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Bison Dance of the Mandan Indians, courtesy of Arader Galleries

Museum Blues

When I was young in Paris and London, there was rarely a crowd at any…
The Martini action was a favorite of German Schützen rifle makers, and there were endless variations. The rear sight is a diopter, intended only to sharpen the sight picture of the mid-barrel and front sight. It was an optical secret German shooters discovered early.

Falling in Love … Again

Guns and romance have a lot in common: What you think you want, and what…
western flyer

Western Flyer: Back from the Brink

Steinbeck and Ricketts, most readers know, carried out their Baja research from aboard the Western…
brian board handgun
Brian Board’s masterpiece (bottom) and the rasped-into-shape plastic grip on the long-barreled Challenger (top). The rasp marks can be seen clearly, but the grip works well. In my heretical opinion, the later, slimmer plastic grip is superior to the original bulky walnut one.

Getting a Grip

Among other things I lusted for at the age of 16, the Browning Challenger —…
american handguns
Four of the more interesting American handguns, clockwise from upper left: Colt 1851 Navy, Colt single-action .45, Colt Officer’s ACP, and the Smith & Wesson Model 27. Collectively, based on relevant patent dates, they total about 550 years old! What’s not to like?

Piscatorial Musings and the Joy of Handguns

by Terry Wieland It’s almost 30 years now since Gray’s late and sorely lamented editor-in-chief,…
terry wieland
In his imagination, Wieland is using an old E.M. Reilly double (originally a .577 Snider, now a 20-bore) to ward off bandits in the Khyber Pass — something the gun itself may well have done for real.

The Word Is Gun. Rhymes With Fun.

The term “playing with guns” has rather fallen into disrepute of late, with politically correct…
Rockwell's April-Fool cover for the 1945 Saturday Evening Post has 50 "mistakes."

A Break in the Clouds with Norman Rockwell

The last time I spent time with Norman Rockwell’s work was the year O.J. Simpson…
pumpgun
The author with his lone Model 12, a 16 gauge from 1934. It still shucks them smoothly, and whacks them hard.

In Praise of Pumpguns

My old friend Clare was a great fan of Winchester, and so for more than…
shotgun
The raw material — an unbelievable Armenian walnut blank, cut many years ago, and a Dakota No. 10 action.

Wood Just Too Beautiful

The story begins in 2004, when I was possessed by a desire for a trim,…
rhinocerus
Albrecht Dürer's 1515 woodcut, The Rhinocerus, was based on a written description of the greater one-horned rhinoceros.

Contemplating Dürer’s Indian Rhinoceros

In what seems an impossible journey now, in 2017 we travelled down the Brahmaputra River…
bob hayley
Bob Hayley in his workshop, in 2008, with some of his old loading tools and a few (!) of his vast collection of loading dies. I never asked him a question about old guns that he could not answer.

Not an Obituary

Readers of Gray’s over the past dozen years will be familiar with the name Bob…
wingshooting
Jeff Ogle giving Mike (left) and Burt the obligatory safety lecture before we start.

Wingshooting 101

’Tis a sad fact, but these days very few of us grow up with fathers…