The Satuit Nimrod

Pistol

The Pistol Committee held a Miss and You're Out! pistol match on Saturday, August 17th that attracted 10 shooters who shot four relays. Devlin Trout won the first relay in a shoot-off with Paul Fig. Mike Guidicci won the second relay in a three-way shoot-off with Paul Fig and Alex Koines. Devlin Trout triumphed again in the third relay beating out Paul Fig and Bill Berry in a three-way shoot-off. It was Devlin winning again in the final relay, topping Dick Martin in a shoot off. Dick shot clean with a .22RF, then borrowed a real gun for the shoot-off.

The next Pistol Match will be a .22 Rimfire Steel match on Saturday, September 21st, starting at 2:00 pm. The exact course of fire had not been firmed-up at press time, but will feature a new Texas Star spinning target sized for .22RF, a Dueling Tree, plus other steel targets that have to be extracted from a shed and brought back to a usable condition.

The Executive Officer has noticed that members are not always picking up their expended cases thus leaving the pistol range in an untidy condition. Please remember to pickup your brass and put them in the buckets provided, also do not leave your target frame hanging on the range and remove any used targets from the frame.

Skeet and Trap

Skeet has revived shooting on Wednesday evenings — 5 pm to 7 pm —  in addition to Sundays. Trap will continue shooting on Saturday mornings only at this time as they have lost a couple of committee members and are looking to replace them before reviving Tuesday evenings. Maybe there are Skeet committee members who can help out in the short term?

Cowboy Action Shooting

The next match will be a Cowboy Action Shoot and is scheduled for Saturday, September 28th, starting a 9:00 am. If you are inquisitive about Cowboy Action shooting, come on down and try it. Equipment and ammunition will be made available for new shooters to shoot one stage at no cost. 

Our Gunnysackers acquitted themselves well at the recently held New Hampshire State shoot and will be participating in the upcoming Maine and New York State shoots.

The Lever-Action Comes Of Age

by Evan Brune, Executive Editor, NRA American Rifleman. Posted on August 19, 2024. 

It’s ironic that, until recently, one of the quintessential American firearm actions also happened to be one of the least exploited by the U.S. firearm industry. The lever-action is not a new notion, a fact outlined by Smith & Wesson in its release of the Model 1854, so-named for the year that Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson built a company around their Volcanic Repeating Rifle, a design that dated to the 1840s. Despite their best efforts, however, the Volcanic was a failure. Smith & Wesson went on to do bigger things, while Oliver Winchester bought the Volcanic company and its assets and directed his shop foreman, Benjamin Tyler Henry, to “make this fool gun work.” Of course, he did, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Though that’s not quite the whole story, because as recent firearm industry trade shows have illustrated, there’s a lot of growth left in what’s already a legacy action. Until recent years, “evolution” in the lever-action world was something that largely occurred in the late 19th century or early 20th century. Prior to the recent slate of new releases, one of the “newest” designs on the market was the Marlin 336, first seen in 1948 and largely based on the Model 1893 design from the same company. For decades after that, the lever-action was seen as traditional, something that wasn’t messed with, even into the days when the AR-15 became king of the commercial rifle world.

Today, there are nearly 30 million AR-style rifles on the market, and without doubt, the features that come with such guns have set consumer expectations, if not an outright standard. Inevitably, lever-action designs emerged that provided some of the flexibility of ARs in terms of accessory attachments and optics mounting—but most of these guns weren’t “new” at all. In the old Remington Outdoor days, Marlin lured consumers toward its lever guns by showcasing “tactical” lever-actions, featuring skeletonized buttstocks, M-Lok handguards, large-loop levers and lengthy optics rails. But there were two problems with these offerings. One, most of these guns were custom designs, as in they were literally available only through the Remington Custom Shop. Two, despite their appearance, they were still the same 19th century designs at their core. It was something akin to dressing grandma in goth clothing. You get the idea, but it’s just not right.

Over the past few years, though, we’ve seen the beginnings of a new chapter in the lever-gun world. Not only have more companies come out with “blacked-out” production versions of classic guns, we’ve also seen genuinely new options emerge. Within the market of “tactical lever-actions,” several designs stand out. The FightLite Herring Model 2024 is one of them, mating a mostly standard AR-15 upper with a specially designed lower that accommodates AR-compatible STANAG magazines. A similar design has also been released from Bond Arms, which has recently obtained a patent on the concept. That company’s LVRB uses an asymmetric camming mechanism within its lower receiver to shorten the throw required to cycle the bolt, allowing the rifle to be operated quickly, while accommodating longer STANAG magazines that don’t interfere with the lever’s arc of travel. Additionally, the lever incorporates a built-in grip safety; the shooter’s strong hand must fully grip the lever at the stock wrist in order for the action to be fully closed and locked and therefore prevent an out-of-battery firing. The complete article can be read here.