My work has me reviewing new 1911’s regularly and the Devil Dog is among the best I have ever used. The trigger, the functionality, and of course the accuracy—all near the top of my 1911 experiences.

The Texas sun was just beginning to drop below the trees, when I heard the strange bellow and grunt of an Axis buck from the top of a far hill. Glassing, I caught sight of the buck’s spotted coat moving between the live oak and mesquite, well over 600 yards away.

Many people don’t realize it, but Texas is home to tens of thousands of free-ranging aoudads, Axis deer, blackbuck antelope, fallow deer, and nilgai, among others, none of which originated on the North American Continent much less the Republic of Texas.

We were a very talkative group at dinner the night before and during coffee that morning. But when the 15 of us walked into the covered shooting line and saw the steel targets ranging before us–the last row at 1,000 yards—it all went silent. Oh, man, I imagined my fellow students thinking, that’s what 1,000 yards actually looks like? Never going to happen!

1791 GunLeather makes carry belts and a wide variety of holsters, most of them built with heavy cowhide and state-of-the-art flexible carbon fiber.

Accurate and very comfortable in the hand, the Defiant STOCK 1 clearly has many uses beyond competition, including home defense, hunting, law enforcement use, open carry, and just plinking. It strikes me as a little large for concealed carry, but there are people who no doubt would find this full-sized handgun just right for that purpose, too.

In an outdoors market awash in flashlights, I recently found one light I’ll be hanging onto for my hunts: the Polysteel 600R LED Flashlight from Coast Products.

“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Okay, so the quote is actually (and incorrectly) attributed to Mark Twain, author of Huck Finn and many other novels. But it could as easily apply to the .40 Smith and Wesson as a self-defense caliber since reports of the caliber’s death were breathlessly hyped a couple years ago when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced it was switching its duty sidearms from the .40 S&W to 9mm.

You can count on at least two things during every SHOT Show, the shooting sports industry’s mega-trade show held each January in Las Vegas. One, the crowds will be large enough to trample an elephant. Two, and more importantly, Leupold Optics will have new and upgraded optics on display for serious hunters and shooters. This [...]