Consider the 20-gauge shotgun
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #120 • November/December, 2009
A year or more ago in these pages, I made the suggestion that sometimes less is more, and usually shooters with less powerful guns with which they are...
Moderate power firearms
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #110 • March/April, 2008
Robert Ruark, the great American writer of the mid-Twentieth Century, was also a big game hunter. One of his most popular books, written on the latter topic, was...
Picking a holster
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #69 • May/June, 2001
One good thing about being out in the boonies by yourself is that you can carry a gun on your own property. It's a fundamental right that, for...
Inexpensive retired Russian military rifles can be the ideal backwoods meat guns
By Rev. J.D. Hooker
Issue #47 • September/October, 1997
Like many another rural person, I've often found a firearm to be my most important tool. No, we don't have much crime in our area; in fact...
Firearms and cold weather considerations
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #79 • January/February, 2003
Many of our readers have established their abodes in places which, during the winter months, do not exactly draw the beachgoers. The older I get, the less the...
Canning game meat
By Linda Gabris
Issue #166 • July/August, 2017
Attempting to can meat (or any other low acid food, for that matter) without the use of a pressure canner is every bit as foolhardy as arming up...
Frontier style handguns for the modern backwoods home
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #101 • September/October, 2006
The year was 1873. Samuel Colt had invented the revolveror at least introduced it to Americain 1836. The Colt Navy .36 and Army .44 cap-n'-ball revolvers had been...
Air power superiority
When a well-placed shot is required,
when stealth and quiet are called for,
an air rifle may be the best option.
By Gary Lewis
Issue #151 • January/February, 2015
The peacock. Here in the states, he is a designer...
1911: The classic homeland security pistol
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #83 • September/October, 2003
If you've read American firearms history at all, you know the lore of the .45 automatic. How during the Philippine insurrection, the newly issued .38 revolver failed miserably...
Answering some well asked questions about personal defense
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #97 • January/February, 2006
Jeff Yago, Backwoods Home's energy writer, recently completed a couple of concealed carry handgun courses. The classes apparently left some questions hanging in the air, and Jeff passed...
Use the right ammunition!
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #130 • July/August, 2011
The purpose of the gun is to fire ammunition. It follows that the ammunition should be the correct ammunition.
This is simple. It is not hard to understand. But...
The light at the end of the gun
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #128 • March/April, 2011
Dave writes, "A few weeks ago I had to shoot a skunk in the chicken house, but the old long-barreled Sears semi-auto proved unwieldy as I tried to...
Choose your ammo… police style
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #93 • May/June, 2005
One of our greatest modern gun experts, Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper, USMC, Ret., once made the observation that the bullet is more important than the gun. The gun,...
The Appleseed Project
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #123 • May/June, 2010
There is nothing else in the shooting world quite like the Appleseed Project, which combines American Revolutionary War history with rifle marksmanship and firearms safety, and in so...
Building the coyote rifle
By Rev. J.D. Hooker
Issue #107 • September/October, 2007
Feral dogs, coyotes, and those odd-looking "coy dogs" like to feed on my neighbors' livestock on occasion here around Kendallville, Indiana, and for years the neighbors looked...
Centennial of the All-American .30-06
By Massad Ayoob
Issue #100 • July/August, 2006
In the long love affair between America and the rifle, there has never been an interlude quite as intensive as the epoch of the .30-06. This cartridge celebrated...
