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Bullet design is tricky. On the one hand you want to bullet to open up, but you also want good penetration. Add in some barrier materials, like clothing, wallboard, glass and car doors, and the dynamics of how a bullet behaves after it leaves the gun gets a little squirrely. The classic hollowpoint works great in gelatin, but shoot through a jean jacket and flannel shirt into the same gelatin and it will sometimes fail to open up. Law enforcement test ammo in the real world every day, and though many “carry rounds” perform very well overall, they sometimes fail on specific barriers. The FBI designed an Ammunition Protocol Test to address these issues, and this Hornady Critical Duty ammunition was the result. The “heavy duty” bullets are designed to stay together through common barriers, including heavy clothing, drywall, plywood, sheet metal and glass, yet they also open up and don’t over-penetrate. You may be familiar with the Hornady Critical Defense line of carry ammo, and Critical Duty is the next step up for the challenging needs of law enforcement and personal self defense in an urban environment.

In the blitz of demand for Ruger’s polymer pistols, it is easy to forget that America’s gunmaker has the widest line of firearms in the industry. For SHOT 2013 Ruger has introduced three new bolt rifles based on the reliable M77 platform. All three guns have a new heavy caliber muzzle brake from Ruger called the “radial-port” muzzle brake that is said to reduce recoil significantly, and we can’t wait to get one of these guns in to give them a try. The Ruger Guide Gun has an estimated street price of about $900 and is available in several .30 caliber magnums up to .375 Ruger. The new Hawkeye African with the radial-port muzzle brake is available in calibers up to .416 Rigby and is expected to be the same price. Both of those guns have open sights installed, and it appears there will be a left hand in .375 Ruger. The Magnum Hunter is currently available in only .300 WIn. Mag. at $829 expected street price, and comes standard with a Hogue overmolded stock. We also expect a few new Ruger #1 rifles this year, including maybe a .284, but they weren’t ready for the show. There is also a new lightweight American we hope to get to later in the week. Expect an exciting year for Ruger hunting rifles, made in America by Americans. This is a sneak peek with our host Julie Mac from Media Day at the Range, SHOT Show 2013.

Add this to the old “you learn something new every day” column. If you are wondering what is that strange logo on that Colt, it is the logo of Colt Competition Rifle, and Oregon based company licensed by Colt to make extremely accurate and reliable versions of their AR-15 platform rifles. This was our most interesting story today at Media Day at the Range. These rifles are made with special Colt parts, made to exacting tolerances that are too tight for a military specification M4. Priced from about $2200 to $3500, the guts of the guns, in both .223/5.56 and .308/7.62, are the same regardless of price, and each rifle is hand crafted by one gunsmith regardless of price. The price difference is a function of what components go on the guns, and almost every part you see on these guns, from the forends to the scope mounts, are custom crafted by Colt Competition Rifle in Oregon. No rifle leaves the factory until it is tested on a bag with a human shooter at under 1 MOA using factory ammo, and the laminated target comes with the rifle. Several of the actual competition guns at the show were tested with the inexpensive steel cased Hornady Steel Match. These are real Colts, not just licensed copies, and Colt engineers sign off on all the mods built into these stock rifles from Colt Competition Rifle. This is a really cool story and a pleasant surprise. Check out our Media Day at the Range with our host Julie Mac on a few of the ten models this year from Colt Competition Rifle.

Every year at SHOT Show we try to get to some of the more interesting stuff first, and the Smith & Wesson Custom Shop is always in that bunch. When you think of Smith & Wesson, you usually think of production guns available at just about any gunshop, but the Custom Shop is a whole other thing. If you are of the bent to buy something like a standard Smith & Wesson 1911, then bring it to your local gunsmith to have it tricked out, the Smith & Wesson Custom Shop is meant to save you the trouble of rolling the dice to find a good gunsmith, then potentially getting some questionable advice about Smith & Wesson firearms. Custom Shop guns are hand tuned out of the box. These 1911s even have hand lapped rails and select custom parts. If you plan to compete with a 1911 or you just want the most accurate carry gun that money can buy, check out the labor of love you’ll find at the Smith & Wesson Custom Shop. These guys aren’t just gun nuts, they are Smith & Wesson nuts.

There is an old adage, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” This week the media is trying to convince us that support for Senator Feinstein’s anti-gun legislation is weak, but if we are not PRO-ACTIVE, the legislation will pass as written. You will wake up just in time for SHOT Show with new laws that make your AR-15 a Class 3 weapon. This means that if you want to keep your tactical rifles, you will have to register them, pay a $5-$200 tax, and notify the government if you intend to take them out of state. You will also completely waive your 4th Amendment rights to reasonable search and seizure. ATF will have the right to knock on your door and inspect the weapons anytime they want. You will also see an end to standard capacity magazines. This isn’t a threat. It isn’t political posturing. Diane Feinstein and the anti-gun machine have already introduced the legislation, and it will be rammed through Congress and signed by the President if we do not Stand As One and act today.

If you have been following our Law Abiding Gun Owner petition at Whitehouse.gov, you know that it was shut off overnight on Thursday, when we sent our last email appealing to women and minority gun owners. Like many others, we suspect that the Whitehouse staffers noticed that the anti-gun petition was dying and that ours was taking off. We also got reports that many people could not sign it prior to Friday. Over 57,000 of you were able to make your voices heard, and we would have reached 100,000 alone given the chance. No national media outlet, popular gun website or even popular gun blogger linked to our petition. Thanks to those of you who tried to spread the word, and of course, those who were able to actually sign.

As it turned out, President Obama answered all of the gun petitions, for and against, in one note and video. He did not answer ours specifically. You can read his response here on the original petition page. I do feel that he should have answered us directly because we doubled the requisite number of petition signatures, but he did clearly acknowledge law abiding gun owners in his answer at least. If you read between the lines of what he said and wrote, the President appears to be notifying us that his political hands are tied and that we need to act now by contacting our congress members directly, and also by letting him know what we think of his answer. Rather than hem and haw, I think this is what we should do.

I am a parent of four children ten years old and under. And even though I am a writer by trade, somehow I don’t have any words to describe how the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary school has made me feel. Most us are probably like that, especially parents. But at the same time, the media and the politicians are using those raw emotions to make this terrible tragedy about guns. This letter is entitled “An Appeal to Women and Minority Gun Owners” because guns are not solely the realm of white males. Women shooters have been the largest growing sector in the gun world for several years running now. Yet politically, it is women who are being manipulated the most in this crisis. Ethnic minority gun ownership, especially in our inner cities, is what our success in the 2nd Amendment fight has been about for over ten years, and the media and the politicians are trying to strip that success away. Raw emotions in America are being played right now, and you have the choice to play along or stand for what you really believe in. Congress is out for Christmas, and you can bet every politician on both sides of the isle has his or her finger in the wind. We have one chance to change the direction it is blowing, and that chance is our Law Abiding Gun Owner petition. Please sign it.

Please sign this petition at: https://wh.gov/RLsR We ask President Obama to support law abiding gun owners in this time of tragedy. We ask President Obama to stand with law abiding gun owners in this time of tragedy. Guns laws could not have prevented Adam Lanza from killing 27 innocents. The real question is what made [...]

“Know your enemy” is something of a misnomer when hunting coyotes. They are not creatures of habit, but of instinct and opportunity. Creating what a coyote believes is an opportunity kicks in its instincts, and that is how you get a wily coyote within shooting range. If you are overrun with coyotes and you don’t know what to do, this is an overview of the basics, based on over six months of research with our guide Dwayne Powell in Okeechobee, Florida. The state of Florida is second only to Texas in beef production, and coyotes are an incessant problem on the cattle ranches, especially with newborn calves and birthing mothers.

We have hunted these creatures during the day, at night, when the ground is wet and when the ground is dry, when it is hot and when it is cool, and there is almost never a time when coyotes do the same thing. There are times when you won’t be able to lure them out, and others when they will stand 30 yards in front of you and let you shoot at them. But of one thing you can be certain. Make sure that your rifle is zeroed and that you shoot really well, really fast. She or he who hesitates is lost when hunting coyotes. They don’t give you a lot of time, even on the easiest day. More of Dwayne’s clients miss coyotes than all the other types of game combined. The Creator in His infinite wisdom made the coyote a ruthless, heartless, killing machine that is extremely suspicious and careful. You have to be no less than that if you expect to eradicate them from your property and hunt coyotes successfully. It really isn’t about coyote hunting. It is about coyote killing.