Imagine, if you will, two miles of sandy beach. At one end is you, with a selection of rifles featuring prototype cartridges and heavyweight bullets. At the far end is your target, up to 3200 yards away. The target is made of wood, layered in one-inch thick sections. The goal is to test bullet penetration at great distance, which now means you have to hit the darn thing. Repeatedly. Without a scope. This was the job for Mr. R. T. Hare of Springfield Armory. While it may not be impressive to hit a 44-foot-wide target at two miles today, finding this out in the late 1800s laid the groundwork for later machine gun fire.  -- We hope you’ve enjoyed this look into the world of firearms. If you’d like to view this in a different format, it’s available in other convenient locations. To read the blog, stop by our website. For the video version, take a peek on our YouTube. Don’t hesitate to drop by our Instagram for more photos, @leatherwoodoptics.

The California DA George Gascon sent letters to credit card companies this week, urging them to block payments for ghost guns. I’ll read directly from their definition: “Ghost guns are firearms kits sold mostly on the internet for approximately $350 to $500. The set of tools that arrives by mail can be assembled into a working firearm.” I believe that this definition would technically encompass muzzleloader kits, but I’m not a lawyer. However, I am someone who would like to highlight a portion out of the letters to Amex and Visa, both versions of which frustratingly share the same typo, “Ghost guns are cheap and not particularly durable or especially accurate. There is no discernible advantage to purchasing them, other that the lack of meaningful background checks and lack of registration requirements.” So let me ask you all this - What has your experience been with 80% lowers or polymer kits? Are they indeed not particularly durable or especially accurate? Drop us a comment. I’m curious. -- For almost as long as lead has flown in war, some people have been sending it just a little farther and with a little better precision. Known by names such as sniper or sharpshooter, these long-range renegades have been making their presence known for quite a long time. At a time when rifling and breech-loading was just being implemented in military weapons, the old habits of promiscuous fire still reigned supreme. Though most troops would still fire in wild volleys, hoping to hit someone on the other side, a few troops on both sides of battle would aim their shots with more distinction. With greater reach and precision, it was possible to pick a target and take that sole target out. Most of the time, that target would be an officer if at all possible. Technology and tactics have changed drastically in the past few hundred years. To simplify things, I’m going to break down these sharpshooter stories by time period. Today, we’ll be looking at sharpshooters in the American Revolutionary War. It’s important to note that scopes didn’t get mounted on rifles in numbers until the mid 19th century - everything you’re about to hear happened under the power of human eyes. -- We hope you’ve enjoyed this look into the world of firearms. If you’d like to view this in a different format, it’s available in other convenient locations. To read the blog, stop by our website. For the video version, take a peek on our YouTube.

Shot show was a delight. It was great having the chance to meet so many people and take a look at some of the wonderful new equipment coming out this year. I have to tip my hat off to our neighbors at SWORD Defense Systems, who had great fun showing off their robotic dog. I’ll have you know there was much discussion of the Terminator franchise following the dog’s sighting. The TD-3C will be ready to ship in just a couple short weeks. We’ve had a great deal of fun designing and testing it, and I think you’ll enjoy using it too. Built on our TD3 platform, this version features a user-selectable circle dot reticle. And finally, I’d like to find out from the NRA rifle instructors in the crowd what that process was like. I’ve had the certification on my bucket list for a while and would love a look into what exactly goes on during the classes. This episode is a little longer than normal, just due to the sheer amount of people that had a hand in many of the early scope advancements. Peale proved precision optics were possible, but painful. Chapman and James championed cold-drawn chassis. Malcolm made masterful glass coatings and commercially successful scopes. Warner and Swasey’s scopes went to war, but wrestled with mechanical issues. Winchester’s scopes went to war too, but better because of better blocks. Bausch & Lomb made good glass for a while, then great glass with Zeiss’ knowledge. Stevens stuck with domestic glass and bought Winchester tooling, but was bought by Savage and then Lyman. Fecker, friend to Warner and Swasey and Bausch and Lomb, fielded fine optics, and rings with clicks. Lyman found Fecker’s opticians to be useful hires, while Unertl left Fecker on his own. We hope you’ve enjoyed this look into the world of firearms. If you’d like to view this in a different format, it’s available in other convenient locations. To read the blog, stop by the website. For the video version, take a peek on our YouTube. Don’t hesitate to drop by our instagram for more photos, @LeatherwoodOptics.  

Shot show begins in less than a week. We’ll be in booth 15056. Make sure to stop by if you’re going to the show - or keep an eye on our Instagram for live video from the ground floor. If it’s anything like a few years ago, it’s going to be wild. If you’ve got a chance to stop by YouTube, be sure to check out HR Funk’s latest epic hit, under the title “The Answer”. I’m already curious which direction the sequel will take. And in other news, I’m receiving many reports that gunsmiths are getting quite backed up with work. Wait times for firearm modifications are almost matching the time it takes to find ammo on the shelf. If anyone has a gunsmith they’d like to recommend, please let the other listeners know in the comments. Today's main story takes a brief look into just one side of international arms dealing during the Civil War. The American Civil War lasted 4 years and 27 days, stretching from 1861 to 1865. With the South being more devoted to agriculture than the manufacture of arms, how did they manage to stay so well armed during the war? The answer, as you might have guessed, lay in the trade of cotton overseas.  -- We hope you’ve enjoyed this look into the world of firearms. If you’d like to view this in a different format, it’s available in other convenient locations. For the video version, take a peek on our YouTube. To read the blog, make sure to stop by our website. And don’t hesitate to drop by our Instagram for more photos.

CMP has announced the dates of the National Matches at Camp Perry. As I’m sure you can expect, the matches are in the middle of summer when humidity is simply astounding. Remember to bring plenty of water and a change of clothes. If last year is any example, I’ll be planning for rain too. The Marine Corps League El Toro Detachment 017 (@mcas017) showed off what might be the most secure Santa I’ve seen this holiday. I’m sure he doubles as security when the packages are en route. And in other news, our new TD-3C red dots are a mere week away from going out. This red dot builds on the TD3 platform with a user-selectable circle reticle. Get your optics-ready pistols and your competition shotguns ready. And on to the main story: As ubiquitous and varied as rifle scopes are today, there was a time when a “Riffle with a Tellescope to it” was quite a sight indeed. Starting with Charles Willson Peale in 1776 and his eye-catching experiments with a rifle telescope, we’ll take a look at the early designers in the field of rifle optics. Also joining the party will be John R. Chapman and Morgan James, the creators of the 1800’s Chapman-James rifle telescope. A mere decade after Chapman-James, we get to meet William Malcolm, one of the most famous names in pre-1900 optics. While early scopes were plagued with issues (otherwise known as learning experiences), modern scopes draw a vast amount of their design from these simple, early scopes. From the National Eagle Newspaper of Claremont, New Hampshire, dated October 17th of 1861: “The best marksmen of the state are invited to enlist, after passing a satisfactory examination, and complying with the following test: Each applicant, when firing at a rest with a telescope rifle, at a distance of two hundred yards, to put ten consecutive shots in a target, the average distance not to exceed five inches from the center of the bull’s eye to the center of the ball.” Do you think you could pass the original sharpshooter test? We hope you’ve enjoyed this look into the world of firearms. If you’d like to view this in a different format, it’s available in other convenient locations. To read the blog, stop by the website. For the video version, take a peek on our YouTube. Don’t hesitate to drop by our instagram for more photos, at @LeatherwoodOptics. And you can find our entire collection of articles on our website at the blog page.

We’ll be at Shot Show, now less than a month away. Booth number 15056. Stop on by to take a peek at our latest creations, including new Malcolm scopes, our latest modern long-range options, and even our new spotting scope. We’ll be there all week. I’ll also invite you to check out some of Ohio Hammer and Lever’s latest posts on instagram. A long-time shooter of old wood guns, he’s got more than a few vintage firearms that’ll have you updating your Christmas lists. For today's main story, I'll talk about the reality of old Wild West duels. While Hollywood and the occasional novel have made much of the duel at high noon, we forget that pioneers in the old West were every bit as fond of life as we are today. They would not have been keen on standing ten paces away and firing from the hip. The best bet, when possible, was to talk. Some rather unscrupulous persons might try an ambush, to which the best response was a shotgun and some cover. Others would stay far away, using a rifle. Shootouts with revolvers did occur, but were typically spur of the moment. People would run for cover. They’d shoot around corners or over the top of a rock. They’d do everything in their power to not be 20 feet of open ground away from someone trying to shoot them. --- We hope you’ve enjoyed this look into the firearm world. If you’d like to view this in a different format, it’s available in other convenient locations. For the video version, take a peek on our YouTube. To read the blog, stop by the article on our site. Don’t hesitate to drop by our instagram for more photos, at @leatherwoodoptics.