Another of those days. The internet in our shop was down this morning so Colleen had to pitch in and do the Saturday Sale off her phone. I needed to do the Gun Notes for this month so I had to come home to do it.  The internet is OK here at my house. This internet stuff sometimes drives me nuts. I would have never thought I would rely so much on the damned internet, but now I wonder how we got by without it.

Over the last 4 weeks or so we have had several of the new guns  to come in and give me a chance to check them out. We had 3 of the new Ruger 57 to come in and all were much better than I expected. They are a really nice pistol. And from what I have heard a couple of companies are tooling up to make the 5.7 ammo. This should help to keep the cost down.

Several years ago during the heyday of the cowboy shooting games I wanted to develop a new gripframe that would be a miniature Bisley gripframe. That gripframe became our Lawman gripframe and was standard on our Lawman series. Recently we got a flyer in of a new Magnum Research revolver called the Thunder Snub. It has a 3” barrel and is chambered in 45-70.  If you want to light your cigar off the muzzle flash this is the gun for you.  The main thing I noticed is that the gun has our Lawman gripframe, not just similar to it but an exact copy of it. Oh well, it works. That is all that matters.

Here is a head scratcher for you. Trijicon has announced a range finder of sorts that ranges out to 5000 yards. Now that isn’t really any big deal, but here is the thing that is. It will measure the wind out to 500 yards. Now the info I got didn’t tell me how they do this but for the $8000 to $10,000 price tag they may send a little dwarf out there to measure it and call the wind velocity back. That’s over my head.

 Years ago H&K had an unusual pistol out that used the stock to convert it to full auto. It was the VP-70Z in 9mm. The gun has a horrendous trigger pull with a sliding trigger that was unusual in it’s day (still it). If you were law enforcement or were up to your chin in cash you could buy the stock. When you put the stock on the gun became full auto. No idea how as I didn’t have cash up to my chin.  Anyway, H&K is bringing out a version of that gun called the VP-9. There was no mention of the full auto capability. Rumor has it that they are bringing a version of the P9S back also. This was a really nice 9mm and one of the best fitting semi autos I ever shot.

 Another unusual handgun is the new Cimarron model 1862 Navy. Now that in itself is not unusual at all. The fact that it is being chambered in 380 is unusual. I am not sure what segment of the shooting public that gun is aimed toward (no pun intended) but I would think it would be a very small percentage of the shooting public.

 Another few specials from Ruger. We can always depend upon  Ruger to come out with new items for us. One of them is an officer’s model of their SR1911 in 45 ACP. Another is their very popular Security 9 pistol with a silver Ceracoat slide. Ruger has also re-designed their PC Carbine for California. They are chambered in 9mm and 40 S&W. This is a sore spot with me as I really despise California’s super liberal politicians. The gun companies should realize by now that California doesn’t want to get rid of guns, they want to get rid of gun owners. They figure if they make the rules and regulation hard enough the conservatives will get fed up and move. Then California will have their own little bit of liberal heaven, just them and their 10 million illegal alien’s.

Back to Ruger. They are bringing out their Security 9 with a built in laser and the new Security 9 Pro has no manual safety for competition folks.  Also for those in revolver competition the new Ruger Super GP-100 in 9mm should make those folks happy.

Dan Wesson is coming out with a hybrid handgun. CZ owns Dan Wesson so they are working with developing a hybrid CZ-75/1911. That should be a helluva gun if they can do it and make it work.

EMF, one of the finer black powder revolver companies is coming out with a Rooster Cogburn revolver. Based as most of their guns are on the Colt 1873 it will be exactly like the one John Wayne used in the movie. To be honest I don’t remember the handgun he used. I just remember the Winchester he used while holding the horse’s reins in his teeth.

Got a few extra bucks lying around? If so you might check out the Barrett 3 barrel sniper system. It comes in 308, 300 Winchester magnum and 338 Winchester magnum. It will be a limited edition and priced at a mere $17,000 .

Nosler has followed a lot of other bullet companies in coming out with a new lead free bullet. It is called their E-Tip and should keep the Condor loving Californians happy.

Several ammo companies are coming out with what they call “range ammo”. Not really sure what the difference is between that and standard FMJ ammo. It is called Winchester USA Ready ammo. It is listed as training ammo and comes in a red box. It will be chambered in 9mm, 40 S&W, 45 ACP, 223, and 308. They are saying it will run around $10 a box.

In other new ammo Federal has the new Hammer Down ammo coming out. It will be in nickel cases and will be chambered in327 Federal, 357 magnum, 44 magnum, 45 long Colt, 30-30 and 45-70. Now sure what the reason for this is, but they must be celebrating something, maybe the grand opening of a pack of cigarettes.

Marlin is also coming out with some special guns and ammo. It is for their 150^th anniversary.  The ammo will be in 22 LR, 444, 30-30 and 35 Remington. Also in their 150^th anniversary they are offering a very special 22 LR Model 60 with a black wood stock and stainless steel metal.

And for those special parties, Marlin has added some very special handcuffs that are copies of the handcuffs they sold 150 years ago.

We have had our Flattop Tool out for almost 10  years now and folks are finding out how well the bullets do that have been run thru the tool. It gives a plain jane round nose 22 LR the power of a 22 magnum. Well, it looks like some people have decided to take advantage of our years of promoting it and are coming out with 22 LR ammo with the flat nose. They are SK Flatnose 22 LR. Well, what can I say, it works.

Sierra has forever been my favorite brand of handgun bullets. The people in charge have decided it is time to try something new. They say in the first quarter (that is right now) they will be releasing a lot of new bullets. I am looking forward to that, but I don’t see how they can improve their JHC handgun ammo.

Hi Point, those cast iron handguns that have been out for a long time and have been the butt of a lot of jokes thru the years even though they function pretty much 100% of the time and are around the $200 mark. Well for 2020 they are coming out with some new goodies for those that just want a reliable handgun for home defense and don’t mind it being heavy enough to crush a bedside table. They have redesigned their handguns and made some of them with a red dot sight, plus are light adaptable and suppressor ready, and still around $200. Howzatt for a bargain.

Franklin Armory has announced a “full auto trigger” for the Ruger 10-22. I haven’t seen this yet and am wondering if it is just another of those triggers that fires as you pull the trigger and fires again as you release the trigger or if it is truly full auto. They may have a hard time getting this one by the ATF.

Speaking of the ATF, a good friend who is in the ATF told me a while back that the ATF is getting fed up with all these Ghost guns with no serial number. You can legally buy the Ghost gun parts and assemble it yourself and it will have no serial number. But can only do one gun and can’t sell it. But the problem is at some of the bigger gun shows there are tables of Ghost guns being sold, mostly to gangbangers who can’t legally buy a gun, but with no serial number they can buy the Ghost guns which is a big no no. So I expect the ATF to really crack down on these Ghost guns and hopefully put some of the gangbangers in the crossbar motel. If you are thinking about buying one of the Ghost guns and putting it together yourself, I would give it some second thoughts.

Another classic is back. For those of us buying semi autos in the early 80s we will remember the Taurus PT-92 in 9mm. Taurus bought out Beretta’s Sao Paulo operation in Italy as Beretta was getting ready to move it’s handgun operation to Maryland to produce the Model 9 military handgun. The classic model PT-92 is coming back out with a whole new look and deluxe grips. Sort of like seeing an old friend again.

Now that the 6.5 Creedmoor has FINALLY begun to fade off into the sunset, it leaves some openings for new 6.5 cartridges. One of the newest is the Weatherby 6.5 RPM for Rebated Precision Magnum. The gun will be a MK 5 in their Back Country series. The cartridge is a non belted, non sharp shoulder and rebated rim cartridge with bullets in the 127 grain and 140 grain at hyper velocities.

Another non Creedmoor rifle is the new Mossberg Patriot Predator  rifle in 6.5 PRC. This rifle and  cartridge is built to give extended range in the field or at the range. The 6.5 PRC is Hornady’s newest rifle round and coming from Hornady it is sure to be a good one. Plus it beats the Creedmoor by leaps and bounds.

There are a lot more new and special things to tell you about but they will have to wait until next month. Spring is coming and it’s time to get that varmint rifle out and checked out. When you go out to sight it in, take a lady or youngster with you. They are our future.

Til next week,

God bless.

Gary