spectr17
02-08-2008, 12:39 AM
<div align='left'>Outdoor News Service</div>
LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- For those of us who are hunters first and everything else shooting-related second, the Shooting Hunting Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show was about rifles -- perhaps the best batch of traditional hunting rifles ever to come down the model runway.
Ultimately, that means the triggers are good -- really good.
The whole trigger trend started a few years ago when Savage introduced its Accu Trigger, a smooth, crisp trigger that made gun loonies swoon, on all of its bolt-action firearms. It became the antithesis of the lawyer-triggers that had plagued the industry for years. Factory trigger were rotten, almost across the board. A lot of us bought aftermarket triggers for our guns, but that’s certainly not necessary any longer for many of the new hunting bolt guns.
This little tidbit would have been easy to miss in the mind-numbing array and endless aisles of new products that were featured in this year’s 30th version of this event. The SHOT Show is the firearm industry’s annual unveiling of the year’s new products, and this was the largest in the event’s history, both in attendance and exhibitors.
Noteably, hunting firearms and equipment have taken a supporting-cast role to the ever-growing recreational and tactical shooting marketplace. AR-style and tactical firearms are more mainstream today than bolt-action hunting rifle designs, and the “black” guns are now increasingly being used in the hunting fields. No where was that made more apparent than with a key introduction by Remington -- one of the nation’s oldest and most respected sporting firearm makers.
Remington (whose parent company now also owns Bushmaster) introduced an AR-15 looking semi-auto hunting rifle -- not surprisingly called the R-15 -- to cater to the younger generation of shooters/hunters who’ve grown up with these guns. The R-15 is billed as, and chambered for, varmint calibers this year, but big game loadings won’t be far behind. It made me feel old, probably how lever gun users felt when the first bolt-action rifles came into deer camps in the last century.
This Remington introduction would make the traditionalist in me cry, but it hasn’t come at the expense of the guns old guys like me prefer. The latest crop of new bolt-action hunting rifles is expansive and features arguably the best cartridges, triggers, and designs ever found on these guns -- and this is done while maintaining classic looks and feel. Even better, you can spend as little as $350 for a new, quality bolt gun, or -- well -- as much as you can afford above that.
Foremost in this class is the reborn Winchester Model 70. This venerable firearm stayed in retirement about as long as Roger Clemens, and it would be easy to suspect steroids (or something) were used to revitalize this old American classic rifle. It looks and feels more like its 1930s self than the decrepit shadow it had become before being discontinued just two years ago. In fact, it might even be better than ever before, with an incredible trigger, admirable fit and finish, and clean lines rivaling the original. But this dramatic upgrade doesn’t come without a price. In fact, it’s literally the price that has about doubled from the last 2006 models, retailing right at $1,000. But you get what you pay for.
Ruger has also completely reworked its Model 77 line of bolt action rifles and expanded its line of proprietary rifle cartridges, working with Hornady on these new rounds. The .375 Ruger was introduced last year, and the new .300 and .338 Ruger Compact Magnum (RCM) rounds are based on shortened versions of the .375 Ruger case. The concept behind the new rounds is to use high-energy powders that burn fully in short barrels (like the .30 TC introduced last year), allowing for rifles to be made with 20-inch barrels, rather than the standard 24- or 26-inch barrels normally used with magnum rounds. The new Model 77 Compact Magnum rifles come with a 20-inch barrel and the new RCM rounds generate velocities that match the .300 and .338 Winchester magnum ballistics. When you add in a new trigger (Ruger triggers were pretty terrible for many years) that is smooth and crisp, you may just have the best crop of Model 77s ever offered.
The only other company chambering for the still-new .375 Ruger is Legacy Sports. This Reno-based company is the importer of the increasingly popular Howa bolt-action rifles, and vice-president Andy McCormick said they would have Howa Model 1500s in a special makeup in .375 Ruger available this year. The Howa will retail for $750 versus the Ruger Model 77 retail price of $1,140.
Smith & Wesson and Thompson Center (which is now owned by Smith & Wesson) both brought out bolt action rifles that feature sleek designs with short 60-degree bolt throws, good triggers, and classic stocks. The I-Bolt is Smith’s offering and the Icon its T/C counterpart, both look like the Browning A-Bolt in many respects.
Browning also came out with an evolved A-Bolt, called the X-Bolt and – guess what – it also features the best trigger ever offered on a Browning rifle. The new Feather Trigger is set at a crisp 3 1/2 pounds from the factory. This gun also features a new recoil pad system, bolt release, and rakish stock styling on all its models.
For those of us who’ve always thought the Savage 110-line bolt rifles were sort of clunky looking, it’s time to take another look and rethink that opinion. The 50th anniversary model, new for this year, and the “Classic” are gorgeous guns, and Savage is now the first American company chambering for the peppy 6.5x284 cartridge, a former wildcat now factory loaded by Norma and Black Hills.
Marlin, which was also purchased by the same holding company that owns Remington in December, has a new X-series bolt action rifle that will retail for $325 to $350. That means you will see them on sale for $299. The XL7 is the first model in what promises to be an expansive line that features the Pro-Fire Trigger. I stood in the Marlin booth talking to Matt Foster, an old hog hunting buddy who now runs the Marlin marketing program, and I kept snapping the trigger and recocking the gun and snapping it again. Then I would look at the gun, not believing the retail price. He grinned at me, “Pretty cool, huh?”
Besides being wowed by the new bolt rifles, I spend a good deal of time looking at ammunition. The lead ammunition bans for big game and varmint hunting in California were a source of constant grumbling at the SHOT Show, but there was a flurry of activity in ammunition companies since December to have new products ready to announce and promises that more were on the way.
Both CCI and Federal (sister companies under ATK) announced lead-free .22 magnum rimfire ammunition called the TNT Green that would be available by late spring, and work was moving rapidly on non-lead standard .22 rimfire ammunition, and there was hope it would be available by year’s end.
For centerfire, Federal has expanded its line of big game and varmint ammo without lead. The varmint loads, also called TNT Green, feature a new Speer non-lead bullet, and the big game loads in the Premium line feature Barnes Tipped Triple Shocks and MRX bullets, both non-lead slugs that will be legal in California’s “green zone,” as some are calling it.
Nosler has expanded its bullet selection in the E-Tip line to include two 30 caliber slugs, a .270 and a 7mm bullet, and all four are lead-free. Winchester will be loading the non-lead bullets into their Supreme line in standard hunting calibers for this fall, and there is ongoing work on varmint and rimfire non-lead ammunition at Winchester. There was speculation that Winchester would change the lead core on its XP3 line to tungsten to make these bullets non-lead, too.
With Barnes expanding its line of Tipped and regular Triple Shock X-bullets and MRX bullets, big game non-lead bullets are available in all calibers for reloaders. The company’s line of Varmint Grenade non-lead bullets has also expanded with new .20, .22, and .243 diameter bullets, and the Multi-Purpose Green, or MPG line, includes .22 and .30 caliber fragmenting bullets. Both lines will be expanded more this year.
Black Hills Ammunition announced it will be loading .223, .22-250, and .243 ammuntion with the new Barnes Varmint Grenade slugs for varmint hunters, and it already loads several popular big game cartridges with Triple Shocks.
Hornady and Remington were the only two major ammunition companies not to have non-lead products at SHOT, but Hornady management said the company would have new products to announce by the end of this year.
Other new products worth noting are a very cool holographic red dot shotgun sight introduced by Burris called the Speed Bead. The sight mounts between the receiver and rear stock of a shotgun, sitting close to the line of the bore, and allowing for quick, accurate shotgun shooting even if the stock is not mounted correctly or when the head is not in contact with the stock.
In the ammunition vein, Aguila has brought back the 5mm Remington Magnum rimfire round, and T/C has again chambered the round in barrels available for its single shot break open rifles and handguns. Ruger and Federal have teamed up to produce handguns (Ruger SP101s) and ammunition for a new .327 Federal Magnum, a lengthened .32 H&R Magnum that produces .357 Magnum ballistics in a much smaller platform with less recoil.
Bushnell in its Trail Scout series of trail cameras has combined an electronic game call with a digital camera. You can program the call to sound off every hour or two for a given duration to entice game and varmints to get their photos. Yes, it’s a little gimmicky, but you have to admit it sounds pretty fun.
In the coming weeks, we’ll cover the latest in optics and sporting shotguns from the SHOT Show, with complete stories posted on our web site at http://www.OutdoorNewsService.com.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- For those of us who are hunters first and everything else shooting-related second, the Shooting Hunting Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show was about rifles -- perhaps the best batch of traditional hunting rifles ever to come down the model runway.
Ultimately, that means the triggers are good -- really good.
The whole trigger trend started a few years ago when Savage introduced its Accu Trigger, a smooth, crisp trigger that made gun loonies swoon, on all of its bolt-action firearms. It became the antithesis of the lawyer-triggers that had plagued the industry for years. Factory trigger were rotten, almost across the board. A lot of us bought aftermarket triggers for our guns, but that’s certainly not necessary any longer for many of the new hunting bolt guns.
This little tidbit would have been easy to miss in the mind-numbing array and endless aisles of new products that were featured in this year’s 30th version of this event. The SHOT Show is the firearm industry’s annual unveiling of the year’s new products, and this was the largest in the event’s history, both in attendance and exhibitors.
Noteably, hunting firearms and equipment have taken a supporting-cast role to the ever-growing recreational and tactical shooting marketplace. AR-style and tactical firearms are more mainstream today than bolt-action hunting rifle designs, and the “black” guns are now increasingly being used in the hunting fields. No where was that made more apparent than with a key introduction by Remington -- one of the nation’s oldest and most respected sporting firearm makers.
Remington (whose parent company now also owns Bushmaster) introduced an AR-15 looking semi-auto hunting rifle -- not surprisingly called the R-15 -- to cater to the younger generation of shooters/hunters who’ve grown up with these guns. The R-15 is billed as, and chambered for, varmint calibers this year, but big game loadings won’t be far behind. It made me feel old, probably how lever gun users felt when the first bolt-action rifles came into deer camps in the last century.
This Remington introduction would make the traditionalist in me cry, but it hasn’t come at the expense of the guns old guys like me prefer. The latest crop of new bolt-action hunting rifles is expansive and features arguably the best cartridges, triggers, and designs ever found on these guns -- and this is done while maintaining classic looks and feel. Even better, you can spend as little as $350 for a new, quality bolt gun, or -- well -- as much as you can afford above that.
Foremost in this class is the reborn Winchester Model 70. This venerable firearm stayed in retirement about as long as Roger Clemens, and it would be easy to suspect steroids (or something) were used to revitalize this old American classic rifle. It looks and feels more like its 1930s self than the decrepit shadow it had become before being discontinued just two years ago. In fact, it might even be better than ever before, with an incredible trigger, admirable fit and finish, and clean lines rivaling the original. But this dramatic upgrade doesn’t come without a price. In fact, it’s literally the price that has about doubled from the last 2006 models, retailing right at $1,000. But you get what you pay for.
Ruger has also completely reworked its Model 77 line of bolt action rifles and expanded its line of proprietary rifle cartridges, working with Hornady on these new rounds. The .375 Ruger was introduced last year, and the new .300 and .338 Ruger Compact Magnum (RCM) rounds are based on shortened versions of the .375 Ruger case. The concept behind the new rounds is to use high-energy powders that burn fully in short barrels (like the .30 TC introduced last year), allowing for rifles to be made with 20-inch barrels, rather than the standard 24- or 26-inch barrels normally used with magnum rounds. The new Model 77 Compact Magnum rifles come with a 20-inch barrel and the new RCM rounds generate velocities that match the .300 and .338 Winchester magnum ballistics. When you add in a new trigger (Ruger triggers were pretty terrible for many years) that is smooth and crisp, you may just have the best crop of Model 77s ever offered.
The only other company chambering for the still-new .375 Ruger is Legacy Sports. This Reno-based company is the importer of the increasingly popular Howa bolt-action rifles, and vice-president Andy McCormick said they would have Howa Model 1500s in a special makeup in .375 Ruger available this year. The Howa will retail for $750 versus the Ruger Model 77 retail price of $1,140.
Smith & Wesson and Thompson Center (which is now owned by Smith & Wesson) both brought out bolt action rifles that feature sleek designs with short 60-degree bolt throws, good triggers, and classic stocks. The I-Bolt is Smith’s offering and the Icon its T/C counterpart, both look like the Browning A-Bolt in many respects.
Browning also came out with an evolved A-Bolt, called the X-Bolt and – guess what – it also features the best trigger ever offered on a Browning rifle. The new Feather Trigger is set at a crisp 3 1/2 pounds from the factory. This gun also features a new recoil pad system, bolt release, and rakish stock styling on all its models.
For those of us who’ve always thought the Savage 110-line bolt rifles were sort of clunky looking, it’s time to take another look and rethink that opinion. The 50th anniversary model, new for this year, and the “Classic” are gorgeous guns, and Savage is now the first American company chambering for the peppy 6.5x284 cartridge, a former wildcat now factory loaded by Norma and Black Hills.
Marlin, which was also purchased by the same holding company that owns Remington in December, has a new X-series bolt action rifle that will retail for $325 to $350. That means you will see them on sale for $299. The XL7 is the first model in what promises to be an expansive line that features the Pro-Fire Trigger. I stood in the Marlin booth talking to Matt Foster, an old hog hunting buddy who now runs the Marlin marketing program, and I kept snapping the trigger and recocking the gun and snapping it again. Then I would look at the gun, not believing the retail price. He grinned at me, “Pretty cool, huh?”
Besides being wowed by the new bolt rifles, I spend a good deal of time looking at ammunition. The lead ammunition bans for big game and varmint hunting in California were a source of constant grumbling at the SHOT Show, but there was a flurry of activity in ammunition companies since December to have new products ready to announce and promises that more were on the way.
Both CCI and Federal (sister companies under ATK) announced lead-free .22 magnum rimfire ammunition called the TNT Green that would be available by late spring, and work was moving rapidly on non-lead standard .22 rimfire ammunition, and there was hope it would be available by year’s end.
For centerfire, Federal has expanded its line of big game and varmint ammo without lead. The varmint loads, also called TNT Green, feature a new Speer non-lead bullet, and the big game loads in the Premium line feature Barnes Tipped Triple Shocks and MRX bullets, both non-lead slugs that will be legal in California’s “green zone,” as some are calling it.
Nosler has expanded its bullet selection in the E-Tip line to include two 30 caliber slugs, a .270 and a 7mm bullet, and all four are lead-free. Winchester will be loading the non-lead bullets into their Supreme line in standard hunting calibers for this fall, and there is ongoing work on varmint and rimfire non-lead ammunition at Winchester. There was speculation that Winchester would change the lead core on its XP3 line to tungsten to make these bullets non-lead, too.
With Barnes expanding its line of Tipped and regular Triple Shock X-bullets and MRX bullets, big game non-lead bullets are available in all calibers for reloaders. The company’s line of Varmint Grenade non-lead bullets has also expanded with new .20, .22, and .243 diameter bullets, and the Multi-Purpose Green, or MPG line, includes .22 and .30 caliber fragmenting bullets. Both lines will be expanded more this year.
Black Hills Ammunition announced it will be loading .223, .22-250, and .243 ammuntion with the new Barnes Varmint Grenade slugs for varmint hunters, and it already loads several popular big game cartridges with Triple Shocks.
Hornady and Remington were the only two major ammunition companies not to have non-lead products at SHOT, but Hornady management said the company would have new products to announce by the end of this year.
Other new products worth noting are a very cool holographic red dot shotgun sight introduced by Burris called the Speed Bead. The sight mounts between the receiver and rear stock of a shotgun, sitting close to the line of the bore, and allowing for quick, accurate shotgun shooting even if the stock is not mounted correctly or when the head is not in contact with the stock.
In the ammunition vein, Aguila has brought back the 5mm Remington Magnum rimfire round, and T/C has again chambered the round in barrels available for its single shot break open rifles and handguns. Ruger and Federal have teamed up to produce handguns (Ruger SP101s) and ammunition for a new .327 Federal Magnum, a lengthened .32 H&R Magnum that produces .357 Magnum ballistics in a much smaller platform with less recoil.
Bushnell in its Trail Scout series of trail cameras has combined an electronic game call with a digital camera. You can program the call to sound off every hour or two for a given duration to entice game and varmints to get their photos. Yes, it’s a little gimmicky, but you have to admit it sounds pretty fun.
In the coming weeks, we’ll cover the latest in optics and sporting shotguns from the SHOT Show, with complete stories posted on our web site at http://www.OutdoorNewsService.com.