GunsAmerica Product Reviews – Rifles

It has been just over a year since we first posted an article about the bump stock from SlideFire Solutions called the SSAR-15. At the time, nobody knew if this cool new toy would still be legal a year later, but here we are. Not only is the SlideFire still legal, it has gone from an obscure product we had to stumble across to nearly a household word for those of us who think of gunshops as our second homes.

The Ruger 10/22 generally needs no introduction. There is no more recognizable and ubiquitous .22 rifle on the planet. Today Ruger released a new 10/22-TD, MSRP $389, which stands for “Takedown,” and it is a completely new design for the gun. It even comes with its own backpack. You probably already have questions formulating. Takedown designs can sometimes have issues with accuracy, returning to zero and long term reliability, but Ruger seems to have addressed all of these going into the design of this new gun. From what I can see so far, the 10/22-TD should be a great long term success and a reliable gun for those fortunate enough to get one. You may have heard already that Ruger has stopped taking new orders temporarily from distributors because of record sales, but there should be plenty of them available at least for a couple weeks.

The folks at Gibbs Rifle Co. have a history of taking surplus military rifles of arguably minimal collector interest and turning them into sport specialty rifles that have a serious “fun gun” factor and “tough as nails” demeanor. Perhaps the best known of them are the Summit and Quest chambered in .45-70 and .308, respectively. Those were built on surplus Enfield actions and were not attempts to reproduce any sort of historical military gun at all. Instead, they were practical, utilitarian rifles that made good use of surplus military and some new parts. “Commercial sporterizing,” probably best describes it, and as Gibbs puts it, they “…take the best features of historic military arms and translate them to meet modern sporting needs.”

If you are already a deer hunter but have never taken advantage of your state’s muzzleloader season, this spring might be a good time to get comfortable with a modern day muzzleloader from Traditions Firearms. Every state except Montana has a special extra season for muzzleloaders, and Pennsylvania even has two of them, one reserved just for flintlocks. Muzzleloader season is a quieter time in the woods, with fewer hunters, and though I was unable to find any kind of total for deer taken nationally with muzzleloaders, suffice to say that the muzzleloading market wouldn’t be so expansive and competitive if that extra week or so of hunting didn’t give you a competitive advantage.

We already saw the new Ambush hunting line from Daniel Defense and these are their new tactial guns. The .300 AAC Blackout round is getting widespread attention accross all of the shooting disciplines because it can be shot as a subsonic, meant for work with suppressors, and a supersonic for .30 caliber ballistics from a small package round. There is also a new Daniel Defense in 6.8 SPC, and some lighter options on their existing popular models. This is an end of the day interview and a little subdued, but you can see that it’ll be a strong year for Daniel Defense.

Finally nobody has to believe GunsAmerica that the Teludyne StraightJacket is nothing short of a miracle for rifle accuracy over sustained fire. If you read our original article, Ultimate Accuracy Makeover, but didn’t send your gun to Teludyne, you may want to beat the crowds now because they have enlisted the H.P. White testing organization to certify the results, and you can download the PDF of the report.

Awesomeness is not a word you would think could make it through spell check, but it is actually a word. If there was one product at Media Day at the Range, SHOT Show 2012, that excelled at awesomeness, it was the modular rifle chassis system from Ashbury Precision Ordnance, or APO. It is called the Saber-FORRST, for Folding Rifle Stock System Tactical. They all don’t seem to fold, going by the catalog, so it is a little confusing. But they sure excel at awesomeness.

You wouldn’t think that a gun would be made specifically to bang around behind the seat of your truck, to get banged and bumped on who knows what, and to get dripping wet, dirty, and still work, but that is exactly what Savage has done with the new Hog Hunter line of rifles. They aren’t pretty guns, but they aren’t for pretty game either.

The TC Arms Venture is one of the best value in American made bolt action rifles, and this year TC answered the call to make a youth sized version. It has an 11.5 length of pull out of the box and it will be available in .223, .243, 7mm-08 and .308 for now. The barrel is only 20 inches for good balance in a small gun, and it comes with a 1 inch spacer for the stock, so the gun can grow with your child. All of the Venture rifles come with an MOA gaurantee, and we proved this out easily with a rifle they sent us for testing. There is also a new winter camo Venture as well. TC makes a lot of “gotta have it” guns and this looks to be another.