GunsAmerica Product Reviews – Pistols

There are a lot of guns in the market that gun nuts take for granted. They are basically good guns that have been around for a long time and sell a ton, yet they are really nothing special. But with all of the new shooters coming into the market, particularly women shooters, some old and extremely average guns are developing a dedicated following because they work, they fit great, and they are not expensive. Never one for big headlines, the Taurus TCP, also known as the Model 738, is a 10.2 ounce .380 6+1 that is carried by thousands of people every day, yet you rarely if ever see an interesting review or article on the gun. It is the lightest Taurus ever made, and since the arrival at Taurus of Mark Kresser and a new focus on consistency and quality control, the Taurus TCP deserves a fresh look. We asked our resident girl guru Carrie Lightfoot from The Well Armed Womanto take the gun for a spell, and have her whole crew shoot it and let us know what they think. Overall the gun did really well in the eyes of these very critical ladies, and they felt that the TCP was designed to be “just right” for the woman shooter. Here is Carrie’s overview:

For years there has been something of a Glock Unicorn. It’s been called a hybrid Glock .45 ACP pistol made from the thin slide of a Glock 36 and the wide body frame of a Glock 30. According to the Internet forum mavens, you end up with a high capacity Glock (10 rounds) with the thinner slide of a the subcompact (and only 6 round) G36, making it lighter and easier to carry. But unlike Unicorns, this wasn’t a myth. People actually did it. They bought two guns and cobbled them together since, just because they could. Glock fanatics have wailed and begged for such a gun to be made in production, but Glock seemed to not hear the call.

Then, at the 2013 SHOT Show, I saw a Unicorn, uh, I mean a Glock 30S – the very gun that consumers wanted. I wanted to know the “why” behind this, and after talking to LAPD Staff, Glock Representatives, and people in the industry I found out how an internet forum phenomenon became a regular production pistol.

Great guns are always the most difficult to review. After all, a gun is just a fairly simple mechanical device that is made to withstand a bunch of force and direct its energy in a particular direction, one that you are aiming at. What made the original XD-S such an amazing great gun when it was first introduced was that it did this in a big caliber, without a lot of wear and tear on the shooter. Shooting.the tiny, pocketable XD-S 45ACP without a disabling recoil or muzzle flip is pretty amazing when you try it in person. You won’t believe how different the gun shoots unless you try it. The newest XD-S, in 9mm, is the same size as the original 45, brought to market this year in response to overwhelming demand for the smaller caliber. It shoots even lighter than the original, holds two more rounds, and side by side with every other “micro-9” in the market, flips a lot less. The XD-S is a full featured pistol, with a loaded round indicator, last round hold open, and the new 9mm comes with two 7 round magazines, an outside the waistband holster, and a dual magazine holster. It it also has an grip insert for smaller hands and extra fiber optic sight inserts in two colors. The street price of the XD-S 9mm should be around $550-$600. Nobody was surprised that Springfield came out with a 9mm XD-S, and we await the .40S&W version, but until you shoot the gun it is difficult to understand just how much the XD-S, in both the original .45ACP and now 9mm, outclasses the competition. If you remember our original review of the XD-S .45ACP back in June of last year, we correctly predicted that this gun would be a game changer for the market. The 9mm version is more of the same, for those who want a couple more rounds in the mag and an even lighter shooting pocket pistol. They should be at your local gun dealers this week.

It was by complete surprise that the Beretta Nano became one of my favorite carry guns. I reluctantly took an assignment to review the Nano even though I had never had much affection for Beretta firearms, and I had already reviewed a number of similar 9mm pistols. I could never have expected the Nano to become my favorite gun to carry among the micro-9s. In fact, the Nano sits comfortably in my pocket as I write this review. Despite my initial hesitation, I found the Nano to be a nearly perfect deep concealment pistol.

In many ways, the Beretta Nano is a typical micro-sized 9mm with a 3-inch barrel. It is a double-action striker-fired semi-auto with a capacity of 6+1 rounds. The pistol measures only 5.6 inches long and 4.2 inches high. The width is an impressive .9 inches, making pocket carry a realistic option. The gun tips the scale at nearly 20 ounces unloaded, which is certainly not a featherweight in this class of pistols, but is still manageable for deep concealment.

The .40 S&W is not just a flash in the pan as some writers called it when it first came out in the late ’80’s. It is the mainstay of American law enforcement, and may even see some favor in our Spec Ops community. In both the law enforcement and civilian market, the Glock is king of the .40 heap. There is not an agency in my county, and likely my state, that doesn’t at least allow for the Glock. Moreover, the gun that seems to go the fastest right now in the gun stores is, you guessed it, the Glock. Is it any wonder why Glock is backordered around one million guns.

The cargo hijacked from tractor trailers each year in the U.S. is valued at more than ½ billion dollars, and the encounters are often violent. Some in the industry, including a few at CVA, suspect more and more semi drivers are purchasing easy-to-load, .50-caliber muzzleloading pistols like the Optima V2 in response.

In a 1911 market that really should be saturated by now and an economy that’s arguably still struggling, Ruger is adding a Commander-size SR1911CMD for the concealed-carry gun owner who wants a quality, American-made 1911 for only $829. It used to be that if you wanted a reliable and accurate 1911, you bought a Colt and then spent more than the cost of the gun on custom gunsmithing. Depending on what you wanted, the sky was the limit. I credit Kimber with changing that in the mid-1990s when it aggressively entered the 1911 market with factory-made guns flush with all the bells and whistles and set off a race to the top that seems to still be going.

Smith & Wesson’s 2012 arrival to the micro-sized 9 mm-pistol market was fashionably late, about a year after just about every pistol company in the gun industry put out a pocketable 9mm. But while most of the competitors pared down their 9mm pocket gun, Smith & Wesson managed to keep most of the features of the full sized M&P, and this proved to be an instant hit with the army of M&P enthusiasts out there. It made perfect sense to retain as much of the M&P design as a micro-sized pistol would permit, but that took more time, and it was a tough judgement call for Smith & Wesson to debut the Shield at SHOT Show 2012 instead of 2011 when so many pocket 9mm pistols were released. A year later, just coming out of SHOT Show 2013, it seems to have paid off for Smith & Wesson. The Shield has been for the most part sold out since its introduction a year ago, and now with some serious range time on the guns, the Shield has shown to be very accurate and reliable. It is one of the few striker pistols on the market with a manual thumb safety, which almost puts the gun in a category by itself.

I’ve been carrying the Wilson Combat CQB Elite for more than three years and its only hiccup came a few weeks ago, oddly in the hands of my eldest grandson about to deploy. For some rarely used self-defense handguns that would be a serious indictment, but this 1911 has sent thousands of rounds downrange, it’s been carried nearly every day and I’m not known for being particularly “gentle” to anything I own. Add the fact that field stripping and cleaning duties have been surrendered to my teen grandsons—eager for takedown practice, but not always thorough in cleaning and proper lubrication—and this handgun is lifesaving reliable.

Then there’s its eagerness to digest anything and everything I feed it. I think I’ve loaded and tested this gun with nearly every modern .45 ACP load on the planet. If I wipe it down after a full day of carry I feel guilty because I have too much time on my hands, and despite the bangs and bumps of a one-hour commute to work, each way, it still commands reverence at the range. It is, after all, a Wilson.