stevel

Shooters into 3-Gun competition are driving a lot of innovation in firearms and performance accessories, arguably benefitting the shotgun segment the most. Practical rifles and pistols already have plenty of development to improve sights, speed, and capacity, and many of those improvements — beveled mag wells, lightened hammers, expanded magazine capacities, various optics, lightweight materials — have found their way into mainstream guns at nearly all pricepoints. Shotgun development has lagged the other two gun types, but scatterguns are now the beneficiaries of drop-in triggers, rail systems, high-viz sights, collapsible replacement buttstocks, and other refinements, but capacity has been an ongoing restriction. Shotshells are big in both profile and weight, so they take up a lot of space.

Toward the end of each year, I survey the work R.K. Campbell, Roger Eckstine, Ray Ordorica, Robert Sadowski, Gene Taylor, John Taylor, Tracey Taylor, Ralph Winingham, and Kevin Winkle have done in Gun Tests, with an eye toward selecting guns, accessories, and ammunition the magazine’s testers have endorsed. From these evaluations I pick the best from a full year’s worth of tests and distill recommendations for readers, who often use them as year-end shopping guides. These “best of” choices are a mixture of our original tests and other information I’ve compiled during the year. After we roll high-rated test products into long-term testing, I keep tabs on how those guns do, and if the firearms and accessories continue performing well, then I have confidence including them in this wrap-up.

Over the past few months we have been asked to do matchups involving the great guns of the past. Wild Bunch pistols, the Browning Hi-Power, the Mauser Broomhandle and other types of handguns are always interesting. As a rule, you cannot paint the great handguns of the past with a broad brush, as some were designed to be the best possible, others were made cheaply, and others were made to sell, which always invites compromise. But there was a day when the goose hung high and Gun Valley America ruled the world. The great guns made in Gun Valley by Smith & Wesson, Colt, and High Standard were at the top of the heap, and these handguns of the past always have a following. One reason we are comparing these handguns is because many are still available. If you are motivated enough, you may find a Colt Woodsman, a Smith & Wesson K22, or an original High Standard 22 LR on the used market. The choice is limited, yes—you must take what you can get or what you are able to find.

I carried the Model 36 S&W for three decades as both an on- and off-duty gun. I bobbed the hammer early on and had an occasional failure to fire with some practice ammo. I had the department armorer advise me that bobbing the hammer reduced the weight of the hammer, thus reducing the strike force of the hammer, causing light strikes on older or less-sensitive-primer ammo. I had him replace my bobbed hammer with a factory replacement bobbed hammer, and the problem ended. He told me the factory replacement bobbed hammer was the same weight as the original-issue unbobbed hammer, therefore the impact energy to the primer was always sufficient to reliably ignite the rounds.

Your recent test of rifles in this chambering parallels my observations, for the most part. Noticed while reading the review that troubles were experienced with some ammunition in various rifles. Your article alludes to light primer strikes, producing failure-to-fire situations. I also use the Yugo SKS, Romanian WASR, CZ 527, and DPMS chambered in this cartridge. Similar experiences occurred with light primer strikes in some rifles among various lots of Wolf ammunition. At first, just thought it was faulty ammunition, until several cartridges were disassembled. Following that, I determined the light firing-pin strikes were not the problem, but rather faulty engineering on the manufacturers’ part. Whether this was done purposely could be debated, but it does seem strange that U.S.– manufactured ammunition had no troubles, but foreign-manufactured ammo, especially Wolf, there was a problem of seemingly light primer strikes.