Back to Work!

Back to filming today for DOWN RANGE, a voracious maw that devours media. I'm working on a series of short-form videos for people who want to or are getting ready to buy a firearm. I forget sometimes that not everyone lives, eats and breathes this stuff. Here's a question — how should I balance the mix of videos on DOWN RANGE, vis-a-vis expert vs. beginner?

I think there's some utility in getting some of the top people in the industry to step back in time and remember how they started.

A second question...looking at the sweep of Gun Universe, how much emphasis do I need to be placing on all those old military rifles in SHOTGUN NEWS, the C&R stuff? It's frankly out of my venue...I've got a couple of Mausers, but in truth I haven't shot them in years. I need to get a sense of how large that market is..growing or shrinking...that sort of thing. I am going to go back and re-examine some of the older pistols like the Walther P-38/P-1, the CZ-52, the 1895 Nagant revolver and the like.

I'm having trouble putting these guns into context, so to speak. For example, yes, you can pick up a serviceable 8mm German Mauser 98 for a couple of bills or a Mosin Nagant for less than a hundred...but in my eyes those guns are either for plinking, informal target shooting, collecting or, for some of the guys I know, hunting...I'm not denegrating ANY of those activities, either! Remember, I'm the guy who thinks 38-40 is such a great cartridge he had a custom one built!

But if someone were to ask me for a suggestion for a good cheap bolt-action hunting rifle, my answer would be a used Savage or Ruger — in other words, a modern gun made with current steels — rather than one of the older military rifles. If you asked me about a "do-everything" or a so-called "social" rifle and you wanted a bolt gun, I'm going to send you out for any one of a half-dozen modern .308s. If you wanted a fast-handling carbine and were allergic to ARs, I'd point you toward a Marlin 30-30 lever gun...you can getone that was run over by a train and it will still work great. But the 50-plus year old military rifles I see as "fun guns," much like I see my 38-40.

My exception to the "fun guns" would be the Walther P-38/P-1 pistol. If I had only a single 9mm and it was a P-38 (actually, I prefer the alloy-framed P-1), I'd be just fine, heel-mounted magazine release and all. I've put a lot of rounds through various and sundry P-38s and P-1s, and I've found them to be accurate and reliable. I've shot some WW2 relics that surprised the heck out of me on accuracy. I've actually half-way planned to get one, have Tim Wegner at Blade-Tech or Brian Hoffner make me a modern plastic holster rig for it and shoot it in IDPA just to see how it worked...my suspicion is that it would work just fine.

I will confess that I'm planning on finishing a Siamese Mauser .45-70 project my father started and like so many other things in his life never finished. It's been rechambered from the original rimmed 8mm round, rebarreled and partially refinished. I tracked down the gunsmith who did the original work back in the early 1970s — Ed Mason in Memphis — and my plan is to get them to finish the job. Like I said, a fun gun...

Am I full of elephant poopers or what?