Shooting Sportsman Nov/Dec 2015

GAME & GUN GAZETTE
O
ne million shotshells per day. That is the
projected capacity of the new Rio shotshell plant
that opened in Marshall, Texas, this past June.
Rio Ammunition is a division of the Spanish corporation Maxam. Maxam started as La Sociedad Española
de la Dinamita, founded by dynamite’s inventor, Alfred
Nobel, in 1872. In 1896 it became La Unión Española de
Explosivos, and then, in 2006, Maxam. Today Maxam
amount will go into the machinery inside.
All components will be manufactured and assembled
in one building. In Spain the powder and primer manufacturing are separated from the hull-extruding and reloading facilities. The construction of the Marshall plant
is such that the powder-making area is separated from
the main plant by blast-proof walls. The loading section
is in a separate part of the same building. The loading
process is totally mechanized, with no manual input.
In Spain Maxam sells many of the components it
manufactures to other shell companies. It is anticipated
that the extra production from the Marshall facility could
be sold to the American reloading market. Considering
the reloading-powder shortage that the US market has
experienced for the past four years, an influx of powder
would be most welcome.
When we toured the new Texas plant in June, we were
not permitted into
is a major player
the powder- or
in civil explosives,
primer-production
defense, ammuniareas. We did
tion, chemicals and
see some of the
energy, with more
Reifenhauser-hull
than 140 compamachines extruding
nies and 6,000
the plastic tubes
employees across
of the hulls. These
five continents.
machines are more
Three years ago
than 100 feet long.
I visited Rio’s shotWith plastic powder
shell plants in the
and dye added at
Basque country of
the beginning, an
Spain (see “‘Maxaendless hose is
mum’ Impact,”
extruded before beMay/June ’12). They
ing cut to cartridge
have a vertical oplength at the end.
The new Rio Ammo factory in Marshall, Texas, will manufacture
eration, producing
These machines
powder, primers, hulls and shot and is projected to
powder, primers,
run 24/7.
eventually load 1 million shotshells per day.
wads and hulls on
I was told that Rio
the most modern
also will produce
equipment. Rio also was producing shotshells at the Eley
its own shot. The company will use German-made Collin
plant in England and assembling shells from imported
shot-making machines rather than a drop tower. These
Rio components in McEwen, Tennessee. All told, Maxam
machines use the Bleimeister process, which drops the
was producing a half-billion shotshells annually, making
molten lead alloy 1/2" through a sieve into a hot-water
detergent and acid bath, after which it is separated,
it the largest single shotshell producer in the world.
graphited and polished. Rio also will load bismuth and
As Rio shells became more popular and demand insteel shotshells at the new plant.
creased, Maxam decided that it needed a larger plant in
When all of the machinery is in place and the factory
the US to make all of the components on site as is done
is up to speed producing 1 million shotshells per day, Rio
in Spain. It makes sense when you realize that the US is
will be the largest shotshell producer in the US.
the largest shotshell market in the world, with about 1.2
For more information, contact Rio Ammunition, 214billion being sold last year.
389-1896; www.rioammo.com.
—Bruce Buck
Rio closed the Tennessee loading facility and, with
strong support from the Texas government and the
Editor’s Note: For an opportunity to win Rio shotshells,
city of Marshall, built a 105,000-square-foot shotshell
enter “The Load Up on Rio Contest” at www.shooting
plant that will employ about 90 workers at full capacity.
sportsman.com.
Construction of the plant cost $10 million, and an equal
n
Rio Opens
New Plant
COURTESY RIO AMMUNITION
n
18 NOVEMBER • DECEMBER 2015
GAME & GUN GAZETTE
I
n the past couple of decades the US has seen an extraordinary revival of firearms hand engraving. This can
be attributed to a few distinct influences, not the least
being the growth of educational opportunities through
the Firearms Engravers Guild of America and its members.
firearms span virtually the entire realm of possibility,
with Colt revolvers showing in a majority of the artisans’
offerings. Other engraving subjects include musical
instruments, fountain pens, jewelry and watches.
Engraved shotguns are not as prevalent, but they are not
lacking either. Following American engraving trends of the
past, Browning over/unders are popular “canvases,” and
there are a number of Winchester Model 21s with game
scenes and dogs. One beauty is a .410 by Thierry Duguet
with inlaid hummingbirds in multi-colored precious metal.
Engraving artists familiar to SSM readers include Lee
Griffiths, Geoffroy Gournet, Angelo Bee, Kenny Majors,
Sam Welch and others. Shotgun types include Parker
and Fox side-by-sides, Model 12 pumpguns, a Remington
Model 1100 semi-auto and various over/under field and
competition guns.
Some of my favorites are an M-21 by Weldon Lister
covered with realistic oak leaves in relief and Marty
Rabeno’s O/U with a mythical chimera facing down an
angel on one side of the action and a griffon squaring
off with a scroll-helmeted angel on the other along with
grotesque masks and an archangel amongst Rabeno’s
signature foliate scroll. This
magnificent gun is shown in
process, and I look forward
to seeing the finished piece.
This heavyweight book
opens with information on
engraving history, acknowledgements, a message
from the Firearms EngravPublication of stories and books
ers Guild of America and
about the engraving trade and its pracmore. The body consists
titioners has helped raise consumer
of biographies of 68 living
and aficionado awareness of profesengraving artisans arranged
sional and emerging talents. Author
in alphabetical order. The
Roger Bleile’s hardcover book Ameribook concludes with a
can Engravers was released in 1980,
bibliography and a couple
with the second volume, American
of excellent indexes.
Engravers—The 21st Century, published
The most outstanding feain 2010. Now the third book in the
ture is the quality color phoseries, American Engravers III—Mastertography (more than 1,000
pieces in Metal by America’s Engraving
images, according to the
Artisans, has been released by Blue
publisher), with captions
While shotguns are not the book’s
Book Publications.
identifying
the embellished
primary subject matter, there are many
American Engraver III’s large horizon- fine examples, including Weldon Lister’s objects and often adding
tal format is appropriate for this impresdetails not immediately
M-21 (above), with realistic oak leaves.
sive 264-page color presentation. While
apparent.
offering new work from some engravAmerican Engravers III is
ers featured in the second volume, there are quite a few
a visual delight that belongs in every firearms enthusiemerging artists whose work did not appear previously.
ast’s library.
The number and variety of engraved custom knives
American Engravers III can be ordered for $75 from
is simply stunning, ranging from pocket folders to short
Blue Book Publications, 800-877-4867 or 952-854-5229;
swords embellished with scrimshaw and bulino, zebras
www.bluebookofgunvalues.com.
to nudes, light leaf work to heavy gold inlay. Engraved
—Steven Dodd Hughes
n
American
Engravers III
COURTESY BLUE BOOK PUBLICATIONS
n
20 NOVEMBER • DECEMBER 2015
GAME & GUN GAZETTE
T
he greatest advance in shotguns during the past 100
years has not been the introduction of the over/under
or any other new mechanism, but the revolution in
metallurgy. The Italians, in particular, recognized that
high-volume shooting required high-tech hardware.
Movie director John Milius has been quoted as saying of
n
The Bosis
Titanium Challenger
n
the titanium-actioned Fabbri: “This gun is a piece of
technology as advanced as the rocket nozzles of a space
shuttle . . . .”
In 2010 Luciano Bosis was propelled to assemble a
titanium-bodied gun of his own, which, thanks to Alamo
Sporting Arms of San Antonio, Texas, is now available
in the US. The Bosis Challenger registered on our radar
when an Alamo Sporting Arms advertisement featured
photos of a Michelangelo with “Titanium” engraved
where the maker’s name should have been and a strap
line that read “New for 2015.” Beneath in small print
was: “lock with hidden windows • titanium alloy action
• maraging 300 steel barrels.” It was all a tad enigmatic,
but detective work is not rocket science and we soon
unearthed the details.
On February 1 this year the father-and-daughter team
of Luciano and Laura Bosis announced that Fabbrica
Armi Luciano Bosis was “partnering with Alamo Sporting Arms.” This explained that the strap line suggesting
a new gun was actually celebrating a new partnership.
According to Laura, the Titanium Challenger dates from
2010, when the titanium-alloy action was first married
to maraging 300 steel barrels. At that time the gun was
given the name Challenger 2010, but development was
not completed for 21/2 years. Prior to that, Michelangelos
were made with titanium bodies but had conventional
steel barrels (see “Bosis Is the Mostest,” Jan/Feb ’08.) Bosis promotional literature reads: “The increased demand
for light weight high performance shotguns set Luciano
Bosis on a 5 year development project culminating with
the new Bosis Titanium Challenger.”
According to Laura, “Building ultralight 12-gauge
shotguns with really manageable recoil and extreme
durability was a challenge. After extensive testing, we
GAME & GUN GAZETTE
chose titanium Ti-GAI-4V VAR premium-quality billets
for the action and locks. But the real breakthrough came
through use of maraging 300 VAR premium-quality
forged blanks for barrels.” Maraging 300 steel is a strong,
low-carbon steel containing nickel and small amounts
of titanium, aluminum and niobium. The manufacturer’s
suggested uses are rocket-motor casings and shuttle
landing gear.
The new material was not without difficulty in the development
stage. “Until now it has
never been able to
be machined for
barrels,” Luciano said.
“Through
many trials,
we conquered this
obstacle
and now
have barrels
yielding superb patterns and truly manageable recoil.”
Tougher steel permits thinner barrels and, according
to Laura, the bluing and soldering processes are totally
new and required many tests to perfect. The only gun
completed so far is a 12-bore that weighs just less than 6
pounds. A 20-gauge is on the horizon.
Each pinless, detachable sidelock is secured by
a single, six-pointed screw
invisible behind a hinged
trap door in the angle of the lock. Every
Challenger comes with an appropriately shaped wooden wedge to flip open the “hidden windows” plus a tiny
custom-made driver to loosen the Torx screws.
As for the cost of a Titanium Challenger, we were told:
“Price on request, and we build the gun only upon order.”
For more information, contact Alamo Sporting Arms,
210-829-0297; www.alamosportingarms.com, or visit
www.bosis.com.
—Douglas Tate
GAME & GUN GAZETTE
A
day when I can add a useful and readable gun book
to my library is a happy one. So it was a happy day
when UPS delivered German Hunting Guns of the Golden
Era: 1840 – 1940, by Hans Pfingsten. The title may be a
bit clumsy, but in fact there are no guns of the
Wehrmacht, nor even Mausers or Mannlichers, in the
book. It’s all Drillings, Vierlings and Kipplaufs, Merkels
and Mefferts and Krieghoffs, Suhl and
Zella-Mehlis and proof marks. I read it through
that night. It’s missing only a few things.
assassination, in 1914? In the book he is shown with his
wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, hunting in Austria
and posing with royal foresters and beaters. He was the
Germanic counterpart of Lord Ripon.
Hans Pfingsten came to the US from Germany in
1963 as a 26-year-old VW mechanic with an abiding
interest in guns. He became one of the leading lights of
the German Gun
Collectors Association, but he
died suddenly in
2004. His widow,
Marcia, gathered
up his manuscript,
illustrations and
notes and, with the
help of Safari Press,
recently completed
the book. We’re glad
she did.
As an Anglo-centric aficionado of fine
Many gun books,
guns, I’m often guilty of overlooking gunespecially the
making history elsewhere, particularly in
costly ones, lean
France, Belgium and Germany/Austria. I
toward dense text,
should know better; German technological
inconsistent capprowess, with its exactitude and belt-andtions, gothic patent
suspenders caution, was respected long bedrawings and crushfore Karl Benz, Rudolf Diesel and Ferdinand
ing “lap weight.”
Porsche came along. The second John Rigby
Here, instead, are
admitted that while he and his British peers were still tryhundreds of black & white, sepia and color images, well
ing to figure out rifling, the Germans had become expert
chosen and reproduced, and copy that shows signs of
with it ages before through their research into accuraediting. The missing items I mentioned? First, details:
cy—and this was in
Every photo of a
1838. Just a browse
specific gun should
through Pfingsten’s
identify its type,
pages shows us
chambering(s)
what we’ve been
and serial number.
missing: Along with
Readers want to
illustrated presenknow! And second,
tations of actions,
an index. To look
barrel configuraup Kipplauf, we
tions and construchave to check the
tions, locking
table of contents,
systems, triggers,
and then thumb
The book includes hundreds of images of the complex and iconic
safety catches,
back and forth
German guns of the era, like this scalloped-action Lindner.
cartridges, logos
through the actions
and more, there are
chapter until we
brief chapters on a dozen important Germanic gunmakfind it on page 132. Google Translate doesn’t know what
ers of the age.
to make of the term, but we now get that a Kipplauf is a
However, the book isn’t just for patent wonks; it also
break-action gun.
covers the traditions and culture that led to these crazy
German Hunting Guns is not a hefty doorstop—just
(seemingly, to us) combinations of two, three and four
208 pages, 9" x 111/4"—but as a summary of Pfingsten’s
lifetime of expert knowledge, it is $75 worth of quality
gun and rifle barrels on one stock and action. The peover quantity. For more information, contact Safari Press,
riod photos are vivid too. Have you ever seen a picture
714-894-9080; www.safaripress.com.
—Silvio Calabi
of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that wasn’t related to his
n
German
Hunting Guns
COURTESY SAFARI PRESS
n
24 NOVEMBER • DECEMBER 2015