Firearms Archives - Backwoods Home Magazine

Firearms handling refresher Part I: Handguns

By Massad Ayoob Website Exclusive • December, 2003 One of our readers e-mailed John Silveira to tell him that taking a handgun afield after a long layoff had resulted in some scary moments. While gun handling...

Sight and sound enhancement

By Massad Ayoob Issue #71 • September/October, 2001 Enhancing vision and hearing can make you a safer, more effective shooter, and sometimes can save human lives. Captain Ayoob prepares to trigger his MP5 with SureFire light unit...

BHM hosts Appleseed marksmanship event

By Massad Ayoob Issue #139 • January/February, 2013 Long a supporter of the Appleseed concept, Backwoods Home Magazine hosted one in Gold Beach, Oregon, in second quarter 2012. Naturally, a good time was had by all....

How to shoot a handgun accurately

By Massad Ayoob Issue #85 • January/February, 2004 "I want you to do an article on how to shoot a handgun accurately," Dave Duffy told me. "Make it 2,500 or 3,000 words." Long ago, I would have...

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...

Savage Model 110 — A proven economical backwoods rifle

By Massad Ayoob Website Exclusive • July, 2008 Fifty years ago, Savage Arms introduced a new bolt-action sporting rifle. In the gun world, this was news. Savage was most famous for its sleek lever action Model...

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...

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...

Firearms handling refresher Part III: Rifles

By Massad Ayoob Website Exclusive • January, 2004 Our three part series on firearms handling ends with this installment. In Part I, we covered handguns and in Part II, we followed with shotguns. The rifle is a...

The M1A — A rifle that makes a statement

By Massad Ayoob Issue #45 • May/June, 1997 I take the Springfield Armory rifle out of the box, and savor it. I seldom do that with guns, but a Springfield Match grade M1A will make a...

Military surplus and military “clone” rifles

By Massad Ayoob Issue #116 • March/April, 2009 One reader writes to ask if military surplus rifles are still a good idea for hunting, recreational shooting, and all around backwoods use. The answer is more complicated than...

Get a piece of history — An M1 Garand rifle

By Mike Blank Issue #89 • September/October, 2004 What follows is my personal quest to acquire an M1 Garand through the Civilian Marks-manship Program (CMP). We've all heard about getting government Garands, but personally I never...

How big a gun do you need?

By Massad Ayoob Issue #99 • May/June, 2006 We Americans like to do things in a big way. Big houses. Big cars. Big boats. And, yes, big guns. There are good arguments for all this, of course....

Big boomer guns

By Massad Ayoob Issue #125 • September/October, 2010 For you long time readers, I know what you're thinkin'"Hey, isn't this the guy who within the last two years wrote the article about moderation, where he said...

Teaching a 10-year-old to shoot

By John Moody Issue #174 • November/December, 2018 In my youth, I remember my dad dragging my brother and me out of bed in the middle of the night, tossing our tired bodies in the back...

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...