Editorial

Later in this issue is a quick-hit list of new products the staff encountered at the 2012 SHOT Show in Las Vegas. Unlike some years in which manufacturers push banal items that are simply color or texture changes, we saw some cool stuff in the pipeline that's worth advising you about. Standard caveat applies: We didn't shoot anything enough to say "Buy It!", but we can comment about advances in design or execution that we believe hold promise.

On Black Friday 2011, gun dealers deluged the FBI with background-check requests for prospective handgun and long-gun buyers, breaking the previous record by more than 30%. Background checks, required by federal law, surged to nearly 130,000 during the day, surpassing the previous high of 97,848 on Black Friday of 2008. The second busiest day on record was two days before this past Christmas, with 102,222 checks. Dennis Henigan, acting president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said he was "skeptical" of the Black Friday gun surge. He said, "I think there may be no real significance at all."

Surreal experience today. Took an hour for lunch, and while munching on red beans and rice, I remembered I had the season-ending episode of FX's Sons of Anarchy on the TiVo. So I engage the box and start watching the cliffhanger. If you haven't seen that episode yet, stop reading now.

If I must say, one of my most endearing traits is the ability to buy perfect presents for anniversaries, birthdays, and Christmas — just ask the CFO, who's snorting coffee out her nose as she reads that. Seeing as this is the traditional time of year for commemorations of Christ's Mass, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, Saturnalia, and Yuletide, I wanted to pass along three thoughtful gift recommendations that are sure to wow your family, friends, and range buddies, though perhaps not in that order.

Over the past few months weve been testing a product that one of our readers suggested to us. The product is called NanoLube, and its a registered trademark of the NanoLube, Inc., company, with website at www.DiamondLube.com. The product is a combination of incredibly small, 0.1 to 4 nanometer, rounded diamonds in suspension in a light 5W oil. The tiny synthetic diamonds are spherical, not jagged, and once they are embedded into the base material of whatever youre trying to lubricate, they provide a slick surface with greatly reduced friction. So says DiamondLube Treatment Systems inventor, Chris Arnold.The evidence given by the reader and by the manufacturer fired our interest. The testimonials in favor of this product are many and varied. One stunning example was a video of two bearings side by side, one of which had normal oil and the other, NanoLube. The two bearings were spun by a blast of air, and then allowed to coast to a stop. The NanoLubed bearing spun far longer than the other. There are many testimonials of the use of this product on the company website, including its use in the bearings of over-the-road tractor-trailer drivers, who have seen significant improvements in longevity of their trucks as well as better mileage. Some of the companys claims and testimonials were in this products use on firearms. These included drastic reduction of trigger pulls, better function of semiauto handguns, and slicking of the bore that made cleaning the barrel easier.To assess these claims for what we considered to be a rather costly product, we obtained two samples from the maker. One was called NanoLube NDN70-ATM+P (7 milliliters, list price $37.50, + $3.50 domestic shipping, or $5 international). The other was a smaller bottle labeled Quicken Weapons Lubricant MIL 30-CLP. (We could not clearly determine its price from the company website, but our best guess is its a three-milliliter sample, which goes for $22.50.) We tried these oils in a vast array of comparative before-and-after tests on items ranging from firearms to tractor engines. Please be informed that our conclusions are empirical, not scientific. This, however, is in keeping with previous tests of metal-preserving oils that we put on bare steel and left outside to see how well they worked. We got some definite ideas from those tests, and the same is true in the case of NanoLube and Quicken.

As monthly deadline cycles loom, I sometimes forget to just go shoot for fun. I personally don't shoot handguns much, mainly because the testing I conduct favors long guns. But my wife, Tracey, my son J.T. and his friend and co-worker Angela, and Product Coordinator Kevin Winkle and I went to Memorial Shooting Center here in Houston recently and had a ball with sidearms.

In the latest development in the ongoing Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) 'Fast and Furious' scandal, the NRA-ILA reported that the Department of Justice has announced the appointment of U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota B. Todd Jones to serve as Acting Director of BATFE, replacing Kenneth Melson. The DOJ also announced that Dennis Burke, U.S. attorney for the district of Arizona, has resigned. And the Wall Street Journal reported that Emory Hurley, the assistant U.S. attorney responsible for the day-to-day operations of 'Fast and Furious,' has been removed from his post and reassigned to the department's Civil Division.

Some years ago, I sold two guns that I now regret selling. I used my Walther GX-1 22 LR for five years as a collegiate 3-position shooter at Texas A&M, competing all over the country and in Japan. As a working adult in New Jersey, I also shot it in a weeknight league in northern New Jersey and in a league that shot at West Point. Additionally, I had an LGR air rifle by the same manufacturer, using it to compete in the NCAA championships, where I met the really good shooters.

Ruger is one of the most aggressive companies at rolling out mid-year new products, and 2011 offers a bumper crop of new guns in the pipeline. Two new handguns caught my eye. The SR40c (directly below) is the compact version of the striker-fired SR40 pistol. The Ruger SR40c pistol has a 3.5-inch barrel and an overall length of 6.85 inches. The pistol weighs 23.40 ounces and features a height of 4.61 inches, with the same 1.27-inch-wide grip (across safety levers) as the full-sized SR40. It also has a fully adjustable 3-dot sight system and an integral accessory rail that accommodates most lights and lasers.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa is vowing to block President Obama's nominations until he gets detailed answers on a controversial program that resulted in drug cartels acquiring more than 1,300 firearms from the U.S., according a report in The Hill. Grassley is pressing the Department of Justice (DOJ) on who initiated the 'Gun Runner' program that authorized the sale of guns to people acting as straw purchasers for drug cartels in Mexico. Gun Runner might have contributed to the death of at least one federal agent.

About a hundred years ago Townsend Whelen, noted soldier and hunter, coined the phrase, "Only accurate rifles are interesting." But many really interesting rifles come with price tags much larger than most shooters can afford. That is, unless you are willing to downsize. Not in actual size, but in caliber. Some of the most accurate rifles being fired today can be found at your local smallbore silhouette match, where only inexpensive 22 Long Rifle ammunition is allowed. The game is to stand and shoot offhand at steel replica profiles of chickens, pigs, turkeys, and rams. The object of the game is to knock them over. Regulation distances are 40, 60, 77, and 100 yards (or meters), respectively. Any type of scope may be used. Smallbore silhouette rifle competition is so well established that several manufacturers offer models built to meet the standards of the sport. That would be the case with our first test rifle, the $414 CZ 452 Silhouette. Our second rifle was the $1399 Anschtz 64 MP R or Multi Purpose Rifle, sometimes advertised as an effective training rifle for high power shooters. Our third rifle was the $750 Browning T-Bolt Target Varmint, aimed at producing accuracy at the match or in the field.All three of our test rifles were bolt-action models with detachable magazines, a configuration that dominates the sport. Given that the ammunition played no part in cycling the action, we were free to choose a variety of ammunition. Our three test rounds consisted to two well respected target rounds from Lapua and Remingtons Golden Bullet, a popular budget-priced ammunition sold in 525-round boxes. The Remington ammunition powered a 36-grain lead brass-plated hollowpoint. Both the Lapua Midas+ and Center-X ammunition drove slickly coated 40 grain roundnosed slugs. Serious competitors are mindful to note individual lots of ammunition in order to find the best ammunition. So weve listed the lot numbers of the Lapua target rounds on our accuracy chart.For our tests we mounted a Swarovski Z5 3.5-18X44 LBT scope with plex reticle and the Ballistic Turret option. This scope offers up to four preset zeroes. That meant in competition we wouldnt have to count clicks when changing target banks or rely on a variety of holds. With the presets easily in hand, we were free to concentrate on the center of each target instead of aiming low on the 40 yards chicks, dead center on the pigs, high on the turkeys and above the rams. Our next step was to choose the most accurate ammunition for each rifle and shoot groups from the 100-yard line. In each case our rifles were fired supported from a model 500 Rifle Rest ($280 from www.targetshooting.com), and we used the RT-073 target from www.OutdoorProducts.com. We found that each of our test rifles were so accurate that with a little effort the average shooter could be crowned top gun. In addition, we thought these rifles were good enough to be training devices for any shooting discipline, including long range prone. Were not talking about making actual long distance shots, but working in scale with smaller targets to replicate greater distance.Our last test was to fire each rifle standing unsupported. With some mighty small groups achieved from the bench, we could honestly say that accurate rifles were the most fun. With access to the Rimfire Ranch at Houstons American Shooting Centers, (www.AmShootCenters.com), our enjoyment shot off the scale. With each hit the steel prairie dogs were sent back into their mounds only to rise again. The mechanical dogs placed 40 to 70 yards downrange outlasted our supply of ammunition, but we vowed to return. Lets review which rifle was the most interesting, accurate, and fun in the judgment of our testers.

About a hundred years ago Townsend Whelen, noted soldier and hunter, coined the phrase, "Only accurate rifles are interesting." But many really interesting rifles come with price tags much larger than most shooters can afford. That is, unless you are willing to downsize. Not in actual size, but in caliber. Some of the most accurate rifles being fired today can be found at your local smallbore silhouette match, where only inexpensive 22 Long Rifle ammunition is allowed. The game is to stand and shoot offhand at steel replica profiles of chickens, pigs, turkeys, and rams. The object of the game is to knock them over. Regulation distances are 40, 60, 77, and 100 yards (or meters), respectively. Any type of scope may be used. Smallbore silhouette rifle competition is so well established that several manufacturers offer models built to meet the standards of the sport. That would be the case with our first test rifle, the $414 CZ 452 Silhouette. Our second rifle was the $1399 Anschtz 64 MP R or Multi Purpose Rifle, sometimes advertised as an effective training rifle for high power shooters. Our third rifle was the $750 Browning T-Bolt Target Varmint, aimed at producing accuracy at the match or in the field.All three of our test rifles were bolt-action models with detachable magazines, a configuration that dominates the sport. Given that the ammunition played no part in cycling the action, we were free to choose a variety of ammunition. Our three test rounds consisted to two well respected target rounds from Lapua and Remingtons Golden Bullet, a popular budget-priced ammunition sold in 525-round boxes. The Remington ammunition powered a 36-grain lead brass-plated hollowpoint. Both the Lapua Midas+ and Center-X ammunition drove slickly coated 40 grain roundnosed slugs. Serious competitors are mindful to note individual lots of ammunition in order to find the best ammunition. So weve listed the lot numbers of the Lapua target rounds on our accuracy chart.For our tests we mounted a Swarovski Z5 3.5-18X44 LBT scope with plex reticle and the Ballistic Turret option. This scope offers up to four preset zeroes. That meant in competition we wouldnt have to count clicks when changing target banks or rely on a variety of holds. With the presets easily in hand, we were free to concentrate on the center of each target instead of aiming low on the 40 yards chicks, dead center on the pigs, high on the turkeys and above the rams. Our next step was to choose the most accurate ammunition for each rifle and shoot groups from the 100-yard line. In each case our rifles were fired supported from a model 500 Rifle Rest ($280 from www.targetshooting.com), and we used the RT-073 target from www.OutdoorProducts.com. We found that each of our test rifles were so accurate that with a little effort the average shooter could be crowned top gun. In addition, we thought these rifles were good enough to be training devices for any shooting discipline, including long range prone. Were not talking about making actual long distance shots, but working in scale with smaller targets to replicate greater distance.Our last test was to fire each rifle standing unsupported. With some mighty small groups achieved from the bench, we could honestly say that accurate rifles were the most fun. With access to the Rimfire Ranch at Houstons American Shooting Centers, (www.AmShootCenters.com), our enjoyment shot off the scale. With each hit the steel prairie dogs were sent back into their mounds only to rise again. The mechanical dogs placed 40 to 70 yards downrange outlasted our supply of ammunition, but we vowed to return. Lets review which rifle was the most interesting, accurate, and fun in the judgment of our testers.