The Boresight Tapes: Recent Episodes
Geoffrey Norman
The Boresight Tapes is a podcast about guns where the panelists – Ted Hatfield, Philip Schreier, and Geoffrey Norman (bios attached) talk about the abiding feelings of respect, affection, and even love many Americans have for firearms. They talk about people, like John Moses Browning, who designed and built legendary guns. And they talk about the people like Teddy Roosevelt who embraced their creations. They talk about iconic guns like the M1 Garand and the 1911 Colt. And they talk about remarkable shooters from history, like Annie Oakley and Alvin York, as well as great shooters, like Rob Leatham, in the present.
Geoff and Phil continue their longstanding discussion about our past Presidents and their love of the American Gun.
In this episode, we revisit a conversation with Ted Hatfield about Teddy Roosevelt and his love of guns.
The company is family owned and has been making guns for the working man for a long time. Now, it is moving up and out.
In this episode, the team says goodbye to a memorable man who knew a lot about guns and how to live the good life.
The Remington 870 is the pump gun of choice for millions of shooters. It is to shotguns what the F-150 is to pickups.
Guns have made appearances in many, many books, the authors of which get it right, sometimes. And, sometimes, not.
Some guns just speak to you and maybe you can explain why. And, if not, it is still fun to try.
The Gamblers’ Gun
Easy to conceal but still lethal, the Derringer was a favorite of poker players and ladies of the night.
Big and dependably accurate, this gun made a name for itself in ‘Bleeding Kansas’ before the Civil War and on the plains where it was the choice of buffalo hunters. The movies liked this gun, too. It had a part in both the original and the remake of True Grit and as Tom Selleck’s rifle in Quigley Down Under. It is still manufactured and shot in competitions today.
She wanted women to learn how to handle firearms and effortlessly as they handled babies
Bill Ruger was a giant who loved guns and made guns that he liked. And people who also loved guns bought them. In the millions. The team is joined by Steve Sanetti who was President and COO of Ruger and then became CEO of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The four reminisce about Ruger, one of those men about whom it is inevitably said, “They broke the mold.”
No less an authority than General George S. Patton call the M-1 Garand “the finest battlefield implement ever devised.” American factories produced over six million of them and American GIs and Marines used them to win the Second World War. They came out of the Springfield Armory. So … not bad for government work.
It was carried by the Doughboys in France. Back home, after the war, it was converted into a sporting rifle. It was chambered for the 30-06 for which, in this case, the word “iconic” is justified.
What do J. Edgar Hoover, Winston Churchill, John Dillinger, and Sean Connery have in common? They were all photographed holding a Thompson sub-machine gun, aka “the Chicago typewriter.”
Over a century ago, John Moses Browning designed an auto-loader and a slide-action (aka “pump”) shotgun, the descendants of which are still with us today. Remington has made over 11 million of its Minodel 870. And it sometimes seems like a million of them made it to the movies. For the unmistakable “snick–snick” sound, of course.
Some Americans made double guns that could be had from Montgomery Ward for less than twenty dollars. And, then, there were Parkers and other American doubles that were elegant and expensive. And then, there was a Winchester double that you could use to "jack up the barn in the morning and then shoot ducks with it all afternoon. Is this a great country, or what?
The English – to include Henry VIII – were first with shotguns. They created a culture around "bespoke guns," and the great shooting parties, and they still make some of the finest doubles in the world. But be warned. They ain't cheap.
This week we are joined by Anthony Imperato to discuss the Henry Rifle and the Henry Company.
The U.S. Army adopted this John Moses Browning design just in time for World War I. It remained in service until 1985 and some in the American military may have shed a secret tear for “old Sabsides” when it was replaced by the Beretta M9 in 1985.
Without this gun, the American Revolution might have turned out differently. The colonists could make them and they could shoot them. Accurately and at ranges that seemed impossible at the time. And there may never have been a more aesthetically beautiful firearm.