GunsAmerica Product Reviews – Rifles

Never underestimate a legend, and that legend is Colt. At first glance you would think that the Colt 901 is just a .308 Win./7.62 NATO version of a standard AR-15, much like any other .308 AR out there, but it is a lot more than that. The Colt LE901-16S is a “Modular Carbine,” which means it can be adapted to any AR-15 platform upper. This isn’t a new concept, because there are of course a whole bunch of different caliber uppers for ARs. The difference is in all the other ones, they have adapted a standard size AR magazine to boutique calibers and cartridge designs. The Colt 901 is different. It can be adapted from .308/7.62, using standard P-Mags, to .223/5.56, using standard AR mags, and back again, in literally seconds. The design uses one proprietary part, and you have to swap out the recoil system. It is that simple, and it works fantastic.

In the first installment of this series, if you missed it, I ordered six M1 Garands from the Civilian Marksmanship Program, or CMP. The premise is that now is the time to buy this historical treasures, before they dry up and get really expensive, like the 1903 Springfield has since it dried up through the CMP. There are a few details I have learned since that first article, partially from a post on the CMP forum. I wish the members had commented on our article, which was read over 45,000 times the first day it was out. So we will correct a couple things, and lets go shoot the guns!

Teaching a child the fundamentals of shooting and gun safety is best kept simple. Many of today’s top shooters cut their teeth as a young child on a single shot .22 bolt action. And if you ask any of them, “would you have preferred something cooler, with more shots” they will answer you in the negative. When you have only one shot at a time to concentrate on, you shoot one shot at a time, and you concentrate. That makes for great shooters, and that is why Savage brought this nifty little single shot rifle called the Rascal, to market. We first saw this gun at Media Day at the Range the day before SHOT Show 2012, and now we finally got a chance to really shoot one. Nice little gun! And at an MSRP of $174, just about anyone can teach their child or grandchild the fundamentals of good shooting for pennies a round.

More than not, the decision to buy a new gun comes from inside your heart. Even if you need a duty gun, or you have to pick from a list of allowable weapons for a specific job, most of us are going to buy the gun that feels right to us. For several generations of American gun owners, there is no gun that feels better or more right to buy than a Colt. Last weekend I was listening to Gun Talk Radio, and sure enough, a geezer gun nut called in to let Tom Gresham know that he had finally broken down and bought an AR-15. Why? Because he was finally able to buy a Colt.

Finding the perfect tactical rifle isn’t so simple for some folks. We have to complicate matters, because we just don’t want what everyone else has. Trust me on this one guys and gals. Nobody you know has the Juggernaut Tactical Rogue M1A Bullpup stock from US Tactical Supply. It is an aluminum bullpup masterpiece that will not only add just over 2 pounds to your M1A/M14, it will also be kind enough to set you back a righteous $899. Who can resist that?

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.