Inexplicably, It's Not Friday

I'm on my second gallon of coffee to see if I can jumpstart my brain. Fingers crossed...

I've started reading my friend Max Prasac's spectacular book, THE GUN DIGEST BOOK OF HUNTING REVOLVERS. Even if you're not interested in handgun hunting, the book is a wealth of information on big bore revolver shooting (and was Max's previous book, BIG BORE HANDGUNS).

Our SHOOTING GALLERY episode on John Linebaugh's annual big bore seminar in Cody, WY, was very popular. I think a lot of shooters (and I'd include myself in that group) are fascinated with shooting the big boomers. As I said on the show, it is undeniably hard — hard to master that giant explosion so close to your face, hard to handle that much recoil, hard to keep your hand and wrist from crumbling into powder after a hard day of the range. Max is one of the great masters of this arcane art, and it helps that he is an excellent writer. For those of us who love the boomers, the photography is breathtaking.

HUNTING REVOLVERS is the second "significant" firearms book to be published recently — the first is Richard Mann's THE SCOUT RIFLE STUDY. I say "significant" because both the books add new information and impressive depth to our understanding of these 2 niche areas.

Considering that Richard is a pecker-headed West Virginia redneck, the SCOUT RIFLE STUDY is pretty much a masterpiece in multimedia…the only thing I can think of to explain this is that Richard is holding a whole bunch of 10-year-old hackers captive in his basement. I'm pretty sure Richard knows everything about Scout Rifles, and like Max, he knows it because he's put a bazillion rounds through them, tried numerous different configurations, and used them for training and hunting around the world.

I tend to default to people who do, as opposed to people who have carefully examined all the significant Internet forums, blogs (including mine), social media and YouTube — and hell, even taken a class! — to arrive at their conclusions. I know I've ranted about this recently, but it popped up in my head again since Marshal and I have been writing checks to purchase T&E guns.  We tend to buy a lot of guns and gear because we're in the business, and the way to really understand a firearm is to shoot it a bunch. A 30- or 90-or even 180-day test and evaluation period will introduce you to a gun or a piece of gear, but you don't really know it.

I figure Max and Richard have spent the bulk of their disposable income for decades buying and shooting the guns they're now writing about. That would be my definition of "expert."