Innholdsfortegnelse for June/July 2018 i Handguns

Form Factor Eve Flanigan did a great job on her article on stance (“Speed-loads,” April/May). While teaching my then-teenage daughters to shoot shotguns efficiently, I too noticed the back bend shown in the lower photo of the article. The basketball-playing daughter didn’t have quite as much trouble as the swimming daughter. A couple of years ago we revisited this and I noticed they had much better form. Both of these girls have kids, and I watch them snatch those toddlers up like a small sack of potatoes, Wonder if the increase in shoulder strength and the way they lift might be a key in proper firearms stance. RICK SCHWERTNER SNYDER, TX Slide Racking My wife and I have difficulty pulling a pistol slide back, especially partway. We find it easier…

“IF ALL YOU HAVE IS A HAMMER, EVERYthing looks like a nail.” This popular quote, attributed to Abraham Maslow, is particularly relevant for concealed-carry permit holders. When you’ve opted to arm yourself with a handgun, it tends to become your go-to option when you feel threatened. However, sometimes your gun is neither a tactically sound nor legally defensible option. A concealed handgun could save the day when faced with a deadly threat, but drawing it when the threat is less significant could exacerbate the situation, sending you down a slippery slope that could ultimately lead to unjustifiable injury or death to your assailant and your subsequent incarceration. As a case in point, let’s assume an unarmed person of your approximate size were to point at you and threaten to “kick…

Heckler & Koch has been on a roll thanks to the solid, reliable and effective VP9, and now the company has introduced a subcompact version, the VP9SK. The VP9 line features the HK precision strike trigger. This is a refinement of the striker-fired system, where the precision strike has a shorter and lighter take-up than your basic spongy crunch-en-squish striker trigger. Then, once you’ve pressed through the clean break, the reset is shorter and cleaner. I don’t want to sound too snarky, but it’s as if the engineers were told to listen to shooters and make a trigger that satisfied them and yet still had all the usual safety mechanisms built in. The trigger has a safety lever that blocks trigger movement until your finger has pressed it out of…

In the cookbook of handguns steel and wood are the original main ingredients. Using these tried and true materials Rock River Arms of Colona Illinois, is producing a 1911 that is a standout in quality and performance. Know as the Basic Limited model it is an enhanced version of John Brown ing’s most popular design. In a market awash with 1911s companies have to do something special to stand out in the crowd. In speaking with Steve Mayer at Rock River, he explained that while, yes, the 1911 market is huge, there is a niche for quality, built-to-order handguns. That is what the Basic Limited is about: a 1911 with many high-end features that are found on pistols costing far more. The Basic Limited is a Series 70 1911, the…

STREAMLIGHT IS THE CHOICE OF MANY serious users in law enforcement and elsewhere. Its products reflect the latest trends in light/laser technology. Streamlight’s venerable TLR is its flagship weapon light, and it’s developed into an entire line of products. The TLR-6 is a relatively new combination light/laser meant for smaller guns, and there are models to fit dozens of different handguns. Most of the various TLR-6 units clamp over trigger guards (since most carry guns don’t have rails on the frame), but Streamlight does make rail-mounted versions of this product as well. (Ed. note: And even more recently, Streamlight introduced the TLR-7 and TLR-8 for guns with accessory rails.) The TLR-6 features a polymer housing and is lighter than it looks. With the two provided CR-1/3N lithium batteries, the unit…

For its size, Glock is an unusual gun company. It doesn’t make pistols and shotguns and rifles. It just makes pistols—and only one type of pistol at that: the Glock pistol, a polymer-frame striker-fired semiauto with a distinct look. It is available in various calibers and sizes, but a Glock pistol is a Glock pistol. Therefore, any time Glock introduces a new model or makes any changes, it is much bigger news than it would be for another company. That said, the Glock Gen 5 is kind of a big deal Not just for what it is—a completely redesigned Glockbut because of how it came about The two Glock Gen 5 pistols are basically the commercial versions of the 17M and 19M models made for and adopted by the FBI.…

IF THERE IS ONE HANDGUN THAT STICKS out in my collection, it’s the Ruger Super Blackhawk. Now in my possession for more than 40 years, the gun remains tight and as accurate as the first day I took it to the range. The Super Blackhawk was introduced in 1973 and touted as being one of the world’s truly great handguns. This .44 Magnum single action was and is a big gun, coming in at 48 ounces with a 7.5-inch barrel. The Super Blackhawk went through numerous variations to include barrel lengths from 4.5 to 10.5 inches. Today you’ll find Hunter (integral scope base cuts), Bisley (Bisley grip) and Bisley Hunter (grip and scope cuts) variations in addition to the standard version in blue and stainless. There are older “three-screw” versions…

TOM THREEPERSONS WAS AMONG THE most famous of all western lawmen of the previous century. He was by all accounts not only a formidable lawman but also a great cowboy, competing in rodeos prior to World War I, and a scout who served in the Pancho Villa Expedition under Gen. John J. Pershing. Threepersons joined the Army soon after. His military service in World War I was confined to handling horses at Fort Bliss, Texas, and he stayed on until 1920. During this time Threepersons received a blow to the head from a horse. This serious injury dogged him the rest of his life, and he underwent several surgeries in later years. He joined the El Paso police department after mustering out of the Army, working in some of the…

LET’S FACE IT: SHOOTING HOLES IN paper over and over can turn your range session to a snooze fest in short order. After all, paper targets don’t do anything other than display a small hole when shot. Steel plates offer a more exciting alternative, but they’re costly, and lugging them around is cumbersome. So how can you add some excitement to your training without a ton of cost or hassle? Enter Pop Packs from Triumph Systems ( TRIUMPH-SYSTEMS.COM ). Co-founded by former Navy SEAL Jared Ogden, the company offers several unconventional targets. The Pop Packs come in a box of a dozen. Each pack measures about 5x3.5x1.5 inches. The top of each pack has three hanging holes, but you could simply staple the pack to a cardboard or wooden target…

If you have your finger on the pulse of the goings-on in the handgun industry, you’re aware that we’re in the midst of a 10mm Auto renaissance. The 10mm’s sudden popularity comes as no surprise to the cartridge’s substantial fan base, who think it’s about time the rest of us caught onto what a marvel of engineering the round truly is. But the fact that this cartridge has even survived is a testament to its merits. Handgun shooters were impressed with the 10mm’s ballistics when the cartridge broke cover in the 1980s. The 10mm Auto is a potent cartridge—just what the FBI was looking for after the notorious 1986 shootout in Miami in which two agents were killed because their 9mm service weapons failed to stop the assailants. In short…

THE SNUBNOSE REVOLVER HAS BEEN A cornerstone of concealed carry for a long time, and despite the huge influx of small, lightweight semiautomatics, the snubby hangs in there. And for good reason: It’s not only light, handy and completely reliable, it can be chambered in big-time cartridges that little pistols simply can’t match. Primarily I’m talking about the .357 Magnum, a cartridge Smith & Wesson’s Model 360 Airweight is built to handle. The company’s J-frame Airweight series dates back to the 1950s when these guns—chambered first to .38 Special—were built from aluminum frames and cylinders. Problems with cracking led to a change to steel cylinders. Today’s Airweights feature scandium alloy frames and are among the lightest guns you can buy—and can handle a lot more power than the original .38…