Tag Archives: ccw

18 Months with a Mini Bull along for the ride

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I’ve been living with the Taurus GX4 micro compact 9mm for a year and a half on a daily basis and put well over a thousand rounds through it. It has surprised me, for sure.

Taurus introduced the GX4 to the world in May 2021, and I was able to get an early test model from the company slightly before. A good sequel to the company’s budget line of increasingly well-made and dependable G2 and G3 series pistols, the GX4 was more of the same, only smaller and with a better trigger.

When compared to more recently introduced double-stack micro 9s with similar magazine capacity, the GX4 was smaller than a lot of the big names, seen stacked side-by-side with the Springfield Armory Hellcat Pro, SIG Sauer P365 XMacro, and Kimber R7 Mako.

Designed for personal carry, the GX4 proved such an easy carry – just 24.8 ounces when fully loaded with 14 rounds of 124-grain Gold Dot– that it has become my go-to of late. Of note, that is the same magazine capacity as on the vaunted Browning Hi-Power, my first carry gun back in the late 1980s.

I’ve been carrying the GX4 in a DeSantis Gunhide Inside Heat, a bare-bones minimum IWB holster built from black saddle leather, and it just disappears. The pistol is, realistically, just slightly taller than a pocket gun but comes ready with 13+1 rounds.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Staccato, only smaller…

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Staccato, formerly STI, has been making steady in-roads with police tactical teams in recent years– having been adopted or approved by more than 250 law enforcement agencies including the elite U.S. Marshall Service’s Special Operations Group. At the same time, the company has been marketing its compact “C” series guns which have turned into a hit with consumers.

Speaking of which, the new Staccato CS is single-action like the M1911 but is in a double-stack format like the company’s 2011 line. Moreover, it runs a 3.5-inch bull barrel, making it even akin to a Colt Officer’s model– but carries with it a flush-fitting 16+1 round capacity in 9mm.

“Weighing under 23 ounces with a 3.5-inch bull barrel, this ‘little sibling’ is smaller than other members of the Staccato pistol family and made for concealed carry,” contends Staccato. (Photos: Staccato)

More in my column at Guns.com.

Around the block with the Glock 43

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In 2014, when Glock announced the .380 ACP G42, a wave of disappointment swept over the country as– except for nerds who really wanted a banned-from import/LE-only G25– it seemed everyone wanted a micro-compact 9mm pistol instead.

Glock 42 with Streamlight TLR6 combination light. The total weight package with the gun, light, batteries and 7 rounds of 380 is 24 ounces. Pretty heady stuff for 2014. 

The next year at the NRA Annual Meetings in Nashville, Glock made good and delivered the G43. I was there at the launch event and can vouch that the excitement was electric.

Having jumped on the G42 train early (don’t look at me that way), by the time the G43 came out I was already gun shy, no pun intended, and soon after Glock delivered the 10+1 capacity G43X (followed by the optics ready G43X MOS) to the market. This led to deals on lots of traded-in single stack G43s as folks went with the gently larger G43X and soon started buying extendo magazines/base pads to up the capacity even further.

Well, back in 2019, I finally took the G43 jump (not the G43X as I was intrigued by the short size of the original model) and picked up a Vickers Tactical edition which was a limited run that came complete with a Wilson Combat rear sight and AmeriGlo ProGlo tritium front, a Tango Down slide lock, enhanced magazine release, and Vickers +2 magazine extension.

Since then, I’ve found it has a lot of good things to recommend it, and few bad.

When coupled with a premium personal defense load such as Speer’s 124-grain 9mm Gold Dot Short Barrel JHP– which is designed to work in barrels as short as 1.9 inches while producing less felt recoil and achieving reliable expansion and penetration– you have a nice little carry set up. For reference, my G43, with 10 rounds of Speer loaded and the +3 Taran baseplate installed, weighs just 24 ounces and fits in the same places as my J-frame S&W while having twice the capacity. Don’t forget, you can always carry a flush-fit standard or +1 base pad in the pistol and a +3 as a backup.

More of what I have learned in carrying the G43 over the past few years in my column at Guns.com.

Beretta drops a new APX pistol (yaay)

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Beretta has a lot of cool products that they just carry overseas or sell to LE/Mil channels including the AR-70/90 and the PM-12 SMG. So when they have a big push to release a new gun and an updated edition of their Tactical Toblerone APX pistol rolls out, it is a kinda whomp whomp kinda moment.

Meet the NEW! Beretta APX A1 FS.

On the upside, the company seems to be making a special effort to put red dots on everything in the catalog, with optics-ready models of the M9A4 Centurion, 92X Performance Defensive, and 92X RDO Compact all arriving with the feature. Beretta’s budget line, Stoeger, is seeing similar expansions. 

Taurus goes TORO with the GX4

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Taurus’ micro-compact 9mm just got a little better as the company on Friday announced a new optics-ready TORO model addition to the line.

The increasingly American-based company debuted its new micro pistol in May with an 11+1/13+1 capacity and a sub-$400 asking price. This made the gun– which I found dependable in testing— a budget competitor against similarly-sized contemporaries such as the Sig P365 and Springfield Armory Hellcat, with about the only rock that could be thrown against it is the fact that it did not come with a slide cut to support popular micro-red dot carry optics.

Well, that has now changed as the new Taurus GX4 TORO series has a factory cut and mounting pattern that supports Hex Wasp GE5077, Holosun HS507K/HS407K, Riton 3 Tactix MPRD2, Trijicon RMR, Shield RMSc, Sig RomeoZero, and Sightmark Mini Shot A-Spec M3 sights.

At an asking price of $468.

Thus…

More in my column at Guns.com.

Of My Time with the GX4

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Taurus announced the new micro-compact semi-auto pistol, the GX4, in May, billed as an 11+1 shot 9mm that was roughly the size of a traditional .380 pocket gun that had half the capacity. The specs of the polymer-framed striker-fired handgun– 5.8-inches long with the small backstrap installed, about an inch wide, and 4.4-inches high with the flush-fit magazine inserted– put it in the same boat as the Ruger MAX-9, Sig Sauer P365, Smith & Wesson Shield Plus, and Springfield Armory Hellcat line.
I’ve been kicking around the new Taurus GX4 over the past couple of months, having run some 500 rounds through it, and have some things to say about it.

The 11+1 shot Taurus GX4 is definitely compact. Micro compact, you could say.

Have $400 and Want a Micro 9 with Change Leftover?

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Taurus is looking to take on the big boys with its new micro pistol, which is designed to deliver maximum concealment without sacrificing capacity or ergonomics – the GX4.

Getting the specs out of the way, the 11+1 shot 9mm is the size of popular .380 “pocket guns,” using a 3.06-inch barrel to tape out to a maximum 6.05-inch overall length. The gun is slender, at just over an inch wide, and it is 4.4 inches high at its tallest. The unloaded weight is 18.6 ounces. Fully loaded with 12 rounds of 147-grain JHPs, I found my test gun to hit the scales at 23.9 ounces.

Compared to other recently introduced micro 9s, such as the Ruger MAX-9, Sig Sauer P365, Smith & Wesson Shield Plus, and Springfield Armory Hellcat, the GX4 is a dead ringer as far as size goes. Plus, its flush-fit mags hold one extra round over the Sig or S&W’s comparable magazine while being on par with the Springer and one less than the Ruger.

However, where the GX4 cleans house is the price: $392. That’s the MSRP, meaning that “actual” prices at your local gun store will probably hover closer to “Three Fiddy.” 

More in my column at Guns.com.

The Micro 9 Race is Heating Up

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Every 25 years or so, handguns catch a big developmental wave. For instance, the last one prior to modern times occurred with the “Baby” Glocks of 1994, when the company debuted subcompact 10+1 shot pistols to make the most of the federal assault weapon ban. Those guns proved so successful that Glock now makes a subcompact model in all of their calibers– including the only company that makes a 10mm Auto pocket gun– while others have increasingly tried to imitate, duplicate or one-up the concept.

This brings us to 2018 when Sig Sauer brought their new “micro-compact” P365 to SHOT Show. Even smaller than the Glock G26 but with the same magazine capacity, it was a smash. Since then, Springfield Armory has brought their Hellcat to the market, with much the same concept, as had Taurus with the G3C.

Well, on the same day this week, both Ruger and Smith & Wesson announced their own separate P365/Hellcat/G3C competitors, the MAX-9 and the Shield Plus, respectively.

Ruger’s new MAX-9 Pistol, which, importantly, is optics-ready for under $500.

S&W M&P Shield Plus

Here is a snapshot of who they stack up when it comes to specs:

As for how they compare against each other in real life, the jury is still out on that one.

The old loaded chamber arguement

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Ever since the first repeating handguns hit the market, the debate has ensued on carrying said hog leg on a loaded chamber

Most will say that carrying with an empty chamber is like saying you will have enough time to put on a seat belt in the second before you get in a car crash.

But in some cases, it may be a good idea…

The subject from both sides of the argument in my column at Tac44.com.

Speed loaders: A vintage concept that never goes out of style

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Going all the way back to the days of Rollin White’s revolutionary cylinder design of 1857, immortalized by two guys by the name of Smith and Wesson, the cartridge revolver that could be quickly reloaded has been a hit. Even though the detachable magazine semi-auto pistol was introduced just a few decades later, the wheel gun has endured and is still popular today.

The two largest publicly traded firearms companies in the U.S.– S&W, and Ruger– still have almost as many if not more revolver designs in production as they do semi-auto handguns. This is because the revolver is inherently simple, has few moving parts to master, can be very compact in snub nosed varieties, can bring the heat in large framed magnums, and a lot of people just plain old like ‘em.

With that being said, there is nothing that bars the average wheel gun user from stepping up their game when it comes to being able to rapidly reload an empty cylinder. This can be for fast and positive use on the range, competition, or in trimming the time needed to get back in the fight during a self-defense scenario.

Enter: The Speedloader

I do love a good old Colt

More in my column at Tac44.com

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