Author: Gunner Quinn
The number of retail outlets with an FFL Type 01 license to sell firearms has declined by more than 13 percent in just the last five years. A proposed rulemaking document published by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) on May 6, 2026, provides the startling figures. In 2021, there were 52,993 Type 01 FFLs nationwide. By 2025, that number dwindled to 46,072. Companies and individuals applying for the license, which is good for three years, dropped even more dramatically. In the same period, that figure went from 7,445 to 4,160. The trend began long before 2021.…
00:00:00 Speaker 1: All right, folks, welcome back to another episode of Back forty. I’m Jake Hooefer and this week we’re starting a new batch of guests. Our panel has been updated with some really awesome guests that you guys will get to hear their insight and intuition and advice for one single topic each week leading all the way to October first. So we’re going to be talking about a lot of things here in this next. 00:00:24 Speaker 2: Batch of Back forty. 00:00:27 Speaker 1: In this batch, we have Bill Winki that really needs no introduction.…
New small arms with groundbreaking designs are rare in an industry where most companies chase consumer trends, new products tend to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and me-too designs quickly emerge once a market trend starts. Today, it’s stylish to make micro-size, polymer-frame pistols with 10- or 12-round magazines. Before that, it was copies of Mossberg’s Shockwave “firearm,” and before that, it was popular to produce .380-caliber pistols patterned on the Colt Mustang. Fortunately, some companies like Freedom Ordnance march to the beat of a different drum and invest their creative energy into innovative, unique products like the FM-9D. …
00:00:04 Speaker 1: Welcome to the news show. Today. We’ve got Spencer reporting on the most reported on story in the world, the old timer who got tossed by a buffalo. And Yellowstone. We’ve got wolves and Yellowstone have left Yellowstone and that’s got Yellowstone wolf lovers panties in a bunch. The Trump administration has made changes to the Endangered Species Act. And if you’re guessing that it wasn’t to make it strong and more effective, you’re onto something. Colorado’s dumb fur band has died, but they replaced it with something not quite as dumb. Is the perpetuation of daylight…
00:00:08 Speaker 1: When an American hunter got caught with forgotten ammunition in a Caribbean airport, authorities told him it was a simple matter of the law. He’d broken it and there would be consequences, no exceptions. But it wasn’t simple, and it wasn’t just the law. What he didn’t know, what he couldn’t have known, standing in that terminal with his wife and friends, was that he’d stumbled into something much bigger than a few forgotten cartridges. There was corruption on that island. There was a prison the Humanitarian Commission said shouldn’t exist, and when he started talking, there…
Earlier this year, we attended Range Ready’s “Plinkapalooza,” a celebration of all things rimfire. There were various competitions, difficult challenges and straight-up feats of marksmanship on display, with most firearms chambered in .22 LR, but also some .17 HMR and .22 Mag. represented. Firearms, both handgun and rifle, as well as various ammunition offerings, sound suppressors and even a few brand-new products were unveiled. Much of the rimfire ammunition was provided by CCI Ammunition, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2026. One of the themes evident at Plinkapalooza, and on display in the variety of ammunition types from CCI,…
I’m a complete topwater junkie. Whether I’m casting dry flies for trout, chucking frogs for bass, or chugging big prop baits for pike, muskie, and even tarpon, I can’t get enough of watching fish explode on baits floating on the surface of the water. Many of my angling friends question my addiction to topwater fishing, wondering where it comes from, and I tell them it all started with panfish.When I was a kid, I was addicted to catching bluegills on poppers out of my uncle’s farm pond, and it really taught me something. While many anglers think of panfish as…
One of the most iconic military longarms ever made, the British Land Pattern musket, more commonly known as the “Brown Bess,” equipped British infantrymen across the world for more than a century. Watch our “American Rifleman Television: I Have This Old Gun” segment above to hear the history of the Brown Bess and see one fired on the range. “Prior to the 1720s, really, I mean, military armament, it was kind of all over the place,” American Rifleman Executive Editor Evan Brune said. “So one of the things that, you know, militaries early on wanted to standardize on was a…
When it comes to fish tacos, I’ll take blackened fillets over fried almost every time. Maybe it’s because I catch and eat a lot of Gulf Coast redfish, the same species Chef Paul Prudhomme made famous with his blackened preparation. But instead of Creole seasoning, I use cumin, oregano, and ancho chile—the Tex-Mex version of the holy trinity.Pile the fish into warm tortillas with sweet corn salsa, a drizzle of zesty mojo sauce, and a little cotija cheese. It’s got everything I want in a fish taco: smoky, spicy, tangy flavors with plenty of texture. It’s the only way I’ll…
American firearm enthusiasts are a lucky lot. We represent a large enough market that most firearms end up making their way to our shores in one form or another. When it comes to military-style guns, most every modern service rifle is sold here in semi-automatic, civilian-legal form. There is one glaring exception, and that is the United Kingdom’s L85. Murdoch & Co., an American company, is changing that reality with its EM85. The SA80/L85 is the classic British service rifle of the 1980s through the present, which has to this point, been elusive on the American civilian market. The British…