top. You probably have one on your duck gun, but you never thought to yourself that a red dot type sight would be useful. Shotguns, as a rule, are pointed, not aimed, so nearly all shotguns meant to shoot actual shot loads have nothing more than a plain brass BB on the end, because that should be enough to get you on target. The BB works great, and historically served sportsman well over the generations, but it might just be time to move on. The Redring isn’t a dot, it is a dashed circle, and the circle represents your shot pattern edges at roughly 20 meters. We found the Redring a pleasure to shoot, and it solves a lot of problems that can get you into trouble in the field. At an MSRP of $899, currently discounted from Redring for $749, this is definitely a luxury toy to enhance your shooting, but if you can afford it, the Redring is something you won’t want to shoot without after you give it a try.

You have to be careful with what you believe on the internet. That goes for gun reviews as much as anything else. I was shocked last week when a gun dealer friend of mine said that he had been unable to sell a really nice looking copy of the Uzi submachinegun in .22LR, made by Walther in Germany. He said that he read on the internet that it extremely picky with ammo, and that this was probably why it hadn’t sold. Hogwash! … I said to him. Walther isn’t some fly by night company that puts out guns that don’t work. They would never put a gun into the market that didn’t function flawlessly. The street price of the rifle version we were able to test is about $650, and the pistol version, which we didn’t test, is about $200 cheaper.

It was a huge surprise when, on March 1st, right at the top of the high cap mag crisis, I got an email from the Sportsman’s Guide for “100 Round AR-15 Magazines.” Excuse me? What do you live in a cave? Who isn’t sold out on any and all AR-15 mags for six months at this point? But sure enough, the sale was real, and while people were still buying 30 round P-Mags on the auction sites for almost 100 bucks each, I got two of what appear to be exact copies of the Beta C-Mag for $179 each (after I joined their stupid club, otherwise they are $199). Initially I thought that it was kind of a dumb move. They were probably a cheap Chinese copy and probably didn’t work well, but since I could write about them for you guys, and “the company” could pay for them, I figured I’d give them a try. Bad reviews are as well received as positive reviews here, and if they were anything like the other after high cap mags I have bought at gun shows over the years, they would end up in the garbage after my scathing review.

This week we are giving away a choice of two optics from Swarovski Optik – a Z5 riflescope and a 65 HD spotting scope. If you haven’t entered the giveaway, it’s easy. Just “like” Swarovski Optik North America Hunting on Facebook and look for the instructions to enter. The full explanation was emailed earlier in the week and is here. As promised, this is an overview of Swarovski products, and our two giveaway scopes.
Quality is not something you can fake with optics, and learning how to buy quality optics isn’t as hard as you might think. There is a boatload of technology behind great optics: patents, design trials, and research and development, but you really don’t need to know any of that to choose an optic that outperforms the rest of the field.
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Many of us long for the days when technology didn’t rule our lives, yet we love the convenience of it. It’s the same thing with special muzzleloader seasons for whitetail. The antiquity of the technology is romantic, but better ballistics, better sights, and easier and more consistent components can make a hunt more likely to put a rack on the wall and fill a freezer with meat. The precious time we manage to actually get out into the woods in our busy lives is valuable, and going into the woods with a better gun during muzzleloader season has become the norm instead of the exception.
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I recently visited the Islands of Hawaii, putting some of my hard earned vacation dollars to work. While there, I noticed something unusual in the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center in downtown Waikiki. It was a billboard ad for a shooting range, of all things, where tourists could rent guns and shoot!
Now I’m from California, and a shooting range is the next thing to an adult book store there, so I was pretty surprised to see the ad, much less in an urban shopping center. Since my interest was piqued, I had to wander up to the top floor to see what’s what.
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