Dan Shideler - The Greatest Guns of Gun Digest

Tt's been quite a job, selecting the cream of the crop of the greatest gun annual of all time. After all, Gun Digest was first published in 1944 and has now reached its 65th edition, which gives us quite a lot of material from which to choose.

In selecting the pieces to appear in this volume, we applied the tried-and-true formula that seems to have guided Gun Digest's editors since the beginning: try to include stories about Handguns, Rifles, Shotguns, and Military Arms. Of course there will be some overlapping, and it just wouldn't be a Gun Digest publication without the unique blend of history, scholarship, entertainment, and educated opinion that you'll find in the following pages.

Gun Digest has always been about the guns, first and foremost. In fact, Gun Digest has always followed a policy of covering as many gunmakers, major and minor, as its pages can possibly accommodate. Few publications indeed would include a feature on the Rifleman's Rifle, the Winchester Model 70, and then in the same edition discuss the Garcia Bronco, an ultra-utilitarian skeleton-stocked rifle of decidedly unlovely aspect but that sort of editorial democracy has always been one of the hallmarks of Gun Digest. And we intend that it always shall be.

Argument, disagreement, lack of consensus all these are distinguishing characteristics of the American gun-owning public. Don't be surprised, then, if your favorite great gun has eluded inclusion in these pages. Every gun featured herein is somehow remarkable, whether it is a high-dollar collectible like the Colt-Walker revolver or a more minor celebrity such as Remington's Nylon 66 .22 rifle. We have made no attempt to claim that this gun or that gun is the greatest of its type, only that every gun featured here is, truly, a great gun.

Is the Browning T-Bolt .22 a great gun? We think so, and we think you'll agree if you're ever fortunate enough to experience the silky-smooth cam action of its straight-pull bolt. How about the Astra 400? Certainly! After all, this oddlooking duck showed us how far a straight-blowback action could be taken in a handgun. The Darne shotgun? It's a fairly scarce make, agreed, but it shows that the simplest breech system isn't necessarily always the best, at least as far as aesthetics and gracefulness are concerned.

By now you get the point. Often it's a single feature that makes a gun great, like the foolproof rotary magazine on a Ruger 10/22. In other cases it's a concatenation of separate noteworthy features, as we see in the 1911 pistol. In other still cases, it's the creation of a totally new class of firearm, such as the M16A2.

Then, of course, there's the brilliance of Gun Digest's editorial contributors to be considered. Col. Charles Askins, Elmer Keith, John Amber are celebrated even today as being among the greatest gunwriters of all time, but for each one of these sterling talents there's a Les Bowman, a Keith Schmidt, or a Robert A. Burmeister who certainly merits remembrance. We are proud that the work of these great American sportsmen lives on, and will live on forever, in the pages of Gun Digest.

Gun Digest has always been proof, if proof were needed, that you needn't be shooting to enjoy guns. Reading about them can be almost as enjoyable and if you enjoy reading this compilation from the past, we have succeeded in our goal. So relax with your favorite beverage at your elbow and a good dog at your feet and relive some of the greatest guns of Gun Digest.

Cheers!

Dan Shideler

Editor

Gun Digest

August 2010