Viewpoints

Semi-automatic carbines have become enormously popular. Applications range from law enforcement and home defense to competitive target shooting and hunting. The most popular platform is the AR15-based weapon chambered for 223 Remington. But if you visit your local shooting range, you will find AR-style carbines, circa the 1960s, shooting alongside historical battle-rifle actions made popular in the 1940s. Gun Tests magazine recently tested an M1A variant in the form of Springfield Armory's $2090 Socom II AA9627 with black fiberglass stock.

Surreal experience today. Took an hour for lunch, and while munching on red beans and rice, I remembered I had the season-ending episode of FX's Sons of Anarchy on the TiVo. So I engage the box and start watching the cliffhanger. If you haven't seen that episode yet, stop reading now.

Just a comment on your review of the 1903A3 Springfield rifle. I fully understand you test the rifles as you buy them, and that's the way it should be. And I agree about the jolt the 1903A3 gives you. Anyone who wants either a 1903 or 1903A3 as a shooter would be well served to either find one with the full pistol grip "C" stock as opposed to the straight stock you tested, or the semi-pistol grip ("Warthog stock") that many are found with.

From the “Downrange” editorial in the January 2011 issue of Gun Tests magazine: Surreal experience today. Took an hour for lunch, and while munching on red beans and rice, I remembered I had the season-ending episode of FX’s Sons of Anarchy on the TiVo. So I engage the box and start watching the cliffhanger. If you haven’t seen that episode yet, stop reading now. Spoiler alert:

Gun Tests Magazine has named the Kel-Tec PMR-30 22 WMR as the publication’s “Best in Class Pistol” for 2011.

What happens when a robber picks the wrong diner? Here’s R. Lee Ermey’s take.

The History Channel compares the M14 and M16 rifles.

Representative Joe Walsh (R-IL) has drafted a bill that would block U.S. funding to the United Nations if it seeks to implement gun control measures affecting U.S. citizens. Despite victories by gun owners in elections and legislative battles throughout the country in recent years, on the international front gun control is moving quickly. Most significantly, in 2012 the UN plans to release a final draft of the Arms Trade Treaty—a treaty that will have severe consequences for American gun owners.

If I must say, one of my most endearing traits is the ability to buy perfect presents for anniversaries, birthdays, and Christmas — just ask the CFO, who's snorting coffee out her nose as she reads that. Seeing as this is the traditional time of year for commemorations of Christ's Mass, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, Saturnalia, and Yuletide, I wanted to pass along three thoughtful gift recommendations that are sure to wow your family, friends, and range buddies, though perhaps not in that order.

In his book Greatest Handguns of the World, Massad Ayoob says about the Colt Woodsman 22 LR series of pistols, "The big weakness I discovered over the years in the Woodsman was that it was capable of unintentionally firing when subjected to violent forward or backward inertia with a live round in the chamber, even if the thumb safety was engaged."

The Texas Department of Public Safety has begun an investigation into a central-Texas concealed-carry-instructor who said in a recent radio advertisement that he wouldn’t teach the handgun course to a “socialist liberal,” people who voted for the “current campaigner-in-chief,” or to a “non-Christian Arab or Moslem.”

Over the past few months weve been testing a product that one of our readers suggested to us. The product is called NanoLube, and its a registered trademark of the NanoLube, Inc., company, with website at www.DiamondLube.com. The product is a combination of incredibly small, 0.1 to 4 nanometer, rounded diamonds in suspension in a light 5W oil. The tiny synthetic diamonds are spherical, not jagged, and once they are embedded into the base material of whatever youre trying to lubricate, they provide a slick surface with greatly reduced friction. So says DiamondLube Treatment Systems inventor, Chris Arnold.The evidence given by the reader and by the manufacturer fired our interest. The testimonials in favor of this product are many and varied. One stunning example was a video of two bearings side by side, one of which had normal oil and the other, NanoLube. The two bearings were spun by a blast of air, and then allowed to coast to a stop. The NanoLubed bearing spun far longer than the other. There are many testimonials of the use of this product on the company website, including its use in the bearings of over-the-road tractor-trailer drivers, who have seen significant improvements in longevity of their trucks as well as better mileage. Some of the companys claims and testimonials were in this products use on firearms. These included drastic reduction of trigger pulls, better function of semiauto handguns, and slicking of the bore that made cleaning the barrel easier.To assess these claims for what we considered to be a rather costly product, we obtained two samples from the maker. One was called NanoLube NDN70-ATM+P (7 milliliters, list price $37.50, + $3.50 domestic shipping, or $5 international). The other was a smaller bottle labeled Quicken Weapons Lubricant MIL 30-CLP. (We could not clearly determine its price from the company website, but our best guess is its a three-milliliter sample, which goes for $22.50.) We tried these oils in a vast array of comparative before-and-after tests on items ranging from firearms to tractor engines. Please be informed that our conclusions are empirical, not scientific. This, however, is in keeping with previous tests of metal-preserving oils that we put on bare steel and left outside to see how well they worked. We got some definite ideas from those tests, and the same is true in the case of NanoLube and Quicken.