Innholdsfortegnelse for February/March 2024 i Handguns

Just Stop It I am writing to politely disagree with a comment made by Brad Fitzpatrick in the June/July 2023 issue. Reviewing RIA’s new 5.0 pistol he remarked that, “The worst thing to happen to 9mm pistols was the advent and popularity of the minimized (read: worthless) slide stop.” He later adds that the RIA’s stop is “large enough to operate easily and consistently.” Every semiauto manufacturer calls these parts “slide stops” and not “slide releases” for a reason: They are meant to only be used as stops. Minimized stops are preferred as they will not snag on clothing or gear on the draw. Under duress, the fine motor skills needed to depress a slide stop are not present, making slide closure difficult if not impossible. PAUL, OHIO Original P85…

RULE 4 BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET AND WHAT’S BEYOND IT WILSON SFT9 LIGHT RAIL This new double-stack 9mm adds a light rail to its CNC-machined T6-7075 solid aluminum frame. The design permits a gun that’s only 1.2 inches wide, and it features Wilson’s Trak grip strap texture. It’s a Commander-length pistol with a 4.25-inch hand-fitted, match-grade, bushing-style barrel, and the slide is DLC finished and has wide cocking serrations. {$3,160, WILSONCOMBAT.COM} ROCK ISLAND ARMORY RIA 5.0E Hot on the heels of the RIA 5.0, Rock Island has introduced an enhanced (hence the “E”) version. It features a new proprietary optics cut and plates, an upgraded match-grade barrel and a slide with a new geometry and more aggressive cocking serrations. Metal is treated to the company’s Elite finish, and the…

“HOW CAN HE NOT TAKE TRAINING SERI-ously?” I asked my sensei about another student, who never seemed to be putting forth the same effort as the rest of us. “Maybe he views karate as a hobby, the way you might view tennis,” was my teacher’s well-reasoned response. Sure, there is a sporting aspect to karate, but to my mind it is first and foremost a method of self-defense. Slacking at tennis practice might lead to you losing a match or being embarrassed on the court, but not taking self-defense training seriously is a recipe for disaster. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with dabbling in martial arts, doing so will surely lead to a rude and painful awakening should you call upon your training to thwart a determined attack. The stakes…

Although Savage is better known as a rifle manufacturer these days, the company has a long history of producing semiautomatic handguns. Readers may not be aware that Savage’s 1907 pistol was the leading competitor to the 1911 during the 1906-11 U.S. Army trials. Those guns were produced until the Great Depression, when Savage exited the handgun business. That changed in 2020 with the introduction of the Stance, a striker-fired semiauto designed for concealed carry and defensive use. Now the storied company has released its own variant of the handgun that kept its pistol out of military service: the Savage 1911. I will admit that when I heard that Savage would be entering the 1911 market, I wasn’t overwhelmed with excitement. There is a steep learning curve when it comes to…

Most shooters are familiar with the 10mm’s early failings, which very nearly resulted in this superb cartridge being relegated to a footnote in firearms history. There were issues with the release of the first 10mm, the Bren Ten—not the least of which was a lack of magazines—but the real problem was that the FBI felt that the 10mm produced too much recoil for some of its agents. The .40 S&W swooped in and became a more palatable option for recoil-sensitive shooters, and the 10mm’s fate seemed sealed. We all know how the story ends, though, and—spoiler alert—the 10mm was way too good to go away. After years of refinements to guns and loads, I wondered what might have happened if Smith & Wesson’s new Performance Center M&P 2.0 10mm had…

THE FOUR BASIC GUN SAFETY RULES RULE 1: ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED TRIJICON’S RMR OR RUGGEDIZED MIN- iature Reflex sight was introduced in 2008, and it was a game changer. Its development is largely responsible for the booming popularity of red dots on pistols today. There have been a few different versions of the RMR over the years, and last year Trijicon introduced not only a new version of the RMR—the RMR HD—but also the closed-emitter RCR. I’ll take the RMR HD ($849) first. I’ve been shooting RMRs and the related SRO for years now, and I think the new HD is a home run. While some of the changes from the standard RMR are subtle, the new circle/dot reticle available in the RMR HD is decidedly not. This…

RULE 3 KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON TARGET IN 1955, THE GREAT REVOLVER DESIGNER Harry Sefried’s creation, the High Standard Sentinel revolver, was unveiled. Part of Sefried’s genius was the ability to deliver Colt and Smith & Wesson quality at a price point that Sears Roebuck would offer it under the J.C. Higgins name, and Western Auto would offer it as its Revelation Model 99. The other aspect was his ability to take the revolver design into the 20th century while other makers were still making basically 19th century designs. Other revolvers were full of screws that sometimes backed out and tied up the gun, but the only screw in the Sentinel was the one holding the grip on. The innovative cylinder lock was…

IF YOU SIMPLY CAN’T GET ENOUGH GUNS and shooting, the My Outdoor TV (MOTV) app is a resource like no other, a curated treasure trove of firearms- and outdoor-oriented television shows and videos. For example, MOTV offers nine seasons—102 episodes—of “Handguns” (formerly “Handguns & Defensive Weapons”) alone. The show focuses primarily on personal protection and includes plenty of recreational shooting activities such as plinking and action-shooting competitions. It features reviews of the latest firearms, ammunition and shooting accessories, as well as advice on marksmanship, gun handling, self-defense techniques and a host of other handgun-related topics. But wait, there’s more! There are 10-plus seasons of the popular “Guns & Ammo” television shows, encompassing more than 200 episodes available on the app. You can also check out past episodes of shows like…

Walther has a longstanding tradition of innovation with .380 ACP-chambered concealed-carry pistols dating back to the introduction of the Polizei Pistole (PP) in 1929 and the Polizei Pistole Kriminal (PPK) in 1931. Fictional British secret agent 007 James Bond popularized the model, and many people consider the PPK the first modern concealed-carry pistol. With its short grip and sleek profile, the PPK was clearly slanted toward concealment. In 2009, the PK380 became Walther’s next take on the .380 ACP carry pistol. Although slightly larger than the PPK, the PK380 was lighter thanks to its polymer grip. Its longer grip made room for your little finger and accommodated an eight-round magazine rather than the PPK’s six-rounder. PK380 ergonomics were far superior to the PPK, and the slide on the former was…

EVERYONE SHOULD OWN A DOUBLE-action .22 revolver. And you might as well go big or…well, you know. Ruger’s GP100 .22 is big—both in capacity and size. It’s a 10-shot wheelgun with a 5.5-inch barrel that weighs in at 42 ounces. Capacity aside, it sounds more like a big-bore revolver, doesn’t it? Maybe so, but its heft and 6.5-inch sight radius pay off in the shooting. If you’re not familiar with the GP100, Bill Ruger designed the gun nearly 40 years ago to be built like a tank. The frame lacks sideplates, giving it the extra strength to handle a steady diet of the .357 Magnum loads the original GP100 was intended for. It also featured a novel peg-style frame that permitted one-piece grips, and instead of the commonly used leaf…

RULE 2 NEVER LET THE MUZZLE POINT AT ANYTHING YOU’RE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY IT’S INTERESTING TO STUDY THE RE- lationship between handgun accuracy and speed, and the Circle drill will show you where you’re at on this spectrum. GEAR Any handgun capable of holding six rounds. DRILL Target is an eight-inch circle, and a good ol’ paper plate works well. From the seven-yard line and from any position—from the holster (concealed or not), Low Ready or High Ready—fire six shots at a one-second pace. Next, fire six shots at a half-second pace. Last, six shots at four per second. You can count the timing in your head or out loud. For the first stage, it’s “1 and 2 and 3” etc. at a normal speaking cadence, shooting when you…

MANY SHOOTERS ROLL THEIR EYES at the mere mention of a gun lock. That’s probably because many shooters don’t elect to use the cable gun locks that are provided with firearms, opting instead to keep their firearms on their person or secured in a lockbox or safe. But is there a benefit to being able to instantly lock your firearm so it can’t be operated? Some shooters think so, and one of them is GoSafe co-founder Mark “Oz” Geist, a U.S. Marine and member of the Annex security team that was involved in the Battle of Benghazi in 2012. In addition to serving as a marine and security consultant for law enforcement and military agencies, Geist is also a hunter education instructor and advocate for firearms safety. Geist and the…

The arms race among gun manufacturers to build small guns with big capacity continues apace, and one of the latest small semiautos—the Taurus GX4 Carry—is an example of one direction the industry is taking: produce a micro-compact that holds as much 9mm as you can make it hold; make it hold some more with extended magazines; then build the whole thing bigger. In the case of the GX4, first we had the original, a 9mm with a 3.06-inch barrel and an 11-round capacity. Next came the GX4 T.O.R.O. (Taurus Optics Ready Option) that shares the identical dimensions of the GX4 but has an optics cut in the slide and comes with an extended 13-round magazine in addition to the 11-round flush-fit mag. The GX4 XL followed, and it has a…

About a year and a half ago, the Los Angeles Police Department received the first shipments of its newly selected duty pistol, the FN 509 MRE-LE. LAPD gave FN the nod after extensive testing including a 20,000-round endurance test, according to FN. There was no shortage of major firearms manufacturers vying for the LAPD contract, and the fact that one of the largest police departments in the country chose FN is a testament to the company’s battle-proven performance. Conversely, FN’s latest pistol, the micro-compact Reflex 9mm, was designed with concealed carry in mind. It has everything you’d expect from a micro-compact pistol—and some things you might not. For starters, the Reflex is not a striker-fired pistol but rather an internal hammer-fired single action only. The lighter single-action pull is less…

IF THERE WAS EVER A REVOLVER THAT was part of an historic series of guns, it has to be the Model 14. Built on the famous K frame, the first guns of its type were introduced in 1899. The revolver was originally known as the K-38 Target Masterpiece. Around 1947 company president Carl Hellstrom directed a revamping of the K-frame Target series, to include ribbed barrels, micrometer sights and an anti-backlash trigger. In 1955, the four-screw sideplate was eliminated, and model numbers with dashes started to appear, indicating engineering changes. In 1957, the nomenclature was changed to Model 14. Like previous models, the Model 14 is a six-shot, double-action revolver—although there was also a single-action version. Variants included barrels made in four, five, six and 83/8 inches in blue and…