Glibertarians.com 2019 Archive

Category: Guns

  • Gold Standards II – The Colt/Browning 1911

    1911 Patent Drawing

    The Greatest 20th Century Martial Sidearm

    Resolved:  The Colt/Browning 1911 pistol is the standard by which all autoloading pistols must be judged.  Now that that’s established, I’ll proceed to tell you about this magnificent sidearm and how it came to be the gold standard of autoloading handguns.

    John Browning

    It should come as no surprise that the DaVinci of firearms was involved in the genesis of the 1911.  Browning’s reputation as a gun designer was well established long before he started in on autoloading pistols, having produced such outstanding pieces as the 1894 Winchester (a gold standard in its own right) and the first commercially successful, mass-produced pump shotgun, the 1897 Winchester.

    He started in on autoloading pistols with the tiny FN Browning M1900 in .32ACP, a pipsqueak of a little blowback pistol.  But in that same year, he also designed the short-recoil operated Colt Model 1900 in .38ACP, and it was that pistol that would become the grandfather of a great line of martial pistols.

    The Precursors

    The Colt 1900

    After two years the Colt 1900 and its .38ACP cartridge were modified and improved somewhat, splitting into three designs:  The 1902 Sporting Model, the 1902 Military Model and the 1903 Pocket Hammer Model.  All three were chambered for the .38ACP, but in 1905 a final model in this line appeared, the Model 1905 with a 4 7/8” barrel chambered for a short, rimless .45 caliber cartridge that would become the immortal .45ACP.

    In 1899 the U.S. War Department had been seeking an autoloading pistol design to replace the anemic M1892 revolver and its .38 Colt cartridge.  Tested were the Luger in 7.65mm, the C96 Mauser, the Mannlicher M1894 and the Colt M1900.  This early Colt has some issues with trigger linkages that adversely affected reliability in the aptly named “torture tests” of the day, and so the War Department purchased 1,000 DWM Lugers as an experiment.

    This experiment didn’t last.  The U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps had learned some important lessons in the Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War that convinced the War Department to once more pursue a major-caliber autoloader.

    During that latter conflict, the troops facing stoned Moro warriors encased in rawhide armor found the .38 Colt revolvers lacked stopping power, but when the Army imported some M1873 Colt single-actions in the grand old .45 Colt, things changed; a tribesman with a couple of .45 Colt in his chest generally lost all interest in matters martial then and there.

    The War Department quickly sourced a stopgap, buying a lot of the big, rugged Colt New Service double-action revolvers in .45 Colt and deeming them the M1909 revolver; meanwhile the testing of autoloaders went on.  By this time the mind of Browning had fixed the shortcomings of the M1900 series pistols and had produced something vastly better.

    The 1911.

    The 1911

    The first round of service testing reduced the field of alternatives to three:  The Savage, the DWM Luger, and the new Browning/Colt M1911.  In one of the final tests, both Colt and Savage pistols were fired six thousand times over the course of two days.  When the guns grew too hot to hold, they were dunked in a bucket of water to cool them, and the firing went on.

    The Savage had 37 malfunctions over the course of the test; the Colt, none.  In short order the War Department had adopted their first primary issue autoloading handgun, the Colt M1911.

    The original 1911 had some ergonomic flaws.  The sights were somewhat rudimentary, at least by today’s standards (although better than the near-non-existent rear sight of the issue Luger.)  The hammer spur was long and low enough that it frequently dug into the web of the firing hand, especially if the shooter (like me) had big hands.  The thumb safety was small and easy to miss, and the trigger was too long for a shooter (unlike me) with short fingers.

    After the new pistol received its baptism of fire in the Great War, Colt made some changes based on the experiences of service members who used the pistol in the field.

    New and Improved! The 1911A1.

    The 1911A1

    In 1924, Colt engineers brought out a revision of the War Department’s .45.  The 1911A1 had improved sights, a shorter trigger and a lengthened grip safety spur to address that nasty hammer bite.  The Great War had revealed that the 1911 tended to shoot low in rapid-fire instinctive shooting, so the 1911A1 had an arched mainspring housing to address this tendency by making the muzzle hold naturally a tad higher.

    In this form the 1911A1 served until 1984 as the primary service sidearm for all branches of the U.S. military, a 73-year run, unprecedented in U.S. military history.  The Colt 1911 proved its mettle in battlefields all over the world.  The old slab-sides wasn’t as pretty as a Luger or as finely fitted as the Sig P-210 but it had three great qualifications for a martial pistol:  It was rugged, reliable and tough.  I’ve never handled or fired a Savage Model 1907, but I own a Luger, not a DWM as tested by the War Department but rather a 1938 piece made at the Mauser-Werke in Oberndorf.  The Luger is a beauty and one of the most naturally pointing pistols I’ve ever handled, but it’s fussy about dirt, finicky about ammo and, with its original, serial-numbered magazine, jams at least once in every mag full of ammo.  I love the Luger for its style, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be the miserable Nazi bastard whose life depended on the damn thing; if keeping my hide unperforated was in question, I’d take a homely old 1911 over the Luger any day of the week.

    Dad with his 1911, in 1945.

    I confess a nostalgic fondness for the M1911A1.  When I was a young fellow just out of my initial entry training, I was assigned to an Infantry battalion as a Company Aidman; as part of my field gear I was issued an old leather holster with “US” stamped on the flap and, to fill it, an M1911A1 pistol of a vintage that meant my father could very easily have carried the same sidearm in 1944-46 during his tenure in Uncle Sam’s colors.  A year later I was on the battalion bullseye pistol team when we won the Division pistol championship.

    My old 1911A1 was somewhat the worse for wear, but man did that thing shoot and shoot and shoot.

    The Commercial Models

    This is where the gold standard status of the 1911 design really shows.

    Colt sold the 1911 as the Government Model, chambering it not only in the .45 ACP but also in the .38 Super and 9mm Parabellum.  But after World War 2, the company began branching out.

    In 1949, Colt brought out the Colt Commander, which may have been the first major-caliber dedicated CCW piece.  The first Commander had an aluminum frame, a shorter slide and a 4 ¼” barrel.  In 1970, Colt added the “Combat Commander” with the same barrel/slide and a steel frame, at which time the original was renamed the “Lightweight Commander.”

    In 1970 Colt introduced the Series 70 in all Government Model variations, with a collet barrel bushing and some other internal improvements; this is probably the best 1911 Colt ever made.  Ten years later the Series 80 was produced, which added an internal firing-pin safety – this on a gun that already had two mechanical safeties, three if you count the external hammer.  Also added as a half-cock notch on the hammer.  The Series 80 was somewhat underwhelming to hardcore shooters, as the added gunk on the lockwork reduced the original design’s rugged simplicity.

    Both versions were also available in the Gold Cup match pistol trim.  If you want to do some serious bullseye shooting, you won’t find anything much better suited than a Series 70 Gold Cup.

    Beginning in the late Seventies, Colt found they had some competition.  Such upstarts as Springfield Armory, Federal Ordinance and Detonics began making fine pistols on the 1911 pattern.  In 1985, a company called Para-Ordnance introduced the first 1911 featuring a double-stack, 14-round magazine – and things just got more and more complicated after that.

    In today’s market for autoloading sidearms, the 1911 pattern still, after a hundred and eight years, still dominates.

    Today

    At present I own one 1911 myself, a simple mil-spec replica of the 1911A1 with Series 70 Colt lockwork, made by Armscor in the Philippines and imported by Rock Island Armory.  This was admittedly a nostalgia purchase, as I also bought a replica US flap holster to carry it, but that affordable (about $400) 1911A1 copy is much like the original; rugged and powerful.  I had a few feeding problems until I switched to Kimber magazines, and now it will feed empty cases and reliable shoots any ammo I care to feed it.  Rock Island Armory imports fancier versions of the same gun, and I am told that they are solid and reliable in whatever livery you choose to try.

    It would be more difficult today to name the gun companies that don’t make a 1911.  Smith & Wesson gave in to the inevitable some years ago and began building their own version of a 1911; ditto for Ruger.  Remington began building 1911s some years back.  Loyal sidekick Rat has one, a Remington 1911 R1 Carry, and it’s a fine shooter, although the trigger is a bit heavier than I’d prefer.

    My old buddy Dave has a Les Baer longslide, a 6” barreled, dedicated 1911 target gun; it’s so damn well made that you’d have to work at it to not shoot it well.

    Kimber, Springfield Armory, Randall, Olympic Arms, Sig-Sauer, Taurus, Dan Wesson, High Standard, and many more – all have bowed to the demands of the market and began making 1911-pattern pistols.  Forget about a gun designer wondering how his autoloader will measure up to the 1911; most of them now are just building 1911s and having done with it.

    The Colt/Browning 1911 is a rare kind of design from a rare kind of designer; simple, tough, solid.  In its original form it is reliable as the morning sunrise; with its original .45ACP cartridge it packs enough wallop to finish most tasks with authority.  The 1911 is as near an immortal pistol design as you’re likely to find and will probably last throughout this 21st century – making it, as resolved, the gold standard of autoloading sidearms.

  • Gold Standards I – The Model 12 Winchester

    The Perfect Repeater

    Resolved:  The pre-64 Model 12 Winchester is the standard by which all pump shotguns must be judged.  Now that that’s established, I’ll proceed to tell you about this magnificent shotgun and how it came to be the gold standard of pump shotguns.

    My Black Diamond Trap Gun.

    Full disclosure:  I’m not impartial.  I own three Model 12s – a 1940 12-gauge field gun, a 1941 16-gauge field gun, and a 1942 12-gauge Black Diamond trap gun.  The sequential years are nothing more than a happy coincidence.

    John Browning

    It should come as no surprise that the DaVinci of firearms was involved in the genesis of the Model 12, as he was with so many American sporting and martial arms.  But his involvement in this case is limited to a precursor of the Model 12.

    The story begins in 1887.  In that year, Winchester determined to build and sell a repeating shotgun.  They turned to John Browning, who had developed the company’s outstanding 1886 lever rifle the year before, along with the Winchester 1885 falling-block single-shot rifle.

    Browning had already produced a successful lever-action rifle for Winchester, and while he advocated a pump-action for a shotgun, Winchester’s official position at that time was that they were a lever gun company, and by God they’d have a lever-action shotgun.  Browning came through, producing the 1887 lever gun, the first mass-produced repeating shotgun by a major manufacturer.

    But the 1887 lever gun was big, clunky, and it’s drop-block lever action required a long throw.  It was offered in 10 and 12 gauge but was only strong enough for black-powder shells, at a time when higher-performance smokeless powder loads were just beginning to become available.

    Sales were lackluster.  Double guns still handled better than the heavy lever gun and offered much faster second shots and quick reloads.  Browning politely reminded Winchester of his stated position on the pump-action for shotguns.  Winchester finally agreed that the brilliant designer may have had a point.

    The Model 93/97

    John Browning Winchester Model 1893 1897 US Patent 441390

    In response, Browning designed the black-powder-only 1893 pump shotgun, which was quickly refined into the 12- and 16-gauge, smokeless-powder-capable Model 1897.  The first variant of the ’97 offered in 1897 was a solid-frame 12 gauge, followed in 1898 by the takedown version in 12-gauge and the takedown 16 gauge in 1900.

    Sales of the new gun were brisk, which probably earned Winchester’s management a “told you so” or two from John Browning.  In fact, Browning liked the new shotgun enough that he retained one as his personal shotgun, using it on ranges and in the game fields until he died in 1926.

    The 1897 had a few interesting features.  The six-shot tubular magazine remains pretty typical for pump-guns made today, but the external hammer and lack of an additional safety probably wouldn’t fare well in today’s market – although I would opine, as I have repeatedly, that a gun with an external hammer doesn’t require an additional safety.

    Another feature the 97 had was the lack of a trigger disconnect.  This device disconnects the trigger when the action is cycled, thus requiring the trigger to be released and pressed again for follow-up shots.  The 97, like most pump-guns designed in the early 20th century, was a “slam-fire” gun – one could hold the trigger down and cycle the action, firing a new round ever time the slide slammed home.  This isn’t a terribly accurate way to fire a shotgun, but I will admit if can be great fun; when I was a young fellow, I used to experiment in this technique with my Dad’s old Stevens pump, which had the same capacity.  I never learned to hit much that way but burned up a fair amount of shells until the Old Man saw me dumping magazines of cheap field loads into the dirt bank we used as a backstop and, fearing damage to his gun by the rough use, put a stop to my experimenting.

    The ’97 was in production until 1957, a sixty-year run.  During both World Wars, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps used 97s to good effect in combat, the old guns with their slam-fire ability, six-shot magazines, 18” barrels, heat shrouds and bayonet lugs making good “trench brooms” in Great War France as well as good last-ditch jungle weapons in such places as Guadalcanal and Bougainville in the Pacific during Great War Part Two.

    Today Chinese manufacturer Norinco makes a copy of the 1897 Winchester, supposedly made exactly to original specs but, based on examples I’ve examined, certainly not to original standards.  My estimation of these guns is that one might make a decent tent pole or boat anchor, but they are not stout enough to make a decent pry bar.  If you’re looking for an external-hammer pump shotgun, skip the Chinese knockoffs and find an old Winchester.

    In the grand scheme of things, however fine and successful a gun as the 97 was, was only the prequel to the Perfect Repeater.

    Winchester’s T.C. Johnson

    The Model 12, exploded.

    There are few cases in which another designer has taken one of John Browning’s designs and improved it, but in 1912, Winchester engineer Thomas Crossley (T.C.) Johnson pulled it off.

    Starting with the 1897, Johnson retained the take-down action mechanism, the six-round tubular magazine and the slam-fire capacity.  The changes were primarily to the receiver.  Johnson designed an enclosed receiver with an internal hammer, with the magazine loading from the bottom of the receiver and spent shells ejected through a port on the right side of the receiver.  The feed system was also redesigned; where the 97 had used a big, heavy lifter to not only feed new rounds into the chamber but to also lock the bolt closed, the new gun used a much lighter shell lifter and instead locked the bolt closed with a lug that locked solidly into the top of the receiver.  The receiver itself was machined from a billet of forged steel, making for a gun of immense strength for the time, perfectly capable of handling the new smokeless powder ammo.

    Thus, was born the final configuration of the pump-action shotgun, which form persists even today.

    Perhaps because the Model 97 was already being produced in 12 and 16 gauge, the Model 1912, as it was then known, was initially introduced only in 20 gauge, with 12- and 16-gauge versions being introduced in late 1913.  The 16-gauge guns were built on the 20-gauge frame, making them an ideal compromise between “thump” and handling; my own 16-gauge is light, fast, a joy to handle, but with standard 2 ¾” shells puts out an appreciably larger shot charge than a 20.

    Winchester’s marketing department were quick to promote the new pump-gun, labeling it “The Perfect Repeater,” which to my estimation is a pretty accurate description.  A variety of Model 12s were produced, including lightweight versions and “Heavy Duck” guns that fired the very first 3” 12-gauge shells.  Trap and Skeet versions were also produced, as were the fancy Pigeon Grade guns, featuring engraving, silver and/or gold inlays, and AAA+ walnut stocks and fore ends.

    Like the 97 before it, the Model 12 also went to war, in trench gun trim, serving alongside the 1897 Winchester as well as the Stevens 520A and the Ithaca 37 in both World Wars as well as Korea and Vietnam.  The government also bought standard versions for marksmanship training; those guns were fitted with big, ugly Cutts Compensators.  The Old Man, when he ran a skeet range on an Army airfield in Victorville, California in late 1945 and early 1946, ran a lot of rounds through the range’s Model 12s and the accompanying Remington 11as.

    It was in the game fields, though, that the Model 12 really shone.  The combination of the enclosed, forged and machined receiver, the take-down action and the magazine capacity made the Model 12 very popular among bird and small-game hunters.  The gun was well-made, reliable, strong enough to handle heavy loads and tough enough to withstand bad weather, rain, damp, snow, you name it.

    A 1942 Winchester shotgun ad.

    By the mid-20th century, though, the very success of the Model 12 had resulted in some competition.  One notable pump-gun of mid-century, the Stevens 520/520A, also came from the mind of John Browning, but those guns were primarily aimed at the economy market and almost all were built in private-label trim for such outlets as Sears-Roebuck and Montgomery Wards.  As such, they didn’t make many inroads into Winchester’s sales of Model 12s.

    All that changed in 1950, with the introduction of the Remington 870, and a near-immortal pump-gun in its own right.  But the 870, while also tough and reliable, was cheaper to produce and sold at a lower price than the Model 12.  The 870 was a bargain for shooters, while the Model 12, with its forged, milled receiver and considerable hand-fitting, was becoming too expensive to produce.  The introduction of more economical yet still reliable and tough pump-guns like the aluminum-framed Mossberg 500 furthered the trend; hand-fitted guns like the Model 12 were becoming too costly for most shooters.

    In 1964, during the infamous Winchester reorganization, the company’s management decided that the Model 12 cost too much to build; the grand old gun was not a good gamble for the modern market.  Production of the Model 12 ceased that year, although a few guns still made their way out of Winchester’s Custom Shop.  Mikoru in Japan made a few guns on the Model 12 specifications bearing the U.S. Repeating Arms and Browning labels, but after 1964, mass production of the original Winchester Model 12 ended.

    Today

    If you’re looking to pick up an original pre-64 Model 12 today, there are plenty available, but you should be aware of a few precautionary notes:

    1. Early guns had short chambers. In the first few years, 12-gauge guns had 2 5/8” receivers, while 16-gauge models had 2 9/16” chambers. It can be harmful to gun and shooter to fire 2 ¾” shells in these guns.
    2. In the 1920s many Model 12s were produced with nickel steel barrels. These guns are all clearly marked on the barrel, “NICKEL STEEL,” and are still very fine guns; but be advised, if the finish is badly worn, these guns don’t reblue easily.  There was a very specific process involved; back when Winchester was still Winchester, one could send nickel steel guns in for refinishing and the company would do a very fine job.  The attempts I’ve seen since then, done by third parties, have had… well, mixed results.
    3. Both the 1897 and Model 12 Winchester shotguns have notoriously thin barrel walls. This will not be an issue unless your desire to have a gun cut for choke tubes.  Most outfits simply won’t touch an old Model 12; Carlson, for example, will tell you to not even send the gun in for evaluation.  I have had two Model 12s cut for tubes by Briley, the only outfit I’m aware of that will touch this job; the tubes provided are frighteningly thin.  I bet I could crush one flat between thumb and forefinger, although I won’t try; I have fired quite a few rounds through both 12 and 16 with these tubes, however, with no issues whatsoever.

    The market in pump shotguns today is an embarrassment of riches.  But you have to wonder, every time a gun company engineer comes up with a new pump-gun design, has to ask himself, somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, “How will this compare to the Model 12?”

    For longevity, for fit and finish, for reliability, for flawless function, and, yes, for beauty, the Model 12 Winchester remains The Perfect Repeater – the gold standard, the gun by which all other pump shotguns are measured.  I don’t see that fact changing any time soon.

  • Here we go again…

    I am not going to talk about shootings, but I am going to talk about guns.  Sort of.  I am going to talk about something going around social media in the last few days being portrayed as some kind of “liberal self-own”.

    This is my review of Barrier Brewing Farmhouse Ale—with Brett (H/T Iobot)

    It is this article from Business Insider making the rounds on the parts of social media conservatives are still aloud to congregate and make fun of their progressive counterparts.  Essentially, a reporter tried to find out how difficult it is to buy a gun at Wal-Mart—turns out she couldn’t just walk in, pay cash to an associate in a quiet corner of the parking lot and leave with a weapon Bill Duke uses to trim the hedges.

    Buying guns at Wal-Mart has always been a…shall we say…less than ideal experience.  I would know, while I was in college I worked the sporting goods counter for a short time.  It was only a few months, and resulted in me not hating everything about Wal-Mart because that is where I got my start.

    Its pretty sweet

    For one thing, while a customer can special order nearly anything in the Lipsey’s catalog, what was on hand was limited to standard length shotguns, Ruger 10/22, and composite stock Remington 700 in various calibers with a Chinese sourced optic.  The best rifle I ever sold was a Browning BAR in .30-06, which took a few weeks when the customer bought it via layaway, then I called Lipsey’s, put in the order and awaited shipping.  Those are pretty sweet. Wal-Mart also had certain requirements for state residency, they needed the entire address without abbreviations printed on the ATF form 4473, a “salaried manager” needed to double check the transaction, and most important was the required “all clear” from NICS, rather than after the wait time for a hold.  They also had the counter under constant video surveillance.  Finally, the manager walked the rifle out of the store and handed the customer the rifle in its original packaging outside the store.  This was 2005. Eventually, Wal-Mart began selling AR-15s, specifically the Colt Model 6920, which is absolutely nothing to scoff at even if I assembled a better carbine from vendors located in various corners of the internet.  They since stopped selling it in 2015.

    Nowadays, Wal-Mart has certain “approved” employees that can sell firearms.  The reporter had a lot of difficulty in finding out which Wal-Mart sold rifles.  By policy, they are hesitant to tell a customer where they sell guns, and when she even managed to find one ran into issues with her ID not having a current address.

    I had invested several hours across two days on this. If I were actually in the market for a rifle, I would have gone to a local gun shop instead after about five minutes of trying to figure out which Walmart stores sold guns.

    She found out something many gun owners already know:  buying guns at Wal-Mart sucks, because they go well above and beyond federal requirements to sell firearms—to aggravating levels.  Take that Sheryl Crow.

    So how is this not a self-own?   One of the reasons commonly cited for the “Age of Trump” is one side simply chooses not to not understand why the other lives the way they do.  In this case we see somebody actually tried to find out.  In spite of what we might assume her biases are or what the narrative she might have intended to portray, she found out it is not so easy.  She discovered what most gun owners know:  gun retailers realize the consequence of selling to the wrong person and are going to take steps to avoid that mistake.  Some have a smoother transaction than others perhaps, but should a guy walk into a gun store and ask for the best weapon to kill [minority group of your choice] will actually find he going to be to asked to leave…and probably to go to Hell.  This isn’t a self own, she discovered something about the other side—which even if unwittingly is actually commendable given the insanely low bar set for this sort of thing.

    Something else I discovered was this beer is excellent.  Everyone here is probably aware I am a fan of Belgian-pattern wheat beer.  This one comes loaded with Brett tipped clipazines and enough body to hold that shoulder thingy that goes up.  Must be 21 to purchase…

    Barrier Brewing Farmhouse Ale—with Brett 4.2/5

     

  • Allamakee County Chronicles IV – Dad’s Guns

    Note:  A preview from my upcoming autobiography, Life’s Too Short to Smoke Cheap Cigars (Or to Drink Cheap Whiskey.)

    Dad

    Dad, 1950

    How to begin to describe my father?

    I could summarize by saying he was the finest man I ever knew.  But there was a lot more to him than that.  You can tell a lot about a man by his possessions:  The kind of car or truck he drives, the way he dresses, and so on.  But I’ve always said that, in the case of my father, you could tell quite a lot about his intensely practical, personally and financially conservative lifestyle by his guns – not only which guns he owned, but also by the fact that three guns served him for almost his entire ninety-four years of life.

    This is the story of my Dad’s guns.

    Early On…

    Like most of Dad’s generation, he was a World War II veteran, having served from early 1943 to early 1946.  He was a second lieutenant in the US Army Air Corps and trained as a navigator.  When the war ended the Army wasn’t quite ready to let Dad go yet.  He had shipped to Victorville, CA to learn the new art of radar navigation, but on VJ Day there was suddenly much less need for qualified B-29 crew, so Dad was at odds until someone asked him if he’d like to help run the post skeet range.

    In those days as in the rest of his life, Dad hated having nothing to do, so he said “sure,” and ended up working with the first lieutenant who ran the ranges.  The skeet range, part of the overall qualification and training range complex, existed as a recreational opportunity for troops rotating back from the Pacific, but (perhaps understandably) most of those guys had done enough shooting to suit them for a while.

    So, Dad and the other officer shot.  A lot.  As in, hundreds of rounds a day.  Not just shotguns, either, as whenever the range received a shipment of ammo, the OICs were required to test a certain number of rounds from each shipment.  So, in addition to hundreds of rounds on the skeet range, Dad and his partner shot M1 carbines and, to test the shipments of .45ACP, M1 Thompsons and M3 Grease Guns, because why would you shoot a pistol if you have submachine guns that use the same round?

    Despite how much fun Dad was having shooting guns all day, when the Army finally got around to letting him go home, he grabbed the chance.  Part of the deal was that the Army would ship, gratis, one issue wooden Army footlocker with whatever Dad chose to put in it.

    Dad took a footlocker out to the range and filled it to the brim with 12-gauge shells.  He took that in to be shipped, stuck his extra uniforms in a suitcase, and boarded a train for Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where my grandfather was waiting for him.

    It so happened that, up in the town of Independence, Dad also had a girl waiting for him.  In March of 1947 that girl became his wife and, some years later, my Mom, but that’s a story for another time.

    The Guns

    Before the war Dad had been in the habit of borrowing his older brother’s ’97 Winchester when he wanted to go hunting, but with a footlocker full of 12-gauge shells and his demobilization pay in his pocket, he decided he needed his own shotgun, and so went forthwith into the pages of the Sears-Roebuck catalog where he ordered a Sears store-brand “J.C. Higgins 102.25” 12-gauge pump, which was a Stevens 520A in Sears trim.  At some point, Dad sent the gun off to the original Waseca, Minnesota Herter’s shop for a Herter’s brand collet-type poly-choke, making the old gun even more versatile.

    The 520A is a good, solid pump-gun.  As are so many American sporting arms, this one was the product of the mind of John Browning, the DaVinci of firearms, and bears the characteristic Browning “humpback” on the steel receiver.  During the war the Army bought quite a few of them in riot trim for MPs and such, and after that unpleasantness both Sears and Montgomery Wards sold them in store-brand trim. Dad now had a tool with which to put all his skeet-range experience to good use with, and when he took up a small farm near Independence in the fall of 1946, he put that skill to work bringing in rabbits and pheasants for the table.

    As I’ve noted in a couple of previous articles, if you can have only one gun, a 12-gauge pump is the gun to have.  Now you all know where I picked up that attitude originally, although I still adhere to that thinking after forty-plus years of shooting and collecting.

    Dad married my Mom in March of 1947.  For their third anniversary, Mom wanted to find Dad something enjoyable and practical for an anniversary present – and what could be more enjoyable and practical than a .22 rifle?  Mom enjoyed plinking with a .22 rifle herself and figured that a good .22 would increase Dad’s efficiency at producing the prime ingredient of rabbit stews as well as dealing with the vermin that inevitably become a problem on a farm.

    Mom knew as much about guns as your average 22-year old girl who had grown up on a farm during the Depression, which was more than most 22-year old girls today would.  She figured that the Coast-to-Coast in Oelwein would have what she was looking for.

    By this time the folks had moved to a larger farm near Fairbank, Iowa.  Neither Fairbank nor the nearby town of Readlyn boasted a hardware store in those days, so Mom went off to Oelwein, a larger town about fifteen miles east of the farm.  (As it happened, in 1961, Oelwein became the birthplace of one of eastern Iowa’s more notable former residents – me.)

    In that year of 1950, Mossberg had introduced yet another variation of their standard .22LR semi-auto.  These old guns fed via a tubular magazine not under the barrel but through the stock.  The latest version in that year featured a long 24” barrel and an unadorned black walnut stock with a Schnabel fore-end.  Mom kicked in the extra shekels for a long, skinny, steel-tubed 4X Mossberg scope and presented the rifle to Dad on the day of their third anniversary.

    Recently I advocated for the use of a bolt gun for a homestead’s .22 rifle, but the semi-auto from Mossberg proved accurate and reliable, although limited to .22 LR ammo.  On one winter afternoon, when a flock of geese landed in a plowed field to glean corn, the Mossberg proved accurate enough to hit one squarely in the head at a bit over 100 yards, which was as close as Dad could get working his way down the fencerow.  Corn-fed roast goose makes a pretty fair Sunday dinner.

    The last piece was the only one purchased purely for recreation.  Neither Mom nor Dad remembered later exactly what the year was, but at some point, in the early Sixties they decided it would be fun to have a handgun for a little recreational plinking.

    As it happens, a few years earlier Bill Ruger had introduced his rugged, reliable little Standard Auto in .22LR.  And this being in the pre-1968 GCA world, the folks were able to mail-order their new 6” barreled Standard and have it sent to the house.  Amazingly, nobody died – imagine that.

    My Mom was quite fond of plinking with Ruger’s little pistol and got to be quite an accomplished shot.  I remember her shooting bottle caps at 10-15 yards, and she would regularly shoot spent shotgun shells off the tops of fenceposts.  Dad was a pretty fair shot, but when it came to the handgun, I honestly think Mom had him beat.

    These were the three guns my Dad used through his career – these, and no others.  Consider the three pieces described:  There are prettier guns, fancier guns, with nicer wood and shinier finishes.  But the three guns here were all solid, utilitarian pieces, utterly dependable – like Dad.

    As I Grew

    Dad started teaching me to shoot when I was five or six years old.

    I started out with a simple BB gun borrowed from an uncle, probably a Daisy lever-action; at this distance in time, I really can’t remember.  When I was about ten, I was gifted my first in a series of Crosman pump-up Model 760 bb/pellet guns, of which I wore out several between the ages of about ten and sixteen.

    Dad and me, 1964

    At twelve or so I had moved on to shooting Dad’s .22 rifle and pistol, at first under his direct supervision until he was satisfied I could handle them safely.  Around that time, I received a Mossberg 20-gauge pump as a birthday present, the handling and maintenance of which Dad also instructed me in.

    No Army drill sergeant ever hammered anyone harder on gun safety.  I was drilled on muzzle control, on keeping my finger off the trigger until actually ready to shoot, on opening the action and clearing the chamber every time I picked up the gun even if I had just set it down moments before.  Dad always pointed out that a gun, like so many other tools found around a country place, were potentially dangerous instruments, and that a moment’s inattention could cause a serious injury or death.  He taught me how to shoot his guns and guns I later got for myself, how to maintain them, how to hit what I was aiming at and to do so responsibly.  When hunting, he taught me the importance of sportsmanship, of showing respect for the game, of being mindful that the birds and animals weren’t just targets, but that I was taking a life – and how that life and mine fit in with the greater scheme of things.

    His lessons are still with me today.  It is because of those lessons that I am still extremely discriminating on who I will go hunting or shooting with.

    But more than that, Dad taught me what the guns were to be used for.  We hunted pheasants and grouse, squirrels, rabbits, ducks, all the small game Iowa had to offer.  Dad had more or less quit hunting deer by the time I was big enough to give that a go but was always pleased at my proficiency in bringing big corn-fed Iowa whitetails to bag.

    Over the years I increasingly went on solo adventures, or out with my friends.  But I never got tired of watching Dad shoot a shotgun.  He had an uncanny knack for knowing where an evasive ruffed grouse might dodge through our timber and was adept at arranging for an ounce of # 7 ½ shot to be placed at a predetermined location that coincided with the bird’s arrival.

    His Legacy

    I see a little bit of Dad whenever I look in the mirror.  And not just because I share the characteristic Clark nose and Dad’s shaggy eyebrows.

    I can hear Dad’s precautionary voice every time I pick up a firearm.  Sometimes I take his old Stevens out to shoot a round of trap, and I usually draw a comment or two from our gun club regulars who are used to seeing me with my Citori or one of my Model 12s; but when I explain that this was my Dad’s gun, they almost always nod knowingly.  They get it.

    His old Mossberg .22 is still a tack-driver.  I killed a small mountain of squirrels and rabbits with it back in the day, and it still shoots as well as it did then.  Ditto for the .22 Ruger; only a year or so back I killed a dinner’s worth of Colorado mountain grouse with it.

    And as time went by, I taught my own kids and now my grandkids how to safely and responsibly handle firearms.  The lessons Dad passed on to me have been repeated, over and over.  They are as important now as they were then.  And now, today, Dad’s guns stand in my own gun rack, still cleaned, lightly oiled and ready.

    How It Stands Today

    Mom and Dad – 1947, 2017

    Dad’s been gone about a year and a half now.  He was 94, and my four siblings and I are in our fifties (only me, now) sixties and seventies.  When Dad left us, it was like a light went out in Mom.  After losing her husband of seventy-one years, she clearly had little interest in going on alone and followed him after only eight months.  Now my siblings and I look at each other and realize that now we’re the seniors; we are the Grandmas and Grandpas.

    We go through life knowing that one day our parents will be gone.  We had ours for a good long time, and they had each other for a good long time.  I miss them both still.  I miss my Dad, every single day.  It took me a while to get used to that empty place in my life where a giant once strode.  But everything I am, everything I know about being a man, a husband, a father and a grandfather is because of him, and one tangible reminder I have of that I have described here:  His guns.  Nothing fancy or ostentatious, just good solid utility, scrupulously maintained, practical and tough, always standing ready for whatever might happen.

    Not a bad way to be remembered.

  • Guns For The Country Home

    Guns for The Country Home

    Some time back I stumbled across an interesting discussion on the appropriate firearm for the farm or country home, much like the country home my folks maintained for many decades.

    The Old Man was, of course, a farmer for much of his life, and an old school country gentleman.  His attitude towards firearms reflected most of his type and his generation; firearms were tools essential to the maintenance and protection of homestead and crops, in the same order as a chainsaw, a scythe, or a tractor.  They were selected and maintained as such, with strictly utilitarian considerations.  Childhood in the Great Depression and young adulthood during WW2 made most of the Old Man’s generation practically minded people.

    That being the case, the Old Man maintained three firearms on and about the place.  They were a 12-gauge pump shotgun, a .22 rimfire rifle, and a .22 handgun.  The shotgun was his first purchase with his demobilization pay when he returned from the Army in 1946, the .22 rifle was a third anniversary present from my mother in 1950, and the .22 pistol he bought for recreational shooting sometime in the mid-1960s.  I still have all three firearms, and no amount of money could persuade me to part with them, so don’t ask.  And, in what should come as a surprise to no one, these are the three types of guns I think are most useful around your typical country home.

    If You Can Have Only One Gun

    Winchester Model 12 and Stevens 520A.

    Now, on to the country home:  If a family can only maintain one firearm on a country homestead, one would be wise to pick up something along the lines of the Old Man’s first post-war purchase, a simple 12-gauge pump-action shotgun.  The Old Man’s Stevens pump-gun hasn’t been manufactured for many years, although used examples are sometimes available at bargain prices.  The old Stevens 520/620 series are great guns, John Browning designed take-down pump guns with solid steel receivers.  They’re reliable and brutally tough, and if you can find them around, come pretty cheap.

    The Mossberg 500 series or the Remington 870 are likewise solid guns that will give long service; my own pair of Mossbergs, a 12 and a 20, have been functioning flawlessly in the game fields for 35 and 40 years now.  There are plenty of others on the market, but were I equipping an outpost myself, I’d probably go for a Mossberg or a Remington, for the primary reason that parts will be easy to find.

    The advantages of the 12 gauge are many.  Ammo is readily available anywhere and various loads/shot sizes can handle anything from garden pests to turkeys, while a slug will dispatch a deer or even a bear.  Pump guns are solid, reliable and easy to operate.  Most hold five or six rounds in the magazine, which should be enough ammo for most chores.

    I’m a big fan of old shotguns, particularly the pre-64 Winchester Model 12 and the Belgian Browning Auto-5s.  I have a fair stable of those pieces and over time will probably buy more.  But these are collector’s pieces, and while I shoot them and hunt with them, I would not necessarily drag them through mud and bad weather.  For that, a rougher piece is in order – a utility shotgun, suitable for the only gun on a country homestead.

    Even though I will always love my old Brownings and Winchesters, I will always keep the old Mossbergs around as utility shotguns, especially after our move north.  Of course, my attitudes towards firearms are somewhat different than the Old Man’s, and so the Mossbergs will still have plenty of company in the rack.

    I’ve seen some great shooting done with simple 12-gauge pumps, too.  Despite his utilitarian attitude towards shotguns, the Old Man was nevertheless as artist with his old Stevens.  He was known to go 100 straight on the skeet range in his Army days, and he was highly skilled at making a shot charge arrive in the same location as a fleeing pheasant or grouse.  In his early 80s he cut off the tip of his trigger finger in a jointer, and since that time firing a gun with any recoil caused a stab of pain through his shooting hand, but before moving to town he capped his hunting career in a blaze of glory by stalking and killing four wild turkeys with a bolt-action .410, causing our old friend Dave to comment, “if anyone but your Dad told me that, I’d call him a damned liar.”  I was always disappointed by my failure to catch up to Dad on the trap range, although he would have admitted I was better than he with a rifle.

    Which brings us to…

    If You Can Have Only Two Guns

    Mossberg 44US. Not the one I had but one just like it.

    But let’s say you can have two guns around your place.  I’d recommend the second be a .22 rifle.

    Oddly enough, while my gun rack contains several .22LR semi-autos, if you were to keep a .22 rifle in a rural setting, I’d recommend a bolt gun.  Why?  Several reasons:

    • Bolt guns are simple, they generally break down easily and are easy to clean and repair.
    • Even in a .22LR, bolt guns are accurate.  Not that semi-autos can’t be accurate – but bolt guns are generally a hair ahead.
    • Simplicity leads to reliability.  Fewer moving parts means less wear, although any well-maintained firearm should last a lifetime.
    • Some semi-autos, like my own slicked-up Ruger 10/22, can be finicky about ammo.  Bolt guns generally digest any ammo with aplomb, and generally give you the option to run quiet .22 Shorts if you are shooting at close quarters.  A subsonic .22 Short round fired from a rifle isn’t much louder than a finger-snap, and that can come in downright handy.

    The other advantage to a .22LR bolt gun is price.  There are literally millions of inexpensive and yet reliable and accurate .22 bolt guns around.  You don’t need high polish or fancy walnut for accuracy in a .22 (although those things sure are nice).  Anyone who has handled an old Mossberg or Marlin bolt .22 should be able to attest to that.  Back in the day I bought a Mossberg bolt-action .22 with US Government markings for the grand sum of ten dollars, and I could shoot pop-bottle caps off fence posts at 25 yards with it – with iron sights.  That Mossberg today would cost you more than that, even adjusted for inflation, but not all that much more.  In fact, the same gun without the US Government markings, for some reason, will cost you a lot less.

    A lot of the comments above will apply to a lever gun as well, except that .22LR lever guns are generally pricier and more complicated to maintain.

    If You Can Have Only Three Guns

    For your third gun, I’d recommend a medium-to-major power handgun, one you can carry in a belt holster and shoot accurately.  Anything from a 9mm auto to a .44 Magnum will work; it’s far more important that you can handle the sidearm well.  Revolvers, though, are generally simpler, easier to maintain and less fussy about ammo than autos.  Revolvers also have the capability of handling more powerful loads in a reasonably sized piece.  Bear in mind that if you’re in a remote location, you may have to repair the thing yourself.  Some of us are better tinkerers than others.

    With the above in mind, though, take into consideration any possible uses you might be putting that sidearm to – caliber considerations in Georgia may be quite different than those in Alaska.

    Most people find handguns more difficult to handle well than a rifle or shotgun, so be prepared to spend some money on practice ammo.

    Parts Is Parts

    In a rural home, it’s a good idea to keep some parts on hand.  Firing pins, springs, screws and action pins, all good things to keep a supply of.  You’ll also need tools, as gunsmithing tools are somewhat specialized; Brownell’s Basic Gunsmith Tool Kit contains a good assortment of tools, gauges and so on to keep your shooting irons shooting.  Keep a good supply of cleaning solvents and lubricant on hand.

    If your pump shotgun has a barrel that can be swapped out easily, as does the Remington 870 and the Mossberg 500, an extra barrel isn’t a bad idea.  And speaking of barrels, while I’m fond of Briley choke tubes and run them on a lot of my shotguns, an ugly but solid Poly-Choke type collet choke may be a better idea for a country-homestead gun; you can lose choke tubes, but that Poly-Choke is there for keeps.

    Last-Ditch

    No, I’m not kidding.

    If “prepping” is your thing, or you’re just very remote and are worried about supplies being hard to get, here’s something to think about:  What would you do if cut off from a supply of ammo?

    The answer may be to scale your technology back some – say, to about 1800.  A smooth bore flintlock musket is versatile, will kill birds with shot or moose with round balls, and if you have bar lead, a mold, flint and a supply of sulfur you can make everything else you’ll need to keep shooting.  Charcoal isn’t hard to come by, and if you have a latrine, you can make saltpeter.  You’ll need a fair amount, as the recipe is generally 75% saltpeter, 15% charcoal and 10% sulfur.

    That’s something to think about, anyway.

    And So…

    A country home requires a lot of tools to keep the place maintained, safe and tidy.  Even if you’re not a hobby shooter or (like me) a collector, a firearm is one of those essential tools.  Whether your immediate need is rabbit stew, pest control, dissuading something big and toothy or something two-legged and belligerent, sometimes a firearm is the only thing that will work.

  • Free to Ask Permission

    When I was younger, I used to be a robotic hacker.  There’s like four ways to parse that, but I was the most boring kind.  I hacked at it until it worked. And I wasn’t a robot, I made robots. It was a great hobby back when you had to dumpster dive for a Pentium II board, take measurements, and then beg time on a Bridgeport to make a Lexan case to whatever size the board was.

    I learned a lot.  I learned that science is more like art.  I learned about technical debt before it was even a term.  I learned that if you treat your support staff well, they are your best friends and will let you have time on the Bridgeport after hours.

    I learned that the best part of programming a robot is that they do exactly what you tell them.  Also, I learned that the worst part of programming a robot is that they do exactly what you tell them to.

    Two decades later, and I’m not making fighting robots anymore.  Or any kind of robots, really. Unless I’m doing it with my first kid.  On easy mode. With Legos or Arduino. The kid is funny. He also does exactly what I tell him to, which is really pretty weird for a kid, right?

    Everyone thinks their kids are great.  And smart. And special. And cute. So how is a Dad supposed to know when their kid really is great.  And smart. And special. And cute. Well, my son is cute. He’s gorgeous. He has the warmest, most soulful eyes God’s ever put into man.  We’ve had pro, working photographers give us free sessions in exchange for a release to photograph him for their portfolio. And he’s smart.  He’s not even in middle school, and he’s reading at a college level. He’s been playing piano for a couple months, and he’s working on books for adults in their third or fourth year.  He breaks every paper-based standardized test he takes because he doesn’t get any of the questions wrong. And he’s great. He has more empathy in his heart than even his eyes would lead you to believe.  If I come home from work and have a bad day, he doesn’t say anything to me. He just comes over, puts his arms out, and lumbers in the last few steps for an awkward hug.

    Why is it awkward?  Because he has to think about every step, and every motion of his hands, and where to place his chin.  Why does he do that? Same reason he’s always awkward. He needs me to show him how to take all kinds of physical actions and he repeats them.  Exactly. Robotically. Because he’s special.  

    Special.  I’ve never said that before, or typed it out.  My son is Special. He is “On the Spectrum” is how it’s usually put now.  And it only took me half a decade to figure it out and another half a decade to admit it.

    I always knew this was a statistical possibility.  I have all the risk factors. My ancestry is in the high risk ethnicity.  My IQ is… high. On my paternal side of the family it’s… scary high. Theoretical physicist high.  World-level ELO in chess high. I’m educated. Suburban. Upper middle class. And I’m… how do I put this.. A systematic thinker that has trouble interpreting social cues and making eye contact and finds comfort in converting normal social situations into mathematical models.  The Spectrum is just that. It’s a spectrum of behavior. If it’s not a problem for you, it’s not a problem. You just have these behaviors and modes of thought. If its a problem for you, it’s not a problem just because you have these behaviors and these modes of thought. Its a problem because you have these behaviors and modes of thought too much and it makes you feel bad.  I have them a lot, but not so much it causes problems. I’m generally happy and well adjusted.

    The first time my infant son made eye contact with me and giggled, my stomach dropped out.  Babies who can’t do this sometimes never do. It’s an early sign of Autism if they can’t. I felt like I was out of the woods  As my kid grew up, it became very clear that he was very social. He never made a lot of eye contact, but he would play mirror games with adults, and he would make prosocial hand-to-hand contact.  He would echo back baby noises. He would laugh and giggle and cuddle up with anyone within arm-range. Normal baby stuff. Normal toddler stuff.

    But as he grew older, the behaviors and modes of thought common to people on the spectrum started showing up more and more.  The aversion to eye contact got worse. He always needs something to chew on. He likes heavy blankets and one-piece pajamas.  He freezes when confronted with confrontation. He keeps a pair of earmuffs in his book bag because he can’t process the noise and chaos of a school bus some days.

    Most days, it’s not a problem.  But sometimes it is. This year, his mother and I agreed that he was responsible enough to own a firearm.  Honestly, I think he could have handled it years ago, but we don’t own land and public ranges have age restrictions.  But now we have Secret Outdoor Range we can go to, so now he owns a bolt action .22.

    And if you sat down in a lab to design up a hobby that’s perfect for my kid, you couldn’t do better than target shooting with his Dad.  For a systematic thinking, the hobby provides SO. MANY. SYSTEMS. There are four rules. Would you like to hear them? Because he can spout them off at the drop of a hat.  You want a series of repeatable physical motions? Ask him what the steps are to load, shoulder, fire, and cycle his rifle. When he goes to execute these motions he is smooth and fast.  I’ve seen more variation out of a FANUC. Safety checklist? This is a kid that makes checklists for fun. Social contact with someone like him, but where there’s no pressure to make eye contact?  Target shooting with Dad requires close social contact and has a big rule that says you have to keep your eyes down range and on your gun.

    It is perfect.  Except for one small problem.

    Boom.

    Or more accurately, one big problem.  A big BOOM!

    You see, .22LR out of a rifle is pretty damn quiet.  The first time we went to Secret Outdoor Range, it was all we shot.  And it was the best day of his life. His big soulful eyes were wide above the most confident grin you have ever seen.  A year ago he looked like a cross between a baby colt and a baby giraffe. Dedicated exercise has solved most of that, but this activity merged his mind and his body in a way he’s never felt before, and his pride at his mastery of self rolled off him in waves.

    So we went to Secret Outdoor Range again recently with a couple friends.  It was our second time there. I brought my 12 gauge that I always try to put a few rounds of buckshot through, just to stay in muscle memory.  The friends’ Dads both brought a few of their own firearms, including a few AR-15. After “.22 Time” it was “Daddy Gun Time” and we started with the buckshot and 5.56.  12 gauges are loud. 5.56 is loud. Daddy Gun Time is loud.  

    Daddy… is an idiot.

    Stress is a funny thing for a body.  It doesn’t really matter where it comes from, it impacts the body the same way.  I know of one doctor who teaches his patients how to meditate so that they can meditate before he cuts them open.  Exposing internal organs to atmosphere is incredibly stressful, and leads to Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting (PONV).  Anything you can do to reduce stress before surgery reduces the incidence of PONV. He swears by this meditation trick.

    Some stress responses include white face, the shakes, and anxiety.  About 15 seconds into Daddy Gun Time, and my son’s face is white as a ghost, his whole body is quivering like a leaf, and he’s wobbling his way into the cabin by Secret Outdoor Range to get away from the noise.  A few hours later, and he’s puking up the contents of his stomach.

    You see, my son, who is On the Spectrum but generally doesn’t have a problem, now has a problem.  This hobby, the one that has helped him grow more in one day than anything we’ve ever seen, produces Very Loud Noises.  Noises his body interprets as stress.

    In a civilized society, the answer is simple.  Go to the hardware store and pick up a few mufflers back by the auto parts.  Stick em on the end of your guns and you are good to go.

    But we do not live in a civilized society.  In order to purchase this safety device, we need to play mother may I with the ATF, wait for the better part of a year for approval, and pay $200 for the pleasure.  And this needs to be done for each and every purchase. Then, once you’ve done that, you need to try to navigate a Byzantine web of state and federal laws where, if you accidently fuck up, you are instantly and accidentally a felon.

    So I’ve been doing a lot of reading in the past couple of days.  Some of it has been about the ballistics properties of a little misfit round that has come to be called the .300 Blackout.  Some of it has been about the properties of various mufflers. But mostly, I’ve been trying to learn about the Byzantine web of state and federal laws surrounding the purchasing and ownership of these safety devices.

    And it feels like I’m walking on a balance beam.  At the end is quality time spent with my special son in the most supportive environment he’s ever been in.  But there’s no net. If I slip, I’m a felon.

    Happy 4th of July.  We’ll probably skip the fireworks again.  They go Boom.

  • Profiles in Toxic Masculinity II: John Jeremiah Garrison Johnston

    Appearances Can Be Deceiving

    See that handsome, rugged fellow to the right?  Looks like the very picture of an old-time mountain man, doesn’t he?  Hirsute and tough, yet still ruggedly good-looking; no doubt a wilderness gentleman, a man of good breeding and manners.

    Of course, he’s nothing of the sort.  That is, of course, Robert Redford, in his role as Jeremiah Johnson, from the movie of the same name.  His character was based on a man who was none of the things described above, save perhaps hirsute and tough.  He was John Jeremiah Garrison “Liver-Eating” Johnston, and his story is quite different than the movie version – and a lot more interesting.  Johnston was no heroic figure; in today’s world he probably would have landed in prison.  But it’s an interesting contrast, between Redford’s noble character and the unsavory, drunken, violent lout on whom Redford’s character was based.

    His Maculate Origin

    Johnston was born John Jeremiah Garrison.  He emerged into the world in Little York, New Jersey, in 1824, and if anyone could be said to be living proof of the maxim “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”, it is the young Johnston.  His father, one Isaac Garrison, was a violent, abusive alcoholic who sent his young sons to neighboring farms to labor to pay off his drinking and gambling debts.

    It didn’t take long for the young John Jeremiah to tire of this treatment.  At age twelve or thirteen – the record is unclear – he signed up to be a crewman aboard a whaler, which occupation he followed until the outbreak of the Mexican War, when he signed up with the U.S. Navy.

    It was during this tenure that the course of young John Jeremiah’s life changed.  He had matured into a massive, intimidating figure; six foot two inches tall, heavily bearded, two hundred and sixty pounds of solid muscle.  His Navy service ended when an officer reprimanded a friend of John Jeremiah’s with the flat of his sword; Garrison knocked the lieutenant ass over teakettle and, facing court-martial, fled ashore.

    Now he faced a crossroads.  Twenty-two years old, with his only skills being sailing and fighting, he decided to head inland, making the obvious choice for a youth in his position:  To make a living in the Rockies.  He adopted the surname “Johnston,” because why not, and struck out for the West.

    His Adventurous Career

    The Real Deal.

    Johnston surfaced in 1846 in Alder Gulch, Montana Territory, working as a woodcutter supplying the steamboats on that Missouri River port.  One story of Johnston from around this period describes him lounging on the Missouri River dock with a partner.  Johston was wearing only mule-ear trooper boots and “a filthy red woolen union suit that he had apparently been living and sleeping in for several years.”  While he was thus occupied, a riverboat arrived bearing wealthy tourists from St. Louis who were taking in the sights, of which Johnston and his partner were not the least.  Several prominent ladies of that city found Johnston and his unnamed partner fascinating, and invited him into the steamboat’s parlor for luncheon, with the understanding that he put on some trousers first.

    Johnston and his partner were nonplussed by the luxurious dining salon, and their confusion was heightened at the end of the meal, when dishes of ice cream were passed out.

    “John, what is this stuff?” the partner asked.

    “Don’t look ignorant,” Johnston told him.  “It comes in cans.”

    1863 found him signing up with the Second Colorado Cavalry, to serve as a scout.  He was with the cavalry for only a few days before going AWOL to spend his enlistment bonus on a drinking binge, but eventually returned to the regiment in time to ride east, where he took part in the battles of Westport and Newtonia.  Johnston was shot in the leg but recovered and continued to ride with the Second until his discharge in September 1965.

    Set at liberty again, Johnston returned to the Montana Territory, where he worked at almost any occupation that would make money:  Trapper, fur trader, woodcutter, carpenter, whiskey trader.  He viewed the law as only a set of mild suggestions, engaging in running liquor to the various Indian tribes and selling Indian skulls to tourists.  In 1868 Johnston formed a partnership with one J.X. Biedler to run liquor to the Indians in an extremely hostile area known as the Whoop Up Territory, which had the reputation of being extremely dangerous for white men; that information bothered Johnston not a jot, and he continued in the illegal whiskey trade until 1873, when he executed an adroit 180-degree turn and got himself appointed as Sheriff in Coulson (now Billings) Montana.  Johnston worked as a lawman more or less consistently – again, the record is not complete – until he retired in 1894 at age 70.

    Incidentally there is no record of Johnston’s preferring the Hawken rifle.  The movie not only got that wrong, they got it badly wrong; a “.30 caliber Hawken gun,” as referenced in the film, would be suitable only for rabbits and squirrels.  The only armed photos of Johnston I have found shows him with what appears to be a Sharps rifle and, later, an 1876 Winchester.

    As to the source of those Indian skulls, that is the part of Johnston’s legend that is best known.

    His One-Man War

    Legend has it that, in 1847, Johnston took a woman of the Flathead tribe to wife, only to have her killed by a man of the Crow nation; in this respect, the story is much like the one in that movie.  But Johnston’s revenge on the Crow was far more brutal than Hollywood’s imaginings.

    According to the book Crow Killer: the Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson, taken from the accounts of people who knew Johnston, this one-man vendetta claimed the lives of over three hundred Crow Indians over the course of twenty-five years.

    One account has it that Johnston was captured by the Crow.  Held prisoner in winter in the norther Rockies, stripped to the waist, tied with thongs and left in a tepee with a single guard, Johnston managed to work himself free of his bonds.  He knocked his guard senseless with a kick, took the brave’s knife, scalped him, then proceeded to cut off one of his legs.  Taking the guard’s leg with him, he fled shirtless into the winter wilderness with only the Indian’s leg for provisions; he lived by this act of cannibalism to reach his partner Del Gue’s cabin, some two hundred miles away.

    The appellation “Liver-Eating Johnston” derives from this vendetta, during which Johnston was said to have eaten the livers of the Crow he killed.  He may have fostered this reputation, as to the Crow it was a deadly insult, as they could not go to the afterlife without their livers; but reportedly the incident dates to the early days of the quarter-century conflict when Johnston and several other men fought a Crow war party.  Johnston later claimed to have shot an Indian, and then ran his knife into the brave to finish him.  When he withdrew the knife, there was a bit of the Indian’s liver stuck to the blade; Johnston noticed a young tenderfoot watching, so he pretended to nibble at the liver, then extended it to the young man, asking if he wanted a bite.  The tenderfoot, as Johnston put it, proceeded to “sick up his guts,” to the amusement of the other members of the party.  However, other than this account, there is no actual record of any acts of liver-eating.

    Johnston’s taste for revenge (and human legs) ran out in the early 1870s, when he formally made peace with the Crow, referring to them thereafter as his brothers.  After that he limited his killing to members of the Sioux and Blackfoot nations.

    His Golden Years

    The Older Johnston.

    Johnston’s health declined after his retirement.  His former great strength was eroded by alcoholism and the several wounds he had received in the Civil War and his years of fighting Indians.  He moved into a veteran’s hospital in Los Angeles in 1899, at age 74, and died a year later.

    John Jeremiah Garrison Johnston was a much more interesting sort than Redford’s far less colorful depiction.  He was a product of his times, as are we all, but even for his times, he was a violent, profane man.  A thoroughly unsavory character, he did nevertheless possess determination and great tenacity, traits of which we should all study up on.  And again, even for his times, his career of adventuring seems like one big caper across the most dangerous areas of the West, where he fearlessly engaged in the most dangerous occupations around.

    We should not overlook the contemptible parts of Johnston’s personality.  He was not a man to be respected or held up as a role model.  But we shouldn’t overlook his courage and tenacity, either.  Maybe, one day, some Hollywood producer will make a movie that more accurately depicts Johnston as he was, one of the toughest, roughest, shootin’est, most colorful characters our nation has ever produced.

  • The Marvelous Mr. Weatherby

    The Velocity Race Part Two

    Consider this something of an epilogue to my History of Bolt Guns series.

    The shooting sports is a place where one man can have a big influence.  In the post-World War II sporting rifle market, few people can claim to have had as big an influence as Roy Weatherby.  His iconic guns and cartridges weren’t to everyone’s tastes, but they made a big mark on the American sporting gun scene.

    The Man

    Roy Weatherby.

    Born in Kansas in 1910, 1945 found the young Roy Weatherby in Huntingon Beach, California, fortunately before that state became a garbage- and feces-covered shithole.  He and his wife Camilla had a house there, and Roy had a business – a 25×70 foot closet that bore the name “Weatherby’s Sporting Goods.”

    Weatherby was an incorrigible tinkerer.  It is not known if the late Charles Newton had any influence on the young Weatherby, but it would not be surprising if that was the case, because Weatherby’s first efforts were directed at the development of high-velocity centerfire rifle cartridges.  In 1945, the velocity race that Newton had started was about to shift into high gear; Roy Weatherby was positioned to take a commanding lead in that race.

    The Plan

    In 1945, many gun writers like Elmer Keith were proponents of large-bore rifles firing heavy bullets at moderate velocities.  The .30-06 was already something of a standard in the game fields of North America.  A few people used the .300H&H, a real powerhouse for the time, and the .35 Whelen, using the .30-06 case necked up to .35 caliber, was a popular wildcat.

    Around 1945, Roy Weatherby’s tinkering produced his first proprietary cartridge, the .220 Weatherby Rocket.  This was something of an “improved” .220 Swift, based on that case but blown out some to increase powder capacity.  Until this point the .220 Swift had been the velocity champion in bolt-action (and indeed, any) rifles, firing a 40-grain .22 slug at over 4,000 fps.  The Weatherby round improved on this some, managing to drive a 50-grain slug at the speeds achieved in the Swift with a bullet 20% lighter; but the Rocket wasn’t to be the pattern Weatherby would follow.

    The Cartridges

    In that same year of 1945, Weatherby was looking to introduce his high-velocity ideas into the world of big game cartridges.  He hit upon the big belted .300 and .375 H&H cases as the idea starting point, as they had considerably greater powder capacity than the .30-06 family of cases.  To improve gas flow in the cartridge, he came up with a double-radius shoulder, something new that made forming the cases a little more complicated and therefore a little more expensive; but Weatherby rounds and rifles were never budget items.

    Weatherby saw the advantages of celebrity endorsements.

    In 1944 and 1945, Weatherby introduced three new cartridges:

    The .257 Weatherby Magnum was based on the .375 H&H cartridge shortened to 2.5 inches, blown out with the double-radius shoulder and necked down.  This round, rumored to have been Roy Weatherby’s personal favorite, can launch a 115-grain bullet at 3,400 fps.  That, folks, is smoking, even by today’s standards.

    The .270 Weatherby Magnum drove a 130-grain bullet at 3,300 fps, about 400 fps than the standard .270 Winchester load favored by Jack O’Connor.  This round was, again, based on the .375H&H case shortened and necked down.

    The .300 Weatherby Magnum is the most popular of Weatherby’s proprietary cartridges.  The big .300, until recently the most powerful .30 caliber commercial rifle cartridge made, was based on a blown-out .300 H&H case and launched a 180-grain pill at over 3,200 fps.

    Weatherby was looking for velocity, and his new cartridges gave shooters that, in spades.  In marketing his cartridges and later, his rifles, Weatherby maintained that high-velocity cartridges gave more killing power than lower-velocity rounds firing bigger, heavier slugs.  In this he ran afoul of some of the older-school gun scribes like Elmer Keith, but Weatherby stuck to his guns, and gradually his cartridges gained a following.  Quite a few notable people endorsed Weatherby’s rifles, John Wayne among them; the resulting publicity sold more rifles and funded development of more high-velocity rounds.

    In 1947 Weatherby came out with two more cartridges, again based on the H&H case:

    The 7mm Weatherby Magnum was next; the big 7mm on the same case as the .300 Weatherby launched a 140-grain 7mm slug at 3,200 fps and would heft even the big 175 grain A-Frame slugs at over 3,000.

    In that same year Weatherby broke into the heavy rifle market, blowing out the .375 H&H case with the double-radius shoulder and naming this the .375 Weatherby Magnum.  In this round Weatherby actually missed the mark a bit; while the new heavy round would loft a 270-grain projectile at 2,800 fps, pretty respectable for a rifle intended for African plains game, its performance wasn’t enough greater than the time-tested .375 H&H to gain a lot of traction.  The Weatherby did have the advantage of being able to fire .375 H&H rounds in the rifle, thus fire-forming the case to Weatherby’s specs for use thereafter, making it in essence a “.375H&H Improved,” but this wasn’t to prove popular; that may well have led Roy Weatherby to his next step.

    Southgate Weatherby.

    In 1955 Weatherby scaled up, with two new cartridges based on a new, larger case of Weatherby’s design.  As the basis of his new rounds, Weatherby basically took the .416 Rigby case, added a belt, and introduced two versions:  The .378 Weatherby Magnum and the .460 Weatherby Magnum.  The latter round was, at the time of its introduction, the most powerful commercial rifle cartridge in production.  Now, at last, Weatherby caught the attention of the safari market.  Within a few years, the big .460 was as popular among African safari guides and professional hunters as the old reliable .458 Winchester.

    One other well-known dangerous game cartridge resulted from this, but it wasn’t a Weatherby product; in 1976 Colonel Arthur Alphin necked up the .460 case to produce his .500 A-Square.

    1963 Saw the introduction of the .340 Weatherby Magnum, introduced as a response to Winchester’s .338 Magnum.  This new round left the .338 Winchester Magnum in the dust, firing a 225-grain slug at over 3,000 fps.  With my own .338, I’ve never broken 2,800 with a bullet of that weight, and I’m not shy about pushing my loads up to the line.

    In 1964, Weatherby introduced the only .22 caliber belted magnum at that time, the .224 Weatherby Magnum.  This foray into small bores finally displaced the .220 Swift as the velocity champion of the .22 calibers.  And finally, in 1968, Weatherby’s last magnum, the .240 Weatherby Magnum, set new speed records for commercial 6mm cartridges.

    Still, cartridges are of little use without a rifle, and Weatherby’s rifles were as distinctive as his cartridges.

    The Guns

    To be honest, I was never a fan of Weatherby’s style in bolt rifles.  The appearance of his first rifles was very distinctive.  Weatherby used beautiful wood and fine, high-polished bluing, but the stocks feathered a high Monte Carlo and a big cheekpiece, contrasting rosewood fore-end and pistol grip caps with white spacers, and white spacers on the butt pad.  Many people liked them, based on how they sold, but even back in the Seventies when I was coming up, I always found them a little garish.

    But you can’t argue with success.  Shiny Weatherby rifles may have been, and on the expensive side to boot, but the combination of solid bolt actions and powerful, high-velocity cartridges was a seller.

    Weatherby’s first rifles, the so-called “Southgate” rifles after Roy’s big new store in Southgate, California, were built on FN ’98 Mauser actions.  Most of the Southgate rifles were built for Weatherby calibers, but old Roy would turn out a fine rifle in a standard caliber as a custom item if a customer asked for one.  In 1956, Weatherby contracted with Schultz & Larsen to build rifles for the big new .378 and .460 Magnums on their beefy Model 54 bolt action, but that situation only lasted a couple of years, as Roy Weatherby’s crowning achievement was in the works.

    The Mark V.

    In 1958, Roy Weatherby’s ideal rifle finally took form with the introduction of the Mark V.  This was something unlike the Mauser 98 and Schultz & Larsen actions of previous Weatherby rifles; the Mark V had nine small locking lugs at the front of the big, hefty bolt.  When carefully fitted, as was generally the case with Weatherby rifles, this made for a very strong action.  The first Mark V actions were made by Pacific Founders, Inc and assembled at South Gate, but demand quickly outstripped Pacific’s capacity, so Weatherby moved production to Sauer, who was similarity unable to keep up, and then to Howa in Japan.

    Mark V production muddled along unchanged from 1958 to 1963, the only notable difference being the relocation of the safety from the receiver to the bolt shroud when the manufacture moved from Pacific to Sauer.  But in 1964, Weatherby determined the need for a scaled down version to go with the new .224 Weatherby Magnum, and so the six-lug “Varmintmaster” was born.  The six-lug Varmintmaster was later offered in .22-250, the first production Weatherby in a non-Weatherby commercial caliber (the company would build a Mark V custom in almost any caliber) and later the full-size Mark V was offered in the immortal .30-06.

    Some years later Weatherby would begin offering the Mark V in a variety of non-Weatherby calibers, but only in the six-lug versions.  This has added some collector’s value to the few nine-lug .30-06s out there.  If you have one, let me know; I’d happily give you a couple hundred bucks for it.

    This new Weatherby had some significant things going for it.  The nine locking lugs were placed on a reduced bolt head, meaning there was no necessity for locking lug races in the action; this made the action very smooth in operation.  As the action was designed for high-pressure, high-velocity rounds, the bolt body had three holes to vent hot gases in the event of a case failure, and the oversize bolt shroud likewise shielded the shooter’s face from hot gas in such an event.  The later bolt-mounted safety was robust, locking the firing pin in place – although I maintain to this day that the only safety that one should rely on is the one between your ears.

    The Mark V was a fine rifle if a bit showy, but it was also expensive.  So, in 1970, Weatherby made a deal with Howa to produce a rifle with the traditional Weatherby style using Howa’s Model 1500 action, chambered in standard, non-Weatherby calibers.  This became the Weatherby Vanguard, and with this rifle Weatherby took aim (hah) at the market held firmly by the Remington 700 and Winchester Model 70 rifles.

    Weatherby didn’t neglect the rimfire market, either.  In 1964, Weatherby released the semi-auto Mark XXII, a slick, pretty rifle firing from a 10-round detachable magazine.  My oldest friend Dave had one for some time and enjoyed it, but it was an expensive proposition for killing squirrels, so he eventually traded it off; but I remember it as a real tack-driver.

    Current Mark V barreled actions are built by ATEK of Brainerd, Minnesota, while the Vanguard continues to be manufactured by Howa in Japan.  The semi-auto Mk XXII, sadly, has gone out of production as of 1989, although currently Weatherby offers an Anschutz .22 bolt gun bearing the “Weatherby Mk XXII” label.

    The Legacy

    The Orion over/under shotgun.

    Roy Weatherby died in 1988 at age 77, having changed the American sporting rifle world forever.  Five years earlier he had passed leadership of Weatherby, Inc. to his son Ed Weatherby, who still runs the company today.  Last year the company announced it was finally leaving southern California for the more gun-friendly environs of Sheridan, Wyoming.  A portion of the Weatherby estate went to fund the Weatherby Foundation International, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the non-hunting public of the benefits of ethical, scientifically managed sport hunting.

    Most of Weatherby’s current rifles – and shotguns – are a tad more subdued, most of the current production bearing synthetic stocks.  These have many advantages on a hunting rifle, and indeed my hunting rifles tend to wear synthetic stocks, but I’m still pleased that Weatherby does continue to offer the Mark V and the Howa-actioned Vanguard, as well as the Orion shotguns, with fine walnut furniture as well.  The same applies for Weatherby’s current scattergun offerings, which include the very fine Orion over/under and the 181, Element and SA-08 semi-autos.

    And the Weatherby Magnum line of cartridges has been expanded by two, the 6.5-300 Weatherby Magnum and the .30-378 Weatherby Magnum.

    The pairing of a Weatherby rifle and an appropriate Weatherby cartridge will still serve as a fine rifle for the game fields anywhere on the planet.  John Browning or Sam Colt he wasn’t, but he broke some new ground in sporting rifles and founded a company that persists today.  That’s not a bad legacy; not bad at all.  And not too shabby for a guy who started building rifles in his garage.

  • A History of Bolt Guns, Part Six

    Today in Bolt Guns

    Let’s take a highly condensed look at the state of the bolt gun market as it stands today.

    Remington

    The Remington 700 SPS

    Winchester got first billing last time, so this time we’ll give it to Remington.

    The Remington 700 is still going strong, offered in a variety of configurations from wood-stock sporters to full-up Tacticool.  The great old BDL is still for sale, along with the lower-priced, blind-magazine ADL.  And Remington is still offering the carriage trade, $2400 Model 700 200th Anniversary Limited Edition Model 700, of which rifles only 2,016 have been made.  Remington even offers a muzzle-loader on the Model 700 action, in which the bolt opens to allow a 209 shotgun primer to be placed into the breech for ignition.

    Remington also offers the light and handy little Model 7, a short-action, light-barreled carbine in several varieties with wood, laminate and synthetic stocks.  I considered one of these rifles for Mrs. Animal and handled several although I didn’t take the chance to shoot one.  It’s a neat little rifle and would be great for close-quarters work, as they handle quickly and point very naturally.

    The Model 783 is something new.  This rifle started out life as the Marlin X-7 rifle and was absorbed into Big Green when Remington acquired the old lever gun manufacturer.  The 783 and continues that weapon’s floating bolt head, detachable box magazine and small ejection port, which makes for a very strong receiver.  The 783 more or less fills the role once held by the old Model 788.

    Winchester

    The Immortal Model 70

    This great old company now offers two bolt rifles.  The first is of course the Rifleman’s Rifle, the Model 70, now only offered with the blade ejector and controlled-feed claw extractor.  An improved trigger was recently added.  You can get this fine old rifle in Super Grade with a French walnut, American black walnut, or fine blonde maple stocks.  Stainless versions are offered, with wood or synthetic stocks.

    If you’re on a budget Winchester has the XPR, a push-feed, synthetic-stocked, no frills hunting rifle.  The XPR, like the Remington 783, departs from the traditional Model 70 with its 3-lug bolt, detachable magazine and slide safety.

    One thing I find interesting about Winchester is that they have eschewed the Tacticool craze in their bolt guns.  While Remington offers several Tacticool varieties of the Model 700, Winchester’s rifles are sporting rifles, pure and simple.  Mind you I’m not saying that’s good or bad, but it’s interesting, speaks somewhat to the new Winchester’s marketing strategy, and honestly, makes me like that company just a little bit more.

    It’s probably a bit odd that I don’t have a Model 70 in the rack.  If I could find a Safari-grade, pre-64 rifle in .375 H&H, I might just be tempted to buy it – if I could get it for a price that wouldn’t put me in Mrs. Animal’s sights.

    There are, of course, lots of other bolt guns on the market.

    The Other Guys

    It should come as a surprise to no one that I’m a fan of Browning products.  While the modern-day Browning and the modern-day Winchester share their corporate owners, their bolt gun offerings are quite different.

    The Browning A-bolt has been discontinued, but the general pattern of the action lives on in the AB3 and, to some extent, the X-bolt, both of which shares the earlier rifle’s three locking lugs and 60-degree bolt throw.  Both rifles feature detachable magazines, but while the AB3 uses the traditional style box magazine, the X-bolt uses a new design, a rotary magazine roughly like that of the Savage 99.

    While both rifles have good reputations, I haven’t fired or handled either, so can’t offer any personal recommendation.  Ruger bolt guns, on the other hand, I am more familiar with, and I have to say my experiences have been positive.

    Of all the American manufacturers, Ruger probably has the largest lineup of bolt guns.  Ruger’s supply covers a very wide range, so I’ll mention a couple I find particularly interesting.

    The latest version of the basic Model 77 platform is the Hawkeye Standard Rifle.  Like the original M77, it uses an updated, modernized version of the 98 Mauser action, but unlike the original M77 it uses a Winchester-style three position four-and-aft safety.  It comes in a good variety of calibers and finishes.  Ruger sells cheaper rifles on the same basic action, but the American has a cleaner finish and is available with some good wood furniture.

    Ruger Gunsite Scout.

    An interesting variant on the M77 is the Gunsite Scout, made to the concept first floated by the late Colonel Jeff Cooper.  This bolt gun has an 18” barrel, muzzle brake, a Picatinny rail allowing for an intermediate eye relief scope, a ten round detachable magazine and either a laminated wood or synthetic stock.  Unlike the late Colonel Cooper, I see little application for this rifle in a modern military, but it is even so a short, handy rifle; five round mags are available to meet most state’s hunting rifle restrictions.  The Scout was first put out in .308 Winchester and .243 Winchester but is available now in the thumping .450 Bushmaster, which would make an interesting brush gun.  If they only made it in .358 Winchester, I would probably own one by now.

    Both rifles, along with most of Ruger’s stable, are available in left-handed versions for you southpaws.

    Mossberg may be better known for their shotguns, but after some experimentation that old family-owned company offers a couple of good bolt guns.  The Mossberg Patriot is a standard push-feed bolt gun offered in traditional wood furniture as well as synthetics.  The bolt body is cut with spiral flutes for some reason; the Patriot also has a good, clean externally adjustable trigger unique to Mossberg.  Also available is the MVP, which mates the Patriot action to a synthetic stock and detachable, AR-pattern magazines.  If you live in a jurisdiction that is hostile to AR-pattern rifles, you can at least get a bolt gun to use your stockpile of AR magazines.

    And then we have Savage.  Their entry into riflery may have been the Model 99 lever gun, but we have already discussed their 110 bolt gun.  Savage these days seems to be in competition with Ruger for the biggest variety of bolt guns for sale; they still offer the 110 in a great variety of finishes and calibers but also the Axis bolt gun and the Savage 11 hunting and 12 target rifles.  Like the original 110, Savage offerings tend to be robust, reliable and affordable.  Better, their more recent offerings are more attractive than the original, clunky 110, but only the 11 and 111 Hunter rifles feature wood stocks.

    I’ve only scratched the surface of standard domestic bolt gun offerings, but I wanted to take a little space to describe some upscale offerings as well.

    The Semi-Customs

    The Cooper.

    Up in Kalispell, Montana, there is a company making high-end bolt guns based on what is essentially a 98 Mauser action with a Winchester 70-style fore and aft safety.  Their basic model, the American Standard Rifle, starts at about $1,500; the price of the fancier models rises rapidly from there.  I’ve toyed with the idea of buying their American Legends Rifle in my favored .338 Win Mag, and in so doing gain a rifle that for all intents and purposes is a brand-new pre-64 Model 70 Winchester.  But given our pending move north to the Great Land, I may instead look at The Alaskan, a stainless steel and synthetic rifle made for wet, cold climates.  One of these in .375 H&H would be good medicine for big bears and moose.

    A step up the price and fanciness ladder will get you another Montana production from the Cooper Firearms company.  Their Model 21 (.17 Fireball through .300 Blackout) and Model 22 (.22BR through .35 Whelen, including belted magnums) Classic rifles carry a ½ MOA accuracy guarantee, AA Claro walnut stocks, hand-cut checkering and a detachable box magazine for quick reloads.

    Kimber is a company known for some fancy 1911 clones, but they also produce some high-end bolt guns.  The Kimber bolt action, like the Montana, is a well-made clone of the pre-64 Model 70.  Kimber offers their Traditional and Dangerous Game versions with fine walnut furniture, along with the likes of the Hunter and Mountain series with synthetic stocks.

    Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, more great bolt guns are being cranked out.

    Around the World

    Advertising themselves as Das Original, Mauser is still in the bolt gun game, producing their Mauser 12 bolt gun.  It’s interesting that this latest Mauser lacks the classic big claw extractor of the classic Model 98, but the M12 is gathering a good reputation as a solid, smooth reliable rifle, especially in those European nations where the peasantry is still allowed to own firearms.

    Best of all, though, is the fact that Mauser still – still, after almost 120 years – offers a Model 98 sporting rifle.

    The M98 Expert. I have to show this one page width.  Boy howdy do I want one.  I really, really want one.

    The new Model 98 presents that classic action in both standard and magnum versions, featuring a fully milled action, a cold hammer-forged barrel, plasma nitride finish on the steel parts, a three-position safety and a gorgeous European walnut stock.  The Magnum version features a beefy square-bridge, double cross-bolted action and one of the highest capacities in a dangerous-game bolt gun; six shots in the .375 H&H, five in the .416 and .450 Rigby calibers.  And if you really want to drop some bucks into a beauty, Mauser offers the 98 Standard Diplomat with Grade 7 walnut furniture, guaranteed to cause excess salivation in anyone who loves fine guns.

    Mind you these rifles start at the $7-8,000 range, so much as I’d love to own one, it’s probably not in the cards any time soon.

    The Blaser R8.

    Mauser isn’t the only German manufactory to produce bolt guns I can’t afford.  Blaser produces their pricey R8 and R93 bolt guns, which couldn’t be more different than the great old Mauser.  The Blaser is a straight-pull bolt gun, very fast in operation, and with one big advantage:  The action has no ejection port, instead opening the top of the action when the bolt is withdrawn.  This is a neat feature in a hunting rifle, as when the action is in battery it is sealed up, with no way for moisture or dirt to get in and gum things up.  The Blaser action is also shorter than traditional bolt guns, allowing for a shorter overall length with a standard barrel.  Combine that with a smooth, simple trigger and coil spring throughout, and you’ve got an innovative, well-made sporting rifle.

    Still, tradition has a place in the gun world, and across the Channel, the Brits are big on tradition.  Rigby offers three classes of bolt guns, all on 98 Mauser actions:  The Highland Stalker, The Big Game, and The London Best.  Were I suddenly discovered to be a long-lost heir of John Rockefeller – unlikely, as the Animal family tree is already pretty well documented, and not a billionaire in the bunch – I would be interested in The London Best, hand-fitted from end to end, with Grade 7 Turkish walnut and London Best oil finish, hand-blued and hand-fitted.  Given that one of these costs as much as a good-sized house, I suspect I will have to keep wishing.

    The Rigby London Best. I have to show this one page width too. I really, really love this rifle.

    Holland & Holland is still in the game as well.  H&H today still offers the what they call “The Bolt Action Magazine Rifle” (those Brits just aren’t big on euphemistic names) in standard and magnum versions.  Like the Rigby, Holland & Holland rifles are based on Model 98 actions; like the Rigby, they are hand-built and hand-fitted, with high-grade walnut stocks; like the Rigby, I can’t afford one, and neither can you, so we’re going to have to settle for looking longingly at the pictures.

    European companies seem to be determined to produce expensive bolt guns, but in Japan, a company called Howa is aiming at the middle-class trade.  Howa has a history in martial arms, having produced Arisaka rifles during World War II and copies of the M1 Garand and M1 Carbine after the war for the Japanese Self Defense Forces.  Nowadays they produce the M1500 bolt gun; Howa bolt guns have been imported into the U.S. as the Smith & Wesson 1500 and now under Howa’s own name.  Mrs. Animal once owned a Howa 1500 rifle in .270 Winchester; it was a decent, solid push-feed bolt gun, nothing fancy but certainly reliable and reasonably accurate, regularly turning in 1.5 MOA groups.

    Again, I’ve barely scratched the surface of the non-U.S. bolt gun market.  Doing the topic justice would make a fair-sized book.  But we’re not done yet; the modern Tacticool craze hasn’t left the bolt gun market behind.

    The Tacticool Stuff

    I commented earlier that Winchester seems to have eschewed the hardcore Tacticool market, and that I like that about them – I do.  But other American gun companies have shown no such restraint.

    The Remington 700 is available with what that company calls a “Tactical Chassis,” with an adjustable, telescoping stock, a Picatinny rail running from the dear of the action to the front of the fore-end, a pistol grip and a muzzle brake.

    Mossberg offers the MVP, which we discussed previously, in a Tacticool version with (again) an adjustable stock, a Picatinny rail atop the action and, like the sporter version, the ability to use AR-style magazines, something unique among bolt guns.

    Ruger has their Precision Rifle series, in standard and magnum calibers.  This piece, as the other Tacticool offerings, offers an adjustable stock, an abundance of Picatinny railage, and a muzzle brake; but the Precision has the look of a dedicated sniper piece.  Personally, I’ll stick with my M77 Mk IIT for long-range riflery, but given Ruger’s reputation, I don’t doubt this piece would likewise get the job done at extended distances.

    The Savage 110 Tactical.

    Savage offers tactical versions of their 110 bolt gun, most notably the 110 Tactical with their AccuFit stock and AccuFit adjustable trigger, a barrel threaded for suppressors and a 10-round detachable magazine.

    There are, of course, many more.

    It’s been a while since the bolt gun market was given a book-length treatment.  It certainly merits one; were my personal bandwidth a little less crowded, I might consider taking the project one.  Meanwhile, I hope I have at least given you a good thumbnail sketch here.

    And Then This Happened

    Another series draws to a close.

    I’ve noted previously the omission of Roy Weatherby from this series.  People either seem to love Weatherby’s work or hate it, and while I admire his marketing acumen and his innovation with the old Mark V action and his stable of high-velocity, proprietary cartridges, I didn’t care for the flashiness of the first couple of generations of Weatherby rifles.  I also don’t care for the direction the company has gone now that old Roy is gone.  But that’s a story for another day.

    So, what’s next?  Honestly, I don’t have another six-part history in me for a few weeks, at least.  But I have the Weatherby piece and at least one more Profile in Toxic Masculinity in the works, as well as a couple more (hopefully) amusing tales of my mis-spent youth in northeast Iowa.  So, stay tuned!  I find I really enjoy bringing all you folks this stuff and will try to keep up the pace to the extent my meat-space workload and my aging and partially fossilized brain allows.

  • A History of Bolt Guns, Part Five

    The Rise of the Bolt-Action Sporter

    OK, enough war stuff.   Let’s have some fun.

    The Big Two – Remington and Winchester

    When it comes to 20th century bolt-action sporters in the American market, it’s fair to say that you can list them in three categories:  The Winchester Model 70, the Remington 700 and everything else.  There’s more to the shooting world than that, of course, so this time out we’ll look at those three and some non-U.S. models as well.

    Remember the Pattern 14 and 17 Enfield rifles, built by American manufacturers for the British and American armies?  It should come as no surprise that, having tooled up to build those Mauser-style actions, that the two major American rifle builders would use that action for their first round of bolt-action sporters.

    As we have previously noted, Remington was first with their Model 30 sporter, initially offered in .30-06 and later in other calibers.  What is less known is that Winchester dabbled in a sporter based on the Pattern 17 action as well.

    Oh, man, I want one of these.

    The Winchester Model 51 “Imperial” rifle was a hand-made, carriage trade piece.  Only twenty-four were made in 1919, in .30-06, .35 Whelen and “.27 caliber,” a forerunner of the .270 Winchester.  Four of these were hand-made pre-production prototypes, with the remaining twenty being hand-made Gunsmith Shop items.

    I’ve long lusted after one of these first Winchester bolt-action sporters, but I doubt one will ever appear at a price that I could manage without resulting in Mrs. Animal phoning a divorce lawyer.  The very first of these, Serial Number 1 (pictured) a take-down version in .27 caliber, just sold in November 2018 at auction for $24,675.  So, I doubt one of these twenty-four rifles will be gracing my gun rack any time soon, and that’s a pity.

    Here’s where it gets interesting.  One of Winchester’s VPs at the time was a fellow named Frank G. Drew, a staunch proponent of lever guns who considered the very idea of a bolt action sporter to be a trifle silly.  He had some influence on the Board of Directors, who cancelled the Model 51 project in 1920.

    The Winchester 54

    That didn’t last, obviously.  Drew became the President of Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1924.  He was observing success competitor Remington was having with their bolt-action Model 30, and so caused the development of another Winchester bolt gun, also made with the leftover machines and tooling used in the Pattern 17 actions and the Model 51.  This new, more economic mass-produced repeater was the Model 54 Winchester, manufactured from 1925 to 1930, and offered in the .22 Hornet, .220 Swift, .250-3000 Savage, .257 Roberts, .270 Winchester, 30-30 Winchester, .30-06 Springfield, 7x57mm Mauser, 7.65x53mm Argentine, and 9x57mm Mauser.  The Model 54 retained the Pattern 17’s heavy two-stage trigger and had a factory bolt handle and safety that made scope mounting awkward.  Primary production on the Model 54 ended in 1930, although a few were assembled from 1930 to 1935.

    Happily, in 1936, Winchester improved on the Model 54 when they brought out their immortal Model 70 in 1936, based on a cock-on-open, Mauser 98-type action.  Aptly known as the Rifleman’s Rifle, everything a sportsman could want in a bolt-action rifle can be summed up in these words: “Pre-64 Model 70.”  Chamberings from 1936 to date have included the .22 Hornet, .222 Remington, .223 Remington, .22-250 Remington, .223 WSSM, .225 Winchester, .220 Swift, .243 Winchester, .243 WSSM, .250-3000 Savage, .257 Roberts, .25-06 Remington, .25 WSSM, 6.5×55mm, .264 Winchester Magnum,6.5mm Creedmoor, .270 Winchester, .270 WSM, .270 Weatherby Magnum, .280 Remington, 7mm Mauser, 7mm-08, 7 mm Remington Magnum, 7mm WSM, 7mm STW, .300 Savage, .30-06 Springfield, .308 Winchester, .300 H&H Magnum, .300 Winchester Magnum, .300 WSM, .300 Weatherby Magnum, .300 RUM, .325 WSM, .338 Winchester Magnum, .35 Remington, .358 Winchester, .375 H&H Magnum, .416 Remington Magnum, .416 Rigby, .458 Winchester Magnum, and .470 Capstick.  A great variety of grades and finishes have been available; the U.S. Army and Marines have used Model 70s as sniper rifles (Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock used a Model 70 Winchester in .30-06 with an 8x Unertl scope in his famous exploits in SE Asia.)

    In 1964 Winchester’s cost-cutting measures affected the Model 70 as it did many other arms.  The big Mauser claw extractor was replaced with a hook extractor, along with other manufacturing and cosmetic changes including the adoption of a simple push-feed action over the old controlled-feed; note that Remington rifles had been using a push-feed design by decades by this point, but the various changes resulted in the Marines cancelling their contract for Model 70 sniper rifles, as the new Winchesters no longer met the Corps’ quality standards.  The “classic” Model 70 was reintroduced in 1999 with the controlled feed restored, but at least in the mind of this old gun crank, if you want a Model 70, look for a pre-64.

    The Model 70 still has turned in a long and impressive history.  Shooting Times magazine in 1999 named it the “Rifle of the Century,” and it’s hard to dispute that assessment.

    Remington, though, was likewise producing a classic.  Their Model 30 rifles were manufactured until 1940 (from 1926 to 1940 as the Model 30 Express, mounting a Lyman peep sight).  In 1940 Remington introduced the final version of a rifle on the Pattern 17 action, the Model 720, which changed to a cock-on-close operation.

    About 26,000 Model 20 and 30 Express rifles were built, but only about 2,500 Model 720s.  World War 2 interrupted Remington’s production, but in 1948 the Ilion gunmakers came out with two new rifles, really one design in short and long action versions; these were the Models 721 (short action) and 722 (long action.)

    Remington 721

    During the second World War, Remington’s experience with mass-producing weapons quickly and efficiency had taught their engineers some great lessons.  Two of these engineers were a pair of prescient fellows named Mike Walker and Homer Young, who took a look at the traditional Mauser-style action, machined from a forged billet, and came up with another idea:  A tubular receiver was easier and quicker to produce, while still allowing great strength and precision.  The 721 and 722 were the first products of this design, followed in 1958 by the Model 725.  All were push-feed guns with the usual fixed box magazine, small hook extractor and a spring-loaded plunger ejector.

    In 1961, Walker and Young’s basic design evolved into one of the best-selling sporting rifles in history, the Remington 700, still manufactured today in a wild variety of calibers and configuration.  The 700 has a great reputation for strength, accuracy and reliability, leading to its adoption by military and police forces all over the globe.  Loyal sidekick Rat carries one in the game fields, a pre-1993 DuPont Model 700 wearing a Six Enterprises fiberglass stock and a Redfield scope, and has had good success with it.

    While my personal preferences lean towards older Winchesters, a beginning, intermediate or experienced shooter or sportsman simply couldn’t go wrong with a Remington 700.  No matter your desires in caliber or trim, it’s probable even in the late 20th century, that Remington made a 700 that matched them.

    Remington then took a different tack in 1967, introducing the economical Model 788.  This was a nine-lug, rear-locking, short action bolt gun with a plain stock and a 3-round detachable box magazine, available in calibers from the .222 Remington to the .308 Winchester.  This rifle had a great reputation for accuracy, supposedly in part from the fact that the rear-locking bolt eliminated the locking lug raceways, making the action stiffer and stronger.

    Remington and Winchester dominated the 20th century bolt gun world, but they weren’t alone.  While the Model 70 and the various Remington models were being admired by the shooting press, some other American companies were learning the bolt gun angle as well.

    The Other Guys

    We have discussed Savage Arms before in the context of their excellent Model 99 lever gun, but Savage learned the art of building bolt guns in World War 2, when they built #4 MkI Lee-Enfield rifles for the British.  With this experience under their belt, Savage rather belatedly turned to the bolt gun market in 1950, with the economical Savage 340.  This rear-locking rifle had a plain hardwood stock and a detachable box magazine and was available only in lower-performance rounds like the .22 Hornet .222 and .223 Remington and the .30-30 Winchester.  The 340 was serviceable but nothing much to look at, but Savage had a more lasting impact on the bolt gun in 1958, when their engineer Nicholas Brewer devised and (posthumously) patented the rifle that became the first of the Savage 100 series.  While lacking some of the polish of Winchester’s and Remington’s offerings, Savage rifles proved solid and reliable, and because of that, when Winchester closed their New Haven plant in 2007 the Savage 110 surpassed the Winchester Model 70 as the oldest continuously manufactured bolt-action rifle on the American market.  Another fact of note; in 1959, the Savage 110 became the first American bolt-action rifle to be commercially produced in a left-handed version.

    About this same time, Ogden gunmaker of note Browning entered the commercial bolt gun market with the High-Power series of rifles.  The story of the Browning High-Power bolt guns is a complicated one, with the larger calibers (up to the .458 Winchester) on FN 98 Mauser actions, while the smaller rounds like the .222 were set up on the Finnish SAKO action.

    The Browning High Power.

    The High-Power Brownings were beautiful pieces.  The FN Mauser and the SAKO actions were finely made, the bluing was high polish, stocks were fine European or American Claro walnut.  Three grades were available, Safari, Medallion and Olympian, featuring progressively nicer finishes and fancier wood.

    But the High-Power, beautiful as it was, suffered from two flaws: A cheap plastic buttplate and too much drop at the heel of the stock, which made recoil unpleasant, and thin barrels that heated quickly and resulted in less than optimal accuracy.  The High-Power was replaced in 1978 or so by the Japanese-made push-feed Browning BBR, which yielded only mediocre sales.  But then, in 1984, Browning introduced the A-bolt, with three locking lugs and a short sixty-degree bolt throw.  This was at last a bolt gun fully worthy of the Browning name, fast in action, reliable and accurate.  The A-Bolt has been made in calibers from .223 Remington to .458 Winchester and is still being made as the AB3 today.

    Colt may be best known for handguns and the AR-pattern rifles, but in 1973 Colt struck an agreement with the famous Austrian manufacturer, and the Colt/Sauer rifle was introduced to the American market.  This was the Sauer Model 80 on the European market and Colt merely imported it, but the Colt Sauer rifle was unique in one respect:  It had a non-rotating bolt with retracting locking lugs, which removed the necessity of locking lug traces in the receiver.  This not only made for a strong receiver but also for a very smooth action.  Even so, the Colt/Sauer rifle never really caught on competing against the Remington 700 and (even the post-64) Winchester 70; in the end only about 27,000 were imported.

    A Ruger M77 in .416 Rigby.

    One cannot talk about the twentieth century sporting gun market without mentioning Ruger, and the bolt gun market is no exception.  In 1968, Bill Ruger had a designer working for him that took the Model 98 Mauser action, replaced the forged receiver with an investment casting, replaced the bolt block safety with a tang safety and replaced the blade ejector with a plunger ejector.  Sullivan also redesigned the trigger and used a rater novel angled front action screw that, in recoil, served to seat the action more solidly into the stock.  Bill Ruger approved of the design, and the original M77 Ruger was born.

    But Ruger wasn’t done.  In 1991 the company almost completely redesigned the M77 as the Mark II, retaining the Mauser-style claw extractor but reverting to a Mauser blade-type ejector, converting to controlled-feed rather than push-feed and changing to a Winchester 70-style fore-and-aft safety that allowed for loading and unloading the rifle with the safety engaged.

    I have never owned an original M77 but I have a Mark II in the “T” configuration, with a heavy laminated target stock and a 26” heavy sporter barrel, firing the .243 Winchester; this is a rifle that will send a 6mm pill 400 yards on time and on target.  Mrs. Animal has a Mark II Compact in the .260 Remington, a fine, lightweight, light-recoiling little rifle.

    These were and are the major players; but there are few American companies that didn’t take a swing at the bolt gun market.  Mossberg has produced a few; Smith and Wesson imported some Howa rifles from Japan and slapped the S&W name on them.  Even lever-gun maker Marlin has produced a bolt gun.  The bandwidth allowed to me here simply won’t allow me to list them all, so I’ve tried to name the major players in the American centerfire bolt gun market.

    Before anyone mentions my omission of Roy Weatherby, fear not, I have an article dedicated just to him in the works.

    The Europeans

    Continental European sporting bolt guns in the 20th century can, in large part, be summed up, like a popular candy, by saying simply “M&M.”  Mauser and Mannlicher.  Some Finnish upstarts got into the mix, and an Austrian company also got involved.  But across the Channel, the Brits were turning out some real masterpieces.

    Mauser 66.

    Mauser suffered badly at the end of World War II, for reasons which should be apparent.  But in the early 1950s they managed to reform, and one of their first offerings was a design by a fellow named Walter Gehmann, which became the Mauser 66.  The 66 couldn’t have departed much further from its Model 98 predecessor; it had an odd telescoping bolt, a set trigger and came as a take-down rifle for easy transport.  To my thinking it wasn’t an attractive rifle, but folks who have handled them (I’ve not had the chance) say they have a butter-smooth action and bench-rest accuracy.

    Mauser followed up with the Model 77, a more conventional looking bolt gun with three rear locking lugs and a detachable magazine, and then several commercial and military variations on the 66 and the 77.  Then, in 1996, they brought out the M1996 straight-pull bolt gun, using a forward-mounted bolt handle at the front of the ejection port to operate its action.  The M1996 was an awkward looking thing and didn’t exactly take the market by storm.

    But in Austria, another company also rebounded after the war.

    Prior to World War II, the Mannlicher-Schoenauer rifles had a strong following all over the world.  In fact, if one wishes to read of one used in an unorthodox fashion, read the Ernest Hemingway short story The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber.

    The M-S rifle’s full-length stock became so iconic, in fact, that the design became known on all makes and models as a “Mannlicher stock.”  The combination of the very first Mannlicher-Schoenauer rifle and its 6.5x54mm cartridge became something of a European equivalent of the Winchester 94 and the .30WCF round, an ideal combination of rifle and cartridge such that one can scarcely think of one without the other.

    Steyr Mannlicher Luxus

    Following the war, Mannlicher re-established themselves as a sporting gun manufacturer.  Stoeger imported their rifles into the United States, said imports including the Models 1950, 1952, 1956 and 1961; but it was hard to top that original, the pre-war Mannlicher-Schoenauer.

    Up in Finland, the Suojeluskuntain Ase- ja Konepaja Oy (Civil Guard Gun and Machining Works) or SAKO, spent the post-war years marketing the excellent Vixen (short action) and Finnbear (long action) bolt guns.  Interestingly, and a bit off topic, SAKO in 1961 introduced the only European-made lever gun I’m aware of, the foll-stocked Finnwolf.  In 1992 SAKO intriduced the first of their renovated line with the 591 and finally, in 1997, they brought out the 75, followed in 2006 by the improved M85, which is still made today.

    Across the Channel, the Brits were indulging in something they are very good at – producing works of art in walnut and blued steel.  In olden times, the Brits had a great tradition of gun making, and two of their finest companies have a considerable history.  But the first company we see across the Channel started in Ireland.

    We can first cast ourselves back to 1775, when a chap named John Rigby went into business as a gunsmith in Dublin.  I won’t go into all of Rigby’s history – that would take an article unto itself – but I will talk about their bolt guns.  Rigby bolt guns were and are made on 98 Mauser actions, mostly big, beefy square bridge magnum actions, with walnut stocks you could fall in love with.  Calibers are offered up to and including the .416 and .450 Rigby, so if you want to hunt Cape Buffalo or, maybe, a mid-size tyrannosaur, Rigby can set you up.

    A lovely Holland & Holland bolt gun.

    Over in London is a company bearing a name we must speak in an awed whisper:  Holland & Holland.  Founded by Harris Holland in 1835, Holland & Holland are the standard by which fine guns everywhere are measured.  Their bolt guns, post-World War II, like Rigby use a modified Mauser action, but each rifle is assembled and tuned by hand, by some of the best gunsmiths in the world.  Calibers up to the .500 Nitro Express are available, and if you are willing to spend an amount of money that would otherwise buy you a pretty substantial house, you won’t find a more beautiful work of art in a rifle.

    There are many more.  In Serbia, the Zastava works turns out a pretty fair 98 Mauser action.  These have been imported into the US in a variety of names, including the Herter’s J9 and the Interarms Mk X.  I have one of the latter rifles, in .30-06, and it’s a solid rifle.  Herter’s also imported a BSA bolt gun as the U9, and those rifles also enjoy a good reputation, as evidenced by how few are available on the various auction sites; people who have them are keeping them.

    And Then This Happened

    The modern era with its attention to all things tactical hasn’t excluded the bolt gun market.  Indeed, some of the things that make a good tactical rifle also make a good hunting rifle, especially synthetic stocks, which may be ugly but are also tough and impervious to moisture and dirt.  So, while the Tacticool craze encompassed bolt action rifles as well as other weapons, in the case of bolt guns that wasn’t all to the bad.  We’ll examine that and other modern trends and the current state of the bolt gun world in general in the ultimate part of this series, coming up next.

    I probably haven’t covered half of the notable bolt guns made for the sporting market in the 20th century.  From the Great War onward, bolt guns have simply dominated the game fields world over; they are cheaper and easier to make well than doubles, stronger and easier to adapt to heavy cartridges than lever guns, and acceptable in jurisdictions that disapprove of semi-autos.  Doing justice to the history of the bolt gun and the state of the market today would require a book rather than a series of articles.  In fact, if that’s what one was looking for, one could do a lot worse than to pick up a copy of Wayne Zwoll’s Bolt Action Rifles.  Or maybe I’ll write one myself.

    I also have not covered .22 rimfire bolt guns at all.  That may be an omission, but I can always do an article or two on rimfire rifles alone, and the more I think on it, that may be worth doing.

    Meanwhile – stay tuned!  We have one more segment in this history to go.