I Sing the Rifle Electric
By David E. Petzal

For 200 years, we've set primers off by bashing them. Now Remington may just have come up with the way we'll do it for the next 200.

In 1804, a Scots minister named Alexander Forsyth hit upon a method of igniting gunpowder that was superior to flintlock ignition. It was called the Scent-Bottle system and consisted of a metal container (resembling a perfume bottle) that held fulminate of mercury, an explosive. The fulminate was fed out of the bottle, whacked by the gun's hammer, and it set off the charge of black powder that propelled a lead ball.

Ten years later, a Philadelphian named Joshua Shaw went Forsyth one better. He invented the percussion cap, which contained fulminate of mercury in a crushable copper cup. Rather than dribbling fulminate out of a bottle, you placed the cap over a nipple, where it was bashed by the hammer. Percussion caps reigned supreme until the early 1870s, when the (more or less) modern centerfire primer appeared. It retained the idea of the mercury-filled copper cup but was incorporated into a cartridge case. Fulminate of mercury was eventually superseded by potassium chlorate, which in turn was replaced by lead styphnate.

But the basic principle, from Scent Bottle to modern primer, remained the same: To set it off, you had to bash it.

Firing-Pin Foibles and Trigger Troubles
In a rifle, smiting a primer with a firing pin creates a whole series of problems. First, you need a trigger and sear to retain the firing pin in the cocked position and then release it. Triggers comprise numerous small parts, all of which must be adjusted precisely. Product-liability lawyers love triggers because if a gun goes off accidentally and someone gets shot, they can then sue the manufacturer and con a jury into awarding megabuck$, even if the shooting was actually caused by Homeric carelessness. Because of this, many rifle makers have been putting out lawyer-proof triggers -- set so heavy that they can't go off accidentally but incapable of being used with the control needed for accurate shooting.Releasing a firing pin sets off vibrations within a rifle that can affect accuracy, and the strength of the firing pin's blow adds another variable to the equation. Lock time -- the interval between when the firing pin is released and the primer ignites -- is another complication. Rifles with short lock time are more accurate than rifles with long lock time, because in the microseconds it takes a rifle to fire, the muzzle can waver, and the bullet will go where it shouldn't.

Turning Loose the Juice
Even though conventional ignition produces extraordinary results, designers have known for some time that electronic triggers could do better. The idea of electronic ignition is not new. Back in the late 1960s, I fired the experimental S&W Model 79 submachine gun, which used caseless ammunition and ignited the rounds electronically. Today, the Austrian firm of Voere makes sporting rifles and caseless ammo with electronic ignition, but the idea has not taken off in the United States.

Remington has been perfecting (they fired 2 million rounds testing the project) something different -- electronic ignition for conventional ammunition. The system is called EtronX, and it may be the tsunami of the future in the wonderful world of rifles.

The 700 EtronX rifle looks like a conventional heavy-barreled, all-stainless-steel, synthetic-stocked rifle -- until you look closely and then odd things appear. Most noticeable is a lock on the pistol grip cap. The lock turns the rifle off and on. Give it a quarter turn, remove the key, and the EtronX will not fire.

On the topside of the pistol grip, a couple of inches behind the tang, is an LED. This little red light tells you whether the safety is on or off, whether there is a round in the chamber or not, and if the battery -- a single 9-volt alkaline unit contained in the stock along with an 8-bit onboard computer -- is low. (The battery supplies a 150-volt fire pulse and is good for 1,500 rounds.)

But it's the trigger that really tells you that this is something new. If you are under 50, you have probably never experienced anything but triggers that are set so heavy that they cannot be set off by an orangutan on steroids. For you, the EtronX trigger will be a revelation. Pressure on it closes a circuit, electric current flows from the battery through the firing pin (which is actually a ceramic-coated electrode), and off she goes. According to Remington, the ceramic firing-pin coating is the key to reliable functioning, but the coating does wear out -- after 7,500 rounds or so, by which time you will have replaced the barrel two or three times.

It is a beautiful trigger pull -- light, clean, and with imperceptible movement. Trigger travel is 36 percent less than the standard 700, and the pull weight can be safely taken down to 2 pounds, a figure that would normally have Remington's lawyers reaching for the Valium. And all of this happens with none of the vibration caused by the firing pin's fall or any of the other variables that conventional ignition creates.

There is another advantage. Because the lock time is so quick, the chance for bad things to happen -- like you moving the rifle -- is minimized. Lock time is 27 microseconds, which is a 99 percent reduction from the standard Model 700. The total firing time, from trigger break to the bullet exiting the muzzle is reduced by 64 percent. This makes shooting tight groups, or hitting what you aim at, a hell of a lot easier.

Zapping the Primer
The EtronX primer uses lead styphnate crystals like a conventional primer, but it responds only to electric current; it will not work in a conventional rifle, and a conventional cartridge will not fire in the EtronX rifle. The electric primer can't be mistaken for something else; there is a dimple in it where the firing pin is held under spring pressure.

EtronX cartridges come in .22/250, .220 Swift, and .243 at the present. And, yes, they can be reloaded, but the price of the new primers is pretty stiff.

The Rifle Itself
Since the best use of the EtronX system is in a rifle where accuracy is everything, Remington has chosen to introduce it in a varmint/beanfield rig. The 700 EtronX has a hammer-forged, 26-inch, heavy, fluted barrel, and a fiberglass-graphite stock reinforced both with Kevlar and an aluminum-bedding block that runs the length of the receiver. My E-rifle weighed a shade less than 9 pounds without a scope. With scope and mounts, it went just over 10 pounds, which is just about right.

Did it shoot well? Oh my, yes. At 100 yards, the average of 12 three-shot groups was .723 of an inch, and there is no doubt in my military mind that if I wanted to handload for it, I could shrink that figure. Not only did the rifle print under a minute of angle, but it did so with an eerie consistency. It was as though I was shooting the same group over and over. How much does this performance cost? The price is $1,999, which is by no means cheap but is comparable to similar rifles of similar quality.

Is the Future Electric?
That's a good question. On the one hand, so many conventional rifles are so accurate that any improvement is almost meaningless. On the other hand, beanfield hunters, varmint shooters, and long-range big-game hunters can never get groups that are too tight, and any technology that will give them an edge will get a welcome and a hearty handshake.

However, I think the main impact of the EtronX system may be in gun safety. With product-liability lawyers drooling on their own time sheets and safety Nazis besieging every legislature, a rifle that incorporates its own shutdown system is an idea whose time has come. I would not have a seizure if Remington extended the EtronX system to other models in the near future, and it may be that other manufacturers will use the system under license. Pounding a primer to set it off has had a glorious 200-year run. Now may be the time for something different.

The Relativity of Recoil
I have been taken to task by some readers for saying in "The Top 12 Deer Cartridges" (November 1999) that such and such a round was a light kicker. No, they wrote; they shot it and it beat the tar out of them. Fair enough. Recoil is relative. Some people are more sensitive to it than others. Light people get flung about more than heavy people; people with muscle in their shoulders have an easier time than bony specimens. If you are an inexperienced shooter, you will think a .30/06 kicks like the hammers of hell until you shoot a .338, and the .338 will have your full respect until you shoot a .458. Which leads us to...

In the past, I've said often and loudly that I hated muzzle brakes and would never use one. This conviction has gone by the boards in the form of a Dakota 76 African Grade rifle in .450 Dakota caliber. The .450 is a very, very serious cartridge that is suitable for slaying enraged municipal buses and trophy cement mixers, and its recoil is more than I can handle anymore. So the rifle has a muzzle brake, and I will wear hearing protection even when I shoot it at game -- but I will not be happy about the situation. -- D.E.P.