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Gear Doesn’t Make You a Marksman
Garrett Long
Shooting gear has massively improved in the past few years. From the guns themselves to cartridges, optics, bipods, tripods—you name it, you can mortgage a house to pay for the next best shooting rig. But even though I’m a big gear fan, I’ve come to realize that the world’s best equipment isn’t...
Garrett Long
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An Ode to the One-Gun Hunter
Adam Moore
We all know one. That camp member, relative, or hunting buddy who totes the same rifle season after season. For as long as you’ve known them, you’ve known their rifle. Heck, it’s probably a longer-tenured member of deer camp than most. This includes the scope, too, which hasn’t been adjusted since...
Adam Moore
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What’s the Best Sight-In Distance for Rifle Hunting?
Jordan Sillars
I’m not sure how 100 yards became the go-to sight-in distance for rifle hunters. Maybe it’s because 100 is a nice round number, or because 100 yards is the length of a football field, or simply because hunters rarely need to take a shot much beyond that. Sighting in at 100 yards makes some intuitive...
Jordan Sillars
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Caliber Battles
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Caliber Battle: 300 PRC vs. .300 Win. Mag.
Jordan Sillars
When Hornady describes the 300 PRC as an “intelligently crafted 21st century magnum cartridge,” it’s hard not to read that as a dig at .300 Win. Mag. fans. As perhaps the most popular .30-caliber magnum of all time, the Win. Mag. is the PRC’s direct competition. But it’s not a 21st-century creation...
Jordan Sillars
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.300 Win. Mag. vs. 7mm Rem. Mag.
Jordan Sillars
When someone contacted me recently to suggest this Caliber Battle matchup, I couldn’t believe we hadn’t done it before. If you ask your average American hunter which big boy caliber he uses, the .300 Win. Mag. and the 7mm Rem. Mag. are the two most likely candidates. And the data backs that up...
Jordan Sillars
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.270 Winchester vs. 6.5 PRC
Jordan Sillars
It seems like whenever anyone mentions one of the sexy new 6.5mm cartridges, someone else brings up the .270 Winchester and argues that it’s just as fast, hard-hitting, and flat-shooting as any of those newfangled whipper snappers. You can’t get much more sexy or newfangled than the 6.5 PRC. We’ve...
Jordan Sillars
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.300 HAM’R vs. .30-30 Winchester
Jordan Sillars
When Bill Wilson began developing the .300 HAM’R in the early 2010s, he wanted to create a .30-caliber cartridge that could be chambered in AR-type rifles and would “at least equal the legendary and time-proven .30-30 Winchester in terminal performance.” If the Wilson Combat website is any...
Jordan Sillars
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7mm-08 Remington vs. .25-06 Remington
Jordan Sillars
There were three popular write-in votes when the MeatEater audience selected The Greatest Whitetail Cartridge of All Time earlier this month: the .270 Winchester, the 7mm-08 Remington, and the .25-06 Remington. Many of you argued that these three cartridges deserved a chance to compete in the...
Jordan Sillars
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Gun Reviews
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Rifle Battle: Savage Axis 2 vs. Ruger American Gen II
Jordan Sillars
Christmas is right around that corner, and hunters young and old will be hoping to spy a long, narrow box tucked under the tree. I saw such a box a few years ago. It turned out to be floor mats for my minivan, but I’m not a man without means, so I went ahead and bought myself my own Christmas...
Jordan Sillars
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Building the Ultimate Lightweight Magnum
Matt Miller
I’ve been wanting to build a custom rifle for about a decade now. I had previously assembled a rifle using a blueprinted Remington 700 action, but this time around, I wanted to maximize performance by using the best of every component. This rifle is designed with hunting in mind, first and foremost...
Matt Miller
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Beretta's New Straight-Pull Rifle: The BRX1 (Full Review)
Jordan Sillars
If you asked most American hunters to name every kind of rifle action, they’d probably forget about the straight pull. While fairly common overseas–most famously on the Austro-Hungarian Mannlicher rifle–straight-pull bolt guns never really caught on here in the States. The reasons for this are...
Jordan Sillars
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First Look: Springfield's New Model 2020 Boundary Rifle (Full Review)
Jordan Sillars
Gun nuts love to argue, and one of our favorite arguments pits the traditional against the modern. Modernists think that newer is always better, whether it’s a polymer frame, carbon fiber barrel, or titanium suppressor. The traditionalists, on the other hand, won’t give up their wood and steel until...
Jordan Sillars
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Sig Sauer’s New CROSS Rifle Is the Thinking Man’s Magnum (Full Review)
Jordan Sillars
Read enough gun reviews and you’re sure to see a rifle design described as “thoughtful.” The term is probably overused, but I think it fits Sig Sauer’s new rifle: the CROSS Magnum. Sig’s engineers designed the CROSS Magnum with an actual human hunter in mind. The rifle is chock full of small...
Jordan Sillars
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A Small Game Menace: Springfield Model 2020 Rimfire (Full Review)
Jordan Sillars
I’m a rifle guy in the small game woods. Always have been. I don’t like picking lead BB’s out of a squirrel ham, but I also love to practice my marksmanship. While you may take a single shot all year at a whitetail or an elk, the squirrel woods give you the chance to hone your skills by taking...
Jordan Sillars
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Cartridges By Species
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The Best Calibers for Bear Hunting
Jordan Sillars
It wasn’t so long ago that black bears were considered America’s premier wild table fare. Bear steaks are delicious, bear grease is useful (and delicious), and bear hunting is challenging and rewarding. For new and aspiring hunters, however, bears can seem invincible. Even though they’re generally...
Jordan Sillars
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Gear
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The Best Deer Hunting Calibers
Jordan Sillars
Here’s the truth about these "best of" articles: the only honest answer is, "It depends." Are these cartridges really the best deer-killing cartridges in existence? It depends. It depends on where you’re hunting, your experience with firearms, what rifles you already own, how much money you can...
Jordan Sillars
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If You Can Only Pick One Big Game Hunting Cartridge, Pick This One
Jordan Sillars
The apocalypse is nigh. As you gather your loved ones and sprint out the front door, you have just enough time to grab a hunting rifle. For some reason only partially explained via flashback montage (the writers on this show suck), you know you’ll need this rifle to hunt every legal big game animal...
Jordan Sillars
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The Best Calibers for Elk Hunting
Jordan Sillars
Elk are the largest animals most American hunters will ever have a chance to harvest. For that reason, once a hunter is ready to step up from whitetail deer to elk, the first question they ask is: do I have enough gun to get the job done? We’re here to help you answer that question. The MeatEater...
Jordan Sillars
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5 Best Rifle Calibers for Youth Hunters
Jordan Sillars
Nothing is more discouraging to a new hunter than a loud and intimidating rifle. If you’re hoping your kid will be confident and accurate from the deer blind, throwing them to the wolves with a .300 Winchester Magnum isn’t the way to go. It might make for a funny story when they’re older, but it’s a...
Jordan Sillars
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Hunting Whitetail with a Shotgun: Rifled Slugs vs. Sabots
Joe Genzel
Almost every traditional shotgun-only state now allows hunters to shoot straight-wall rifles, but slug guns remain popular among deer hunters across the Midwest and East. Slugs became mandated as a safety measure in populated areas because they cannot travel as far and are slower than necked...
Joe Genzel
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Off Range
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Everything You Need to Know About Rifle Actions
Jordan Sillars
Here’s a scenario most new hunters and gun owners have experienced. You’re at the gun range when the friendly fellow at the neighboring bench offers to let you shoot his rifle. You happily agree, but when you sit down at the bench and get behind the gun, you realize that you don’t actually know how...
Jordan Sillars
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Why Your Hunting Rifle Sucks
Jordan Sillars
Most hunters love their shooting irons (sometimes more than they should), but nothing in this life is perfect. Rifles don’t always perform like you hope, and one bad experience can be enough to banish a once-loved rifle to the back of the safe. But is it really the gun’s fault? How do you know...
Jordan Sillars
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3 Common Myths About Shotguns and Shotshells
Joe Genzel
The fascinating thing about shotguns is you never really know how one will pattern a shotshell until you pull the trigger and see the results on target paper. A shotshell delivers hundreds of projectiles downrange at the same time. Once these pellets, which vary in size and are comprised of...
Joe Genzel
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Opinion: The Savage 99 Is the King of Lever Guns
Adam Moore
When I started hunting in middle school, I was lucky enough to cut my teeth on classic deer rifles. On Saturday mornings during deer-dog season, my grandfather and dad would load me up, and we’d head to their camp and wait for the dog handlers to show up. I have distinct memories of my grandfather’s...
Adam Moore
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How the ATF Slashed Suppressor Approval Time by 5000%
Jordan Sillars
Purchasing a suppressor has historically been one of the most frustrating experiences for gun owners. The paperwork is onerous, but the wait time is what really gets you. No one wants to drop $1,000 on something (plus a $200 “tax”) just to wait a year or more to bring it home. Those days appear to...
Jordan Sillars
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Gear and Accessories
Gear
Gear
The Best Hunting Rifle Scopes Under $500
Adam Moore
During college, I worked in a gun shop. I heard (and saw) a ton of strange things while scrambling to earn rent and not blow my entire check in the used section. Of the things I heard, I remember one particularly wealthy and eclectic regular who claimed he would spend significantly more on a scope...
Adam Moore
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3 Reasons to Put a Red Dot on Your Turkey Gun
Adam Moore
Turkey-hunting shotguns are in a class of their own. Shorter barrels, fancy camo patterns, pistol grips, and custom chokes separate gobbler getters from traditional shotguns you might find in your grandpa’s closet. Red dots belong to this group of turkey-specific accessories, too. While some folks...
Adam Moore
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The Best Hunting Scopes
Garrett Long
For the past several years, I’ve had the opportunity to try out a fair number of different scopes through competition, hunting, and helping the MeatEater crew dial in their kits. For those few scopes I haven’t used personally, I also have data points from folks who spend a lot of time behind a rifle...
Garrett Long
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Janis’s Season 12 Turkey Gun Setup
Janis Putelis
If you watched the recent MeatEater Florida turkey episode, you’ll know that I shot my first Osceola turkey. And you’ll also know that it was a long shot. But I felt comfortable and confident in that 60-yard shot because of my turkey gun set-up and ammo. The last two seasons I’ve used a Beretta A30...
Janis Putelis
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Should More Duck Hunters Be Using Red-Dot Reflex Sights?
Joe Genzel
Red-dot reflex sights are widely popular amongst turkey and slug gun deer hunters for good reason—they can increase your accuracy with a shotgun to ensure you don’t miss when a shot presents itself. If a red-dot has been sighted in properly prior to the hunt, all you need to do is put that ball of...
Joe Genzel
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Video: Testing Lead and Copper Bullets in Ballistic Gel
Jordan Sillars
The debate has raged for as long as gun hunters have taken animals with tiny, fast-moving metal projectiles: what type of bullet is best? These days, that debate revolves mainly around solid copper bullets and various jacketed lead bullets. Unfortunately, as MeatEater’s Janis Putelis pointed out...
Jordan Sillars
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Choosing A Gun
Firearms
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5 Best Rifle Calibers for Youth Hunters
Jordan Sillars
Nothing is more discouraging to a new hunter than a loud and intimidating rifle. If you’re hoping your kid will be confident and accurate from the deer blind, throwing them to the wolves with a .300 Winchester Magnum isn’t the way to go. It might make for a funny story when they’re older, but it’s a...
Jordan Sillars
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Firearms
Hunting
Firearms
5 Best Rifles for New Hunters
Jordan Sillars
Access to hunting ground is the number-one barrier to entry for new hunters, but firearms are usually also towards the top of that list. It can be intimidating to select, purchase, and learn to shoot a rifle, especially if you’ve never done so before. If that’s you, you’ve come to the right place...
Jordan Sillars
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Ask the Eagle: What’s Your Favorite Big Game Rifle Caliber?
Janis Putelis
Introducing Ask the Eagle, where I’ll be answering your questions about everything from hunting to butchering to marriage. This week, an Instagram follower wants to know what rifle caliber I’d recommend to hunt all big game with. Have a question of your own? You can write to me asktheeagle...
Janis Putelis
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Gear
Wired To Hunt
Gear
Best Rifle Cartridges for New Deer Hunters
Jordan Sillars
Caliber selection can be intimidating for new deer hunters. There are so many options, and every gun writer with a blog and an Internet connection has an opinion he’s more than happy to share. You can read our recommendations below, but first, know this: almost every rifle caliber can take down a...
Jordan Sillars
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The Best Deer Cartridge You’ve Probably Never Shot
Jordan Sillars
Remember that old children’s story, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears?” Some take the moral as a warning against breaking and entering, but most folks probably remember the story’s lesson about moderation: not too hot, not too cold, not too hard, not too soft—just right. The .257 Roberts is the...
Jordan Sillars
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Getting Dialed
Firearms
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How to Restore an Old Gun Stock
Christopher Bancroft
Synthetic stocks and stainless steel barrels have rightfully earned their spot on contemporary hunting firearms. MeatEater fully supports the rifle revolution, as you can see in our collaboration with Weatherby. That being said, hunters tend to be a nostalgic bunch. Geriatric shoulder mounts, honey...
Christopher Bancroft
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How to Correctly Clean a Shotgun
Taylor Thorne
The shotgun is often the forgotten firearm when it comes to cleaning. Maybe it’s the simplicity or lack of rifling, but when cleaning day comes around, the smoothbores are usually last to get the grease. That’s not smart if you want your rig to keep dumping gobblers and greenheads for decades to...
Taylor Thorne
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Turkey
Hunting
Turkey
How to Pattern a Shotgun for Turkey Hunting
Andrew Johnson
When it comes to turkey shotguns, modern choke-and-load combinations are capable of throwing ultra-tight patterns out to 40 yards or more. At the same time, turkey hunters should remember that a properly outfitted scattergun’s pattern is likely no larger than a baseball at 10 to 15 yards. I learned...
Andrew Johnson
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4 Things Hunters Can Learn from Competitive Shooters
Taylor Thorne
The first time Steve and I met, we sat on a patio discussing competitive shooting and hunting. The conversation was exciting as we connected the dots on how closely related the two really are. Competitive shooters and hunters tend to exist in separate worlds, but many of our methodologies can be...
Taylor Thorne
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Big Game
Hunting
Big Game
Ask MeatEater: Will You Shoot at Running Game?
Brody Henderson
You’ve got questions. We’ve got answers (and if we don’t, we’ll make them up). Every day, fellow MeatEaters send us more than 100 emails regarding hunting, fishing, cooking, conservation, and more. So, we decided to publish a series dedicated to our favorite FAQs. This is Ask MeatEater. Several...
Brody Henderson
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Video: How to Clean a Rifle Barrel
Janis Putelis
Whether your rifle is brand new or passed down through several generations, regular and proper cleaning is imperative to keep it in good shape and shooting accurately for hunting seasons to come. It all starts with the right tools and a solid understanding of what you’re trying to accomplish. When...
Janis Putelis
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