Articles by Herschel Smith

A very good and interesting series, very well done and well worth your time.

Who’d a thunk it, since, remember boys and girls, this is the most pro-2A administration in history.

I don’t think Beretta trash-talking Ruger is the way to win friends and influence people, regardless of how corporations do it in Europe.

I like Ruger. I also like Beretta. I hope this passes away without harm to either company, branding, financial or otherwise.

And I’m not sure why any gun manufacturer would believe that you don’t need a slide release.

Sad. I will miss seeing him. He wore his fame like a champ, with humility and kindness.

For what it’s worth, you know that 360 degree turn where he backfists his victim? The one that always looked like it was made up in Hollywood? Yeah. It wasn’t. This is his fight with Joe Lewis. Look at time stamp 2:08 and 12:51 where his roundhouse kick and backfist combination is discussed.

Bill Buppert.

Required voter ID and no paper ballots will gut the DNC/CPUSA across the nation.

If it becomes the law of the land, the Democrat enthusiasm for illegal immigration will evaporate.

Right. So from that we learn what we already knew. Thune is protecting the opposite party. They have something ugly on him.

And yes, the investigation into Georgia election fraud is still ongoing. Brian Kemp is a corrupt man, and it all centers on Fulton County.

While you know I support the sentiment not to ever surrender your weapons, it still seems to me that gun owners in Virginia are the Rip Van Winkle of the modern world.

They’ll sleep through an election in which the state votes in gun controllers and then turn out big for rallies against the plans of the gun controllers (when they told you what they were going to do).

It just makes no sense at all to me. Why not go vote in order to see if the second part is really necessary? That seems the easiest solution.

At Outdoor Life. This is out of the archives, but a very good study in what not to do.

It doesn’t matter whether your choice for fire starting is matches in a Ziplock bag, water proof matches, flint and steel, a Ferro rod, a lighter, or multiple lighters, or some combination of the above.

Carrying fire starter is essential to survival. Fire for cooking and heat is probably the most essential element of survival.

For what it’s worth, here is an interesting solution.

But you already knew that.

This guy truly seems to care about his homeland, but in my honest opinion, Canada is lost. It’s completely beyond me why the western provinces haven’t already gone independent and become states. That’s their only hope.

I don’t think Trump can liberate Canada. That’s up to the Canadian people themselves.

Outdoor Life.

The 7mm PRC made quite a splash when it was introduced by Hornady just four years ago, with some calling it the “modern magnum” of 7mm cartridges. That’s because it embodies the same modern cartridge design principles used in rounds like the 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5 PRC, and 300 PRC. In some ways, it outshines all of these, and delivers more efficient performance than the 7mm Rem. Mag. It does so from a standard-length action without using a belted case.

Based on a shortened .375 Ruger parent case, the 7mm PRC uses long, heavy-for-caliber bullets in rifles with fast rates of twist (most often 1:8). As a result, it shoots flat, bucks the wind, retains velocity downrange and is inherently accurate. Using Hornady’s 175-gr. ELD-X bullet, the round stays supersonic past 1,800 yards, and energy doesn’t drop below 1,000 foot-pounds until nearly 1,200 yards. That’s overkill for the whitetail woods, but it makes the cartridge a great choice for Western hunters pursuing mule deer and elk at longer ranges. It is also very much at home on the African plains.

Rifles chambered in 7mm PRC generally produce great accuracy — especially when compared to some of the traditional magnum cartridges. PRC stands for Precision Rifle Cartridge, and the entire family of PRC cartridges was designed from the beginning to produce superior accuracy at distance.

The 7mm Rem Mag was not. It was designed to perform well on game at a time when 1.5-MOA accuracy was considered very good for factory rifles using factory ammunition. This isn’t to say that the 7mm Rem Mag is an inaccurate cartridge. Over the years, my average 3-shot groups with most 7mm Rem Mag rifles were fairly close to one MOA, or a little better with loads those rifles preferred — a few guns occasionally did better. This, of course, is just my anecdotal experiences shooting the cartridge, not the end-all-be-all commentary on its accuracy.

The rifles I’ve shot in 7mm PRC have seldom failed to print 3/4-MOA-or-better average groups and half-inch-or-better best groups at 100 yards (these were 3-shot groups, again take this as anecdotal evidence).

I think this all depends on the weight of the gun and the ammunition you shoot. Frankly, I don’t really like the Hornady ammunition. In my 7mm PRC rifle I find that Nosler does better.

You will often hear that the 7mm Rem Mag produces more recoil than the 7mm PRC, but that’s not necessarily the case. Yes, the 7mm Rem Mag can produce a punishing level of recoil, especially out of lighter rifles with heavier loads. However, many hunters commonly shoot 7mm Rem Mag ammo loaded with lighter 140- to 160-gr. bullets, which can produce less recoil than shooting the 7mm PRC’s heavier standard bullets.

Those fast, light loads came in handy at a time when hunters were mostly using the holdover method for longer shots (before laser rangefinders were invented). Part of the 7mm Rem Mag’s appeal, especially with Western hunters, was that it shot relatively flat.

On average, the 7mm Rem Mag produces about 22-25 ft-lbs. of recoil energy, while the 7mm PRC produces average recoil energy of approximately 25-29 ft-lbs. However, those average numbers can be misleading because recoil energy varies greatly depending on factors like rifle weight, bullet weight, and powder charge.

With heavy rifles, recoil with both the 7mm Rem Mag and 7mm PRC is manageable for most shooters. Drop the rifle weight down, and recoil can become a problem for either cartridge.

You need a muzzle brake. At one time in my shooting career, I would have considered this amount of recoil to be punishing. That was true up until I shot the 444 Marlin, which honestly isn’t so punishing either when you’re hunting. It’s quite manageable — right up until you’ve shot 15 or so rounds bench rest. And then I begin to look for opportunities to rest and regroup between shots. There is no point to shooting that many rounds of 444 Marlin anyway. Sight it in and be done. It’s a hunting round.

As I’ve mentioned, I am profoundly impressed with the 7mm PRC.

Source.

An appeals court struck down a local law in the District of Columbia that banned gun magazines containing more than 10 bullets, describing the measure as unconstitutional.

The ruling Thursday from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals also reversed the conviction of Tyree Benson, who was taken into custody in 2022 for being in possession of a handgun with a magazine that could contain 30 bullets, according to The New York Times.

“Magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition are ubiquitous in our country, numbering in the hundreds of millions, accounting for about half of the magazines in the hands of our citizenry, and they come standard with the most popular firearms sold in America today,” Judge Joshua Deahl wrote on behalf of the two-judge majority in the three-judge panel.

“Because these magazines are arms in common and ubiquitous use by law-abiding citizens across this country, we agree with Benson and the United States that the District’s outright ban on them violates the Second Amendment,” he added.

“This appeal presents a Second Amendment challenge to the District’s ban on firearm magazines capable of holding ‘more than 10 rounds of ammunition.’ Appellant Tyree Benson argues that ban contravenes the Second Amendment so that his conviction for violating it should be vacated,” Deahl also wrote. “The United States, which prosecuted Benson in the underlying case and defended the ban’s constitutionality in the initial round of appellate briefing, now concedes that this ban violates the Second Amendment. The District of Columbia, which is also a party to this appeal, continues to defend the constitutionality of its ban.”

Chief Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby, the judge who dissented, wrote that, “The majority bases its common usage analysis on ownership statistics that show only that magazines holding 11, 15, or 17 rounds of ammunition are in common use.”

Uh huh. That last bit is why “common use” is such a dangerous argument, isn’t it? Should it be 11, or 15, or 17? Or should the government stay out of the business of the people?

Anyway, I don’t really care what’s in common use. I care that high capacity magazines are useful and that it’s the right of people to own what they want.

And I don’t care whether they are called high capacity magazines or standard capacity magazines. That’s irrelevant subterfuge.

And I don’t really care whether marijuana smokers get to buy guns. If people don’t have guns to use with these magazines, why does it matter? When is the supreme court going to take up an AR ban case? Everything else is just flotsam and jetsam, noisemaking, and smoke and mirrors.