This week we’ve got two .22 revolvers facing off in a double-action vs. single action gun fight. Both guns are classics. The S&W Model 17 K-22 was first offered in 1930, much later designated the 617, and is available from S&W again as the Model 17. Popular as a target pistol, original K-22s were guaranteed to shoot 1 ½-inch groups at 50 yards. The Ruger Single Six debuted in 1953 when Bill Ruger brought the “obsolete” single-action revolver back. The Single Six is still popular as it celebrates its 60th birthday.

Scott from Illinois’ S&W 17 K-22

This is a five-screw K-22 that my brother let me borrow—and is never getting it back! The K-22 is 1950s vintage. I have saved the original trigger, hammer, and stocks and replaced them with their target equivalents. We picked up the gun in a trade my dad made in about 1979 or ’80. My dad was an amateur gunsmith and re-barreled a 788 Remington from .22-250 to 6mm. The K-22 was payment for those services. So my oldest brother paid Dad the price of a Douglas premium barrel at the time. I know it was less than $100. I suspect that the gun was a safe queen until I borrowed it from my brother. I taught my wife to shoot a pistol with this gun, and currently my nephew is learning to shoot with it also. It is not picky about ammunition, but I prefer cleaner burning .22s, as a revolver is a good bit tougher to clean than an automatic. I know that five-screw Model 17s are fairly collectible, but this one will be shot and taken care of well. 

Tom Govin’s Ruger Single Six

My Ruger Single Six lives in the barn, truck, and house. It has accounted for opossum, raccoon, and squirrel (that's what I got it for, to make things interesting). It's traveled from Alaska to Maine and shot grouse, ptarmigan, rabbits, and halibut. I've had it over 30 years and I think everyone should own one.

Both guns look great for their age, especially Govin’s, which is clearly a working gun as much as a sporting gun. Which would you rather have? Let us know, and keep those gun pictures coming to [email protected]. We can’t have Friday Gun Fights without your help.

I am all for pants, or trousers, whichever, and think that all hunters should wear them unless they are Highland Scots or Greeks.* Here some things I’ve learned about pants over the years.

There are few things worse than tight hunting pants. If your normal waist size is 36 and you buy 36 pants, by the time you finish tucking in longjohns, a couple of undershirts, and a heavy shirt, you’ll find your guts are constricted. Buy one size larger than the waist size you normally take.

Same with the inseam. When I was a kid there was a fashion for “stagging” your pants—having the legs chopped off an inch or so shorter than normal so the bottoms wouldn’t drag through the mud and the blood and the beer. What actually happened was, when you sat down, your shortened trousers hiked halfway up your legs so the wind could blow up  and chill your nasty bits.

 Buy your pants an inch or two longer than usual and tuck them into gaiters. Gaiters, as far as I’m concerned, are one of the great inventions of all time, ranking with air conditioning, the overhead-valve V8 engine, and the colostomy bag. Tuck your pants into gaiters and they will not drag in anything, nor will they flop around your ankles. Tuck them in so your pants bunch at the knee a little bit; that way, when you’re climbing, they won’t pull at your knees. I am embarrassed at the number of years it took me to discover gaiters. Get them in XL so they can accommodate heavy pants, and get quiet ones designed for hunting.

Ranking right up there with gaiters are suspenders, which I will not hunt without either. By the time you hang a knife or two, an ammo pouch, plus God know what else on a pair of weighty trousers, your belt will not support the load unless you cinch it up so tight that it will cause a stoppage between your large and small intestine, leading to fearful side effects. Hang stuff on your belt, but keep your pants up with suspenders. And here a product plug. I find that Filson suspenders rank head and shoulders above all others. Their elastic is strong; the leather button tabs are as stiff and unyielding as poker chips, and will stay that way while lesser tabs will loosen over time and slip off the buttons, leaving your pants down around your ankles.

Rainpants can be useful, but they do not have flys, by and large, leading to all sort of problems which I need not describe here. I think that Gore-Tex-lined wool pants, or something like that with a zipper, are a better solution.
 
*People who live in country that is mostly up and downhill have learned over time that conventional trousers can be pretty unhandy when you’re climbing. Thus, the Scots created the kilt and in the Balkans, Greece, and Albania, a kind of long skirt called the fustanella evolved. In Austria and Switzerland, people climb in knickers and long socks, which I think is preferable to a skirt. Switzerland is the only place I’ve ever seen where people spit shine their hiking boots.

I read in one of my “Ask Petzal” answers that elk are big, tough animals. Since I don’t believe anything anymore, no matter who says it, I wondered: Are they?

Let’s do big first. As ungulates go, Cervus canadensis is what you can call big. A good-sized typical bull weighs 600 to 800 pounds, and in North America, of the hoofed animals, only moose and bison are bigger. Six to 800 pounds is also bigger than any of the African antelope except the eland. So yes, they’re big, and when you try to field-dress one by yourself and then pack it out, you’ll discover just how big.

Are they tough? Well, let’s define tough. I think it means hit fatally, but still able to run far enough that it can’t be tracked down. Elk have massive muscles, big bones, big hearts and lungs, and thick hides that shift over bullet holes and prevent blood trails.

Although it’s hardly scientific evidence, the number of hit-but-lost elk episodes I know of beats that of any other species by something like 10 to one. Deer, if fatally shot, feel obliged to dash 100 yards or so before they accept the inevitable, which means that if you keep looking you’ll find them. Elk, on the other hand, sometimes decide that the game is not up (as it were) even if their heart and lungs have been turned to soup. Then they’ll go a lot farther than 100 yards and unless there’s snow on the ground you won’t find them. I’ve seen this in person more than once.

It’s not a question of caliber. One of the two or three biggest elk I’ve ever laid eyes on, a veritable monster so heavy that it was all Wayne Van Zwoll and I could do to move it, went down in its tracks with one shot from a .280—simply collapsed in place. On the other hand, I once shot a bull that was nearly as big smack in the chest with a 250-grain Nosler Partition from a .340 Weatherby—which is the surest elk medicine I know of—and it plodded slowly, painfully away for a half-mile before it succumbed to that shot and a couple of follow-up hits.

Odd as it sounds, it seems to be a matter of temperament. Moose give up easily. Nilgai do not. If you breathe some bad breath on a kudu it will die, but roan or sable, which are roughly the same size, can take all manner of punishment and run away from you. Or toward you.

Caliber, in an elk rifle, is not nearly so important as bullet construction. You want a tough bullet that’s designed to penetrate. A .270 with a strong slug is a lot better than a .338 than a squishy slug. And do not, I pray you, consider your job done when you hit a bull in the boiler room. If you possibly can, get off a fast second and third shot. An elk is too fine a trophy to lose because you were preening about what you thought was your one-shot kill. Send a couple more slugs. It shows you care.

Today we have a Makeover Edition of Gun Fight Friday. We’re starting with two modern classics, the Ruger 10/22 and the Remington 700. Granted, they don’t have much in common except that almost everybody owns at least one of each, and there are roughly a zillion aftermarket parts available for the 10/22 and quite a few for the 700, too. You can take either one and personalize in many different ways for many purposes and that’s what the owners of these two rifles have done. Both guns have been customized to suit their owner’s taste. Edward Palumbo has gone the colorful route with his 10/22, while Tim Flannery opts for a more tactical look.

Edward J Palumbo’s 10/22

Bored with the tactical appearance of black rifles that regularly appear on the benches at the range and dominate magazine covers, I thought I'd put a little color in my life. The Tactical Solutions barrel, Power aluminum trigger, and thumbhole stock from Stocky's Stocks have been colorful additions that make the gun a conversation piece at the rifle range. A Tasco 3-9X scope in Leupold rings and base provides the versatility for Columbia ground squirrels and other small game in Oregon. The spectrum of aftermarket products for the 10/22 is amazing.

Tim Flannery’s Remington 700

I’m just finishing up this .308 Remington 700. I haven’t shot it since I added the brake and stock, but in its original form it was shooting sub MOA with Sierra 168 Matchkings. I recently retired and am looking forward to spending time at the range. I have a suppressor on order for it from SRT. The brake is from JP Enterprises and the stock is a McMillan A-3.

Vote for whichever one strikes your fancy for whatever reason you want, and keep those gun pictures coming to [email protected].

My apologies for using this space to write about Hillary Clinton instead of something useful like nodes of vibration or powder burning rates, but I seem to be the only one not doing it, and I feel…left out.
 
Mrs. Clinton is important to us because she has a solid F rating from the NRA and therefore is likely to cause us a great deal of trouble if she makes it to the White House. Can she make it to the White House? Of course. Trust the Republicans to put up some lame jerk or certifiable whacko, of which they have plenty, and the majority of voters will go for Hill out of sheer fright.

And if Hillary gets in, gun owners will wish we had Barrack Hussein Obama back. Obama thinks we are an annoying anachronism. Hillary, I believe, truly detests us and will work all manner of evil against us should she get the chance.

Legions of people detest her, you say. True enough. But she has a large, yammering mob of sycophants to whom she is Joan of Arc, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Amelia Earhart all rolled into one.

This idolatry is not supported by her record, you say. Right again. When you take a look at what Mrs. Clinton has done on her own she is not impressive. In 1993, she vanished behind closed doors with a group of “experts” and emerged with a health care plan that was as incomprehensible and unwieldy as Obamacare. Unlike Obamacare, it did not achieve the status of law and was swept under a (large) rug within a year.
Her presidential campaign of 2007 was a disaster. Putting her up against Obama was, to use Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s description of Ed Muskie going up against Richard Nixon “…like sending a three-toed sloth out to take turf from a wolverine.” It was a nightmare of backbiting, bungling, and confusion.

As a carpetbagging senator from New York, she served from 2000 to 2008. Her record as part of the “world’s greatest deliberative body” was undistinguished. She missed a higher percentage of votes than average, and of the 337 bills she introduced, only two became law.

Appointed as our 67th Secretary of State, she served the full four years. During this time she set a record for number of countries visited but left the world in no better or worse shape than she found it. The defining moment of her term may have come during the Senate hearings investigating the attack on our embassy at Benghazi, Libya, where an American ambassador and three security personnel were killed due to inadequate security, and despite warnings that an assault was in the works.

Questioned about the Benghazi screwup by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary Clinton lost her temper at Senator Ron Johnson, and burst out: “What difference, at this point, does it make?” She was referring to the possible motives of the attackers, but she may have hit on something. “What difference does it make?” has become sort of a rallying cry, and I think it might become the first presidential slogan to gain any kind of traction since FDR’s “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Iran has the a-bomb. What difference does it make?

Our schools have failed. What difference does it make?

Congress is as useful as a poopy-flavored lollipop. What difference does it make?

The Post Office is bankrupt. What difference does it make?

And so on.

If the past is any indication, Clinton White House III will provide us with corruption, chaos, and cronyism unseen since the Grant Administration. Bill Clinton will provide comic relief, much in the manner of Jimmy Carter’s halfwit brother Billy. He should be good for at least one grotesque headline a week. But Hillary will come out unscathed because she has one real talent: She can emerge, untouched, from scandal more successfully than anyone in American politics.

On the other hand, what difference does it make?

With dove seasons opening and the rest on the way, hunters and their dogs are off the couch and back in the field. If you are putting together a hunt, you will have to face the question: “Can I bring my dog?” Eddie Nickens passed along this answer, which is, I think, the final word on the question. Here’s Eddie:
 
As my buddy Harold Cooley was planning on annual Southern-style dove hunt, he was asked if he would mind letting a few hunters bring along their dogs. Cooley wasn’t so sure about that, so he tossed the question over to his pal Lee Holder, a dog man, as they say around here, from the word “go.”
 
Holder’s response is near scriptural. For all of you dog owners thinking that a day in the dove fields—or duck blinds—is just what the doctor ordered for a pooch that’s been hanging out in the family playroom for the last 8 months, listen to these words of Southern wisdom.  --T. Edward Nickens
 
Dear Harold--
 
A man with a trained dog who is allowed to bring the dog on your dove hunt will be a very, very happy man. He will have exponentially more fun than any other man there.
 
The man with the trained dog will delight in helping those around him find their birds. His trained dog will be a blessing to the other guys in the field.  
 
A man with a ½ trained dog ( or less)  will appreciate the opportunity to help his dog learn from this hunt, because he likes having his dog by his side. Sadly, he will be the only one who likes having his dog there.
 
A ½ trained dog runs across the field at ½ the birds that fall--yours, mine or anybody’s. His owner hollers. Now his owner is very embarrassed for everyone has now seen this disobedient dog he hasn’t trained. His owner wishes he never subjected those around him to this distraction from their hunt. His owner is convinced at each incident that the next time the lesson will have “taken” and the obedience and retrieve will be much better.
 
Likely it won’t. It is just too much wonderful excitement for the dog. This is heaven for the dog, but the owner hasn’t had enough private prayer sessions with the dog yet, and the whole experience is far from heaven for anybody but that dog.
 
Loving Christian men will feel and show mercy and grace. As part of their very nature they will plead with the Lord to help the man and his dog. The other part of their nature, the virile hopeful harvester, is muttering something ugly under his breath every time the dog breaks and the man hollers.
 
I pray that this treatise be termed discernment from 40 years in the good Lord’s dove fields. I pray it is not being judgmental.
 
He who has ears, let him hear.
 
Git down, heah dey come
 
--Bubba

The Internet is full of videos of guns firing underwater these days, but the one below is different: the Russian APS (pictured above) was made to be fired underwater. Introduced in 1975, it was meant to give Russian frogmen an offensive weapon underwater. They already had an underwater pistol — the SPP-1 (pictured below)— but its range was limited. Under ideal conditions, the APS could hit targets over 30 yards away.

The SPP-1 Underwater Pistol was made in the USSR and issued to Soviet frogmen in 1971. It fired round-based 4.5mm (4.5-inch-long) steel darts from four barrels.

The assault rifle — a misnomer, because it’s smoothbored — had to be designed with an opening in the rear of the receiver so water displaced by the moving parts could flow out of the action. It fired from an open bolt, too, so the barrel could fill with water, which helps stabilize the “bullets,” which were actually darts. The cartridges were a special 5.66 mm round with conventional powder and primer well sealed to function underwater. The magazine held 26 rounds and the gas-operated APS could fire them semi- or full auto.

Although the APS was effective to 30 meters at depths of 5 meters, the deeper you dove, the worse its accuracy and slower it cycled. Down at 40 meters it was effective to only about 11 meters. It could be fired on land but accuracy was terrible and it was very hard on the gun, which was designed to work against the resistance of water.

The HK P11 was a five-barreled pistol that also fired steel darts (about 3.9 inches long) and was electrically ignited by a battery in the pistol grip.

Our divers were sometimes armed with an H&K P11 dart gun, developed in the 70s. It had five barrels compared to the Russian SSP-1’s four, but the barrel assembly had to be sent back to the factory for reloading after every use.

The Russians evidently had us outgunned underwater but fortunately the outcome of the Cold War didn’t hinge on which side had the deadlier underwater dart gun.

In my post of Aug. 21, I mentioned that a .280 of mine, built by now-departed riflesmith John Noveske, was a perfect gun. Reader R. Peterson, who is obviously a person of taste and culture, asked if I would write a bit about the .280 and run a photo. Pleased to, but there is a chance I covered this gun three years or so ago. If I have, indulge me.

Back in 2008, I became aware of Bedrock Rifles*, a company that offered high-grade bolt guns in left-hand only. Having spent a shooting lifetime being ignored, scorned, and told to f**k off by the gun biz, as all southpaw shooters are, I was enthralled and had to have one. The guns were actually built by John Noveske of Grants Pass, Oregon. He was one of those supremely skilled fellows who did virtually perfect work.

Noveske used left-hand Nesika actions, which are made in the same plant that produces Dakota rifles. The Nesika is much-beloved of precision shooters. It’s flat bottomed, has a fixed, rather than plunger-type ejector, a bolt-knob that unscrews so it can be changed for another style, and an extremely tight lockup. For stocks, Noveske went to High Tech Specialties in Pennsylvania, which makes very light fiberglass stocks that are about as flexible as your average aircraft carrier hull. Better than High Tech, there is not. The triggers were made by Jewell (If you have not touched off a properly set up Jewell trigger, you do not know what bliss is.) and the barrels came from Lilja which, like everything else here, is top of the heap. I asked for a #2 contour barrel , 22 inches long, 1-10 twist.

Now, sometimes in the wonderful world of made-to-order rifles, you can assemble a gun from top components and they do not form a harmonious whole. Either the thing doesn’t shoot or there is something wrong somewhere. Jack O’Connor once wrote that the only perfect rifle he owned was a .416 Rigby built by a gunsmith named, I believe, Bob Johnson, and since O’Connor owned the very best work available at the time and a lot of it, this gives you some idea.

For example, I have a Griffin & Howe 7mm Weatherby Magnum that was built in 1972 and with which I’ve taken a whole menagerie of big game. It was very accurate (before I burned it out), has fantastic wood, and a lovely and ornate checkering job that was done by Winston Churchill when he worked at G&H. But the cheekpiece looks like a cow turd that was slung over the comb and left to dry. What was the stockmaker thinking?

But such was not the case with the Noveske rifle. It came out perfect, just as I had envisioned. Weight, with a Zeiss scope on board, is precisely 8 pounds, which is correct to the ounce. It shoots everything well, and will group Nosler E-Tips in .600-inch. I showed the rifle to Craig Boddington and asked him to find something wrong. He simply smiled and shook his head.

All it needs is luck. Just one break. Just one head of big game with which to be photographed. That isn’t so much to ask…or is it?

*Despite John Novekse’s passing, Noveske Rifleworks, LLC, is carrying on his work. I believe that their entire production now is geared to ARs, and AR parts and barrels. Bedrock Corp. is alive and well, but no longer sells bolt-actions, having switched to Noveske ARs—in left-hand only.

Finally, a shotgun Gun Fight—and it’s not just between any two shotguns, either. We have the most popular shotgun in history against a classic bird gun. Remington made the short-barreled Special Field version of the 870 from 1984 to 1995, and I wish I had bought one then. Browning made the scaled down Sweet 16 version of its Auto 5 from 1937 to 1975 with a break for World War II and, come to think of it, I should have one of those, too.

Both the Auto 5 and the 870 are hugely important, influential shotguns. The Special Field 870 is the more versatile of the two (although remind me not to sit next to Tom Govin in the duck blind when he’s shooting that short barrel) while the Sweet 16 is simply the coolest version of one of the greatest firearms inventor’s greatest inventions.
Anyway, here they are:

Ron Kolodziej’s Browning Sweet 16

Here's a photo of my Browning Sweet 16, purchased new in 1957, and I still use it. The 16 gauge has a modified choke, and I use it primarily for rabbits and snowshoe hare, though it's also a great ruffed grouse (partridge) gun. The gun has never failed me nor has it suffered any major malfunctions. I have other scatterguns so I use this one only six or seven times a year. The finish you see on the stock and metallic parts is all original. It's thoroughly cleaned at least twice a year and stored in a metal gun safe with desiccants.

Tom Govin’s 870 Special Field

This Remington 870 Special Field with a 21-inch barrel has accounted for everything from doves to deer. It's obviously an upland bird gun and that's where it is at its best, but it will do a lot more. With a scope it will cloverleaf Federal Tru Ball slugs at 50 yards, although shooting it off a bench to find that out is not fun. The 3-inch chamber and the right choke makes it a turkey gun. A different choke and it's a waterfowl gun. Originally it was a fixed Modified choke and it would do all of the above even then. I guess I put the choke tubes in just because I could but it was a minor improvement.

Keep sending photos and stories of your guns to [email protected], and we’ll feature then in an upcoming Gun Fight Friday.

I thought last week’s post on the Loudener would be hard to beat in the over-the-top-tactical category. That was before my older son called my attention to a tactical couch called the Couch Bunker. It not only conceals a gun safe with a 30-gun capacity underneath its cushions, but those cushions are bulletproof and have straps so you can use them like shields. If you think bulletproof cushions are just what your next Super Bowl party needs, don’t bother inviting me.

It comes in three styles, including a nice leather model—the tan model has a matching Ottoman safe. The Couch Bunker is fire rated and weighs 900 pounds.

I spent some time clicking around the Bed Bunker website. A lot of it is a little prepper-y for my taste, but then I found the Truck Bunker, which looks like a slick, useful and easy to install way to keep your guns secure and hidden. I could easily imagine putting one in a hunting rig.