Hunting

A few months after I was born in 1981, the late gun writer Gene Hill had a story titled “Why You Don't Always Hit What You Shoot At—(Me Too!)” published in Gun Dog magazine. It was one of the first columns I recall reading when I decided to improve my shotgun skills as an adult. Hill was Harvard...

It isn’t true, as Colonel Townsend Whelen famously wrote, that “only accurate rifles are interesting.” However, a rifle that can shoot a dime at 100 yards is always more interesting than one that can’t, which is why I’m excited to tell you more about the new Heatseeker rifle from Springfield Armory...

Pump-action shotguns, like the iconic Mossberg 500 or Remington 870, have proven themselves in some of the harshest hunting environments. They stand up to dirt, grit, and frigid temperatures that would choke or jam semi-automatics. You can abuse the hell out of a pump shotgun, cake it with mud, or...

If you’re like me, your collection of shotguns is kind of like a set of golf clubs. Each is a different tool for a different purpose. I have a dainty, lightweight British 12-gauge for long walks and fast flushes. I have a smooth-shooting Remington 1100 for sitting still in the marsh. And I have a...

Twelve-gauge pumps might still rule the turkey woods, but 20-gauge autoloaders dominate the current turkey gun trend. Thanks to potent TSS loads and custom turkey chokes, hunters can swap heavier, shoulder-pommeling big bores for lightweight sub-gauges without sacrificing effective range (in a lot...

Setting a healthy column of gunpowder behind a .22-caliber bullet is nothing new in the world of cartridge design. The .220 Swift has been around for nearly 100 years, and the .22-250 Remington existed as a wildcat cartridge long before Big Green standardized it in 1965. Double-deuce bullets are...

Wild hogs and deer don’t exactly mix. At least, that’s what any number of deer hunters or landowners in pig country will tell you. If you have experience hunting around wild hogs, then you probably have surmised as much. While anecdotal evidence might seem to support certain theories in the hunting...

Some lucky deer hunter will eventually shoot a whitetail with antlers bigger than those atop the buck Milo Hanson killed Nov. 23, 1993, near his Saskatchewan farm. With a certified score of 213-5/8 inches, Hanson’s 14-point buck became the world-record “typical” whitetail during the Boone and...

You learn a lot about turkey loads and shotguns after you send several dozen patterns down range in the name of research. For starters, I think I’ll stick to a 20 gauge next spring after putting my shoulder through the wringer. The devastating patterns from some of the 20-gauge loads also made that...

The best turkey hunting shotguns shoot consistently tight patterns with the right choke and ammo. Aside from that, there are other details that make them more desirable in the turkey woods. For instance, lightweight, shorter guns make it easy to maneuver when you're run-and-gunning or need to pivot...

In mid-May of 2025, my son Bear Newcomb and I headed to southeast Alaska to hunt with my friend and outfitter David Benitz. I’ve previously hunted for mountain goats and also went wolf trapping with David. He’s an incredible Alaskan bowhunter, trapper, commercial fisherman, and he’s been an...

I got excited the second I heard the gobbler answer my pot call from his pine tree roost. I scraped a couple of soft yelps on my slate, and he hammered back a response that sounded like "Let's meet up at sunrise.” He did everything you pray a gobbler will do. He flew down, cut the distance, and came...