Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2025 i RifleShooter

Do the Math It doesn’t look to me like the Christensen Arms MPR in .22 LR (September/October) quite hit the half m.o.a. mark at 50 yards like the author of that rifle’s review claimed. At 50 yards, m.o.a. would be about 0.26 inch. The best 50-yard average reported was 0.32 inch, achieved by both Lapua loads. It’s an accurate rifle, but didn’t quite get to half m.o.a., at least with the ammo used for the test. Enough nit-picking. I’ve got the rest of the magazine to enjoy. Bob Burton, Wisconsin Guilty as charged, Mr. Burton. Math was never my strong suit, but I would point out that the groups I shot with the MPR were five-shot groups and the company’s halfm.o.a. guarantee is based on three-shot groups. Like you said,…

Marlin is reflexively associated with classic lever guns, both centerfire and rimfire. Sure, there have been some excellent Marlin bolt-action and semiauto rimfires along the way, not to mention some hell-for-stout bolt-action shotguns. But by and large, lever actions were what put the company on the map. But one of the company’s most intriguing, and relatively obscure, offerings was the Model 27-S pump, a nifty little takedown chambered in .25-20 and .32-20, plus the .25 Stevens rimfire. The rifle’s production life was from 1913 to 1932. Marlin had, of course, produced a number of pump-action rimfires prior to 1930, but the 27-S was a center-fire standalone. It was essentially an improved version of the slightly earlier Model 27. The major difference between the two? The 27-S featured a safety button…

Interest in thermal optics has boomed over the last decade, and one brand that has set itself apart is Pulsar. Unlike some cheaper imported optics, Pulsar has a reputation for good image quality, easy-to-use operation with lots of functions, and superb longevity. The company’s Merger Duo NXP50 appears at first glance to be thermal binoculars. Look more closely and you’ll see that the left and right objective lenses are different. Instead of a pair of thermal binos what you have with the Merger Dueo is, in effect, both digital night vision and a thermal in one unit. The Merger Duo’s sensor has a resolution of 640x480 and a pixel pitch of 17μm and a digital CMOS sensor also offers 1920x1200 resolution. In English that means you get a clear digital…

A favorite Marine Corps mantra is “Train like you fight.” Similarly, if you’re a hunter, you’ll be more successful if you practice—train—for the shots you’re likely to encounter. That means different strokes for different folks. Western hunters are more accustomed to moving, glassing and stalking. Out there, shots at game are often dictated by terrain, so it’s essential to be versatile. You make do with what you have, from natural rests to carry-along shooting aids to the good old basic NRA shooting positions. This kind of field shooting is unfamiliar to many American hunters, because more of them are whitetail hunters than all the rest put together. Much whitetail country is too thick for effective stalking, and today most shots at whitetails come from tree stands, ground blinds or similar…

Piercing pain shot through me. The clock was ticking, and I was down on one knee, searching for a solid connection with my rifle. But all I could feel was the stabbing pain in my knee. My brain was spinning crazy thoughts: “Will I be able to get back up? Is this position good enough to shoot from? I hope my lower back pain doesn’t start next.” The plan was to spend a fun day at the range ringing steel, but pain can bring the fun to a grinding halt. You must adapt to many challenging shooting positions when you leave the benchrest behind and decide to shoot PRS or NRL. You’d better be ready, or your body will push back. Maybe you can’t overcome every injury or ailment, but…

Sierra Bullet Co. recently launched a new thin-jacketed, hollowpoint hunting bullet. Named the Match-King X, it is aimed at the demographic of hunter who chooses to use target-type bullets on big game. Sierra’s Tipped MatchKing—along with similar competing designs from other companies—was already becoming popular among hunters, so one might ask why the company would introduce a non-tipped, target-type hunting bullet. The answer is that the new MKX is for hunters who want their bullets to penetrate a few inches before expanding violently inside the vitals. “The reason the MatchKing X was created was to give hunters a bullet capable of match level accuracy and consistency while also providing exceptional expansion at low impact velocity inherent with long-range shots that this bullet enables capable shooters to be able to make,”…

Like Reaganomics and Rubik’s Cubes, I am a product of the 1980s, and while I thought we’d left that sense of fashion and music far behind, I can’t help noticing how the mullet has made something of a comeback recently. Kids who wouldn’t know a white snake from a deaf leopard are roaming the streets, paying homage to the hair metal days with party-in-theback hairdos. While I could do without the hair we had in the ’80s, there is one thing from my childhood I wish I could bring back: the classic sporting rifle. I don’t seem to be alone in this, and I noticed while writing the annual Rifle-Shooter big game rifle roundup there were a substantial number of new rifles with walnut stocks. Browning in particular seems to…

Part and parcel to the explosion in the popularity of suppressors for hunting rifles has been a shift to shorter barrels, or at least a wider range of lengths to choose from. Mossberg’s well regarded Patriot line is in on this game, with a new Carbine model that includes barrels of 16.25, 18 and 20 inches. By contrast, the standard Patriots begin at 20 inches, stretching to options in 22 and 24 inches. While the term “carbine” is usually associated with close-range hunting and calibers for same, the Patriot Carbine is clearly meant for much more. Its chamberings include the 6.5 and 7mm PRCs, the .300 Win. Mag. and even the .22-250. But if close range is your game, this suppressor-ready line is also chambered to cartridges like the .350…

In the early 1980s, West Virginia gunsmith Melvin Forbes set out to build a lightweight rifle for a client. Forbes put his fertile mind to work on the concept of what a rifle did and didn’t need, and developed the groundbreaking design that spawned the Ultra Light Arms company. After a series of sales and rebirths born out of the same lightweight rifle concept, Forbes sold the final iteration, known as New Ultra Light Arms, to another firearm industry innovator: Bill Wilson. Wilson Combat has taken Forbes’s classic Model 20 rifle and given it a rebirth true to its roots. Today’s New Ultra Light Arms (NULA) rifles combine portability and performance in a way that only the late Mr. Forbes could have envisioned. Forbes offered a variety of chamberings and…

Springfield Armory recently announced the latest version of its popular Saint Victor line of ARs. I had the chance to spend some time wringing out one of the renewed Victors, and it’s impressive. Initial chamberings include 5.56 NATO and 7.62x51 NATO, and they’re fitted with a variety of barrel lengths; my 5.56 sample had a 16-inch barrel with a 1:7 twist rate. The new enhanced versions of the Saint Victor rifle include short-barreled rifles, folding variants, AR-15s with pinned and welded barrels, California versions, and low-capacity versions. The original Saint Victor ARs were already superlative firearms. They were among the best on the market, combining quality with reasonable cost. When attending various media events around the country, I’d find myself subconsciously comparing other brands’ new offerings to the Saint Victor,…

Bar none, my favorite criticism of today’s lever guns is that they’re “being turned into AR-15s.” My response is always, “So what if they are?” Who said lever actions were supposed to be clunky and tough to integrate with gear? After all, even those who wielded the originals sought ways to make them lighter and more utilitarian. When Smith & Wesson introduced its 1854 lever action, it offered one version with traditional wooden furniture alongside another with a polymer fore-end and stock. Of the pair, the latter’s sales surprised the company the most, so without hesitation S&W pressed on in that direction to create the 1854 Stealth Hunter. The first aspect of the new rifle likely to catch your eye is the 10.5-inch fore-end. Constructed of aluminum, it features 15…