Category: All About Guns
The Ruger No. 1 is among the most iconic single shot rifles and has been in use for decades.
The ram was alone. Because he wasn’t the dominant male, he lacked a black and white coat and therefore couldn’t have his own harem. The ladies of this species are very proper, only tuxedo-clad blackbucks get to breed. Still, he had to go. The landowner wanted all of the non-native species removed from his ranch. It was July in the Texas hill country, and the thermometer was still well North of 100 degrees, even at dusk. With the heat, the shorts and the way the ram walked through the scrub, it was easy to forget that I wasn’t in equatorial Africa somewhere.
I put the tiny .270 on shooting sticks and cocked the side hammer. The fat crosshairs of the 5x scope covered the ram’s entire shoulder at about 250 yards, and he wasn’t going to stop walking, but I knew that I could make the shot. When the trigger broke, the ram dropped as if he’d fallen into a hole, and there was no need for a second shot. That blackbuck was the first animal to fall to the then-new Luxus Arms Model 11, a break-action single shot with Turkish walnut that will make you cry. Why a new single shot when technology has brought us repeating rifles and even semiautos? Let’s talk about that.
Instead of focusing on what the single shot won’t do, let us start by focusing on the things that it does well. For starters, single shots are simple: There are no feeding issues to concern oneself with because it does not feed itself. Extraction and or ejection are literally straightforward, so they are not generally of concern, at least mechanically. The rifle is either loaded or unloaded. There’s no mystery of rounds in the magazine versus rounds in the chamber. Strength is almost never an issue, particularly with the falling block designs.
Although much hunting in the East and Midwest is done from stands these days, the art of stalking is still alive and well in some corners. This is where the single shot rules. Because single shots aren’t burdened with a magazine, they can be slim and trim. For the same reason, they are roughly 3 inches shorter overall than other rifles with equal barrel lengths. So, we have rifles that are stronger, shorter, slimmer and lighter than the competition — where’s the disadvantage again? Ah yes, the limitation of the single round. There is a case to be made that this is actually an advantage, that the psychology of the single round will make the hunter choose his shot carefully. This is a tough thing to prove, but I do think that it has merit. Beyond that, I can only draw from my own experience and say that I can recall few instances where I fired more than a single round at a game animal.
Two years ago, I took three shots at an elk and lost it. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t wish for a larger magazine. I would take a moment longer to ensure that the first round was true. More than a decade ago in Africa, I put several 200-grain A-Frames into a Gemsbok before he went down for good. A gemsbok is a big, tough animal that sometimes takes a lot of killing. I had a similar experience with a blue wildebeest on a later safari, but, this time, the culprit was the poor cup and core bullet construction of the ammo that accompanied the camp rifle. A magazine made life easier in both cases, but single-loading rounds would not have caused me to lose either animal, in my estimation. So, a single shot would have been a slight disadvantage in two circumstances out of several dozen during my lifetime — not necessarily a reason to relegate them to the back of the safe. The only thing a single shot doesn’t do well is fire subsequent shots with blinding speed.
There’s a final virtue of the single shot that should make it a consideration for every shooter and hunter’s collection: It is an ideal firearm for teaching new shooters and hunters. The simplicity and safety of a single shot allows the novice to focus on the fundamentals of placing a single shot with precision rather than distractions. When my children are old enough to shoot and hunt, I’m likely to put single shots into their hands and teach them to make the first shot count.
Single shots are available in nearly every price range from affordable models such as the T/C Encore and Ruger No. 1, to exquisite customs like the Hagn. Therefore, their virtues are available to nearly everyone. Single shots can be made in rimfire calibers up through the largest cartridges ever carried afield such as the .700 Nitro and the four- and eight-bore elephant hammers. A single shot wouldn’t be my first choice for dangerous game, as I know of too many instances where follow-up shots saved a life. But, to be fair, many an elephant and buffalo were taken with the Farquharsons.
Semiautomatic rifles dominate today’s marketplace, and I own more than my fair share. That said, older designs such as the single shot maintain a valuable place in the shooting and hunting arsenal. The single shot has more strengths than weaknesses and has endured while other “more advanced” designs have languished into the trash heap of firearms history. Next time you head to the range or into the woods, leave the magazine guns at home and focus on the shot that counts.
by: Associated Press
Posted: Updated:
The California Assembly on Thursday failed to pass a bill that would have raised taxes on handguns and ammunition.
The bill by Assemblyman Marc Levine, a Democrat from San Rafael, would have imposed a 10% tax on the sales price of handguns and an 11% tax on the sales price of rifles, precursor parts and ammunition.
The tax would have applied to retailers, not consumers. But a legislative analysis of the bill said retailers could have passed that cost along to buyers. The Assembly Appropriations Committee estimated it would have generated $118 million per year, with the money going toward gun violence prevention programs and research.
A majority of the Assembly’s 80 members voted for the bill. But because the bill would create a new tax, it required a two-thirds vote. The bill fell five votes short of the 54 required for passage. Democrats control 59 votes. But several Democrats come from more moderate districts, making a tax increase on guns a tough vote for them.
Despite the bill’s failure on Thursday, Levine said he believes it’s possible to revive the legislation later this year.
“California is in the midst of a gun violence epidemic that will only end when our leaders have the courage to do what is right and necessary to end it,” Levine said.
The vote comes one week after nine people were killed in a mass shooting at Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority rail yard in San Jose, California. Assemblyman Alex Lee, a Democrat from San Jose, read the names of each victim on the Assembly floor as he urged his colleagues to support the bill.
“We continue to see the breaking news headlines of yet another mass shooting in our nation on a nearly weekly basis. And frankly, I’m sick of it,” he said.
In a letter to lawmakers, the pro-gun group Gun Owners of California wrote that the bill wasn’t fair because it sought to “penalize the lawful for the misdeeds of the unlawful.’
Levine, the author of the bill, said his goal was in part a response to the increase in gun sales and gun violence since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
California already imposes a fee of $37.19 on gun sales, which includes a fee for background checks.
Strong gun sales continued in May, with FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System data showing nearly 1.3 million background checks were conducted pursuant to firearms sales last month. Moreover, the FBI conducted a total of 3.2 million firearm-related background checks of all types – including checks for NICS exempt firearm permits that allow holders to purchase firearms without an additional background check for the next five years. The number of firearm sales checks represents the second-highest May on record, following only the massive firearm-buying surge experienced in May 2020.
Since the surge in gun-buying began at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, those in the firearms industry and even the reluctant news media have made two important observations: (1) The increase in gun purchasing included many first-time gun buyers; (2) Those purchasing firearms did not conform to stereotypes about the “typical” American gun owner
In February, firearm industry trade group the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) released data on the firearm sales increase based on a survey of Federal Firearm Licensees (gun dealers). A press release explained “NSSF estimates that 40 percent of those gun sales were for first-time gun buyers, totaling 8.4 million new gun owners in the United States in 2020.” The item went on to note, “Firearm ownership is also increasingly diverse as sales among women accounted for 40 percent of all sales, and purchases by African Americans increased by 56 percent compared to 2019.
In the early months of the pandemic, the legacy press was forced to cover the increase in gun sales and the diversity of those choosing to exercise their Second Amendment rights
In March 2020, the San Francisco Chronicle shared the story of Petaluma, Calif. gun shop owner Gabriel Vaughn, who told the paper “about 90% of his customers in recent days have been first-time gun buyers.” That same week, the New York Times reported that “Some dealers said an unusually high proportion of sales have been to first-time gun buyers.”
On May 29, the New York Times added to the growing understanding of America’s ongoing and diverse gun-buying surge by reporting on new data from a survey conducted by Northeastern University and the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. While the figures reported were not quite the same as those presented by NSSF, the information painted a picture of a growing and diverse group of gun owners.
Summarizing the findings, the Times explained,
about a fifth of all Americans who bought guns last year were first-time gun owners. And the data, which has not been previously released, showed that new owners were less likely than usual to be male and white. Half were women, a fifth were Black and a fifth were Hispanic.
Adding an anecdote, the New York Times noted,
Many gun store workers reported that last year set records for sales and also that they noticed different types of buyers walking in the door. Thomas Harris, a former law enforcement officer who works at the gun counter at Sportsman’s Warehouse in Roanoke, Va., said that around March last year, the customers he would speak with began to include more white-collar workers, such as people from insurance firms and software companies. He said many of the buyers were not conservative and most had never handled a gun.
With even the gun confiscation proponents at New York Times acknowledging the diverse face of gun ownership in America, anti-gun activists and politicians should take note. The ugly prejudices and stereotypes they share and employ to attack the gun community do not comport to reality and their bigoted campaign becomes more transparent all the time.
This fine rifle needs a trip to a good gunsmith! But if one was to invest a couple of C notes then they would have one hell of a fine Rifle! Grumpy
