The .44 magnum caliber hardly needs any introduction. Made famous in the Dirty Harry movies, it has captured the public’s imagination and pocketbook for decades. All manner of firearms are chambered for it, ranging from traditional single action revolvers to semi-auto carbines. This leaves one important question, and it isn’t “do you feel lucky?” Rather, […]

The 7.62x54r is a very powerful round that was designed well over a hundred years ago. It has remained a consistent part of American ammunition because of its performance and the affordability of both ammunition and firearms in the caliber. As any full powered rifle round, it can benefit greatly from an optic. It’s got […]

The .223 caliber cartridge is probably the most popular centerfire rifle cartridge in the United States. It’s used extensively for a wide variety of applications and this includes hunting varmints. The .223 is a powerful and stable round that has more effective range than rimfire rounds when it comes to hunting varmint. Varmint are often […]

The Marlin 1895 is an intense rifle. It has a long history in the United States and is still a viable option for hunting and wilderness defense. The Marlin rifles are not long range guns and are designed for intermediate ranges. In other words, they won’t benefit from high-powered optics. However, within those 300 yards, […]

The Marlin 795 is regarded by many (myself included) to be a superior out of the box to the more expensive Ruger 10/22. With a high-quality trigger, and a rather nice barrel, not only do you save over other popular rimfires, you get a better gun to start with. That means, instead of running around […]

As a Marine I get a lot of questions of ACOG versus this, ACOG versus that, what do I think about AACOG versus scopes? Acog vs (Insert any model here). Since this question shows up so often, let’s look at three of the best-selling moderate range, AR-15 style scopes versus the Trijicon ACOG. There are […]

The US Navy created Mk12 upper receiver has spawned a number of imitators from authentic to look-alikes. The history and creation of the Mk 12 is so complex as to defy ready summarization in an article of this type, but you can find a reasonably complete accounting on Wikipedia. Rather, we are far more interested […]

The Nikon BDC BDC or Bullet Drop Compensator reticle has become increasingly popular as BDC reticles of all types have entered the marketplace. Designed to allow you to dial in your scope once, and then place shots at further known distances without adjusting your elevation, BDC scopes have strengths and limitations which we will discuss […]

Ahh, the mighty .17 Winchester Super Magnum. While most .17 caliber rimfire rounds were developed by simply necking down existing .22 rounds, the .17 WSM was made by necking down a powerful .27 caliber nail gun blank, which allows it to push a bullet at a whopping 3000 feet per second. Naturally this screamer of […]

Buying American made products can be increasingly hard in a global economy. Many items sold by American companies are made overseas, or are a mix of imported and US parts assembled here in the states. And while there are a great many very fine imported rifle scopes (for instance it’s hard to question Zeiss or […]

A special purpose rifle (SPR) is a semi-auto rifle dedicated to being a precision weapon. It falls in between a sniper rifle and a normal rifle. Most commonly, this is an AR 15, and in the United States, it’s the most prevalent. Scoping an SPR can be difficult. You need an optic that will let […]