I t was late in the morn- ing, and we were work- ing along a ridge hoping to glass some pigs that might still be moving. We cleared a little patch of oaks and gained a view to the next grassy ridge. No pigs in sight, but there were two coyotes on the ridge a long ways out. John Lazzeroni jumped out of the truck, extended his bi- pod and lay prone. I called the range—515 yards—and the ri- fle went off. I saw dust, but the bullet went through, not over; the coyote crow-hopped a few yards, then rolled out of sight behind the hill. I hadn’t hunted with “Lazz” for several years, and I was glad to see he could still shoot. We were hunting wild hogs in California’s Central Coast with Frank Hook on the Jack Ranch (jackranchwildpighunts.com), 76,000 acres in the Parkfield Valley. We weren’t there altogether for a social gathering. John wanted to show his now-teenage son, John Jr., some of the great pig hunting he’s told him sto- ries about. And, joined by Chub Eastman, retired from Nosler Bullets and now a darned good gun writer, he wanted to show off his new L2012 rifle and talk about Lazzeroni today. John Lazzeroni is a very bright guy who holds a hatful of patents in inter-helmet com- munications for bikers, and in fact his primary business is J&M Motorcycle Audio (he’s the “J”), but he has long been a serious shooter, hunter and wildcatter. In the 1990s Lazzeroni Arms burst onto the scene with a full line of ultra-fast, fat, long-cased proprietary cartridges, followed quickly by a short magnum line based on the same cases cut down to fit short actions. At first, I thought Lazz was a dangerous crackpot because he is, well, passionate, outspo- ken about his cartridges and his rifles. I have described him, in print and to his face, as a zealot—a description he agrees with. Against my better judgment, I decided a long time ago that I liked him. I also like his rifles and his cartridges because, al- most uniquely in my world, they have always done exactly what John Lazzeroni says they will do. Just as Roy Weatherby was at least partially responsible for the belted magnums intro- duced by Winchester and Rem- ington in the late 1950s and 1960s, Lazzeroni had much to do with the amazing spate of unbelted, fat-cased magnums we have seen from Remington, Winchester and Hornady from the late 1990s. It might be a simpler world if the majors had just adopted some of his cartridges, but since his basic case has a full diam- eter (not rebated) rim that mea- sures .577-inch, it was difficult to impossible to house these in many commercial bolt actions. So the majors went their way, and Lazzeroni has stayed the course. Using extra-heavy brass and essentially custom-loading his ammo in small batches, La- -By Craig Boddington - NEW LAZZ LIGHTNING John Lazzeroni is back with a new rifle lineup: the 2012 series. John Lazzeroni Jr. (l.) and Sr. enjoyed a fine hog hunt with Craig Boddington, a great way to test the new Lazzeroni 2012 rifles. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012 RifleShooter • 29 RISP-121200-LAZ.indd 28-29 11/15/12 8:07 AM
Transcript
It was late in the morn-ing, and we were work-ing along a ridge hoping to glass some pigs that might still be moving. We
cleared a little patch of oaks and gained a view to the next grassy ridge. No pigs in sight, but there were two coyotes on the ridge a long ways out.
John Lazzeroni jumped out of the truck, extended his bi-pod and lay prone. I called the range—515 yards—and the ri-fle went off. I saw dust, but the bullet went through, not over; the coyote crow-hopped a few yards, then rolled out of sight behind the hill. I hadn’t hunted with “Lazz” for several years, and I was glad to see he could still shoot.
We were hunting wild hogs in California’s Central Coast with Frank Hook on the Jack Ranch (jackranchwildpighunts.com), 76,000 acres in the Parkfield Valley.
We weren’t there altogether for a social gathering. John wanted to show his now-teenage son, John Jr., some of the great pig hunting he’s told him sto-ries about. And, joined by Chub Eastman, retired from Nosler Bullets and now a darned good gun writer, he wanted to show off his new L2012 rifle and talk about Lazzeroni today.
John Lazzeroni is a very bright guy who holds a hatful of patents in inter-helmet com-munications for bikers, and in fact his primary business is J&M Motorcycle Audio (he’s the “J”), but he has long been a serious shooter, hunter and wildcatter.
In the 1990s Lazzeroni Arms burst onto the scene with a full line of ultra-fast, fat, long-cased proprietary cartridges, followed quickly by a short magnum line based on the same cases cut down to fit short actions.
At first, I thought Lazz was a dangerous crackpot because he is, well, passionate, outspo-ken about his cartridges and his rifles. I have described him, in print and to his face, as a zealot—a description he agrees with.
Against my better judgment, I decided a long time ago that I liked him. I also like his rifles and his cartridges because, al-most uniquely in my world, they have always done exactly what John Lazzeroni says they will do.
Just as Roy Weatherby was at least partially responsible for the belted magnums intro-duced by Winchester and Rem-ington in the late 1950s and 1960s, Lazzeroni had much to do with the amazing spate of unbelted, fat-cased magnums we have seen from Remington, Winchester and Hornady from the late 1990s.
It might be a simpler world if the majors had just adopted some of his cartridges, but since his basic case has a full diam-eter (not rebated) rim that mea-sures .577-inch, it was difficult to impossible to house these in many commercial bolt actions.
So the majors went their way, and Lazzeroni has stayed the course. Using extra-heavy brass and essentially custom-loading his ammo in small batches, La-
-By Craig Boddington -
NEW LAZZLIGHTNING
John Lazzeroni is back with a new rifle lineup:
the 2012 series.
John Lazzeroni Jr. (l.) and Sr. enjoyed a fine hog hunt with Craig Boddington, a great way to test the new Lazzeroni 2012 rifles.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012 RifleShooter • 29
RISP-121200-LAZ.indd 28-29 11/15/12 8:07 AM
NEW LAZZ LIGHTNING
www.rifleshootermag.com
zzeroni loads his ammunition to a maximum average pressure of 66,900 psi—exactly the same average pres-sure that most of the Weatherby mag-nums, the Remington Ultra Mags and the 8mm Remington Magnum are loaded to. To this day the Lazzeroni cartridges still remain the fastest in the world in their respective classes.
It’s no great secret that the eco-nomic downturn has been hard on many small manufacturers of sport-ing arms. For the last few years, La-zzeroni has concentrated on his mo-torcylce communications business. So the biggest news for 2012 is that the Lazz is back: He has resumed personal control of Lazzeroni Arms, focusing his passion and enthusiasm on a product line that he genuinely believes in. With this comes a brand new Model L2012 rifle in several con-figurations and a simplified line of Lazzeroni cartridges.
In years gone by, Lazzeroni of-fered both long- and short-magnum cartridges in almost every popular bullet diameter from 6mm to .475.
I would not suggest that Lazz ever listens to me, but I told him many years ago this was nuts. Ammo is still available by custom order for all the cartridges he ever offered, but he has officially dropped all the short mag-nums. This is a sensible move. Most popular of the line, the 7.21 (.284) Tomahawk and 7.82 (.308) Patriot were considerably faster than com-parable Winchester Short Magnum, Remington Short Action Ultra Mag and Ruger Compact Magnum car-tridges, but that market suddenly became very full, and in all calibers there were longer cartridges that were faster.
Today he is focusing on a trun-cated and simplified line of five long magnum Lazzeroni cartridges, all of which are the fastest cartridges in five popular bullet diameters. The chosen five are: 6.53 (.257) Scramjet, 7.21 (.284) Firebird, 7.82 (.308) War-bird, 8.59 (.338) Titan and 10.57 (.416) Meteor.
All are full-length 2.80-inch cases, which require a magnum-size action,
ACCURACY RESULTS
LAZZERONI L2012LLT Bullet Muzzle Standard Avg. .308 Warbird Weight (gr.) Velocity (fps) Deviation Group (in.)
Lazzeroni LazerHead 130 3,916 8 0.95Lazzeroni LazerHead 150 3,760 12 0.85Lazzeroni Sierra HPBT 168 3,782 11 0.70Lazzeroni Swift A-Frame 180 3,543 15 1.10Notes: Accuracy results are averages of three three-shot groups at 100 yards off X rest. Velocities are averages of 10 shots measured on a Shooting Chrony Master 10 feet from the muzzle. Abbreviations: HPBT, hollowpoint boattail
John Lazzeroni is a big fan of thumbhole stocks, so it’s no surprise that the 2012 lineup includes this option. All 2012 stocks are custom-molded and hand-bedded and feature a LimbSaver recoil pad.
and all except the Scramjet (which has a .530-inch base and rim) have big, fat cases with .577-inch base and rim diameters. These dimensions allow awesome case capacity, and while other cartridges come close, since the mid-1990s no factory or proprietary cartridges have equaled Lazzeroni’s long magnums.
In the 1990s, the original Lazze-roni rifle provided awesome perfor-mance, but it was extremely heavy if not downright clunky. I carried one in the big Warbird cartridge on a cou-ple of serious sheep hunts. In 1999, I used it in the Yukon to make the lon-gest shot I’ve ever attempted at a wild sheep, and I used it again in China in 2001.
The performance was awesome, but carrying that thing darn near killed me. Again, I would never hint that Lazzeroni might listen to me, but the later Model L2005LLT was intro-duced with an American classic stock style, was slimmer, trimmer and a
the beginning of this article, he can make it talk.
There are also two sporter/tactical versions with detachable box maga-zines and heavy barrels: the Long Magnum Sporter with a rollover cheekpiece; and the Long Magnum Tactical with fully adjustable stock. I didn’t have a chance to see either of these rifles, but we spent a good day on my range with both the clas-sic and thumbhole-stocked versions, and then we did our best to make life miserable for the Jack Ranch pigs.
For the hunt I used an L2012LLT in .308 Warbird, while Chub also used an LLT but in the powerful .338 Ti-tan. The ranch is located in Califor-nia’s condor zone, which means un-leaded bullets are mandated, so we would hunt with Lazzeroni’s Lazer-Head bullets, essentially a boattailed Barnes Triple Shock (or X in .338) that has been made slightly undersized and then coated with NP3 lubricant.
John Jr. used a thumbhole Firebird with a 139-grain LazerHead. John Sr. and I both used Warbirds with 150-grain LazerHeads; Chub used a fast 185-grain LazerHead in the .338 Titan.
In the Warbird, which is easily La-zzeroni’s flagship cartridge, we tried several other loads as reflected in the chart but, to be honest, our primary focus was to get ready for some seri-ous pig hunting.
Accuracy was quite good, which should and can be expected from a semi-custom rifle in this price range, with precision-loaded ammunition. The big surprise was that recoil off the bench wasn’t all that bad. I have long believed in the straight-combed American classic stock as the best way to attenuate recoil, and these rifles absolutely bore this out.
That said, having never seen a left-hand thumbhole, I can only ac-cept the Gospel of Lazzeroni , which preaches that the thumbhole stock brings the recoil back on even more of a straight line, with significant energy going into the shooting hand rather than the shoulder. This much
I can tell you: Nobody complained about the recoil, including Chub, who signed up to shoot the Titan.
John’s rifles were all mounted with Schmidt & Bender scopes, his favorite, with far greater capability than we expected to need (except for John’s spectacular shot on that coy-ote), but John believes in front focal plane mil-dot reticles and/or precise dial-in capability for longer shots, so we spent quite a bit of time getting our zeros exactly perfect.
Over the next three days we took six good pigs and two coyotes. (When we went to go check on John’s coyote, we spotted another coyote. I jumped out, got steady, and flattened him at 235 yards.) All but one of the hogs were one-shot kills; my lone pig re-quired a second round. John Jr. ac-counted for two hogs with a single round apiece.
Overall I’d say we were quite pleased with how the rifles worked in the field. In the grand scheme of things we probably needed to shoot a hundred pigs to have definitive data, but what isn’t known about what super-fast 7mm, .308 or .338 caliber cartridge loaded with good bullets will do?
SPECIFICATIONS
LAZZERONI L2012LLTTYPE: bolt-action centerfireCALIBER: 6.53 (.257) Scramjet, 7.21 (.284) Firebird, 7.82 (.308) Warbird (tested), 8.59 (.338) TitanCAPACITY: 3+1 in chamber; hinged floor-plateBARREL: 26-inch stainless, button-rifled, fluted; removable Vais muzzle brake standard with protective thread cap; 1-in-12 inch riflingOVERALL LENGTH: 46.13 in. without muzzle brakeWEIGHT: 7.3 lb.STOCK: Graphite/fiberglass synthetic, American classic style, molded check-ering, Limbsaver recoil pad, sling swivel studsFINISH: black nitrideTRIGGER: Jewel; 2.5 lb. as testedSIGHTS: none; receiver drilled and tappedPRICE: $5,999MANUFACTURER: Lazzeroni Arms, lazze-roni.com, 888-492-7247
whole lot lighter.It seems almost impossible that
this rifle came out 12 years ago, but indeed it did. So it’s time for a new La-zzeroni rifle, and we have that in the Model 2012. The standard version has an American classic graphite/com-posite stock with molded checkering, 26-inch barrel, removable Vais muz-zle brake with thread protecting cap, and it weighs just 7.3 pounds. The ac-tion is a CNC-machined chrome-mo-ly receiver with diamond-fluted bolt shaft, three-position (Model 70-style) safety and Jewel trigger.
Bottom metal is aluminum alloy, with the floorplate release in the trig-ger guard. The fluted barrel is 416R stainless steel. Despite the power lev-el, the rifle is slim, trim and easy to carry. That’s the L2012LLT, the Long Magnum Light, which is available in left and right-hand versions.
As I’ve said, Lazz has his passions, and one of them is for thumbhole stocks. Being a lefty, I don’t know much about them, but another ver-sion is the L2012LTH, the Long Mag-num Thumbhole. With a 25-inch bar-rel, this version weighs 7.7 pounds, and unlike all other version, has the safety within the trigger guard. This is John’s favorite and, as illustrated at
NEW LAZZ LIGHTNING
A sampling of groups fired with the 150-grain Lazzeroni LazerHead bullet, essentially a Barnes TSX made slightly undersize and then brought to full diameter with a lubricating coating.
Lazzeroni has jettisoned his short magnums (although he still offers loaded ammo for them). The current lineup includes (l.-r.) .257, 7mm, .30, .338 and .416 offerings.
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