Innholdsfortegnelse for February - March 2018 i Handguns

Rounds Count After reading James Tarr’s article on the new M&P 2.0 Compact (December/January), imagine my surprise in discovering I’ve been wrongly stuffing 12 rounds into magazines for the S&W M&P9c I’ve carried for the past two years since. He assures us no fewer than three times that magazines for my gun hold only 10. The new M&P 2.0 Compact is a fine idea. Hope- fully, S&W will feature 2.0 models of three high-capacity frame sizes: full size, compact and subcompact. I would cheerfully own all three. F. PAUL VALONE BRYSON CITY, NC Mr. Valone is, in fact, correct, and I am in error. Mea culpa. I’m not sure how I made that mistake.— James Tarr Color Blind First of all, I love Handguns magazine and the writings of James…

NOT TOO LONG AGO, SHOOTERS WERE IN- troduced to new powders from IMR, which is owned by Hodgdon Powder—the same company that makes Titegroup. So if you’ve already got one good-selling pistol powder, why do you need to introduce another? “Target was designed to do what Titegroup, a spherical powder, would do—but in our extruded, flake-type, IMR line of powders,” Hodgdon’s Ron Reiber told me. A good pistol powder, he said, must be in the middle range of burn speeds so it can work with a wide variety of bullets as well as case capacities. It’s not going to be perfect, but it will work nicely in a lot of applications. Target does that. I chose to load it in .38 and .44 specials. The powder metered well in my…

THE SUREFIRE MASTERFIRE RAPID Deploy Holster is designed to be the ultimate universal tactical holster, and it combines the attributes of three different types of holsters into one—and that’s before you consider that one holster can fit more than 30 pistols from five different makers. The Masterfire is an outside-the-waistband tactical/duty holster meant for pistols wearing weapon lights, but the holster is also de- signed specifically to accommodate pistols mounting round suppressors up to 1.5 inches in diameter. It works the same if you’ve got some sort of compensator on your pistol barrel as well. Because of its design, the holster also will accept pistols mounting red dots or even pistols with non-factory-contour slides. You can also configure your holster so your weapon light automatically turns on as the weapon…

As a young police officer, my introduction to the short-barrel, double-action revolver came when a salty field training officer bent down and pulled up his pant leg, revealing a blue steel revolver strapped in a black holster over his white sock. “Kid, get yourself a snub .38 as a backup and consider it inexpensive life insurance,” he said. His street-wise advice sent me searching, and I heard that a Chicago homicide detective was retiring and selling his gear. The list included a six-shot, lightweight Colt Cobra he’d carried on countless cases, and I bought it for $100. After a combined six decades of service, that Cobra still stands guard, and its attributes of reliability, accuracy and concealability exemplify why this snubnose revolver continues to be a favorite for personal defense.…

There’s nothing wrong with shooting drills for the sake of fun, but doing so at the expense of practicing more fundamental skills is foolish—if your goal is to be a better defensive handgunner. Drills that have you running and gunning against the timer tend to become the “end all to beat all” for many shooters. However, the serious shooter understands that a drill is a means to an end, with the goal being to attain real-world proficiency as opposed to action movie flash and flare. To that end, here are five drills taught by some of the top practical shooters in the industry. Only one is really semiauto-specific, and the rest can be run with a revolver—although some of the standards applied to these drills wouldn’t necessarily apply to people…

MY DETECTIVE SPECIAL HAS BEEN WITH me since I bought it in 1974. It’s an old friend, and I have carried it on many occasions. This six-shot snub-nose revolver has been a popular backup gun for law enforcement ever since it was introduced in 1927. The Detective Special underwent a number of changes through the years. The First Series was produced from 1927 to 1947 and used a narrow frame, shorter ejection rod, a checkered hammer spur and wood grips. The Second Series ran from 1947 to 1972 and included a long ejection rod, a smooth cylinder latch and a serrated trigger spur. Second Series grip panels were plastic at first, later changed to wood in 1955. My gun is a Third Series (1973 to 1986), and it has a…

RECENTLY, MY FELLOW DEFENSIVE tactics instructors and I subjected police officers at my department to a series of drills intended to gauge their responses to a surprise encounter. Each drill began with a thick, dark material being draped over the officer’s head to prevent him or her from seeing. The officer was then escorted to the mat, where an instructor/role player was waiting. The only instruction officers were given was to respond realis- tically to whatever situation they encountered once they could see. Here’s a rundown of what happend. In the first scenario, the officers found themselves staring down the barrel of an inert training gun. Nearly all of the officers’ responses fell into one of the following three categories. One, the officer uttered an obscenity, created distance, and drew…

For a long time the 1911 universe was pretty easy: You bought or built a full-featured, full-size pistol for competition. Then you bought a plain-Jane beater for daily carry. The competition gun was tricked out with all the features. It was brilliantly accurate, all-steel and won matches for you. The carry 1911 was worn, gray, a lightweight aluminum frame and it was often rattly loose. If it was better than “minute of felon” accurate, we were happy. Oh, and they were both chambered in .45 ACP. Springfield Armory changed that a few years ago with the Range Officer. It is a plain 1911 built to competition specs in fitting and delivers like a match gun. No extras, no cosmetics, but all the performance of a competition gun without the big…

As the number of concealed-carry permits issued in this country continues to grow, so does the demand for subcompact semiauto pistols. These lightweight guns, usually chambered in.380 ACP, are easy to conceal and can effectively stop an attacker at close range when paired with modern defensive ammunition. One reason these semiautos are so popular is they are extremely convenient. Many subcompact .380s weigh less than 15 ounces and have slides under an inch wide. And while you would never dream of toting a full-size 1911 Government or a Glock 17 in your pocket, the current class of .380 pistols is light enough and small enough to carry in the same compartment as your keys and cell phone. But there’s a problem. Having a subcompact handgun loose in your pocket is…

ROCK ISLAND ISN’T THE FIRST COMPANY to build a 1911 downsized to fit the.380 ACP cartridge. I remember being a kid in the 1980s swooning over Colt’s glossy catalog and its then brand-new Mustang. However, a design that was considered little better than a toy 30 years ago is now accepted as a serious self-defense option due to improvements in ammunition. It was in 2014 when I first saw the prototype of the Rock Island Armory.380 ACP 1911, and the Rock Island people were already calling it the Baby Rock. That nickname stuck. There are several models in what Rock Island Armory (whose parent company, Armscor, is a Filipino firm that produces a lot of 1911s, including some that have other brand names on their slides) now calls the BBR…

UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES, police can seize guns from citizens who have done nothing wrong. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the police ordered law-abiding citizens to be disarmed, based on the governor’s declaration of a “state of emergency.” Police seized firearms at gunpoint from people in their cars, boats, homes and places of business. The NRA obtained a preliminary injunction in federal court, and the authorities agreed to return confis- cated guns. But citizens had a great deal of trouble retrieving their guns because police requested original bills of sale, which flood victims were not able to produce. Police across the country seize guns from law-abiding citizens in a variety of non-criminal circumstances every day. How do you get your guns back when you have not violated any…

ED BROWN 2018 EXECUTIVE TARGET Ed Brown Products is marking its 50th anniversary with a decked-out Executive Target. It’s a five-inch Government model featuring 25 lpi checkering on the frontstrap and mainspring housing and French-border ball cuts on the flattop slide. Trijicon’s popular RMR red dot comes with the gun, installed via Ed Brown’s new RMR mount. Since it’s an Ed Brown gun, you have your choice of more than 100 custom options. Caliber options include 9mm, .38 Super and .45 ACP. {$3,680 (base price), EDBROWN.COM} SNEAKY PETE PLAN AHEAD The new Plan Ahead survival belt from Sneaky Pete comes with a Gerber knife with stainless steel blade and titanium-coated handle designed to fit into one of two secret pockets in the belt. The other pocket can carry cash, extra…

FN Herstal was established in Belgium in 1889 as a manufacturer of military arms, and over the course of the last 128 years, the company has produced a wide variety of weapons ranging from the Browning Hi Power and Mauser-style bolt actions to the more modern SCAR, P90 and M240 firearms used by militar- ies all around the globe. The brand is still the largest small arms exporter in Europe, and its U.S. division, FN America, based in South Carolina, produces a number of firearms for both military and law enforcement profes- sionals as well as civilian shooters. With such a lengthy record of firearms engineering and manufac- turing, FN was an obvious choice to provide a test pistol for the U.S. military when it was looking for a contract…

Justin Moon has a habit of being in the right place at the right time. In the 1980s he was working for a company manufacturing precision CNC machining equipment, technology that completely changed manufacturing processes (including firearms manufacturing) in the United States and abroad. In addition to his machining and manufacturing experience, Moon was also an avid shooter. As such, he had the skills and experience to build firearms that were compact, accurate and affordable. His company—known today as Kahr Arms—incorporated new operations, advanced materials and modern machining to produce handguns that were class-leading carry guns before there was even a class to lead. Shortly after Kahr’s doors opened in the mid-’90s, the nationwide push for concealed-carry permits began in earnest. Within a decade virtually every state in the country…