A lever action rifle is built on a classic design, originating in the early 1800s with Rocket Ball Ammunition

Believe it or not, the atmosphere has an effect on your shots - sometimes to a significant degree. 

Once you have your rifle in hand, you’ll need to know where to point it. Your sights are there to help you aim. Over the course of history, many types of sights have been made to fulfill different specific tasks.

At the end of the day, the M14 and M1A are remarkably similar. Even the names are written with characters of nearly the same shape!

Is there a detriment to using steel cases instead of brass? Spoiler alert - sometimes, yes. There’s actually a good handful of drawbacks, but I’ll phrase it by talking about what brass is better at

The primer is the little swab of explosive material that sets off the rest of the propellant. To be more specific - in a centerfire cartridge, the primer is a small metal cap with a tiny amount of explosive compound inside, set into the primer pocket at the base of the case (the case head).

Here are common classifications of bullets and what they may be used for. This is a list of some of the more common terms you may come across, though more seem to appear every day. Some bullets are differentiated by shape, some by material.

One term you’ll hear thrown around quite often is BC. BC is the Ballistic Coefficient, a rather important number in the world of bullet flight efficiency. A higher BC means a bullet will retain velocity better - have less negative acceleration, less drag from the air resistance - in similar conditions to a low BC bullet.

The bullet is the chunk of metal that actually exits the rifle’s muzzle, provided everything works the way it should. Ideally, it’ll be going at a tremendous speed with a good amount of spin. Think of the bullet as a high-speed football. 

The rim protrudes around the circumference of the head of the case, and is not technically a separate component of the case. I list it separately here because of the unique functions it provides. It is where the rifle’s extractor grabs the spent case to pull it from the chamber.

The case is the part of the cartridge that holds all the other components together. Before we talk about all the things that will be stuffed into it, it’s a good idea to know where the stuffing happens! The case is also known as the brass.

The story starts with Howard Grubb, a son born into an already-prominent telescope family. Under the name of the Grubb Telescope Company, Howard went on to build refractor telescopes for a number of observatories across Europe, powered by his family’s electrically driven clock drives. In 1900, Howard premiered his latest invention - a reflective sight for small arms.

Long before the optical, magnetic, or radar chronographs, these early mechanical designs achieved surprising accuracy using complex math and simple physics.

Once upon a time, a peculiar gun worked its way westward on a journey of exploration and discovery. It didn’t kill a single person, but still proved its worth in safeguarding and hunting for its owners.  But enough euphemism and allusion - The owners were Lewis and Clark, and the rifle was a Girandoni Air Rifle. 

At a time when rifling and breech-loading was just being implemented in military weapons, the old habits of promiscuous fire still reigned supreme. Though most troops would still fire in wild volleys, hoping to hit someone on the other side, a few troops on both sides of battle would aim their shots with more distinction. With greater reach and precision, it was possible to pick a target and take that sole target out. Most of the time, that target would be an officer if at all possible.

Today's main story takes a brief look into just one side of international arms dealing during the Civil War. The American Civil War lasted 4 years and 27 days, stretching from 1861 to 1865. With the South being more devoted to agriculture than the manufacture of arms, how did they manage to stay so well armed during the war? The answer, as you might have guessed, lay in the trade of cotton overseas. 

A while back, we took a look at one of our show demo rifles (a lovely 1885 High Wall, with the firing pin missing) and decided it was time to turn it back into a real rifle. I particularly wanted to feel the punch of some .45-70. There's just something magical about sending a heavy piece of lead really far away.So began the Century and Counting project.

Old rifles (and their modern-day reproductions) often have just as much capability to reach out to long distance and touch something. If you're thinking about mounting a scope on your rifle, you may need to drill and tap your barrel or receiver - or use a no-machining kit, to keep your rifle unaltered. Different rifles have wildly different manufacturing setups and can even vary in screw and dovetail size. Whatever the case may be, this list endeavors to be comprehensive. It won't start that ...

You may not always have a wind meter on you, and it may not always have batteries. Or you may want to judge the wind speed between you and your target, far away from your wind meter. Check here for visual cues for wind speed based on grass, trees, water, smoke, mirage, and others. Included is also a video of plants in the SoCal desert with a live view of the wind speed.

Rene Macare was in the 173d Airborne and was one of the first Army soldiers to attend sniper school in Vietnam. Rene went on to use the ARTel scope during the Vietnam War. He's sitting with us to share his experiences in the war and, just as importantly, what it was like coming home.

If you’re shopping online and trying to navigate the minefield of scope rings, this page should help simplify the process. Let's look at how much ring height you need for your scope!

“I believe there is still room for tradition in this society, even as we race forward toward the 21st century. A tradition we must keep alive is the setting aside of a single day each year to honor the veterans of this Nation. And this day should remain the same, and should not be changed around to suit some arbitrary holiday schedule.” Dominick Daniels, Representative NJ

Let’s walk through the three easy steps it takes to get your M1000 zeroed and calibrated to your caliber and load. The patented technology of the M1000 PRO raises and lowers the rear of the scope, allowing you to get first-round hits of up to 1000 yards without dialing for elevation or complex distance estimation.

Versatile...Simple...Easy...and Reliable all describe the new TAC-DOT reflex type red-dot sight from Hi-Lux Optics.  Here is a sight that is right at home on a variety of firearms - AR style rifles, most any big game rifle, shotguns, handguns, even on modern muzzleloading big game rifles.

In 1855, Wm. Malcolm opened the world's first true riflescope manufacturing company in Syracuse, NY. Several things set his scopes apart from all of the custom built scopes that had been produced prior to that time. This is an excerpt from and article/report just published on the NORTH AMERICAN MUZZLELOADER HUNTING