Innholdsfortegnelse for Volume 74, Issue 10 i Firearms News

Idon’t know why, but I find assembling AR-15 uppers and lowers relaxing. There’s a certain satisfaction to taking a pile of various parts and pieces and building them into something which meets your needs. Building an AR-15 is a rather simple and straight-forward process. It doesn’t require a great deal of skill, just the ability to systematically install parts correctly and verify they are functioning properly. Occasionally trouble-shooting is required, but typically this is due to substandard parts or a simple error during initial assembly. While I have built a “Poverty Pony” or two in my time, I tend to look for high quality parts from a manufacturer with a good reputation. This provides a bit of peace of mind, and typically a rifle which performs very well. For this…

The .22 Long Rifle (.22LR) is without a doubt the most popular metallic cartridge in the world today. And I’m not just talking about rimfire cartridges. More .22 LRs are manufactured, sold and fired annually than all other non-military cartridges — rifle, handgun & shotgun — combined. And the reasons for its popularity are easy to understand. First of all, .22 LR ammo is inexpensive. When I was a boy I remember going to the local hardware store with my brothers where each shelled out thirty-five cents for a box of fifty .22s. This portion of our weekly allowance enabled the three of us to enjoy an afternoon of plinking with our single shot .22 rifles. While the price of .22s has gone up since then, even the most prudent…

Poking about SHOT Show this year it was interesting to see how technology has continually made in-roads into all manner of shooting accessories. A prime example is Meprolight’s new Mepro Foresight red dot sight. While at first glance it appears to be just an ordinary red dot sight, it is not. Meprolight has packed it with a host of modern features to aid the rifleman’s quest of putting rounds on target. Meprolight describes it as, “The first augmented red dot sight, projecting real-time data to the user’s FOV (Field of View).” It does this, and quite a bit more. Let’s jump right into the features offered in the Foresight. These include an internal compass, battery level indicator, five pre-set tactical reticles (which can be changed/ programmed according to the user’s…

In the late 19th century, China was a nation in agony. The Chinese had always considered themselves culturally and intellectually superior to all those outside of the Celestial Empire — whom they referred to generically as “barbarians” — and for centuries had attempted to limit foreign contact and influence. These isolationist policies began to fall apart in 1557 when the Portuguese leased the island of Macau on the South China Sea and established a trading port. They were soon followed by Dutch, French, Russian, English and American merchants, all of whom clamored for an ever-increasing share of the lucrative trade in tea, silk and porcelains. The wealth to be made from this trade — by both the Europeans and Chinese — overcame the wishes of China’s rulers, the Manchu (Ch’ing)…

The 1911 (designed in 1907) has been around nearly as long as Americans have been driving cars — the Ford Model T, generally considered the first affordable car, was introduced in 1908 — so it should be no surprise that it was a prized handgun during the “Roaring 20s”. While designed by John Moses Browning specifically for the military, this pistol was available for sale to the public at least as early as 1912. To celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Roaring 20s it seems only right to cover one of the many retro-style 1911s on the market, in this case the Auto-Ordnance 1911A1. Officially this model is the Auto-Ordnance 1911A1, GI specs, Matte Black Finish. In size and weight, it mimics not the original M1911 adopted by the military…

The first decade of the 20th century, and the few years leading up to The Great War, set the stage for many things. With the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, England entered the Edwardian Era. The Boer War established England on the Cape of Africa, and made the reputation of one Winston Churchill. The United States, under President Theodore Roosevelt, began busting up the various Trusts, establishing national food and drug standard laws, and established five National Parks, 18 National Monuments, 150 National Forests, and he sent The Great White Fleet on a world cruise, to show the world powers the brand-new navy we had built. The 12th Emperor of the Qing dynasty, Pu Yi, was forced to abdicate in 1912. Oh, and the US War Department was trying…

“HB 354 mandates lifetime gun disability for alcohol or substance users,” Buckeye Firearms Association (BFA) announced in a January analysis of the bill. It was supposedly written as an “alternative” to Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s so-called “STRONG Plan” (which among other infringements would turn voluntary private sale background checks into a “de facto mandate,” eliminates doctor/patient confidentiality in drug and alcohol abuse cases, put weapons possession penalties “on par with murder and rape,” and turn involuntary commitments into “a lifetime firearms ban”). DeWine’s natural inclination to cave and betray on guns comes as no surprise to those of us who have watched this political animal over time. As Firearms News noted in an examination of his on again/off again gun-grabber roots, we’re talking about someone once endorsed by the Brady…