Some manufacturers are producing semi-automatic sporting firearms designed specifically for hunting.

For most of four long days, Zach Pray had been stuck in a booth at the Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade show, discussing his company's Pistol Cam product with potential customers.

Late in the final day he finally got an escape, and ended up in the Remington firearms booth, where he was drawn to a striking display.

In front of a huge mural poster adorned with a trophy deer and a menacing coyote hung six hunting rifles.

But they were hardly traditional-looking guns.

The firearms were camouflage.

And they were based on the hugely popular AR-style platform.

Pray was impressed, nodding in satisfaction at the display.

The popularity of AR-style firearms -- also known in their civilian versions as black guns and modern sporting rifles -- went through the roof in 2009.

The sales frenzy was driven in part by shooters' concern that Barack Obama's arrival in Washington could bring a wave of new gun control measures.

"Everything we could get, we sold," Paul Hylton, manager of Bryansteens Gun and Archery in Roanoke, said of AR-style rifles.

But there are other reasons for the guns' popularity said John Fink, Remington's product manager for centerfire rifles.

"It's one of the fastest growing segments in the market and if you've ever shot one you understand why," Fink said. "They're just a lot of fun to shoot. They're light on recoil and they're surprisingly accurate."

Because the guns share the same basic AR-style platform -- the AR stands for ArmaLite, the company that launched the design 50 years ago -- there are many add-on parts and modification products available to shooters, many of whom are avid tinkerers.

As the demand for black guns has cooled and the market has evolved, it was only natural for manufacturers to start tailoring their offerings to appeal more to hunters, Fink said.

"All good hunting rifles have their roots in military rifles," said Fink, who said rifles such as Remington's R-15, which was introduced last year, are no different. "It was just taking a design that was adopted by and used by the military, and bringing it to the hunting world."

Also important, he said, is the base of potential customers.

"You have hundreds of thousands of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world," Fink said. "I think we have a better chance of retaining them as shooters if we give them a rifle they're familiar with."

Ken Jorgensen agrees.

As director of communications for Ruger, he could get about any kind of rifle for his son, who is in the military.

"He wanted an AR," Jorgensen said. "I had another friend who tried to give his son a 30-30 and the son said, 'No thanks. But if you have an AR I'll take it.'"

Varmint hunters have been using ARs for years.

They appreciated that the guns were quick-handling and accurate. Also, the fast and flat-shooting .223 caliber often found in the ARs is a popular varmint caliber.

But while the .223 is a capable of taking modest-sized big game, many states legally set the lower limit for big game at .23 caliber. That has helped limit the number of ARs in the deer woods.

But that is changing.

A number of firearms makers are now offering AR-platform rifles in calibers suitable for deer and other big game, though few are courting hunters as aggressively as Remington.

In addition to its smaller caliber R-15, Remington offers the R-25 in deer-worthy .243 Winchester, 7mm-08 Remington and 308 Winchester calibers.

As more ARs are becoming available in calibers suitable and legal for big game hunting it seems inevitable that more of the guns will make their way into hunting blind -- at least among hunters willing to part with a fair amount of cash.

ARs are not inexpensive, and hunting variants are no different.

A bare Remington R-25 retails for just over $1,500 -- more than twice the price of the company's more traditional 750 Woodmaster semi-automatic deer rifle.

Looks, not function, the big difference in ARs

AR-style guns were targeted in 1994 by the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, which had a provision known as the Assault Weapons Ban.

Among other things the law, which expired in 2004, restricted the sale of magazines that held more than 10 cartridges, and outlawed features such as collapsible stocks and certain style grips.

Many gun rights advocates object to calling civilian versions of military guns assault weapons.

They point out that, although AR-style rifles look similar to automatic military versions, the guns' basic operation is no different than a semi-automatic sporting or hunting rifle.

A pull of the trigger fires one shot. The firing of the shell triggers a system that ejects the spent casing and feeds another shell into the chamber. Firing that shell requires another finger pull.

A difference is that ARs can be fitted with magazines that can hold more cartridges than typical hunting guns.

Such magazines have little application in hunting, and Remington's deer hunting-specific ARs come with four-shell magazines.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation recently launched a campaign to shift away from the AR term, which is often wrongly thought to stand for assault rifle or automatic rifle.

The NSSF's suggestion is modern sporting rifle, or MSR.

Article by Mark Taylor
Roanoke Times