GunsAmerica Product Reviews – Rifles

All other things being equal, the AK-47 nearly always wins on price. Therefore most of us end up with at least one AK in our gun accumulation. The problem is, all things are not equal with the AK. They are known for reliability that exceeds ridiculous, but they are also known to be horribly inaccurate. If you follow our exploits here at GunsAmerica, you probably read our recent underwater, in the mud test of a high end AK from Century Arms called the PAP, but most of us out here have the inexpensive, garden variety Romanian AK-47 that generally retails for well under $500. These guns are the poster children for no matter what reliability, but they also are known as “spray and pray” guns, though the parameters of spray and pray would vary depending upon who you ask. We have tried to scope the AK-47 with one of many not ready for primetime scope mounting systems over the years, and they are always a disaster. But times have changed. You aren’t going to get anything like good accuracy out of an AK-4, but with the right mount and the right scope you can get accuracy good enough for just about any self defense situation, and even 3-Gun and other tactical rifle competitions, provided the targets aren’t too far away. For this article we review the highly rated rail/scope mounting system from Texas Weapons Systems, $139.99, and the Hi-Lux CMR scope with a new AK762 reticle, $436, which is special made for the ballistics of the 7.62×39 AK-47 cartridge. This combination delivered acceptable accuracy for an AK-47, and is a platform that is as hardcore as the AK-47 itself.

Disney just bought the Star Wars franchise for the exact same reason that Savage has finally re-created the Model 24 combination gun, CONSUMER DEMAND. Even though the generations may change dramatically, a great idea never stops being a great idea, and the idea of a rifle/shotgun combination was always a great idea. The new Savage is called the Model 42 and for now it comes in either .22LR or.22WMR over .410 shotgun. Comparing the engineers at Savage, circa 1939, to George Lucas, isn’t a big stretch surprisingly enough. The American public bought over a million Model 24s between its introduction in ’39 and sunset in the 1980s, and over the last several years the Model 24 has become extremely collectible. Everyone seems to want one, hence, the birth of the Model 42, which has an MSRP of $480, and street price substantially less. The original Model 24 was what many considered the ultimate “utility gun” back in the day. This Model 42 is still kind of the same gun, retaining the utility value, while taking advantage of modern materials and firearm design. We found the gun to be accurate, versatile, and downright attractive for a low priced utility gun. If you have been “watching” all the Model 24s that have come on to GunsAmerica, wishing you had bought them before they became collectible, the Model 42 is every bit as much gun as the Model 24, and it won’t kill you to throw it behind the seat of your truck.

We always get the question on AR-15 articles, “do they make one that is California legal?” The answer is yes, many companies do make California legal guns, and Armalite, the original “AR” in AR-15, is the latest to offer a series of guns specifically addressing statutory requirements in The People’s Republic of California. It is a Cali-legal version of their very popular Special Purpose Rifle (SPR), Mod-1, and despite the limitations built into the gun because of the California statutes, it is a beast of an AR with all the key features you would want in a high quality M4 sized carbine for tactical work, personal defense and3-Gun competition. The monolithic upper is unique in that the bottom three Picatinny rails on the quad are all replaceable for flat or half flat sections, and it comes with the extra sections so you can choose your configuration. Armalite has carved a niche for themselves in the new AR-15 market by offering only guns with high end features, and this gun is the flagship of their line, now Cali legal. The SPR Mod-1 carries an MSRP of $1,554, and comes standard with a chrome lined barrel, two stage trigger and hard coat matching finish, as well as the patented hardened Armalite bolt. Now Californians can buy the same gun as the rest of us, made legal for the arcane laws of their state, and the mods are easily reversible if those laws are ever changed. The SPR Mod-1 from Armalite is all you could want in an AR, made legal for California.

Muzzleloaders are very different from every other type of hunting rifle. Most hunters consider them ancillary, because the extra two weeks of muzzleloader season are meant to put you at a disadvantage. You get one shot at the deer, and you are forced to use what is considered by many to be a substandard weapon. Some states even have laws that you cannot use optics, putting older hunters and an even further disadvantage, and many states have quirky little laws to exclude certain advanced features that have crept into the modern muzzleloader market. Couple all of that with the fact that you can have a muzzleloader shipped to your door from online in most states, and you get a muzzleloader market that is something of a mess. Many small gunshops don’t even stock new muzzleloaders, so a lot of hunters end up settling for what’s on the shelf at Walmart. Fortunately we found that this isn’t such a bad thing. We bought two muzzleloaders and all of the stuff to shoot them in one trip to our local Walmart in Okeechobee, Florida, and the results were surprising. For about $350, with the scopes, both of these guns rivaled centerfire rifle accuracy, and proved that even the most inexpensive modern muzzleloaders aren’t substandard at all. If you are thinking of buying a muzzleloader at Walmart this week for your states special early season, have no fear. Walmart muzzleloaders totally rock!

Somehow, in preparation for the first article in this series on ordering M1 Garand rifles from the Civilian Marksmanship Program, we missed the least expensive of the bunch. They are called “Field Grade” Garands, and at $525 (plus $24.95 S&H), they seem to be a great buy. We ordered both the Springfield Armory and Harrington & Richardson (HRA) versions of these guns, and the Winchester is no longer available. Of all the Garands we have ordered from CMP so far, if you are looking for a Garand to just shoot and enjoy, you can’t do any better for the money than these field grade guns. Look around in gunshops and online and you will be hard pressed to find a nice looking and shooting Garand for under $600. Even at live auctions these days more Garands go for upwards of a thousand bucks. These “cheapest Garands” are a real find, and you order them directly from the CMP, just as we described in the first installment of this series. Our guns came in less than three weeks, each with its own hard plastic CMP case, and certification paperwork. Who knows when these guns will dry up, so if you are thinking long, heavy boxes under your Christmas tree this year, now would be the time to order.

When you already make the biggest and baddest sniper rifles in the world it would be easy to just rest on what you have already accomplished. My thinking, and probably most people’s thinking, would ask, “why mess with the good thing.” But that is exactly what Barrett has done by completely redesigning the M107A1, and introducing an entirely new rifle. the MRAD, to the shooting public.

We got a chance to actually go shoot these guns for a day with Ben Becker, our resident US Army Sniper. Ben has shot the original Model 82A1/M107 in combat on many occasions, but the updated, lighter version was a treat in civilian life, and the MRAD is just one of those rifles that you want to shoot as soon as you see it, and shoot them both we did.
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If you could make a list of all the things wrong with the AK-47 platform, what would it be? First off you probably would say the stock is too short. The trigger is lousy, and you never know if you bought a gun made of old, worn out parts. There are also little annoying things, like getting the dust cover back once you take it off, and it is a pain to shoot an AK at the range because the bolt doesn’t stay open. The AK is also known of course for not being accurate. “It’s a spray and pray gun.” All of these things are true to some degree, and all of them have been fixed in a new Zastava PAP build of the AK-47 currently being imported by Century Arms. It is still an AK-47 of course, but we found this gun to be the absolute best of the AK bunch, and it held up to legendary AK reliability when we threw it in the pond and covered it with muck. The $700-800 street price Zastava PAP from Century is a brand new gun made from brand new parts, and is about as much gun as you are going to get in a true AK-47. In the wake of the floods of Isaac, if you are going to strap one rifle to your back, for who knows what’s next, the Zastava PAP is a good option.

The quest for the ultimate .22 has found an unexpected home in Minnesota at Magnum Research, Inc., creators of the most popular movie gun of all time, the Desert Eagle. You wouldn’t expect Magnum Research to be the new leader in cutting edge .22LR, .22WMR and at some point even .17HMR firearms. But these days Magnum Research is home to not only their famous handguns, but also a patented graphite barrel technology called Magnum Lite® . What makes these barrels unique is that the graphite fibers are unidirectional, parallel to the bore axis. The result are barrels that are six times more rigid than steel of the same weight and that dissipate heat 43% faster than steel. Magnum Research is taking the custom rimfire market to a whole new level by producing a whole line of these guns in various calibers, and they have carried the technology to full sized centerfire calibers as well.

Deer season is right around the corner, and for those of us who are fortunate to be able to hunt with a rifle, the Browning X-Bolt should be in the top of the list if you are in the market for a new bolt gun. It is an exquisite example of everything a high quality traditional deer rifle should be, and it performs flawlessly. We thought it would be interesting to test a left-handed model for a change, even though we don’t have a left-handed shooter here. Lefty guns are an important part of the firearms market that are often ignored. You can’t get all guns in a left-handed configuration, so for the 10% of us out there who are lefties, it helps to know when a gun is really good and also comes in left hand. Our Browning X-Bolt test gun is the X-Bolt Hunter type, in .30-06 with a 22″ barrel and low gloss, drop dead gorgeous walnut stock. The MSRP is $919 and street price slightly less. It weighs 6 3/4 lbs. empty, and the left hand model is available in 16 calibers from .223 to .338 Win. Mag.