Innholdsfortegnelse for August/September 2019 i Handguns

The Wheel Goes ’Round Thank you for the cover story on the Smith & Wesson M19 Carry Comp. It’s great to see a revolver on the cover! I’m a longtime subscriber and even longer-time reader—going back to the Jan Libourel days—so I recognize that my fondness for the wheelgun represents a smaller market demographic. Nonetheless, there’s no denying the many attributes of the revolver even today, and I’m glad to see S&W join Colt and Kimber in providing new models. I also must compliment your fine staff and note that Richard Nance’s “En Garde” column is unfailingly informative and helpful in a real-world sense. D.W. LIVINGSTON ALBUQUERQUE, NM Cowboy Up I am sick and tired of the reader letters criticizing you for reviewing “expensive” guns. I don’t buy car magazines…

IN THE 1970S AND ’80S, FEW IF ANY 1911 handguns were ready for competition. Les Baer and Bill Wilson were yet to come. Some of the finest work ever accomplished on 1911 handguns was the work done by Army gunsmiths between 1918 and 1935, but the best examples were turned out by shops run by craftsmen who mixed art and mechanics. Pennsylvanian George Madore worked on many handguns prior to his death about 15 years ago. Among these were Hammerli 208 handguns and quite a few 1911s. I have seen several 1911 .45s he modified, and the one in my hands is an exceptional example of the gunsmith’s trade. Among his innovations was a tab on the barrel to snug up the barrel fitting. He also figured out a way…

THIS DRILL WILL HELP YOU IMPROVE your draw speed and target transitions—along with reloading skills and sight picture and trigger control. It also reinforces the importance of controlling the gun’s recoil. It’s a great drill for competitive shooters, but because of the basics it addresses it’s good for defensive handgunners as well. GEAR Spare magazine, mag pouch, shot timer DRILL Three IPSC-style targets. Targets 1 and 3 are seven yards to the left and right of the shooting position (use a USPSA-type shooting box if you’re practicing for competition) and one yard downrange, facing the start position. Target 2 is 15 yards directly downrange from the starting position. Start with arms at sides. At signal, draw and shoot targets 1 and 3 with two rounds each. Perform a reload and…

SMITH & WESSON PERFORMANCE CENTER M&P SHIELD 2.0 While Smith & Wesson’s branding structure requires a flow chart to understand, there’s no denying the company is turning out some cool guns, and the latest is an upgraded version of the M&P Shield. The new optics-equipped version features a four-inch barrel, and the slide is cut for optics and even ships with a four-m.o.a. red dot sight. Available with regular (shown) or ported slide, it sports Hi-Viz fiber-optic sights, and as a 2.0 model it has an improved frame, grip, finish and trigger—a trigger that in this case is made even better via Performance Center tuning. {$826 (non-ported), $854 (ported); SMITH-WESSON.COM } FEDERAL SYNTECH DEFENSE The latest load in this line of total synthetic jacket ammo is Syntech Defense. It features…

So-called mini or micro revolvers are those niche guns everyone has seen, and they often think, “That’s cool, but what would I do with it?” Apparently, there have been a lot of satisfactory answers to that question because there have never been more mini revolvers on the market than now. North American Arms has a whole catalog of mini revolvers intended for self-defense. One of the newest is the True Black Widow. Offered only in .22 Magnum, it comes with fixed sights from Marble Arms and a matte black PVD finish. PVD stands for physical vapor deposition, and PVD coatings are very durable. Slapping PVD atop stainless steel means it’s going to be almost impossible to get it to rust. It adds $40 to the suggested retail price of the…

TRIJICON, THE COMPANY THAT DEVELoped the legendary RMR sight, has come out with a brand-new reflex sight designed specifically for pistols: the Specialized Reflex Optic or SRO ($749). Reflex sights are great because they eliminate the need to resolve rear sight, front sight and target simultaneously, but they can be slow on the draw because of the time it may take to acquire the dot. While training can alleviate this, no one wants to court disaster needlessly—whether in self-defense or compettion—so Trijicon designed the SRO with a large, circular field of view to make it easier to find the dot. The SRO is half an inch longer than the RMR, but it has the same footprint and will fit most any setup that takes the RMR—as long as the longer…

IF, FOR EXAMPLE, THE MAKERS OF Häagen-Dazs ice cream suddenly decided to start manufacturing electro-superconductors, it would be perceived as them stepping out from the firm’s assumed area of expertise. However, if a company known for making battery-powered lasers meant for mounting on handguns suddenly decided to start making battery-powered optics meant for mounting on handguns and long guns, it wouldn’t seem like much of a stretch. In fact, many people might consider it a logical marketplace expansion. Crimson Trace, which is known for making some of the best handgun-mounted lasers in the business, has jumped into the red dot optics market. I am grouping Crimson Trace’s three “open” red dot sights together: the 1200, 1300 and 1400. When you’ve got all three together, you see that while there is…

Since CZ-USA opened its doors in 1997, the company has steadily increased the number of firearms offerings available to American shooters, a list that now includes everything from sleek semiauto carbines to classically styled side-by-side shotguns. In 2017, the company rounded out its firearms portfolio by releasing its first striker-fired semiauto pistol, the P-10 C. As the “C” in the name implies, the P-10 C is a compact handgun outfitted with a 4.02-inch barrel and a double-stack magazine and was designed to compete with the Glock 19, Walther PPQ and the Springfield Armory XD. The “C” also hinted at the fact CZ planned to offer the P-10 in other sizes, so it should have been no surprise when the company added a subcompact version, the P-10 S with a 3.5-inch…

THE G19 HAS BEEN GLOCK’S BEST SELLER around the world since it was introduced, but the stock G19 is not legal in Canada because its barrel is too short and its 15-round capacity is too large. The new Glock 48, on the other hand, has been specifically designed to be the “Canadian Glock 19,” but the end result is an interesting handgun that should be of great interest to Americans as well. The Glock 48 is a 9mm with a 4.17-inch (106mm, the minimum barrel length in Canada) barrel and a 10-round magazine capacity. It is 7.28 inches long and 5.04 inches tall—the exact same height as a 15-round Glock 19. And even though the barrel is 4mm longer, the gun overall is .08 inch shorter than a G19. To…

JULY 1st 2019 3 new segments highlight Guns & Ammo TV: Average gun guys will take on some of the industry’s best in ‘Pros vs Joes’. ‘Umarex Air’ will profile advancements with airsoft and air guns, and Kyle Lamb is back, teaching us how to ‘Stay in the Fight’! JULY 8th 2019 You may not think of Stoeger as a pistol maker but that may change once you see the STR-9. Grand Master pistol shooter, Jim Tarr takes on a rookie in ‘Pros Vs Joes’, and in ‘Stay in the Fight’ we have a version of El Presidente that you may have never seen.…

IT’S QUITE SATISFYING TO PRESS THE trigger on your handgun and have the bullet impact precisely where you were aiming. In fact, this feeling is what keeps most shooters returning to the range. The problem is most of us don’t get to the range nearly as often as we would like. As a result, our skills can stagnate or even deteriorate over time. If the only time we work on our shooting skills is at the range, we may not be much more proficient now than we were a year ago. Next year, we may be only marginally better than we are today. To make matters worse, for safety and liability purposes, many ranges don’t allow shooters to draw from the holster, shoot more than one round per second, shoot…

Nighthawk Custom has a new Boardroom series of pistols. Right now that series includes two pistols: the President and the Chairman. The two pistols are identical except for length. The Chairman is a six-inch longslide, and the President is a standard five-inch Government model. Its size, however, is the only thing standard about this pistol. Nighthawk Custom is known more for making carry guns than competition guns, but the Boardroom series is intended to be suitable for both activities. Competition shooters tend to throw tradition out the window when it comes to pistols. They are all about performance, and the folks at Nighthawk seem to be fully aware of that. Apart from the President being the same size as a traditional Government model 1911, don’t expect adherence to too many…

I KNEW FROM THE MINUTE I LEFT THE theater on Pleasant Street that I would have one of the “world’s most powerful” handguns. I am referring, of course, to the famed “Dirty Harry” movie of 1971 where the Model 29 brought instant success to its maker. But the story starts much earlier. In the early 1950s, gun writer Elmer Keith went to Smith & Wesson, urging it to build a gun strong enough to handle the heavy .44 Special loads he had developed for the S&W .44 Hand Ejector. His persistence paid off as Remington and Smith & Wesson got together to design the .44 Magnum. The first production run of Hand Ejectors came in July 1954, and while the results were good, it was decided the gun should be…