RifleShooter

It’s hard to write this, but the magazine you’re holding is the final issue of RifleShooter. It got its start as a special-interest, annual publication in the 1990s, becoming a periodical in November 1997. The late, great Jerry Lee helmed the magazine for its first decade, and I took over as editor in 2007. In those days we were headquartered on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. You’d think that an odd place for a firearms magazine—and you’d be right, except when you consider this magazine’s official title is Petersen’s RifleShooter. For those not familiar, the late Bob Petersen built a publishing empire in Southern California around such famous titles as Motor Trend and Hot Rod. While he was a serious car guy, Petersen was also a serious gun guy and hunter,…

Regardless of whether you’re a fan, Hornady’s 6.5 Creedmoor forever changed cartridge design and consumer expectations of factory ammunition. The Creedmoor’s success was a slow burn but, once it took off, there was no stopping it. In the years that followed, Hornady’s ballisticians have applied the lessons learned from that cartridge to a broad spectrum of applications ranging from the .300 PRC down to the .22 ARC. The newest among them is the .25 Creedmoor, a cartridge with real potential for long-range competitive shooting as well as hunting medium-size game. Those who toss aside the Creedmoors as equals to other cartridges with similar velocities are missing the point. There is far more to cartridge design that bullet diameter and velocity. There are a few important principles that made the 6.5…

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’re aware of how easy it’s become to buy a suppressor. And if you’ve jumped on board that train, you probably know that at some point you’re going to have to clean your suppressor. Otis has made that easier with its new kit, which retails for $40. For me the star of the show is the threaded soaking container. This allows you to place the entire suppressor, whether the complete unit or a disassembled one, into the container and soak it for 24 to 48 hours—and not worry about knocking it over and spilling liquid everywhere. The kit comes with Otis’s suppressor cleaner concentrate, which you mix with warm water in a 1:1 ratio. This cleaner contains no petroleum products, and it promises…

The .22 Hornet’s origin story begins in 1885 with the introduction of the .22 Win. Center Fire, a mild-mannered blackpowder round that was originally chambered in the Winchester 1885 single-shot. In the 1920s, Capt. Grosvenor Wotkyns and Col. Townsend Whelen began experimenting with the .22 WCF case, which featured a .350-inch rim and long, sloping, five-degree shoulder. They swapped the original .228-inch bullet for a .223 and then a .224-inch pill, ditched the blackpowder propellant for smokeless, and, in 1930, the .22 Hornet was born. It was an immediate success. The early Winchester loads propelled a 45-grain bullet at 2,500 fps with little recoil or blast. Winchester offered its Model 54 in .22 Hornet in 1933, and three years later the new Model 70 was also chambered for the Hornet.…

The adoption of the Norwegian Krag-Jorgensen bolt-action rifle by the U.S. Army in 1892 remains puzzling. An Ordnance Board convened in late 1890 tested 53 rifles—including 11 already in service with other countries—and gave the nod to the .30-40 Krag despite the fact that by this time the smallbore revolution was in full swing. Also by this point in time, the Lee detachable box magazine was already a proven commodity with the U.S. Navy and Great Britain, and the efficacy of Mauser and Mannlicher clip-feeding systems had established the reliability of the rimless cartridge feeding from magazines. Against this backdrop, the United States still chose a rifle that had to be loaded with rimmed, loose ammunition through a large, wide box magazine. Paired with a magazine cutoff, this was meant…

Over the past several decades, the data provided in reloading manuals have steadily trended toward lighter loads. Max charge weights have diminished, and like many other reloaders, I’ve wondered why this is. While researching for this column, I decided to go straight to the horse’s mouth and ask several major players in the reloading industry about why every new edition of various reloading manuals has lighter max loads. I wanted to know if it was due to new propellants or less-durable brass—or perhaps historic max pressures were overzealous or maybe modern maxes were due to today’s litigious environment. Of the people I contacted, Hodgdon’s Aaron Oelger gave the most insightful answers, which is probably not a surprise since Hodgdon handles more propellant brands and develops more data than most companies.…