Handguns

When a terrorist tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II by shooting him four times, the weapon was a Browning Hi-Power. But the story didn’t end the way you’d expect.

The Rock Island Armory PRO Match Ultra is a super-sized version of Browning’s eternal classic, the 1911. Competition-oriented, the PRO Match has a 5” Bull Barrel and a rail-free dust cover pushing weight forward for stability. The big steel double-stack frame holds sixteen rounds of versatile .40 Smith & Wesson, a round favored by both competitors and police agencies.

The Springfield Armory Defender Series offers their proven, reliable guns at a discounted rate for a limited time. The first pistols available in the Defender Series are the XD 4” Full size and XD 3” Sub-Compact both in 9mm.

“Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan!”  The quote has been attributed to several people, including President John F. Kennedy.  I think the phrase is applicable to Kimber’s new EVO SP pistol.  The EVO SP, in general, is a successor to the ill-fated Solo.  First introduced in 2011, the Solo was a sub-compact, [...]

In this installment of our ongoing review of infamous assassination weapons, we probe the very depths of darkness and hate. The victim was a shock radio host, the assassins were dedicated white supremacists, and the weapon was an illegally converted full auto MAC10.

The Vickers Elite has everything you need and nothing that you don’t. It is a well-thought-out pistol with a functional need for each feature.

I’m not a cop. Never been one. Never played one on TV. And while I fully understand why this new G45 model from Glock, dubbed their “Crossover” pistol, is exactly what some departments have wanted, and what I predict more and more will adopt, I think they’ve struck handgun gold here for the civilian market as well. This baby is a shooter!

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.

It was almost exactly five years ago that I wrote my first gun review for GunsAmerica (gently wipes away a tear…). It was the Walther PPQ M2 5” pistol, which was just new to the market at that time. When the work was finished and the article and video were published, I asked Walther if I could send them a check instead of returning the gun. That pistol has been my go-to match gun ever since, and it has many thousands of rounds through it.