Shideler - Gun Digest 2010

2010
Gun Digest

EDITED BY
Dan Shideler

2009 Krause Publications, Inc.,
a subsidiary of F+W Media, Inc.

Published by

www.gundigestbooks.com

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CAUTION: Technical data presented here, particularly technical data on handloading and on firearms adjustment and alteration, inevitably reflects individual experience with particular equipment and components under specific circumstances the reader cannot duplicate exactly. Such data presentations therefore should be used for guidance only and with caution. Gun Digest Books accepts no responsibility for results obtained using these data.

ISSN 0072-9043

ISBN 13: 978-1-4402-0233-9
ISBN 10: 1-4402-0233-8

Designed by Dave Hauser and Patsy Howell

Edited by Dan Shideler

Printed in the United States of America

TWENTY - EIGHTH ANNUAL

John T. Amber
LITERARY AWARD

Wayne Van Zwoll

We are proud to note that the winner of this years John T. Amber Literary Award is Wayne Van Zwoll, for his piece .30-30: Short Magnum for the Frontier, which appeared in the 2009 Gun Digest.

Many changes have taken place in Gun Digest over the years, but every edition still bears the stamp of the late John T. Amber, editor emeritus, a man of exquisite good taste in the old-school style. Mr. Amber approached his task as an editor should: with a keen eye for detail and a genuine appreciation for a well-turned phrase.

We think that JTA as he always signed his commentaries would heartily approve of Wayne van Zwolls article .30-30: Short Magnum for the Frontier. The Gun Digest jury certainly does.

As its name implies, the John T. Amber Award recognizes not only the writers knowledge but his ability to express it. We note with some dismay that, as a craft, gunwriting is a vanishing art. In this day of the blog and the unedited opinion mill, its easy to forget that the greatest gunwriters, the truly enduring ones, not only know their subject but also know how to entertain, inform and inspire the reader. Wayne van Zwoll does.

A full-time journalist for the outdoors press, Wayne van Zwoll has published more than 2,000 articles and twice that many photos for more than two dozen magazine titles, including Sports Afield, Outdoor Life and Field & Stream. Once the editor of Kansas Wildlife, he has also edited Mule Deer for the Mule Deer Foundation as well as Stoegers Shooters Bible. His Rifles and Cartridges column in Bugle, flagship magazine of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, has run for 21 years longer than any other. Wayne has also authored 13 books on hunting, shooting and history.

In 1996 Wayne was named Shooting Sports Writer of the Year by the Outdoor Writers Association of America. In 2006 he received the Jack Slack Outdoor Writer of the Year award from Leupold. Now Special Projects Editor for Intermedia Outdoors, Wayne also contributes to Petersens Hunting and Guns & Ammo television. He is a professional member of the Boone and Crockett Club and has served on the board of OWAA.

In addition to other enviable achievements, Wayne has taught English and Forestry classes at Utah State University, where in 2000 he earned a doctorate studying the effects of post-war hunting motive on wildlife policy. He keeps an active public speaking schedule within the outdoors industry and conservation community. When not at the desk or on the range, he reads history and jogs to keep in shape. A late starter, he completed his first marathon at age 49. Hes run 16 since, including four at Boston. Wayne lives in north-central Washington State with Alice, his wife of 35 years.

The recipient of the annual John T. Amber Literary Award, which consists of a handsome plaque and a $1000 honorarium, is selected by a group of professional shooting sports editors at Krause Publications book and magazine divisions. Every feature author appearing in Gun Digest is eligible for the award, and the overall excellence of this years candidates made for a truly challenging selection process.

Congratulations, Wayne. We hope you continue to grace our pages for many years to come.

Dan Shideler
Editor
Gun Digest

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the 2010 edition of Gun Digest! First things first: you would not be reading this book were it not for the prior efforts of four remarkable individuals:

CHARLES R. JACOBS, who started with nothing but a blank sheet of paper and gave us the first Gun Digest, way back in 1944;

JOHN T. AMBER, the patron saint of Gun Digest who built it into the worlds best-selling firearms annual;

KEN WARNER, who so ably took the helm from his predecessor and reinvigorated this truly remarkable title; and

KEN RAMAGE, who piloted Gun Digest into the twenty-first century in the face of an unprecedented revolution in technology and all the challenges it presented.

I was raised on Gun Digest. Once a year, in the long-gone Indiana of the 1960s and 1970s, my father brought home the new edition, which my brother Dave and I eagerly devoured. I mean we read it literally from cover to cover, absorbing whatever wisdom and insight that could be found in its pages. I still have some of those 40-year-old volumes, nearly all of them showing pencil marks in their catalog sections where we, with boyish enthusiasm, checked guns that we would surely buy someday. Eventually I assembled a complete collection of Gun Digests (which will soon be available to all at Research. GunDigest.com), from the rare 1944 First Edition, with slip-sheeted price list, to the 2008 edition.

And now, forty-some years later, I am editor of that same book. Karma? The inscrutable workings of Fate? Call it what you will, I will say simply that it is an honor for me, its the stuff that dreams are made of.

The front cover of this book features two new Ithaca Model 37 shotguns: a Deerslayer III slug gun and the new 28-gauge Deluxe Featherlight. A Deluxe Featherlight appeared on the cover of the first two editions of Gun Digest (1944 and 1946), and our inclusion of these two new Ithacas on our cover signifies our ongoing effort to keep Gun Digest true to its original intent: to be the firearms enthusiasts first, best source of information, entertainment and scholarship.

The Editor