This photo, provided by PLoS ONE, shows various photos shown to participants in a series of studies, which found that holding a handgun makes a man appear taller and stronger.

Does a gun actually change one’s outward appearance?

It’s been long established that you can take any ordinary schmo, give him a gun, and suddenly he’s James Bond. Even Dirty Harry may not have looked as “dirty” if it wasn’t for his trusty Smith & Wesson Model 29.

Guns may make a guy look cooler — but do they change anything else? According to a recent study, they do. Guns make guys look taller.

A team of researchers at UCLA concluded that holding a gun makes a man look taller and stronger in the viewers’ eyes than a knife, saw or any other tools.

Published in the journal PLoS ONE, the study was conducted to understand human decision making when facing a potentially violent or life-threatening situation.

“Violent conflict with conspecifics is a fundamental factor influencing fitness in many social species, humans included,” the study says in the introduction. “We can therefore expect that such species will possess adaptations that facilitate decision-making in potentially agonistic interactions, as the individual must determine whether is it best to fight, flee, or appease the prospective foe.”

Participants in the study were instructed to judge the size and weight of a man holding various tools — including a .45-caliber pistol and a .357 revolver, as well as a kitchen knife, a caulking gun, a saw and others.

Whether it’s because of cultural stigma or the implied strength required to fire a handgun, researchers found that participants generally perceived those with guns to be taller and larger.

“Knowing that an individual possesses a potentially lethal object, be it a handgun or a kitchen knife, led our U.S. participants to generally conceptualize the target individual as taller and larger in overall body size and muscularity,” the study says. “… These findings constitute preliminary evidence in support of the hypothesis that conceptualized size and strength act as key dimensions in a cognitive representation that summarizes the formidability of a potential foe, where possession of a weapon is one factor contributing to said formidability.”

It’s a given that staring down the barrel of a gun can be pretty intimidating, but who would have guessed just holding a handgun could make a shooter look bigger and stronger?

This Austrian-made Voere combination rifle/shotgun was originally produced with a standard 12-gauge barrel over a .22 Magnum rimfire barrel, but the caliber marking below the rifle barrel is no longer valid. The rimfire chamber has been reamed, lengthened and enlarged, and the new chambering is not marked.

It’s a problem most gun owners never encounter, but it’s one just about every gunsmith has seen. Someone brings in a gun with no caliber designation. The question becomes what caliber is it and how can that be determined.

Over the years I’ve encountered this situation a number of times and have seen it dealt with in many different ways—some good, some bad. Perhaps the worst and potentially most dangerous were the cases where folks just kept trying to chamber different cartridges until the bolt closed on one. As far as they were concerned, that was the correct caliber!

Needless to say, that procedure is dangerous. In fact, I heard recently of a young guy who did it and ended up touching off a 7.62x39mm round in a rifle that was actually chambered for .243 Winchester. There was considerable damage to the rifle, but fortunately the shooter’s injuries were minimal. I also recall a guy who came into my shop years ago with an old, beat-up Japanese Arisaka rifle in 7.7mm. I happened to ask him what he was shooting in it since ammo in that caliber was kind of hard to find at the time. He proudly pulled out a box of Remington 8mm Mauser cartridges! I remember being absolutely speechless at the time. I couldn’t believe it. It was truly a testament to the strength of the old Arisaka that neither he nor his rifle had been injured.

There are better, infinitely safer, and more accurate ways of determining an unknown caliber. Not long ago a friend who has a gunshop sold me an Austrian-made Voere combination gun. It has a 12-gauge barrel on top and a rifle barrel underneath. The calibers are plainly stamped below the breechblock: 12 gauge and .22 Magnum. The problem is someone in the past had done some rather interesting gunsmithing and had converted the rimfire to centerfire. The unknown gunsmith had also re-cut the chamber.

My buddy was not at all sure what the new chambering was and was understandably very reluctant to sell the gun because of liability issues. Consequently, I got a great deal on a very interesting and unique firearm. But before I could use it, I had to determine the identity of the unknown rifle caliber.

I should point out that my friend thought the rifle might be chambered for .219 Zipper, and that certainly made sense because the cut in the extractor for the case head appeared at first glance to match the diameter of a .30-30 case, which was the parent case of the Zipper. However, there were several variations of the Zipper, including the .219 Donaldson Wasp and the .219 Improved Zipper. It could be any or none of them.

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Casting the Chamber
There have been quite a few wildcat cartridges based on the .30-30 case, which is especially suitable for single-shot and break-open firearms like the Voere. The only way to accurately identify the correct cartridge is to determine the dimensions of the chamber. That necessitates making a chamber casting. A chamber casting is basically just a model of the chamber made by pouring a liquid into the chamber that then hardens. The hardened casting is then removed and measured to determine the specific caliber.

The first step is to take the barrels off the frame. Then carefully and thoroughly clean the rifle barrel and chamber. For this report I used Birchwood Casey Gun Scrubber. I placed special emphasis on removing all fouling and oil from the chamber. Since I planned on making a casting of the rifle chamber, any residual oil would create imperfections in the chamber cast, and these imperfections would make accurate measurements of the casting difficult or possibly impossible.

There are several different materials you can use to make an accurate chamber cast. Years ago, when I first started gunsmithing, I was taught to use sulfur. Sulfur makes a very nice casting, but heaven help you if you overheat it. It’ll burn, and your shop will literally smell like hell! Take it from one who has experienced it, avoid the use of sulfur.

A much more appropriate, safer, and cleaner casting medium is Cerrosafe. Sold by gunsmith suppliers, this alloy, I believe, is made primarily of bismuth, lead, and tin, and it’ll generally melt somewhere between 160 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit. In fact, it’s so easy to melt, I used my hot air gun right at my bench. By the way, once you have finished using the hardened casting, you can melt it down and use the Cerrosafe over and over again. With a little care, the Cerrosafe will last for years.

After cleaning the chamber, use a cleaning rod and jag with a tight-fitting patch to plug the bore about a quarter-inch or so ahead of the chamber. Then position the barrel vertically (with the chamber up) in a padded vise. Warm the chamber area with your hot air gun and pour in the Cerrosafe. It takes just a few minutes for it to harden, and once it’s solidified, use the cleaning rod to push the casting out of the chamber.

Measure the Casting
Then use a micrometer and a digital caliper to measure various points on the casting. I made a crude drawing to record the dimensions, and then I started doing some research to find the cartridge that matched the dimensions on my drawing. Two books were especially helpful: Wildcat Cartridges by Wolfe Publishing and The Handloader’s Manual of Cartridge Conversions by John J. Donnelly.

Based on the dimensions from my casting and the information found in my resource books, it appears I am the proud owner of a .219 Donaldson Wasp. Many years ago I swore I would never own a firearm chambered for a wildcat. Well, so much for swearing!

Now I’m going to have to look at picking up reloading dies, getting into forming cases, and then working up loads. Actually, that doesn’t sound so bad now that I think about it. In fact, I just might enjoy owning a wildcat after all! And oh yes, I will mark the chamber with the proper caliber designation.

Until next time, good luck and good gunsmithing!

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Benelli

Of intense interest to those of us who got a sneak peek at the gun last year is the new high-capacity Performance Shop M2 3-Gun (above), which boasts a ComforTech stock, extended magazine, fiber-optic front sight, and many more features that appeal to competition shooters. Price: $2,699.

Also, there’s a Performance Shop Super Black Eagle II. While not all new by design—but geared specifically for waterfowl hunters—it’s essentially a Super Black Eagle II with a tuning kit and aftermarket mods. Price: $2,899. Polished guts in the gun and a custom trigger are the start, followed by Rob Roberts Custom Triple Threat chokes. Each gun features a Crio barrel with a polished forcing cone to provide consistent patterns while reducing recoil. Also new are Super Black Eagle II models featuring Mossy Oak Duck Blind camo and a new 20-gauge M2 with Realtree MAX 4 camo—a first for a 20 gauge from Benelli in waterfowl-specific camo.

Are you planning on buying a shotgun this year?

This pistol has had over 600 rounds through it, with only one ammo-induced failure.

Smith & Wesson has just announced its new Shield handgun. It’s an addition to the M&P line and fills a significant niche.

In short, it’s a single-stack, polymer-frame handgun built to the ultra-durable standards of the Military & Police line and designed to be carried day in and day out by people who will abuse it and then expect it to perform on demand. Initially available in 9mm and .40 S&W, it retails at $449. It is less than one inch wide and weighs in at 19 ounces.

With it come two magazines—one short and one extended with a grip extension sleeve. The short magazine holds seven rounds in 9mm caliber; six rounds in .40, while the extended version holds eight rounds in 9mm and seven in .40 caliber. Plus it has the added benefit of providing a full grip. The slide is finished in Black Melonite at 68 HRc. Barrel length is three inches.

Sights are white-dot front and rear; the firing mechanism is striker-fired, and the trigger sports mild enhancements to S&W’s standard M&P line of pistols, offering a quite usable 6.5-pound pull. The grip angle is a natural-feeling 18 degrees—a number settled on after engineers spent an inordinate amount of time studying human anatomy. Breaking from M&P pistol tradition, there are no interchangeable backstraps. Such a luxury would have made the grip bulkier, and proved a worthwhile jettison in order to achieve the fantastic slender feel of the Shield.

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To date I’ve put over 600 rounds through my sample M&P9 Shield, with exactly one failure—and that was due to a clearly-visible ammo defect and no fault of the gun itself. It’s accurate and surprisingly controllable under rapid fire. Check out the accompanying video to see it in action.

In a fit of pro-active activity, the good folks at S&W coordinated with a number of holster and aftermarket accessory providers. When new Shield pistols hit your dealers’ shelves sometime in mid-April, you’ll be able to purchase a holster for it from half a dozen manufacturers including Galco, DeSantis, Fobus, Blackhawk, Uncle Mike’s and Pistol Wear. XS Sights and Hi-Viz are producing tritium and fiber-optic drop-in sights. And last but not least, laser accessories will be available from Crimson Trace, Laserlyte, and LaserMax.

Some, but not all, of the holsters and aftermarket sights can be viewed in the accompanying photographs.

What makes this gun important on today’s scene? The fact that it carries the hallowed M&P designation. It is tested with much more extreme tests than standard pistol lines from S&W and competing manufacturers, and is built to provide lawmen with count-on-it performance.

This is an enthusiastic report. Do I really like it that much? I like it enough that it’s going to become a permanent resident in my IWB holster. And that’s about all I need to say about that.

Watch for a full, in-depth review coming up in Shooting Times magazine.

The product will be officially announced at the 2012 NRA Show in St. Louis, but at high noon on April 12 — the day before the show — the NDA is lifted and we’ll post a major first look at the gun on Shooting Times, which will be followed by an in-depth shooting review in the August issue of the magazine.

The Colt Peacemaker is quite easily the most recognized handgun of the American West, immortalized in the art and photographs of the time and in thousands of cinematic productions since then.

The Colt Peacemaker is quite easily the most recognized handgun of the American West, immortalized in the art and photographs of the time and in thousands of cinematic productions since then.

This rugged revolver was introduced in 1873 and produced until 1940. Production resumed in 1956, and finicky collectors dispute historical and technical details with a fanaticism usually found only in the worlds of Lugers and Chevy Corvettes. Some say two generations, some three, and some purists four. For shooters, they’re all the same gun.

It was adopted by the Army in 1875, serving officially until 1892 with encores until World War I. Production at Colt continues today, with the design little changed since it first began to ride on the hips of cavalrymen and cowboys. You’d never know it growing up in front of American television, but S&W’s top-break revolvers were actually more popular on the frontier.

The fixed cylinder, sturdy frame, and single-action mechanism proved to be more durable than competitors’ more sophisticated designs, and the Colt Single Action Army (SAA) surged back into beloved service with the success of the Single Action Shooting Society in the 1990s.

Today, Colts are available, and replicas are produced by Uberti and Pietta and imported by Taylor, Dixie, and Cimarron among others. Through the SAA’s lifespan, it’s been offered in a number of calibers, ranging from .22 rimfire to .32-20, .38-40, .44-40, and the classic and massively powerful .45 Colt. To avoid confusion, many folks add “Long,” but it’s not necessary among the cognoscenti.

Provenance
The subject revolver is arguably a 2nd Generation, but built in 1956, it may contain a part or two from before World War II. It’s a 4.75-inch-barreled model; Colt also offered 5.5- and 7.5-inch barrels.

It belongs to my neighbor, Danny Cifers, who is a lifelong historian of the Old West. A former gunsmith, his proudest works are action jobs on Peacemakers, and he’s gotten quite good at it.

Cifers purchased the gun in an Anchorage gun store while stationed in Alaska. It was in good but used condition with the original plastic grips. He refinished the metal, lovingly honed the inner workings, and polished the hammer.

While in the frozen north, he was given a large chunk of mammoth tusk. Now almost all of the curmudgeon’s handguns wear this 40,000-year-old tusk.

The grips of this SAA have a scrimshaw of a sleeping turkey vulture, Cathartes aura, etched in its ancient surface. Obviously, the Colt’s nickname is “Buzzard.”

Until crippled by neuropathy, Cifers competed successfully with Buzzard in Mounted Western Shooting, blazing away on his mule, “Gus.”

Mechanicals
The hammer is brought to halfcock, releasing the cylinder to spin freely clockwise. Flip out the loading gate.

Cartridges are inserted singly as chambers parade past the gate. It is still highly recommended that only five rounds be loaded. Load one, skip one, load four if the gun is to be holstered. Load five in a row to shoot. The gate is snapped shut and the hammer brought to fullcock before being lowered on the empty chamber.

If the hammer is lowered carelessly directly from halfcock, it can break the sear. When the hammer is cocked (first click), a bolt inside removes the indexing lug from grooves in the cylinder. At click two, the hammer comes into halfcock. With clicks three and four, the sear is fully engaged and ready for the trigger to be squeezed.

These four clicks have traditionally been said to represent “C-O-L-T.” Once the handgun has been fired and your opponent lies in the dusty street—one arm dangling in the horse trough—put the big iron back on your hip and get the heck out of Dodge.

Later, open the gate and, pushing the lug on the ejection rod, eject spent casings. Clean, reload, and ride into the sunset while they roll the credits.

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Ballistics
Early .45 Colt casings could hold 40 grains of blackpowder with a 250-grain lead bullet. It was a monster for its time. Cases were thin and when later smokeless loads were introduced, solid case heads were necessary.

While modern metallurgy has increased the strength of the SAA, the design remains a blackpowder gun. Most modern commercial loads recognize this, and it’s usually foolish hand-loaders who get into trouble. If you want a muscle handgun, get a modern S&W .460 or Ruger Redhawk.

Older guns fired with stout loads can develop cracking at the timing groove in the middle of the cylinder, which just happens to be the weakest point in the case wall. Most older guns are in museums or collections. They are quite valuable and need to be protected. Anyone ruining one of these classics with +P loads should be drummed out of the fort.

Hornady’s mild cowboy load has a 255-grain LFN going out of the barrel at 767 fps. Winchester loads pushed a similar bullet out of Buzzard at 782 fps.

Cifers’s long-running competition load has 6.5 grains of Alliant Red Dot pushing a 255-grain LFN cast in a Lyman mold with lead poured from a Lee smelter pot. He loads in RCBS dies on an RCBS single-stage press, using Starline brass and Federal primers. The Lyman bullet has a much wider meplat and shorter ogive than the two factory loads.

Rangetime
Bad weather put off T&E for almost a week. Eventually to just get it over with, I shot in gusting winds at 23 degrees Fahrenheit. My notebook flapped, and the ink froze in my pen, but I came to appreciate the weight and balance that have kept this revolver popular for 13 decades. However, muzzle flip was sprightly.

Friend and teacher Sheriff Jim Wilson has ruminated on why the SAA is better than a semiautomatic for mounted shooting: “With an autoloader you shoot and the horse startles. Of course, you grab the saddle horn with both hands—and that’s when you shoot the horse in the neck.”

I shot Buzzard through wind, tears, and runny nose at the Mohave Sportsman’s range. When I set up the Oehler 35P, I draped range bags over it to keep it from blowing over. The Oehler survived, and I put out some Birchwood Casey targets at 10 yards.
Even with the heavy bullets, light loads kept the shoot comfortable. Surprisingly, the handloads were 100 fps faster than the factory loads, but produced no more recoil.

In an alarming situation, an early group just walked away from the bull. Something was wrong with the cylinder, and it turned out the axle pin detent wasn’t working. The axle pin had worked its way out with each shot, and I had to reseat it for each subsequent shot.

Buzzard shot to point of aim, but 1 inch left with all loads. The handloads shaded the two factory loads by a fraction of an inch—but he’s tuned it for years.

I have never been so glad to get off a shooting range.

This all-new bolt gun is a real departure for Ruger. With a retail price of just $449, it turns in head-shaking accuracy.

What would you think about a brand-new bolt-action hunting rifle from Ruger that weighs only 6.25 pounds, has a user-adjustable trigger, shoots minute of angle with factory ammunition, and carries a recommended retail price of only $449? Sounds pretty good, right?

Well, it’s here right now. It’s called the Ruger American Rifle, and it’s about as different from any of Ruger’s previous bolt-action rifles as you can get.

Available both in long-action and short-action configurations, the Ruger American Rifle is initially being offered in .30-06, .270 Winchester, .308 Winchester, and .243 Winchester; more chamberings will soon follow. Unlike Ruger’s legendary 43-year-old Model 77 and newer Hawkeye series bolt-action guns, the Ruger American’s fully enclosed receiver is drilled and tapped for Winchester Model 70 scope mounts, and a set of Weaver No. 46 crosscut bases is included with  each gun. That’s right, no Ruger rings.The American Rifle also has the new Ruger Marksman Adjustable 3- to 5-pound user-adjustable trigger, a two-position tang safety, a fast-locktime fire-control mechanism, a detachable rotary magazine, and a lightweight synthetic stock with a patent-pending free-float bedding system. It isn’t your daddy’s Ruger bolt gun.

New and Different
The Ruger American Rifle is an entirely new Ruger platform and features an investment-cast receiver with flat-angled exterior surfaces to eliminate any rotation in its bedding. It has a solid, closed top and an angled side-opening ejection port. There is a gas vent hole in the forward bolt-locking area for the rare event of a cartridge case rupture.

The bolt is full diameter throughout its length and carries three locking lugs that allow for a 70-degree throw, which keeps the bolt handle fully clear of any scope when cycling. Dual cocking cams are employed for smooth cycling; it’s nearly impossible to make the bolt bind no matter how off-line you pull or shove it.

Bolt removal is easy. Simply pull it to the rear while simultaneously pressing on the rear of the boltstop located on the left rear side of the receiver. Complete instructions for bolt disassembly are included in the American Rifle’s manual, but it will be a very rare occurrence for any normal user to need to take it apart.

The naturally ambidextrous, two-position manual tang safety on the American is located immediately behind the boltsleeve (much like the original Ruger Model 77 safety from way back when), which is where I think all safeties should be located on all rifles, falling within the natural reach of the firing hand thumb whether shooting right-handed or left-handed. The safety selector can be moved from the “Fire” position to the “Safe” position only when the firing pin is cocked, and the bolt can be cycled while the safety is engaged. When the bolt handle is fully raised to cock the firing pin, the cocking piece will protrude from the rear of the bolt shroud, providing a visual/tactile cocking indicator. Plus, the manual tang safety is complemented by a passive, trigger-mounted safety that positively locks the trigger unless it is physically squeezed.

The Ruger American’s new Marksman Adjustable trigger is one of the gun’s most innovative aspects. Externally it resembles the famous Savage AccuTrigger in that it utilizes a slotted trigger body with a trigger release lever, but the internal design is quite different. The trigger pull weight can be adjusted from approximately 3 pounds to approximately 5 pounds. To access the pull weight setscrew, you need to remove the barreled action from the stock. The trigger setscrew is located on the forward outside edge of the fire-control housing. The screw is treated with a thread-locking compound at the factory and will probably be stiff to move the first time you adjust it. (Be sure to use a properly fitted screwdriver and apply some Loctite when you have it where you want it).

Threading the screw in (clockwise) increases trigger pull weight; threading the screw out (counterclockwise) reduces trigger pull weight. It takes approximately six full turns of the screw to cover the full range of trigger pull weight adjustability. If you turn the screw beyond this amount on either end, it will not further increase or decrease trigger pull weight. Turning the screw too far in may cause the trigger to bind and not function; turning the screw too far out may prevent the barreled action from reassembling to the stock. Ruger recommends turning the screw only in half-revolution increments and testing the pull weight at each interval as the best way to get the exact “feel” you want.

The design of the American Rifle’s synthetic stock is also new for Ruger. It features wedge-shaped, patent-pending, Power Bedding stainless-steel blocks insert-molded into the stock material to positively locate the receiver with no possibility of receiver rotation or shift. The Power Bedding also free-floats the barrel. The stock’s external configuration blends classic American buttstock lines with a more modern “finger relief” fore-end contour and also has a molded-serrations pistol grip with ambidextrous palmswells. A thick, soft rubber recoil pad is standard on all Ruger American Rifle chamberings (and is really appreciated when shooting the lightweight .30-06 gun). Plus, there are sling-swivel studs, of course.

Removing the barreled action from the stock is easy. And that’s a good thing because you’ll need to if you want to adjust the trigger. Just loosen and remove the two hex-head screws in the bottom of the stock and lift out the barreled action. Adjust the trigger if you want or just admire the Power Bedding and the stock’s internal design. Then replace the barreled action assembly, making sure the two angled bedding blocks fit into the corresponding grooves in the receiver. Loosely install the two screws and tighten them down. Do not tighten one screw all the way and then the other. Instead, alternately tighten each one, a partial turn at a time, keeping them going in evenly until both are snug at 60 to 80 inch-lbs. The stock is synthetic, remember?

The Ruger American’s 22-inch barrel is cold hammer forged to exacting tolerances, providing sub-MOA accuracy; long-term endurance; and an easy-to-keep-clean, mirror-smooth bore finish. Cold hammer forging is a superior way to put rifling in a barrel. It takes an oversized barrel blank and, using high-pressure rotary hammers, compacts the barrel blank over a reverse-rifled mandrel. This forms perfect rifling devoid of tool marks. It also compacts the molecular structure of the metal, making it denser and stronger.

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The Ruger American’s polymer magazine is a flush-fit, four-round, rotary design. It does not require any type of angled insertion—just snaps straight in. To pop it out, just press rearward on the latch on the magazine’s forward end and pull it down. The cartridges top-load and press-in, without needing to slide under the magazine lips.

To charge the rifle, push the magazine up into the magazine well until it latches (you’ll feel and hear the click). If you want that “plus-one” round, just chamber the top cartridge, put the rifle on “Safe,” remove the magazine and add one, and replace. And if you feel the need, extra Ruger American magazines are available from www.shopruger.com.

I just love detachable rotary magazines. I don’t exactly know why I always feel more comfortable with an extra one in my pocket. Five rounds ought to be enough.

Proof of the Pudding
I first handled the new Ruger American Rifle at Ruger’s Newport, New Hampshire, manufacturing facility during a visit last November, but did not have the opportunity to fire one until a review sample .30-06 model arrived at PASA Park in early January. By then colleague J. Guthrie had already taken a fine Texas trophy whitetail with the gun and was singing praises about its accuracy and handling qualities. I wasn’t exactly dubious, but I was definitely curious whether a rifle so moderately priced could really deliver the sub-MOA accuracy that Ruger President Mike Fifer was claiming and whether the gun’s recoil pad would really be enough to make such a lightweight .30-06 feel comfortable to shoot. The American satisfied on both counts.

I took five different loads of hunting-grade commercial .30-06 ammunition from my inventory, ranging in bullet weight from 125 to 180 grains, and ran the rifle through a benchrest accuracy protocol at 100 yards, using Weaver’s new KASPA riflescope in classic 3-9X deer hunter’s format for an optic. (For more on the scope, see the sidebar on page 42.) The trigger pull as the rifle came from the box was right at 4.0 pounds. That’s a little heavier than I usually prefer, but it was so dead-perfect crisp and clean and crawl-free that I didn’t even tinker with it before loading up. Crisp and clean has always been more important to me than weight.

The firing results are listed in the accuracy chart, and the overall combined average for all groups with all loads came in at 0.99 inch (0.95 MOA). And that was with a mere 9X magnification optic. Mr. Guthrie, who put a 30X target scope on his review rifle, reported one-hole groups. The Ruger American Rifle obviously shoots like American riflemen expect their tools to shoot these days.

I like this rifle. Admittedly a departure from Ruger’s traditional traditionalism, it is thoroughly “modern” in format, with every feature that today’s discerning hunters and riflemen demand, and it performs superbly at a price that still sets my head to shaking. I’m looking forward to having one—as soon as Ruger chambers it in 7mm-08.

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Browning Long Range Hunter

Of most interest from Browning is a new A-Bolt version—the Long Range Hunter. It’s fitted with a 26-inch, fluted, medium-heavy, free-floated barrel and is hand-chambered in four top long-range hunting cartridges: 6.5 Creedmoor, 7mm Rem. Mag., .300 Win. Mag., and .300 Ultra Mag. It’s available with blued steel and black synthetic stock ($910), blued with gray laminate stock ($970), and stainless steel with Mossy Oak Brush camo stock ($1,070).

Also new this year, the X-Bolt is offered in .375 H&H Magnum. Price: $1,070 (Medallion) or $940 (Hunter).

Are you in the market for a new rifle this year?

More often than not, when the military comes up with something worth having, civilians have to wait 20 or 30 years before it hits the surplus pipeline and ends up in their hands. All those wonderful CMP M1 Garands, M1 carbines, and 1903 rifles come immediately to mind, as do the Korea-era packs and canteens I hunted and camped with as a kid. Occasionally, a unique or utilitarian product ends up on shelves and in catalogs at the same time it rolls out of supply depots.

And that is the case with some of the best 5.56x45mm NATO ammo ever to come in a battle pack. Black Hills Ammunition worked for years, with first the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU) and later the U.S. Navy, on a long-term project that resulted in MK 262 Mod 1. The project started out to develop ammo for competitors initially and morphed its way into the magazines of operators. Civilian shooters can buy that exact same round—it just comes in a much prettier box—for improved downrange performance, accuracy, and lethality.

Black Hills President Jeff Hoffman has long described the company as either “a big little company or a little big company” that started with and specializes in .223 and 5.56x45mm NATO ammunition. At last count Black Hills cataloged 15 different new-manufacture .223 loads, three new-manufacture 5.56mm loads, 12 remanufactured loads, and several military-only 5.56 loads. The round count is in the tens of millions annually and includes everything from very frangible varmint ammo to heavy-for-caliber, long-range ammo.

In 1996 a retired Army officer approached Hoffman about pursuing a newly announced AMU ammo contract.

“I told him we didn’t know a thing about Army contracts,” Hoffman said. However, the colonel did, and combined with the company’s extensive .223 experience, Black Hills won the contract to produce 80-grain .223 ammo for 600-yard target work. The AMU wanted a certain velocity at a pressure that was within SAAMI specifications.

“I told them it was impossible, and it was, but we saved them 10,000 psi over what they were doing,” Hoffman said. “We won the bid.”

Because they have the best budget for ammunition development, and because it is their job to shoot really well, the rest of the military closely watches the AMU and what they shoot. In short order, Black Hills had secured ammo contracts for most of the other military service competition teams. Everyone knew war-fighters would soon follow in their tracks.

In 1999 Hoffman was approached by engineers from Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane) about developing a load for an accurized, suppressed M-16 that was eventually called the MK 12 Special Purpose Rifle (SPR). The Crane SPRs were built from mothballed M-16A1 lowers and had 18-inch barrels.

Over the next decade, name and configuration changes were as rampant as the rifle was successful, and other services were quick to employ similar guns. The Marine Corps Squad Advanced Marksman Rifle (SAM-R) and the Army Squad Designated Marksman Rifle (SDM-R), not to be confused with the M-14-based Designated Marksman Rifle (DMR) and Enhanced Battle Rifle (EBR), are good examples of either straight copying of a great idea or dual evolution depending on whom you ask.

Despite the name, fore-end and stock configuration, optic choice, and camo pattern worn by the guy toting it, this new class of rifle needed new ammo that was both accurate and lethal out to 600 yards. Black Hills sent NSWC Crane a couple thousand AMU rounds as a starting point.

“We initially made a couple of changes to harden and militarize the round,” Hoffman said. “We started with .223 brass and then went to mil-spec 5.56mm brass. We added a flash suppressant, and the velocity was bumped up 150 fps, too, so we were getting 2,700 to 2,750 fps at the muzzle.”

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Several bullets were used during the development process, including the 73-grain Berger, 77-grain Sierra MatchKing, and 77-grain Nosler HPBT. Black Hills finally settled on the MatchKing when Sierra agreed to put a cannelure on the bullet. Hoffman said there was no perceivable difference in accuracy between the different bullets in real-world rifles, but in test fixtures Sierra’s bullet proved slightly more accurate.

“It was tough convincing Sierra to put a cannelure on that bullet,” Hoffman said. “They were really concerned about destroying accuracy, but we didn’t want a bullet stuffed back into a case to render a rifle inoperable. We are big believers in Murphy. If he can get involved, it won’t happen in training; it will happen when some SF guy kicks down a door in Afghanistan.”

Accuracy was exceptional, certainly an improvement over M855, though Crane’s spec is still considered sensitive and Hoffman would not reveal the details. He said the accuracy spec is tighter than any other small arms round in the U.S. military’s inventory. Some research revealed that the ammo had to hold MOA groups, or 3.5 inches at 300 yards, over five 10-shot groups.

“The max effective range [of the M-16A1] with the original M193 ammo was 460 yards,” Hoffman said. “We’ve come a long way from that and have reports of successful engagements past 800 yards. I’ve shot out to 1,100 yards with it.”

For the idly curious, with a 100-yard zero, MK 262 Mod 1 requires 37.25 minutes of come-up at 1,000 yards (elevation 2,500 feet), at least in Hoffman’s rifle.

The name changed with each modification. MK 262 Mod 0 was adopted in 2002, Mod 1 came along in 2003 with the cannelure, and an improvement to temperature sensitivity came along in 2005. Hoffman said the last change came after Black Hills technicians noticed some failures to extract (FTX) in their test M4 and short-barreled rifles, and that it was the most difficult problem to solve.

“We initially thought the FTXs were possibly related to higher port pressures,” Hoffman said. “The M4’s port pressure is around 25,000 psi, much higher than the SPR due to the location of the gas port on the respective guns. We looked at brass, powder, everything.”

It finally came down to chamber temperature. The test specification called for the ammo to be baked at 125 degrees for two hours and not exceed pressure limits when then chambered and fired. When Black Hills engineers started firing test guns far beyond the specified rate of fire, the chamber temperatures got much hotter than 125 degrees. In an extended firefight, soldiers could heat up their rifles with a few mags, and then during a lull in fighting, a chambered round would sit in a 200- or even 300-degree environment. That significantly increased chamber pressures and induced failures to extract.

“After we figured it out, I was surprised that it hadn’t come up before,” Hoffman said. “We’ve gone from bolt rifles to eight-round Garand clips to closed-bolt, select-fire rifles. SF guys never had an issue because they are trained to fire two or three rounds per target and very rarely go full auto.”

It only took Black Hills 75,000 rounds to sort out the problem—a chunk of the 250,000 rounds Hoffman figures the company fired developing and lot-testing the load. Finally, the round was issued. Interestingly, the ammo always did meet specs, even the ammo that Black Hills engineers felt needed improvement—they just found a way to make it better. The Navy began changing test specifications based on what Black Hills learned—and shared—during development and testing. The improved round was a hit, no pun intended, with operators in-theatre, and usage went through the roof. Not only did the ammo perform well for its intended purpose—long-range shooting—but did equally well in short-barreled rifles like the M4 (14.5-inch barrel) and MK 18 (10.3-inch barrel), which leads to a discussion of lethality.

“The assaulters were stealing it from the snipers, so we had to make more,” Hoffman said.

The MK 262 Mod 1 projectile is an open-tipped match (OTM) bullet, though it does not expand in the manner of a conventional hollowpoint. In fact, the hollow cavity is not there to induce expansion; it’s there to put the majority of weight towards the projectile’s rear so that it is more stable in flight and increase accuracy. Because it is not designed to expand and cause “undue suffering,” that critical phrase in the Hague Conventions regarding ammunition, the Navy’s Judge Advocate General Corps approved the round for use in combat. The same reasoning was applied to the Marine Corps 62-grain SOST round (MK 318), also an OTM design.

When the bullet strikes soft tissue, the heavier base comes around and causes the bullet to yaw, or tumble. The hollow nose cone breaks off and often the bullet fragments at the cannelure. This happens across a wide range of the velocity spectrum, which is why MK 262 Mod 1 proved effective in SBRs in addition to the longer-barreled SPRs. M855—or “Green Tip”—ammo was designed for battles with a body-armor-equipped army, hence the name “Penetrator.” On unarmored targets, it just zips through like it was designed to do. MK 262 was a better option for the enemy the military was fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, though the round obviously does not penetrate as much as M855.

I spoke with a good friend with multiple combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. His experiences as both a Special Forces sniper team leader and assaulter offered a unique perspective on ammo performance. As a sniper, MK 262 was his preferred round (when he was not using 7.62x51mm NATO), and he said simply, “It’s the best, most accurate round the Army has ever issued.” When carrying the shorter SBR, he ranked Hornady’s 75-grain TAP as the most lethal, followed by MK 318 and with MK 262 riding herd at third. Anything was better than M855 in a CQB environment.

“All 5.56 rounds suck out of SBRs, but MK 262 is way better than M855,” he said. “The only time M855 shines is when you are shooting through intermediate barriers like car doors.”

The public was first able to get its hands on MK 262 in the form of cosmetic blemishes, sold in bulk by Cabela’s and other select Black Hills dealers. Every round is inspected, and, well, Black Hills had to do something with scratched and dented cartridges, though the imperfections are generally so minor that the untrained eye cannot see why they were pulled from military runs.

“The round developed a cult following, even packed as cosmetic seconds,” Hoffman said. “So last year we started offering it to the public. The only difference is the packaging—it is the exact same ammunition as is delivered to the U.S. military—loaded to the exact same specs. The guy shooting iron sights at beer cans at 100 yards probably has no reason to shoot this, but a man that has the skill and firearm to extend the range, this is his round.”

Sold in 50-count boxes for around $1 per round, with a rather mundane “5.56mm 77-Gr. OTM” printed on the label, there is little to separate it from other Black Hills offerings. But in the right rifle at longer ranges, shooters can really see a difference in accuracy, wind drift, and terminal performance. On the battlefield the same stuff in plain, 20-round cardboard boxes printed with “5.56mm SPECIAL BALL, LR MK 262 MOD 1” can be found in the packs of any soldier, sailor, or Marine looking to extend the range of his optically sighted precision rifle or increase the lethality of an SBR.