Springfield Armory has announced that they have put their vaunted Range Officer series of .45ACP 1911-style pistols on a new diet. No, we don’t mean Volumetrics, Jenny Craig, or the Ornish diet; we mean the RO now comes in a variant ready to nom
nom nom on 9mm NATO all day…
Read more in my column at Springfield Forum
When it comes to so called off-body carry with your firearm, one of the hands-down best choices is a compact Bersa handgun. Long seen as the ‘budget 380’ these durable and well-made little guns are great for going along on your daily missions to work and back, tucked quietly away inside your pocketbook until needed.
Read the rest in my column at the Bersa Forum
For the record, we want to say that zombies are fictional creatures, but just in case we are wrong, you may want to have a good handgun. And we think that the G17 could be just the ticket for when the world gets a little more undead.
Read the rest in my column at the Glock Forum
For the past 15 years, the tiny locked breech .32ACP pistol made from South Florida has proved itself time after time. While some would deride them as ‘cute’ or ‘too small to carry’ these neat but effective little guns have been unseen in the best places.
George Kellgren, the Willy Wonka of affordable polymer pistols has since the 1980s produced a number of interesting and well-received guns. From his first company, Intratec, to Grendel, to his current Kel-Tec, he has always concentrated on guns in .380ACP, 9x19mm, and .22 rimfire. Well in 1999, he decided to see what could be done for the ultra-compact, ultra-light CCW market if he downsized his already well-known line of .380 pistols and went with an even smaller .32ACP. If it could be made small enough, it would be a contender as a BUG (back up gun) for law enforcement officers concealed in ankle holsters, as a deep-concealment piece for plainclothes or undercover detectives, or as a super light defensive pistol for civilian concealed carry practitioners.
Read the rest in my column at KTOG.org
The largest municipal police agency in the United States, the New York City Police Department, is also one of the largest users of Glocks in the world. They have 34,450 armed and uniformed officers, their own flag, and a $3.6-billion dollar budget. They
also use mostly Glock handguns so we decided to look at their firepower, their training, and a year’s worth of use of these guns.
Read the rest in my column at Glock Forum
Introduced in 1901 by an Austrian guy who lent his name to a popular pistol he designed, the 9x19mm Parabellum round has seen its ups and downs. Long a military round on a global scale, it was marginalized in the US for generations until it gained some ground in the 1980s. Then came the .40S&W and the 9mm’s name has been mud ever since. That is, until today.
Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk.com
Today antigun politicians throw fits about firearms capable of holding more than five, ten, or fifteen rounds. Well these modern day soapbox gun grabbers would pass into sure comas if they were around in the 1900s and got a load of the HD&H revolver.
In 1893, the world was awash in quality revolver designs. They truly were the ‘in’ gun of the day between Colt’s Single Action, Smith and Wesson’s Number 3, huge Austrian Gassers, and Webley’s top break models. The small industrial city of Liege, Belgium at the time was home to literally hundreds of gun factories. These ran from large ones like the famous Fabrique Nationale (FN) to the small firm of Messieurs Henrion, Dassy, and Heuschen (HDH).
The HDH company made a few simple revolvers, more or less borrowing the action of Monsieur Emile Nagant (yes, that Nagant) who also had a shop in Liege. Then in 1910, the company came up with a huge idea of their own. You see everyone had five, 6, or 7-shot revolvers. Well, what if they turned that up to 16? How about 20?
Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk.com
You know those times when you are out plinking or small game hunting and you find yourself wanting a more accurate little 22handgun than what you have. If only they made a pistol version of the 10/22 rifle then the whole world would be different right. Well, about that…
In 2007, Ruger came out with a legal short-barreled rifle that anyone could own without a tax stamp. They took their tried and true 10/22 rifle design, and then produced it in a pistol-only receiver without a buttstock. This avoided the dreaded ‘Short Barreled Rifle’ label that was cooked up by the 1934 National Firearms Act. To keep future crooks like the Prohibition-era Bonnie and Clyde from getting their hands on chopped down rifles, the government set an impossibly high (for 1934) $200 tax on these guns. Well the tax is still somewhat high today, not to mention the regulation and drama associated with Class III weapons, thus killing off their popularity.
However, since Ruger built the new gun from the ground up as a pistol and it never had a buttstock attached to it; it was still a pistol that could be sold to anyone who could legally own one without any $200 ball and chain.
Read the rest in my article at Ruger Talk
Sure, you have a stock of canned food, shelf-stable this and that, seeds, generators, solar panels and livestock, as well as the firearms and ammo to protect it, but what are you going to do if your gun goes down? Do you have what it takes to make sure that firearm can last you if the stores never reopen?
Read more in my column at Prepared Society.com
Midnight approaches, the ball drops, the countdown intensifies, and then all heck breaks loose. Some kiss. Some toast. Some hug. Some fire off roman candles and bottle rockets. Some grab that old .38 that hasn’t been fired all year or the .270 that’s been in the closet for five and rip off a few rounds skyward. Well the problem with the last is, those rounds always end up somewhere.
A bullet fired from a high-velocity rifle into the atmosphere can remain in flight for almost a full minute depending on its arc, local meteorological conditions, size, and velocity. This same bullet, tumbling back to earth inevitably due to gravity, can still come in at speeds of over 300fps as far as two miles away. That’s enough to maim or kill.
In many urban centers, the ten minutes before and after the ball dropping on New Year’s Eve can sound like a Syrian firefight. Miami police reportedly are ordered to officially take cover from falling bullets during that frantic 20-minute window for concern over officer safety. In Los Angeles over 500 calls from citizens complaining about indiscriminate gunfire come in every New Years. Jacksonville had 259 calls for radom gunfire last year alone, including one bullet that zipped through a private plane humming along at 1200-feet, injuring the pilot.
Even firing into the ground can be dangerous. Striking a rock, buried cement, or pipes can cause a ricochet, as can frozen ground (remember, its December). While ricochets are not generally fatal, they can severely injure bystanders, especially kids. Do you really want to have to rush yours or someone else’s child to the hospital on New Year’s Eve due to a ricochet that was unavoidable? Besides the injury, you could be held liable for both criminal and civil charges. Remember, every bullet fired away from a safe range can always land in court.
Do you really want to start the New Year there?
Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk.com