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Gun News from Around the Web: Week of Feb 6-12, 2011

GunReports.com aggregates important gun news of the week. Bookmark this page to check back often for new items added weekly, daily, or hourly, or on your Facebook page, search for 'GunReports.com' and click 'Like' to get the newsfeed pushed to your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

Weatherby’s Vanguard Deluxe Returns

(GunReports.com) -- Weatherby has brought back the Vanguard Deluxe rifle for 2011. Brad Ruddell, Weatherby's vice president of sales and marketing, said, 'Initially introduced as the VGX many years ago, this rifle is nearly identical in appearance to our classic Mark V Deluxe and has many of the same features, but costs much less. Like all our Vanguard rifles, its performance is backed by a written accuracy guarantee.'

Marlin .308 MX

(GunReports.com) -- Our Marlin came with mighty nicely figured walnut. The buttstock wood matched the wood of the forend, both having prominent contrasting grain and some fiddleback. The wood appeared to have an epoxy-base finish, it being quite hard and scratch-resistant. The checkering was excellent, with decorative touches. It wrapped the forend and was generous at the grip. The butt had a hard-rubber pad that curved to fit the shoulder, though it did little to cut recoil. There were sling studs, too.

Other Garand Topics

We also had access to a carefully built, match-grade Garand. It easily and consistently put eight shots (not just three) of the mil-surplus ammo into groups smaller than 2.5 inches. With military-surplus match ammo, we put six into a group that measured 1.7 inches, on a bad-light day. The most obvious differences about this rifle were its excellent trigger (5.25 pounds) and smooth-as-glass bolt operation. The rear sight had been bushed to give a smaller…

Auction Arms and GunReports.Com Form Gun News Alliance

(GunReports.com) -- Auction Arms, the official auction site of the NRA, and GunReports.Com have announced a letter of intent to establish the Auction Arms News Bureau, a weekly E-Letter that will deliver gun news, pricing trends and other information for the serious shooter.

Gun Tests Magazine Partners with Auction Arms for Current Pricing Cites

(GunReports.com) -- Gun Tests Magazine, the 23-year-old consumer resource for the serious shooter, will partner with Auction Arms to collect and report up-to-the-minute, accurate firearms pricing.

Harrington & Richardson Pardner NPI2C8 12-Gauge Pump Shotgun, $200

(GunReports.com) -- The pump action is a very popular shotgun type, mainly for its ease of operation and its ruggedness. While a self-loader may be a bit faster in trained hands, the point is debatable. Expensive autoloaders are reliable, but in the end a dirty or well-used pump is always more reliable than a dirty autoloader. We recently tested an affordable pump—the H&R Pardner, a basic copy of the Remington 870 design beneath the humpback receiver. We bought the gun at Academy Sports, a giant sporting chain that offers rifles, pistols, and shotguns as well as other sporting goods. We were surprised to see the pump-action shotgun listed for less than $200 in an Academy Sports sales paper—it was listed at $180.

Our team gathered and shot the gun using 2.75-inch Winchester Super Target loads (1-ounce charge of No. 8 shot, 2.75-dram equivalent, 1180 fps muzzle velocity) and also a new steel trap load, the Winchester Xpert Game/Target load WE12GT7, a 2.75-inch 12 gauge with 11‚ÅÑ8 ounces of No. 7s, Max dram, developing 1280 fps, according to Winchester.

Auto-Ordnance to Release 100th Anniversary Edition 1911 in January

(GunReports.com) -– Kahr Arms's 100th Anniversary Edition 1911 from Auto-Ordnance will debut at SHOT Show 2011 in January. The 100th Anniversary Edition is a .45 caliber classic style WWII Parkerized 1911 pistol with a 5” barrel. A special engraving on the slide will read “1911 .45 ACP, 1911-2011, 100 Years”.

Working The Rossi Gallery Rifle, from American Gunsmith’s Book of the Rifle

Americans want good looks and cheap prices, and the Rossi Gallery Rifle meets those criteria. Here's how to solve problems related to this low-cost rifle.

The Marlin 336 Series Lever-Action Rifles

These relatively simple instructions from the American Gunsmithing Library will get you through the disassembly and troubleshooting of all the various Marlin lever-action 336 models, as well as the 30 and 36.

Savage 110 GXP3 .223 Remington, $449

Whenever we hear the term “package deal” we can’t help feeling this will be synonymous with compromise. At only $449 for rifle and scope, we feared we were in for a disappointment. But the Savage 110 GXP3 was a lesson in how to and where to save money.The walnut stock was pleasingly sculpted and stained to a smooth low-gloss finish that highlighted its grain. Lacking a grip cap and featuring pressed, not cut, checkering, this was still a tasteful piece of woodwork.

Working the Savage 1899 Rifle

In 1893, Savage patented the first truly hammerless lever-action rifle. This streamlined rifle differed from the Winchester and Marlin lever-action rifles of the same era in that it used a rotary magazine that allowed the use of ballistically superior pointed-nose bullets. All of the other lever-actions of this period used a tubular magazine. The tubular magazine meant that cartridges were fed into the tube with bullet nose to primer, necessitating the use of blunt-nosed bullets to avoid a chain-fire situation. By 1895, Savage's rifle was in full production as the Model 95. Around 1899, a few small design improvements were made and, since then, the design has remained relatively the same—one of the "bread and butter" firearms of this company.

Weirdness in the Ammo Market

As the holidays arrive and we all think about buying presents for our loved ones, I wonder if we’ll have any money left over...
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