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Organization is not my strong suit. Every time I leave for the range, I pack up random bags and backpacks. I do my best to remember what I’m putting where, but it is futile. Thankfully, there are companies like Seahorse that have my best interests in mind. Seahorse makes its cases here in America; they’re built to withstand any punishment you can dish out, and the cases cost less than most range bags.

The new Taurus View with the transparent Lexan side plate was unveiled at the January SHOT Show in Las Vegas. Since then there have been several brief but glowing reviews based on limited time with the gun at the show. We wanted to see for ourselves—is all the hype deserved? Or is it just a gimmick to sell guns? At scarcely over half a pound, with a titanium cylinder and barrel, there is hardly a gun in the market to even compete with the View at a street price of around $500. But with an extremely lightweight revolver, in the venerable .38 Special, always comes punishing recoil, which I’ll get to. The Lexan panel is nifty, and does have some actual use, but to me what makes this gun stand out is the extreme pocket-ability and light weight at a competitive price to the tiny semi-autos in the comparable 9mm. And while the gun isn’t perfect, all of these mostly positive reviews showcase a new direction for Taurus, with vastly improved quality control and customer service, at the same Taurus affordable prices. The View isn’t for everyone. She kicks pretty hard. But if an extremely lightweight and reliable revolver is on your bucket list, we found the Taurus View to be well worth your attention.

The CZ 527 Varmint is a tack-driving .17 Hornet that’s perfect rifle for eliminating some of the more pernicious biodiversity here on the farm.  One of the neat features of this gun it has a novel CZ single set trigger. You can shoot it as a fairly normal hunting trigger, or you can click it forward to break at about one pound. With a flat shooting cartridge like the 17 Hornet and ridiculous “call your shots” CZ accuracy, this can make a huge difference in stretching the capabilities of the gun out to its ballistic max, and to the top of your own game in precise shooting. Our test gun came in a Turkish Walnut stock and is absolutely gorgeous. The 527 is an heirloom quality gun at an an expected fairly pricey $725 MSRP, and this varmint version is available in .204 Ruger, .223 Remington, this .17 Hornet, and they plan to also make some .17 Remingtons this year. I’ve been having some issues with skunks lately.  But now that I have a rifle that can send a 20 grain bullet downrange at more than 3,500 fps, it is a bad time to be a skunk in this neck of the woods.

We are so lucky to live in this time when precision machinery and quality materials allow for the production of affordable guns that give up little to their higher-priced brethren. Imported by TriStar Arms from Turkey, the new ATAC Raptor Turkey gun is a great example. As an extension of the company’s low-priced Raptor series, it delivers solid performance and dependability on a proven action.

What happens when you shrink a 1911 down to 85% of its original size and optimize the new gun to fire .22LR? What once was a serious fighting tool becomes a stellar fun-gun. Not to take anything away from Browning’s new rimfire series. These are capable, accurate pistols. Yet there’s something novel about shooting a small 1911. It makes me smile. So how did they manage to produce such a spot-on homage, and how does the 1911-22 line stack up with the rest of the rimfires?

Signature models rifle don’t come along a lot in the gun industry, and it is a little strange that Rock River Arms would put famous bow hunter Fred Eichler’s name on one of their highly regarded LAR-15 guns. An AR-15 is an AR-15 right? Wrong! Fred of course does also hunt with modern sporting rifles, and specifically this one built to his specifications. The point of this Eichler gun is hunting, and primarily hunting varmints, or pest animals, as evidenced by the coyote prints on the special Fred Eichler floating handguard. Is it cute? Well, is it possible for an AR-15 that shoots under .75 MOA at 100 yards to be cute? Then yea, it’s cute. But after hog hunting this gun for a day, shooting it at the range with a group of friends, and driving tacks with it, this bad boy is a predator killing machine, a gun that is so reliable, dependable, accurate and intuitive to shoot that a missed shot is obviously user error.  The Fred Eichler Series LAR-15 is a gun that dominates the nightmares of coyotes, hogs, and prairie dogs. If you think the puppy prints are silly, move on. RR makes the same gun, with the .223 Wylde chamber, meant for both .223 and .556, without the extra Fred stuff. But if you think the gun is cool, pull the trigger.  I haven’t met anyone who has fired the Eichler who isn’t impressed.  And at a direct Rock River and store price of $1500, it is an impressive specialty hunting rifle that isn’t going to break the bank.

This is a cup-half-full, cup-half-empty product. It all depends on the way you look at it. First of all, what is InteliSCOPE? InteliSCOPE is a smartphone holder that mounts on your picatinny rail, allowing you to use your phone as a sighting scope while providing you the ability to record video. The mount physically holds your phone on the top of the rifle, and a standard Google Play or Apple Store app does the sighting through the camera on your phone. We tried the Android version with a Samsung Galaxy S4, and it does what it says it does, with a few important caveats.

Say “Magnum Research” to a gun enthusiast, and you’ve just conjured up the image of the .50 caliber handgun that has become almost folklore. But the truth is that Magnum Research has been diversifying its offerings for some time, and now that continues with the ownership and backing of Kahr Arms. In 2014, the product line expands with a new 1911 offering called the 1911U, or Undercover. This small 3” 1911 is clearly intended for the personal protection and concealed carry markets.

The most difficult thing to set aside for yourself in this day and age is time. But unfortunately, when it comes to surviving the end of life as we know it, time is the one thing you will have to set aside if you plan to get serious. Disasters are easily survivable. Put away enough food and water, and you can ride out most storms, even lengthy ones. But if the food supply never comes back online, what do you do then? Gold and silver won’t be worth anything because, short of the tin pot dictator or monarch who eventually takes over, nobody will have any use for such trivialities. Eating will be everyone’s #1 long-term concern, and if you plan to survive, you have to learn right now how to grow your own food. Right now you have the luxury of making mistakes and still being able to eat. So figure it out! Where can I go, whom can I partner with, what resources can I put together that will give me a long term chance of survival? Since it is spring, and in many parts of America the planting season is around the corner, I figured that this is a good time to talk about seeds. Buying a “survival seed vault” isn’t going to cut it for you if you have never grown food before. You have to get out and get gardening this spring. Don’t be shy. An old farmer once told me that farming is nothing but problem-solving, so get out there and figure out your problems now, and how to solve them.