GunsAmerica Product Reviews – Pistols

The last time we saw the new Springfield Armory XD(M) 5.25 I was only able to try the gun for about an hour before having to send it on to the next reviewer. GunsAmerica was the first to have pics and tests of this exciting new competition pistol designed by champion shooter Rob Leatham. At the time it was only available in 9mm as well. Several of the comments that came in asked the question, when are they going to offer it in .40S&W and .45ACP? The answer is “right now.” The guns should be on your dealer shelves, and there is still some time on the 3 magazines promotion from Springfield.

For competition, Springfield Armory has upped the game on the 5.25 with these two new guns. Both calibers give you more flexibility than the 9mm in competition. They give you the ability to make what is called “major power” in USPSA and other competitive shooting rule systems, and you can make doctored loads for what is called the “power floor.” With the .45ACP you can experiment quite a lot, as you’ll see we did some, and the .40S&W just makes the floor for major power factor, and may be your best option if you want to use the gun in competition as well as self defense or duty.

Power factors are all based on published rules for what the individual competition organizations. The speed of the bullets is measured by a chronograph at the competition itself. To calculate the power factor and figure out the power floor you multiply the weight of the bullet, in grains, with the measured speed in feet per second, divided by a thousand. So for a 125 grain 9mm travelling at 1100 feet per second it works out to 135. A 230 grain 45acp at 850 feet per second is 195.

You will notice that the power factor computation is far different than the foot/pounds computation we have covered in a number of other articles. In the latter, velocity is squared before it is multiplied. In power factor it is simply multiplied. So while in foot/pounds calculations velocity is king, in power factor bullet weight has much more impact.

To “make major” in USPSA for the Open division the power factor is 160, and it is 170 for the Standard and Modified divisions. The minimum caliber to “make major” in the Standard division is .40, which gives you two XD(M) 5.25 guns to choose from. Note also that there is an absolute power floor for USPSA and other competitions of 125. So if you are concerned only with competing at the division level without shooting to make major, you can load to the absolute floor for little or no recoil, if you can get the gun to work properly with low powered loads, as I will explain a bit later.

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Civilian gunfights almost always happen by surprise. You could argue that in home defense situations there is sometimes a warning that a threat is imminent. You may have dogs that bark, or an alarm system that wakes you in the night, or you may think to grab a gun if a stranger knocks at your door. But daytime threats, at the gas station, at the bank, in the parking garage, in the bad neighborhood you were forced to stop for a red light, can appear from anywhere at any moment.

In such cases, if you even have the ability to defend yourself, how fast you are able to get a projectile into your attacker may mean the difference between your life and death versus those of your attacker. For this reason, the Taurus Judge series of .410 shotshell double action revolvers has gained immense popularity. While researching for this article I googled around for holster options, and many holster makers now have the Taurus Judge at the top of their list to catch the eye of interested buyers. As a defensive handgun, the Taurus Judge has eluded all speculation. The Judge has arrived.

This polymer version of the 2″ Public Defender is the most practical of the Judge line for daily carry. Though the 23 ounce gun is only 5 ounces lighter than the steel Public Defender due to a steel under-frame, the 5 ounces is a welcome reduction in a carry gun, and the plastic coated frame is completely corrosion-proof. The cylinder is blued steel, which can rust, but the Taurus finish is extremely durable and in a holster will most likely last several years with no appreciable wear.

As you can immediately tell from the pictures here, I was really curious as to the actual ballistics of the 2″ Judge with the most popular load for the gun, the Winchester PDX1 .410 shotshell. This round was created specifically for the Judge line. It contains 3 plated disks and 12 standard BB gun sized BBs. I also wanted to look at some standard 000 buck shells in .410, as well as the .45 Long Colt, which is the cartridge that has the same external dimensions as the .410 shotshell (except of course shorter) and for which all Taurus Judge revolvers are made to shoot.

If you aren’t familiar with the Judge and you are wondering how on earth a pistol can be sold as what amounts to a “sawed off shotgun” in .410 gauge, the Judge utilizes a loophole in the gun laws that specifically applies to the .410 only. Because there is a genuine firearm caliber in the same head and body size as the .410, the .45 Long Colt, there have been for generations pistols and revolvers, and even derringers, made with rifled barrels and longer chambers that can specifically handle the .410 shell. The .410 in a handgun used to be a novelty, in the occasional small production revolver and most notably in derringers, but the Judge took the concept prime time, in a reliable gun with a built in gun lock and a lifetime guarantee to boot.

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Do you want a shock? If you have an Android phone, go into the Marketplace and search for the word “guns.” Hundreds of apps will appear relating to every angle on guns and shooting you can imagine. What I found interesting was that by far the most common picture of a gun chosen for the thumbnail is none other than the Desert Eagle. As guns go, the Desert Eagle is not that common, but maybe due to video games, or movies, or just plain old coolness, it is one of the most notorious guns of all time.

Most people think of the Desert Eagle in the most famous .50AE (Action Express) caliber, but when it comes to actually buying a gun to shoot, I would suggest the far more affordable .44 Magnum. Brass is plentiful, and you can buy the ammo on the shelf at Wal-Mart or Bass Pro Shops. Ballistically, the .50AE is overkill in a pistol and rocks your world far too much to be an effective weapon anyway. It is more of a novelty cartridge that a functional participant in shooting sports, unlike the .44 Magnum that is used extensively and successfully in self defense, handgun hunting and as a backup for dangerous game.

To understand the difference in ballistics of the two cartridges, the standard 300gr. bullet in a .50AE travels at roughly the same 1400fps. that a 240gr. bullet travels in a .44 mag. In muzzle energy this equates to a 50% advantage for the .50AE, 1449ft./lbs vs. 971ft./lbs. for the 44 mag. With a similar weight 300gr. bullet, the .44 mag comes in at even less, at 881ft./lbs. But when it comes to hand cannons, how much is too much? Even against a Grizzly, the ability to aim a follow up shot quickly should you miss is more important that eeking out every foot-pound of energy from a gun when you are limited to carrying a pistol.

This is why I ordered a test gun in .44 Magnum. As romantic as the “Big 50” may be, I wanted to see what it was like to shoot this famous and enormous gun with a practical cartridge. My perspective is, most .44 Magnum shooters shoot revolvers, Smith & Wesson Model 39s, Ruger Super Redhawks, etc. With a .44 Magnum Desert Eagle, you have 8+1 rounds, not just six, and you can slap a mag if this isn’t enough to get the job done, or if you need to be ready for the next threat. Compared to a revolver the Desert Eagle is far more firepower, and let’s face it, the gun is among the coolest on the planet. It looks like a Battlestar Gallactica blaster for heaven’s sake!

Weighing in at nearly four and half pounds (70.5 oz.), the Desert Eagle .44 Magnum still has a good deal of recoil and muzzle flip. It may not be the biggest boy on the block anymore, but the .44 Magnum is still a beast of a cartridge. I would not call it punishing though. I have fired lightweight alloy J-frame revolvers with .357 Magnum loads that were a lot more unpleasant to shoot than this.

Using the gun successfully takes some practice though, and Magnum Research provides a picture guide to help you save frustration. The Desert Eagle is not a gun you can just take out of the box and shoot properly. Many of the good habits you may have developed from shooting large revolvers don’t apply to the Desert Eagle, and you have to consciously change them or the Desert Eagle doesn’t work so good.

With a big, .44 Magnum revolver, like a Ruger Super Redhawk, (for a right handed shooter), you hold your left hand under the grip to apply two handed counter pressure to shoot the gun. When you shoot it, you allow the revolver to roll backwards with the recoil. If you do this with the Desert Eagle, the next round won’t lock up correctly and it will behave like a standard failure to feed correctly. Two things about this you have to consciously change.

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This year saw the flood of extremely small 9mm pistols into the gun market. I call them as a group, “the Micro-9mm.” Just about any gun nut will get excited about on the promise of 9mm firepower in a small package that will fit in your pocket. And with the wave of new concealed carry laws across the US, tens of thousands of new gun owners have come into the market, all looking for the best Micro-9mm. I can’t say I have tested in hand all of the different offerings out there, but after extensive testing, I have to vote that the Walther PPS, if you did go test them all side by side, would come up on top. I’ll try to explain why.

When you have a lot of products that essentially do the same thing (think TVs), you have to figure out what the differences are, and which of the differences are important to you. Trigger action, a manual safety, not having a manual safety, thickness, price, capacity, etc. all factor in and will effect your buying decision.

The most important difference, however, is obviously reliability. Everyone will claim that they have great reliability, and you won’t find a real review of any of the guns either in print or online that says “I tried this gun and it didn’t work.” But not all guns work all the time in every instance, and understanding when and how a gun can be relied upon is extremely important, more important than all of those other factors combined. I want to be able to pick up my carry gun and expect it to fire every time with every ammunition if possible, and cycle correctly, chambering the next round to fire as reliably as the last.

With ultra-compact, or Micro-9mm pistols, reliability is a particularly a huge factor. That size of pistol has traditionally been constructed to handle the .380ACP cartridge, and forcing it to handle the much more potent 9mm, or even .40S&W is a not a feat for the faint of heart. 9mm kicks much harder. The rounds are bigger and longer, and the barrel thicker. Yet “thin” is in when it comes to pocket pistols, so that means the parts have to be smaller. In many cases the Micro-9mm is smaller than any gun the company has ever made, even a .380. Add to this that many of the people making these Micro-9mm pistols have never made a small gun before at all, at least not that small, and you realize that the gun you buy to protect your life is actually just the realization of an engineer’s drawings that so far has worked, as far as you have heard. You may feel that this is true of most guns, but there is a huge difference between making a new model with variations on a gun you have been making for a while as opposed to a completely new gun with design challenges you have no experience dealing with at all.

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At first glance you would think the Walther P99 and PPQ are the same gun, but when you look closer, the only things they really have in common are the way they fire (with a striker), their basic profile, and their weight, 1 lb., 8.3oz. The rest is different.

If your inclination is “Yawwwwwn” when you see a review of a modern polymer striker fired pistol, you aren’t alone. All but a few go bang every time, feel great in your hand, and don’t seem to break ever. They even mostly look the same. But there are differences, even major differences, and PPQ and P99 are two guns that deserve a hard look. Most of us think of Walther as an old time manufacturer of WWI and WWII pistols, and for the current PPK/PPKS, but both the PPQ and P99 are standouts in the polymer pistol world and should be taken very seriously.

The P99 is a totally unique pistol in the striker-fired world, and if given a chance by police armorers, could take a lot of law enforcement sales away from other brands. The PPQ will eat your Glock for breakfast at an MSRP of $729 and street price under $600. I was so impressed with both guns that I decided to put them in one article together in hopes that people would read about them both, rather than have to click two articles. Elite is the word that came to mind, and both pistols are truly elite in the handgun world.

Both the PPQ and P99 employ a unique Walther ambidextrous magazine release that is a part of the trigger guard. It is a little hard to get used to, but once I did, I liked it. The downside to it is that you have to alter your grip on the gun to drop the mag (or have really long thumbs), but the upside is that you won’t accidentally drop the mag in a gunfight because you whacked the button, or because the bad guy pulled a Jackie Chan and dropped it for you. I have accidentally pushed mag buttons my whole life so for me it was a welcome improvement.

The other features they share are an effective three dot sight, with a windage adjustable rear (nice feature), a standard 15 round magazine (17 available from Smith & Wesson), and loaded chamber indicators on the side of the gun. They both have interchangeable backstraps for different size hands, a front rail, and both come in a 9mm and .40S&W configuration.

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I can pretty much promise you that you will not see another review of the Auto Ordnance “Thompson” TA-5 Pistol that suggests you buy one to use as your main tactical carbine, but that is the way I see this gun. If you want an effective close quarters combat carbine in a pistol caliber that hits harder than 9mm, I have not encountered a cleaner and more effective candidate than this in the sub-$2,000 category. At an MSRP of $1,377 and street price substantially less, the TA-5 is a lean, mean fighting machine that eats everything you put through it and shoots into a ragged hole at 25 yards. What else do you need?
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Changing the way you think about polymer pistols is not an easy task, but this is exactly the goal of the new Springfield Armory XD(M) 5.25.  They have taken the world class XD(M) design and matched it with new features designed specifically for competition shooters. Designed by the Springfield Armory team and world champion shooter Rob Leatham, the XD(M) 5.25 is everything you could want in a competition pistol out of the box. At some point they will release a tactical version, but this first 5.25 was made to be on the cutting edge of what you expect from a target and competition pistol. It is made to change your view of what a polymer pistol can be. Read More…

Well, we’ve all seen the commotion about Glock’s new “Gen 4” version of their line of pistols. Some like it, some, well let’s just say aren’t jumping for joy. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Whenever a tried and true model gets an update, everyone wants to know how you improve on something that already works pretty well as is.

If you have an earlier model, we need to ask ourselves, “In today’s economy, is this really worth putting my hard earned money into?”

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New this year from Springfield Armory is their latest entrant into their line of XD(M) polymer framed striker fired pistols. This is what is being called the XD(M) Compact, and it is very similar to the XD(M) 3.8 that came out last year and that was built on their standard size frame with a shorter barrel and slide. The Compact has the same 3.8 inch barrel, and the slide is the same. But the frame is a new design for Springfield and it is made specifically for concealed carry.

Never to be left with a question about thinking about everything, Springfield gives you two different size magazines with the gun though. The flush magazine is the true “Compact” size and holds 13 rounds, but there is also a full size 19 round that comes with a sleeve to extend the grip. So with one gun you have both the new XD(M) Compact, a 2 finger grip for most hands, and the same gun with a full 3 finger grip, like the older 3.8 model. Read More…