By now, most of us have been quite a way down the road of the coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic and are dealing with the huge changes that have happened in our lives. I think that on the plus side, we have all had a significant wake-up call as to how unprepared we were, both on the personal level and as a nation. Hopefully, many things will be learned from this experience and we won’t have to relearn a painful lesson. ...Read More >

The cover photograph for this issue is from good friend and regular contributor Miles Gilbert. Miles has always been a well-versed student of the Old West and has sent us this interesting account of the death of the Apache Kid. Many noted characters on the Arizona frontier were connected to the Apache Kid, but probably the most famous was Al Sieber. I think this cover photograph is a classic image of one of the greatest frontiersmen of the Old West. ...Read More >

Much has been written about the Ideal line of cartridge reloading tools, but rarely does something surface on the shotshell tool line. The purpose of this article is to present the chronology and development of these reloading tools during the initial 20 or so years of the Ideal Manufacturing Company, from around 1891 to 1910, when John Barlow was the owner and proprietor. This period is covered in the Ideal Hand Books through issue #19. It also marks the beginning of the transition from primarily black powder shotshell loading to smokeless. While there were numerous shotshell reloading tools prior to this time, the reloading process was slow, tedious and required multiple handling steps. Barlow’s patents introduced new and innovative ideas to improve loading speed and efficiency. His shotshell tool line evolved considerably from the few hand tools listed in the first Ideal Hand Book to the complete and state of the art lineup shortly after the turn of the century. ...Read More >

In February 1903, the National Board of the Promotion of Rifle Practice directed that the first National Trophy Match would be fired at Sea Girt, New Jersey, in September of that year. A paltry 15 teams were mustered to compete. ...Read More >