There are lots of companies that will finesse a set of reloading dies to a customer’s specification. There are any number of talented gunsmiths who would convert a $25 single shot Stevens heirloom shotgun into a double barrel express rifle. Unfortunately, this usually involves long lead time and a lot […]

I set aside a project or two so I could play with Hornady FTX handloads. I tried Leverevolution ammo when it was first released, or at least as soon as I figured out how to pronounce the name, and  I liked it. It is hyper ammo for the old .30-30 […]

I’ve been laid up…sports injury. I was watching TV when tennis came on. I grabbed for the remote, fell off the couch and put my lower back into orbit. I’m fine as long as I don’t sit, stand or lay down for a few weeks, but it seemed a good […]

Sometimes, working a firearm project is like being Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; it is just one long trip up the river with surprises at every turn. What follows is my Astra NC-6 project diary. Let’s hope it comes to a better ending than Kurtz. In the beginning… […]

One of the most enjoyable and useful firearms, for those of us who like shooting and hunting, is the .22 LR autoloading pistol. Good recreational target models are modest in price, inexpensive to shoot and many have the potential to be highly accurate. They excel for small game hunting, refining […]

It takes awhile for me to make a buy decision on equipment. It isn’t a matter of procrastination, or vacillation, it is more a matter of the length of time it takes to digest and compare quantified specifications and to figure out which might be of consequence for my intended […]

I’ve been carrying a “Ten guns I’d like to own” wish list in my wallet for over fifty years. For at least some of those years the list was probably the only thing I had in my wallet, which made it retain its importance over the years. Drafted during Miss […]

I swear, more than a lot. Blue streak, ex-military…but not here, not in public places, not in front of people I don’t know, not in front of children. Those are all inappropriate places as it would expose others to something they might find personally offensive and I have no right […]

I’m a guy who spends a lot of time working on, converting and modifying 1911’s sourced from assorted and sundry far flung parts of the world. I’m use to pulling a slide and finding tree bark inside. along with raised parting lines I can measure with a ruler…maybe a yard […]

The Real Guns’ shop is usually set up for short run load development and experimentation rather than for volume. It’s not that loads aren’t developed that serve a useful and volume demanding purpose, it’s more an issue of me getting bored after a lot of tedious short run reloading. I […]