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"U.S. 1917 and Brazilian 1937 Smith & Wesson's Un-Identical Twins by Mark Trope" 
Description: In the late 1930’s Brazil found itself in need of handguns. Training men in the safe & proficient use of a revolver is much easier then training them to use a semi-auto pistol. Generally, a revolver requires less maintenance then a semi-auto pistol. Brazil let a contract to S&W for a .45 ACP chambered revolver. The Brazilian model number is model 1937. The Brazilian 1937 is extremely close to, but not quite identical to the S&W 1917.  

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"DGC Custom Gunsmithing Parkerizing Job for My FR-8 by Jamie Mangrum" 
Description: The original Parkerize finish was completely gone in some places and there was visible rust. Knowing a great deal when I see one I packaged up my carbine and shipped it off.  

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"Special Interest Arm's Enfield .45 ACP Kit by Jamie Mangrum" 
Description: If you are inclined to perform the modification yourself, SIA will send you a kit in the "white" as pictured below so you can apply your own finish to the barrel such as DuraCoat, Hot Bluing, etc or you can have the barrel Parkerized by SIA as I did. SIA also offers a number of very reasonably priced conversion services so you don't have to worry about removing your old barrel, headspacing, parkerizing, or drilling & tapping as these can be somewhat advanced tasks for the average garage tinkerer.  

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"THE BIG PUSH: Taking the Recoild (sting) out of the Short, Handy, Mil-Surp Rifle! by Mark Trope" 
Description: Headphones or earplugs protect the hearing from muzzle blast. The only way to truly reduce recoil though is to shoot a lighter load. A lighter load simply has less kinetic energy. A lighter bullet, less powder, or, less of both will do the trick. However, while shooting the service load there is a way to at least reduce the effects of recoil.  

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"Hodgdon’s 2008 Annual Manual Reviewed By Ted Jeo" 
Description: Hodgdon once again starts the year off with their annual “update” of reloading data for Hodgdon, IMR and Winchester powders. This $8, 178 page magazine includes 5000+ loads for most popular pistol and rifle loads. It includes completely new load data for the .17 Rem Fireball, .308 Marlin Express and .375 Ruger. They’ve also included updated loads for 20 of the standard cartridges from previous editions.  

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"Swiss & Swiss: Kissin' Cousin Rifles - A Mil-Surp Begets an Olympian Part II by Mark Trope" 
Description: In the first installment, we described in detail a Swiss made, straight-pull Hämmerli 300 Meter Free Rifle based on the design of the Swiss K-31 straight pull action. The Hämmerli is a purebred accuracy rig. It needs ammunition of the highest possible consistency to wring out all its accuracy potential. Paying attention to the details during crafting will separate this ammo from run-of-the-mill fodder. Let’s head to the loading bench.  

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"Easy Tools: Tools that Make Cleaning an AR Easier by Jamie Mangrum" 
Description: First let me start off by stating that this is NOT a "How To Clean the AR-15 or M-16 Rifle" article. I do not show you step by step how to take everything apart and how to clean and lube your rifle. I could not really improve upon what the Army and Marines offer in TM9-1005-319-10. I have included an excerpt from this manual of 18 pages of cleaning and lubrication instructions in Adobe PDF format for you to download and print out if you do not have it already. What this article is about is what tools are available today that make cleaning the AR rifle easier and help you do a better job. These tools are not necessarily what you may carry in your pack while deployed as a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan. They are what you should have on your cleaning bench at home.  

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"IO, INC.s New STG2003C AK-47 Variant in .223 NATO by Layne King" 
Description: During a recent conversation with Uli at IO Inc. I was offered the opportunity to test the new STG2003C AK variant in .223. I jumped at the chance, and it was only a few days before it arrived at my neighborhood FFLs’ shop. The rifle came well packed for the trip, and arrived safely along with a ProMag magazine, an unissued military cleaning kit, military AK sling, and a disassembly/reassembly manual.  

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"ERGO Picatinny Rails and Vertical Forward Grips (aka the beginning of “Pimp my AR”) by R. Ted Jeo" 
Description: I’ve been talking with several of my shooting buddies both in person and on line and it just seems that the AR bug has bitten all of them in one form or another. One friend ended up trading some computer work for a match grade Bushmaster AR full size rifle. Another was talking about how he was building up “yet another” AR rifle, this one decked out as the 1970’s issued style M16. Add in the recent article by Jamie on his AR sniper set up and a friend showing me an original COLT AR rifle (sans forward assist), AR rifles abound everywhere. This pretty much is a no brainer. Open up Shotgun News, I counted no fewer than 25 big ads, a lot of them full page ads, featuring AR rifles, parts or accessories. The AR has become the “Barbie Doll” dress ‘em up toy of the firearm world. Alternatively, if you are in the right age group, the saying, “Pimp my AR” may come to mind. I’m going to add my 2 cents of opinions on some items that I’ve found and like for my AR.  

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"Polish Wz-48 (Model 48) .22 Trainer by Eric Seavey" 
Description: Military .22 training rifles are a fascinating bit of military firearm collectibles. Many countries produced training rifles that closely resembled the full-sized military issue rifle such as the Reising Model 65 made by Harrington and Richardson, and the different Enfield trainers. Others produced .22 training rifles strictly for training that looked nothing like the full-sized issue rifle such as the Romanian M-69 or the Mossberg M-44. This article will be covering the Polish Wz-48 (Model 48) .22 trainer. It was made to closely resemble the Soviet issued M-38 carbine and does a fine job of doing just that.  

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"The Other 1911 - The Taurus PT-1911 by Mark Trope" 
Description: John Moses Browning was a firearms genius. Volumes could be written about the man and his accomplishments. One of his greatest, if not the single greatest accomplishment of his career was the design of the Model 1911, semi-automatic, .45 ACP chambered pistol. Browning’s design came at a time when other semi-automatic pistols were somewhat delicate, extremely complicated, or downright fussy and lacking in reliability. Some of the designs of that era encompassed all these faults!  

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"On Point – The German SG. 84/98 III Bayonet for the Kar 98k Rifle by Ralph Cobb" 
Description: One aspect of the SG 84/98 III's history is the absence of production records. The number of bayonets produced from 1934-1945 is not known. The 98k Bayonet Collector's Network (BCN) was founded in 1996 by John C. Jacobi, as an organization focused around collecting of the German SG. 84/98 III bayonet. A continuing project that dates from the BCN's beginning is to re-construct the production record of the SG. 84/98 III bayonet, through collection and analysis of maker and serial number data.  

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"Postal Match #20 Results: Caliber specific…the 6.5mm" 
Description:  

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"REVIEW: Huber Concepts Fully Adjustable Trigger For The Swiss K-31 by Mark Trope" 
Description: The pull weighs came in with a high of 4-½ lb, to a low of 4 lb even. I added in the pull weight of my rifle (4-¼), and averaged them. The average weight-of-pull for a Swiss K-31 is 4-¼ lb. Good, my rifle is average. That makes the test all the more accurate. Now, let’s look at the Huber Concepts Trigger.  

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"BENCHTOPICS: Shooting Congruence: Sizing & Lubricating Cast Bullets For Success (Smith & Wesson 1917, Installment III) by Mark Trope" 
Description: As we said, all lead bullets require lubrication. What kind, and how much lubrication depend on the velocity of the bullets. Some loads (starter loads) listed don’t have very stringent lubrication requirements. Others, (medium and high velocity) require all the lubrication they can get.  

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"TS200 Windage and Elevation Adjustable Rear Sight and Fine Front Sight for SKS Rifles by R. Ted Jeo" 
Description: The TS200 is an improvement over the TS100 in that it allows for both elevation and windage adjustments on the rear sight. If you already own a TS100, you can order the TS220, which is the elevation adjustable aperture to upgrade you sight to a TS200. These sights help the shooter in that they increase the sight radius by 10 inches from the normal SKS sights and give a similar sight picture of the familiar Garand and M16 rifles. Neither sight requires any drilling or tapping of your original rifle components. There is just one piece that needs to be permanently altered in most rifles, which we will see in a moment.  

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"BENCH TOPICS: Half Dozen Good Reasons To Choose A Lee Multi - Cavity Mold by Mark Trope" 
Description: At that time it was nothing to be shooting 100 to 150 pistol rounds in a session. At one point, another friend brought over a 4-cavity mold ferrous mold made by an old-line company. Talk about production speed. If the 2-cavity mold seemed 4 times as fast as a 1-cavity mold, the 4-cavity mold seemed to be moving at “warp speed”!  

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"SKS Trigger Master: A Visit with Kavaari by R. Ted Jeo" 
Description: Now my very first question was…what does his forum name (“Kivaari” pronounced KEY-VAR-EE) mean? The answer was that it is Finnish for “rifle”. That should give you are REAL good hint what one of his collecting interests lies in. Tom says he enjoys all firearms, but he really has an interest in the Finnish Mosins and British Enfield rifles. Of course, when I asked him what his most favorite was, his answer was tongue in cheek…whatever he has ammo for…. Matter of fact, as we were talking at the kitchen table, he showed me his latest project. He had picked up an Ishy Enfield from AIM and was in the process of cleaning it up and working it over. I should explain what I mean by working it over.  

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"The Last Bullet: He Who Hesitates is Lost by Mark Trope" 
Description:  

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"Postal Match #19:Results" 
Description:  

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