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6 Shotgun Drills to Practice for Wingshooting
No matter how much you think you’ve mastered it, shooting a shotgun is a perishable skill. Like swinging a golf club or shooting a bow, you’re always better when you practice. The key with any kind of practice is to isolate your weaknesses and try to improve them.
Personally, I’ve found that getting...
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Firearms
This Classic Whitetail Cartridge Still Reigns Supreme
In another (unsurprising) caliber battle, the greatest whitetail cartridge of all time retains its title by a definitive knockout. The .30-06 Springfield defeated the 6.5 Creedmoor in a landslide victory. It won the vote, tallying 1,701 to the 6.5 CM’s 718. The results leave no room for doubt...
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Firearms
Classic Vs. New School Whitetail Cartridge Showdown: .30-06 Sprg VS. 6.5 Creedmoor
Here we go.
You voted for the best classic and best new-school whitetail cartridges, and now it comes down to a caliber battle between the seasoned veteran and the ascending star. Both the .30-06 Sprg. and the 6.5 Creedmoor ran away with their respective categories, but now it’s time to see who...
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Featured Gear
Caliber Battles
Firearms
Caliber Battle: 22 Creedmoor vs. 22 ARC
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...
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Firearms
How Do Modern Cartridges Stack Up Against Old-Timers?
A few weeks ago, I published an article highlighting the 10 best modern hunting cartridges. My intention wasn’t to hate on older cartridges, just to provide a list of some of the best new offerings of the last 25 years.
Still, some commenters felt compelled to defend their favorite cartridges (an...
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Firearms
Caliber Battle: 25 Creedmoor vs. 6.5 Creedmoor
It’s tough to be the new kid on the block. Just ask the 6.5 Creedmoor. Now, the Fudds have another Hot New Thang to dismiss with a wave and a grunt: the 25 Creedmoor.
Announced late last month, the 25 Creed has garnered a healthy amount of praise along with its fair share of cold water. It’s early...
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Firearms
Caliber Battle: 300 PRC vs. .300 Win. Mag.
When Hornady describes the 300 PRC as an “intelligently crafted 21st century magnum cartridge,” it’s hard not to read that as a dig at .300 Win. Mag. fans.
As perhaps the most popular .30-caliber magnum of all time, the Win. Mag. is the PRC’s direct competition. But it’s not a 21st-century creation...
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Firearms
.300 Win. Mag. vs. 7mm Rem. Mag.
When someone contacted me recently to suggest this Caliber Battle matchup, I couldn’t believe we hadn’t done it before. If you ask your average American hunter which big boy caliber he uses, the .300 Win. Mag. and the 7mm Rem. Mag. are the two most likely candidates. And the data backs that up...
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Gun Reviews
Firearms
Springfield's New Heatseeker Rifle is a True 1/2 MOA Factory Gun
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...
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Firearms
The 6 Best Pump-Action Shotguns of All Time
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...
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Gun Reviews
Beretta A300 Ultima Turkey Review: The Best 20 Gauge Turkey Gun
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...
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Firearms
The Best Turkey Hunting Shotguns
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...
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Firearms
The Best 9mm Handguns
Nine millimeter semi-automatic handguns are the most popular type of firearm in the United States. You might not hunt deer with a Glock, but if you own a handgun for self-defense–as most gun owners do–it probably uses a detachable magazine and is chambered in 9mm Luger. Many hunters carry these...
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Firearms
Ruger's SFAR Is Built for Hunters. Should You Get One Before It's Too Late?
The concept behind Ruger’s Small-Frame Autoloading (SFAR) rifle was simple: .308 Winchester power in an AR-15-sized package.
Many hunters have adopted the AR-15 as a hunting rifle due to its light weight, modularity, and easy maneuverability. Problem is, the .223 Remington cartridge most commonly...
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Cartridges By Species
Firearms
The Best Calibers for Bear Hunting
It wasn’t so long ago that black bears were considered America’s premier wild table fare. Bear steaks are delicious, bear grease is useful (and delicious), and bear hunting is challenging and rewarding.
For new and aspiring hunters, however, bears can seem invincible. Even though they’re generally...
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Gear
The Best Deer Hunting Calibers
Here’s the truth about these "best of" articles: the only honest answer is, "It depends." Are these cartridges really the best deer-killing cartridges in existence? It depends.
It depends on where you’re hunting, your experience with firearms, what rifles you already own, how much money you can...
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Firearms
If You Can Only Pick One Big Game Hunting Cartridge, Pick This One
The apocalypse is nigh. As you gather your loved ones and sprint out the front door, you have just enough time to grab a hunting rifle. For some reason only partially explained via flashback montage (the writers on this show suck), you know you’ll need this rifle to hunt every legal big game animal...
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Firearms
The Best Calibers for Elk Hunting
Elk are the largest animals most American hunters will ever have a chance to harvest. For that reason, once a hunter is ready to step up from whitetail deer to elk, the first question they ask is: do I have enough gun to get the job done?
We’re here to help you answer that question. The MeatEater...
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Firearms
5 Best Rifle Calibers for Youth Hunters
Nothing is more discouraging to a new hunter than a loud and intimidating rifle. If you’re hoping your kid will be confident and accurate from the deer blind, throwing them to the wolves with a .300 Winchester Magnum isn’t the way to go. It might make for a funny story when they’re older, but it’s a...
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Firearms
Hunting Whitetail with a Shotgun: Rifled Slugs vs. Sabots
Almost every traditional shotgun-only state now allows hunters to shoot straight-wall rifles, but slug guns remain popular among deer hunters across the Midwest and East. Slugs became mandated as a safety measure in populated areas because they cannot travel as far and are slower than necked...
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Off Range
Firearms
Five Interesting Firearms of Custer’s Last Stand
Colonel George Armstrong Custer, along with the 700 men in the U.S. 7th Cavalry were ultimately defeated in the infamous Battle of the Little Bighorn in southeastern Montana in June of 1876, but they certainly weren’t without firepower. Based on archeological findings, over 50 different types of...
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Firearms
Will Primos Is Auctioning A One-of-a-Kind Shotgun Set This Weekend to Fund Conservation
Guns aren’t always a great financial investment (though they can be), but this is one firearm purchase you can definitely feel good about.
Lot 1 at the Rock Island Auction on December 5th is a one-of-a-kind set of five Purdey & Sons side-by-side shotguns. Valued at a whopping $800,000, the proceeds...
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Firearms
Meet the ‘Wood Butcher” Behind Custom Hand-Checkered Gun Stocks
Evan Koch calls himself a “wood butcher” on Instagram, but he wields chisels with world-class skill to craft, carve, and checker gunstocks for high-end rifles and shotguns.
Checkering, of course, is the functional, yet decorative carvings on gun stocks in which fine lines intersect in diamond-shaped...
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Firearms
In Defense of Fudds
A “fudd” is a derogatory term for a certain type of gun owner. Like the Looney Toons character of the same name, fudds are cantankerous. Old-fashioned. Set in their ways and suspicious of anything new-fangled.
They probably don’t know the difference between a “clip” and a “magazine.” They despise...
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Firearms
Everything You Need to Know About Rifle Actions
Here’s a scenario most new hunters and gun owners have experienced.
You’re at the gun range when the friendly fellow at the neighboring bench offers to let you shoot his rifle. You happily agree, but when you sit down at the bench and get behind the gun, you realize that you don’t actually know how...
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Gear and Accessories
Gear
The Best Hunting Rifle Scopes Under $500
During college, I worked in a gun shop. I heard (and saw) a ton of strange things while scrambling to earn rent and not blow my entire check in the used section. Of the things I heard, I remember one particularly wealthy and eclectic regular who claimed he would spend significantly more on a scope...
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Firearms
3 Reasons to Put a Red Dot on Your Turkey Gun
Turkey-hunting shotguns are in a class of their own. Shorter barrels, fancy camo patterns, pistol grips, and custom chokes separate gobbler getters from traditional shotguns you might find in your grandpa’s closet. Red dots belong to this group of turkey-specific accessories, too. While some folks...
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Firearms
The Best Hunting Scopes
For the past several years, I’ve had the opportunity to try out a fair number of different scopes through competition, hunting, and helping the MeatEater crew dial in their kits. For those few scopes I haven’t used personally, I also have data points from folks who spend a lot of time behind a rifle...
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Firearms
Janis’s Season 12 Turkey Gun Setup
If you watched the recent MeatEater Florida turkey episode, you’ll know that I shot my first Osceola turkey. And you’ll also know that it was a long shot. But I felt comfortable and confident in that 60-yard shot because of my turkey gun set-up and ammo.
The last two seasons I’ve used a Beretta A30...
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Firearms
Should More Duck Hunters Be Using Red-Dot Reflex Sights?
Red-dot reflex sights are widely popular amongst turkey and slug gun deer hunters for good reason—they can increase your accuracy with a shotgun to ensure you don’t miss when a shot presents itself. If a red-dot has been sighted in properly prior to the hunt, all you need to do is put that ball of...
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Firearms
Video: Testing Lead and Copper Bullets in Ballistic Gel
The debate has raged for as long as gun hunters have taken animals with tiny, fast-moving metal projectiles: what type of bullet is best?
These days, that debate revolves mainly around solid copper bullets and various jacketed lead bullets. Unfortunately, as MeatEater’s Janis Putelis pointed out...
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Choosing A Gun
Firearms
5 Best Rifle Calibers for Youth Hunters
Nothing is more discouraging to a new hunter than a loud and intimidating rifle. If you’re hoping your kid will be confident and accurate from the deer blind, throwing them to the wolves with a .300 Winchester Magnum isn’t the way to go. It might make for a funny story when they’re older, but it’s a...
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Firearms
5 Best Rifles for New Hunters
Access to hunting ground is the number-one barrier to entry for new hunters, but firearms are usually also towards the top of that list. It can be intimidating to select, purchase, and learn to shoot a rifle, especially if you’ve never done so before.
If that’s you, you’ve come to the right place...
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Firearms
Ask the Eagle: What’s Your Favorite Big Game Rifle Caliber?
Introducing Ask the Eagle, where I’ll be answering your questions about everything from hunting to butchering to marriage. This week, an Instagram follower wants to know what rifle caliber I’d recommend to hunt all big game with.
Have a question of your own? You can write to me asktheeagle...
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Gear
Best Rifle Cartridges for New Deer Hunters
Caliber selection can be intimidating for new deer hunters. There are so many options, and every gun writer with a blog and an Internet connection has an opinion he’s more than happy to share.
You can read our recommendations below, but first, know this: almost every rifle caliber can take down a...
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Firearms
The Best Deer Cartridge You’ve Probably Never Shot
Remember that old children’s story, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears?” Some take the moral as a warning against breaking and entering, but most folks probably remember the story’s lesson about moderation: not too hot, not too cold, not too hard, not too soft—just right.
The .257 Roberts is the...
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Getting Dialed
Firearms
How to Restore an Old Gun Stock
Synthetic stocks and stainless steel barrels have rightfully earned their spot on contemporary hunting firearms. MeatEater fully supports the rifle revolution, as you can see in our collaboration with Weatherby.
That being said, hunters tend to be a nostalgic bunch. Geriatric shoulder mounts, honey...
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Firearms
How to Correctly Clean a Shotgun
The shotgun is often the forgotten firearm when it comes to cleaning. Maybe it’s the simplicity or lack of rifling, but when cleaning day comes around, the smoothbores are usually last to get the grease. That’s not smart if you want your rig to keep dumping gobblers and greenheads for decades to...
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Turkey
How to Pattern a Shotgun for Turkey Hunting
When it comes to turkey shotguns, modern choke-and-load combinations are capable of throwing ultra-tight patterns out to 40 yards or more. At the same time, turkey hunters should remember that a properly outfitted scattergun’s pattern is likely no larger than a baseball at 10 to 15 yards.
I learned...
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Firearms
4 Things Hunters Can Learn from Competitive Shooters
The first time Steve and I met, we sat on a patio discussing competitive shooting and hunting. The conversation was exciting as we connected the dots on how closely related the two really are. Competitive shooters and hunters tend to exist in separate worlds, but many of our methodologies can be...
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Big Game
Ask MeatEater: Will You Shoot at Running Game?
You’ve got questions. We’ve got answers (and if we don’t, we’ll make them up). Every day, fellow MeatEaters send us more than 100 emails regarding hunting, fishing, cooking, conservation, and more. So, we decided to publish a series dedicated to our favorite FAQs. This is Ask MeatEater.
Several...
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Firearms
Video: How to Clean a Rifle Barrel
Whether your rifle is brand new or passed down through several generations, regular and proper cleaning is imperative to keep it in good shape and shooting accurately for hunting seasons to come. It all starts with the right tools and a solid understanding of what you’re trying to accomplish.
When...
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