GARY'S GUN NOTES

Every spring the gun magazines list the guns, scopes and ammo of the year. My pet peeve is in most cases the guns they choose have not even been released to the shooting public. A poll that seems a bit more “honest” is one where gun shop dealers send in their pics and they are tabulated and gold, silver and bronze medals are given out. The poll for this year just came out a week or two ago and actually shows some winners in about 30 different categories.

Just to go over a few of the categories that gun shops have voted for here are the winners…

In the bolt action rifle category in order of gold, silver and bronze it was Ruger, Savage and Remington. The vote for Remington surprised me a bit (I didn’t vote for them) due to the bad feelings that Remington has left among gun shops over the past few years. They are owned by new folks and obviously they have done their homework as they pulled in a Bronze medal. The winners for AR-15s (and yes they called them “Modern Sporting Rifles which to me is a chicken shit way of listing AR-15s. It is like they are afraid they will tick off some anti gun people if they call them an AR-15.) Anyway in order of gold, silver and bronze it was Daniel Defense, Ruger and S&W.

In the shotgun category it was Benelli, Beretta and Browning.

In the AR-15 pistol category it was Sig, Daniel Defense and Springfield. In the handgun category it was Glock (naturally), SAR which surprised me big time as not every gun shop carries the SAR. And bronze went to Sig.

There were almost 40 categories of clothes, optics, safes and so on so I won’t go into all of these. But in a few in the centerfire ammunition (which I think included handgun ammo) it was Hornady, Federal and Winchester. This had to be a hard one as ammo is still iffy in many areas and it is hard to vote for a company when we can’t get the ammo to sell.

In shotshells it was Federal, Hornady and Winchester.

Shotshells are a really strange market these days. We sell shotgun slugs as quick as we can get them in and there is no hunting season out here that requires slugs. But slugs sell as quick as buckshot.

In the rimfire ammo it was again hard to vote for a company that can’t get product to us but it was CCI, Hornady and Aquila. Hornady and Aquila have both been real good about getting product to us. Can’t say the same for CCI.

In reloading components it was Hornady (no surprise there), CCI and Federal. In the bullets category it was Hornady, Sierra and Barnes.

In the rifle scope category it was Sightmark (that was a surprise), Leupold and Vortex. Some of that ticked me off as there was no category in handgun scopes. I guess we got thrown under the bus again.

In the red dot sight it was Sightmark, Aimpoint and Trijicon.

In the binocular category it was Swarovski (this surprised me as the company is sort of outdated and I seldom see one in the field. Next was Leupold and Nikon.

In the rangefinder category it was Bushnell, Leupold, and Vortex. In the spotting scope category it was Leupold, Swarovski, and Vortex.

In the hard gun case it was Pelican (no surprise there), Plano and Allen.

In the knife category it was Buck (a bit of a surprise there but a lot of gun shop owners are older and they grew up with Buck knives), Benchmade and Kershaw.

In the boots category (and this was a hard one for me as I have had some real duds thru the years), it was Danner, 5.11, and Rocky.

At the bottom of the list was favorite gun writer and this really surprised me. It was, in order Kevin Reese (whom I never heard of), Max Archer (ditto on him), and Gordy Krahn, another one I never heard of. Guess I am showing my age as I didn’t vote for any of them.


There were about 2 dozen other categories including,

gun powder

Aftermarket trigger

Aftermarket barrel,

night vision

Thermal

Laser sight

Gun mounted light

Hand held light

Suppressor

Shotgun choke tube

Shooting sticks

Shooting bench

Shooting targets

Gun cleaning product

Gun safe

Bipod

Apparel

Favorite new product

Favorite article

I will have to admit the above categories left me yawning. Ho hum.

A few tidbits of new goodies. S&W has a new M&P9 limited edition coming out. It is optics ready and comes with 2 stretch magazines that hold 23 rounds each plus one mag holding 15 rounds.

CZ has revamped their Scorpion. It is now the Scorpion 3+ micro pistol. It comes ready for an arm brace and comes with 20 round mags with the 30 round mags coming soon.

The Ghost Gun Law is now in effect. It is a confusing law to say the least. All homemade firearms now have to have serial numbers on it to be legal. And some parts have to be serial numbered. Many of the parts kits and some of the individual parts will have to have the NICs check done before you can buy them.

This is just a small part of the gun control that Biden says he is coming out with if the Dems win in November. This includes confiscating all AR-15s and AK-47s plus guns that are similar and plus any semi auto rifle or shotgun that can hold more than 5 rounds. And these are just a few of the laws he wants to pass if the Democrats stay in power in November. So obviously this is a very important election for law abiding folks. With Biden giving out money left and right it will tend to make some voters jump on the liberal band wagon for the free stuff.

So talk to your gun friends and make sure they are planning to vote. Even be willing to drive them to the polling places. Do whatever we can to stay a free country.

Congrats go out to Michael Mendes who is in Africa again and has taken a great Cape Buffalo and Sable. Hopefully more info as it comes in. My next Africa hunt is a big IF. Health wise I hope to make my last African hunt next summer. Colleen is set to go over next spring and if I can make it late next summer.

If you have a chance to get out and do some shooting or small game hunting make sure and take a youngster or lady with you. And if you can make the HHC (Handgun Hunters Challenge the 6 thru 9th of October at the usual place, in Monterey Tennessee) bring a friend or youngster and lady with you. It will be a great memory for them and you too. Until next month, God bless,

Gary