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We are often so focused on the black guns these days that sometimes you miss what is going on in other parts of the shooting and hunting world. A lot of it is deeper and a more enjoyable than all of the tactical stuff combined. Cimmaron Firearms specializes in cowboy era firearms, from the percussion age of the 1830s through 1873, and the cartridge guns from Colt, Winchester, Smith & Wesson, Marlin, Sharps, and others through the turn of the century. The dawn of the repeating firearm is not only a lot of fun historically, you can actually live it and breath it through a very popular shooting organization called the Single Action Shooting Society, or SASS. Cowboy Action Shooting is a lot of fun, and if you are of the competitive bent, at the regional and national level the competition is fierce.

This “Evil Roy” model of the 1873 single action Colt Peacemaker is engineered to meet the needs of the discriminating SASS competitor. More than 90% of the people who shoot Cowboy Action are not competitive and have no interest in winning anything, but we all like to shoot good. And for that small percentage of serious competitors, they are really serious and like to shoot perfect, not just well, and win the prized trophy SASS belt buckles. All of the SASS shooting is on metal plates, not paper, and the plates are set as close to the shooter as is safe for splatter. This makes Cowboy Action really easy to shoot well, so the competition really boils down to speed. Hit the metal plates, every time, as fast as you can.

If you love to shoot it can get expensive. Factory ammo is not at its peak that it was during 2009 into 2010, but even cheap 9mm is still upwards of 30 cents per round. If you reload, you save the cost of the brass, and the savings are huge over factory loads, but you still have to buy the bullets. And while bullets have improved drastically over the last ten years in consistency and quality control, with these improvements have come higher prices. Spot metals on the commodity market have spiked as well, sending prices even higher. Bullets aren’t cheap anymore. You may pay almost as much for the box of bullets as you used to pay for the box of loaded ammo.

I started bullet casting about 15 years ago, and initially I treated it like some sort of black art, that only the gurus could get right. Back then you could get lead for next to nothing. Pipes were still being torn out of old houses that were made of lead, and every junkyard and tire shop had a good supply of used wheel weights, the kind with the steel clip. I tried my best to make perfect bullets with no lines in them, that all weighed the same, and I had some moderate success. But I can’t say I ever mastered that, and if I ever get back into being able to shoot BPCR (black powder cartridge rifle), maybe I’ll try again.

Recently it occurred to me that I don’t hear as much about bullet casting as I should these days. Did everyone forget about it? Jacketed bullets are too darned expensive to shoot all the time, but I like to shoot all the time, and I’m not alone. Once you start asking around, stopping in at tire places and developing a hawk eye for lead at the junkyard and flea market, you can usually get lead for free or extremely cheap. Once you buy the tools, you have them for life and they last. If you learn the basic skills of bullet casting, it could amount to a lifetime of free bullets.

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The science of ballistics is not as simple as many would make it seem.  What a bullet does in flight can vary due to factors you would never think possible.  Modern ballistics calculators, available as hand held units in the several hundreds of dollars, have been around for some time.  With the advent of smart phones, you no longer need a separate hand held calculator (unless you’re in a situation where you need the physical toughness of the unit itself).
The problem is, all of the name brand phone calculators were developed for the Apple Iphone, which means if you are running the Android operating system from Google, you can’t use them.  Run a search in the Android Marketplace for “ballistics calculators” and you’ll find some free apps and some paid apps.  I decided to download several of them and see what the differences are, and if they actually work.
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See a need, fill a need. That’s the foundation of American ingenuity. While browsing through new ads coming onto GunsAmerica a couple of weeks ago, I happened upon a nifty homemade tool for adjusting the rear sight on a pistol. We’ve all gotten guns that came from the factory not shooting to point of aim, and while it isn’t an expensive gunsmith visit, it’s still a gunsmith visit. I’d rather have a tool I can bring to the range and adjust it myself, and also have to help others who I see dealing with the same issue. Read More…

When I was a young tadpole growing up on Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers westerns, when the guy in the white hat shot the guy in the black hat the bad guy would wince and fold slowly – that is unless the good guy decided to be magnanimous and just shoot the gun out of his hand. Later westerns and cop shows got a lot grittier and you saw a lot of blood and people being blown over backwards. Blown over backward has become the modern movie standard in most cases now, and third party tales on the internet about as to the impact power and “stopping power” of the various combat handguns with varying loads.

Well, it turned out that whatever those early movies lacked in good examples of gun handling they had the right when it came to the actual effect of a handgun bullet hitting a human subject. The truth of the matter, friends, is that bullets don’t blow up people nor do they physically knock them over backwards. Not to say that people cannot react violently at times to being shot, but this depends on exactly what is hit inside the body, and the mental and physical state of the subject being shot. Small animals may react dramatically to this impact but things that weigh 100 lbs or more often do not show any immediate reaction – other than to keep fighting or run faster.

Now this is not another article on 9mm vs .45. It is not about “stopping power” per se, but we all need to accept that the illusions we see on the silver screen are just that – illusions and for entertainment purposes. If you expect your .44 Magnum to bowl people over with a hit to the midsection you may be in for a rude and fatal shock!

So, would I say that caliber or “power” do not matter at all? I cannot bring myself to say that. I see a difference in cases that come across the desk and in the hunting fields, but that difference is subtle, not so drastic that you can say unequivocally that caliber A is so much better than caliber B that if you carry A you cannot go wrong or that B is a silly choice… within reasonable parameters.

Welcome back the to the “pro tip” column for GunsAmerica Magazine from the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU). This is our fourth article for GunsAmerica and if you haven’t been following the previous columns from the USAMU you should take a look. There is a lot of good information in them.

My name is SFC Jason Parker and I shoot on the US Army Marksmanship Unit International Rifle team. We are currently in the middle of a very busy competitive shooting season and our team has done very well. So far in 2010 our team has combined to win 6 International World Cup Medals and captured 2 National Championship titles. We have seven shooters that will be competing at the World Shooting Championship in Munich later this summer. In case you are interested in our results you can follow all of the USAMU’s highlights on Facebook.

This month’s article is about some general shooting tips to help improve your marksmanship skills. No matter what kind of weapon you will be shooting, whether it’s a rifle, pistol, or shotgun, there is one way to improve. Practice. I once had a coach that told me that the best way to get to Carnegie Hall was to practice. I have applied these simple words of wisdom to many aspects of my life and they have always proven to be true. Even if you are already a good shot, practicing more often will improve your shot accuracy, guaranteed.

So… you have finally saved up enough money and made up your mind to take that hunting trip of a lifetime. If you have never taken an extended hunting trip …you ask yourself “What do I need? At this point, you probably have already picked a game species to hunt and the state or province where you plan on pursuing that game animal. If you haven’t, don’t panic, you still have time to put something meaningful together but you need to start right after you finish reading this article. In order to point you in the right direction I have listed the top tips to help you plan for that memorable hunting trip you are about to take. If you are going with friends or family members make sure that everyone is on the same page. Make your plans and coordinate your equipment together. Proper planning and preparation will benefit everyone. I can go on and on about this topic, but I will touch upon the main points of groundwork in order to keep things in perspective.

There is only one type of shooting competition that only has a trophy for second place. The trophy is generally made of granite, has an epitaph inscribed on it, and when it is awarded to you, you are surrounded by everyone you love, crying their eyes out because you are dead. It’s called a tombstone.

A gunfight is a competition, but it isn’t a standard shooting competition like those you see in timed shooting sports. Speed is a factor, but it isn’t the only factor. And there will always be factors outside of your control, such as the physical and mental state of the threatening party, his competence, how well we shoot under the pressure of a gunfight, and what we are doing while engaging our adversary to keep from getting shot (or cut, or bludgeoned, etc.).

Some things, however, you can control, or at least prepare to control, and many of these involve speed and can be practiced. They are how fast you are able to present your weapon, how fast you can fire it accurately, and how fast you can reload when you are out of bullets or in danger of soon being out of bullets.

Wyatt Earp, one of the most famous gunfighters of all time, is quoted as saying: “Take your time…but be quick about it! He is also quoted as saying something to the effect of “Fast is fine but accuracy is final”. The interplay between these two factors, speed and accuracy, is one reality we must always recognize, the faster you go the less accurate you are.

There are few techniques associated with the Action Shooting sports that are as impressive as the speed draw. Executed properly it can be done in under a second all the while firing an extremely accurate shot. I’d like to take this opportunity to share with you some of my tips and strategies to make your own draw, a speed draw.

First and foremost, before you attempt to practice your draw, make absolute certain that your firearm is unloaded. Anytime you participate in dry fire training verify that there is no ammunition in your area. Even with an unloaded pistol, always practice safe muzzle awareness. I’d like to begin by breaking the draw down into 3 separate positions. Position 1 is with your firing hand gripping the pistol while it’s still in the holster. It’s important to use 2 points of contact between your hand and the pistol, to ensure you get a good firing grip. The first point of contact should be the web of your hand (the area between your thumb and pointer finger) as high on the rear of the pistol frame as possible. The second point of contact is the top of your middle finger underneath the trigger guard. In addition, your support hand should move in unison with your firing hand to a position just in front of your stomach area, awaiting the pistol to be drawn.