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The Ruger firearms tradition is about to experience nothing short of a slam dunk. What else would you call a six and a half pound 22″ barrel Ruger deer rifle that has a modern design polymer stock, trigger safety, four round rotary magazine, aggressive recoil pad, shoots into about an inch at 100 yards consistently, and has an MRSP of $449? Ruger calls it the American Rifle, and I call that a slam dunk.

Over and over we are hearing from manufacturers in the American firearms industry that they are bringing to market a “completely new gun.” I think it is actually because of the internet. Because where it used to be that a product succeeded or failed, and the reason for the success or failure was largely a mystery. The ubiquitous voice of the internet now can and does let you know almost immediately what consumers like about your product and what they don’t like, and this gives you the power to change your product to better meet their needs.

“This is the finest close quarters combat handgun ever designed.” Said my friend and fellow firearms instructor Ken Hackathorn holding up a 1911 .45 Pistol in front of a class he was teaching at RangeMaster back in the late 1990s. I could not have agreed more. Ken may have changed his mind since then, I do not know, but I haven’t changed mine.

According to 1911 authority William Goddard, the first lot of 1911s (other than test pistols and tool room samples) were assembled at the Colt plant on 28 December 1911 (barely making it into the year the pistol was christened). They were shipped the first week of January. The rest, as they say is history. The collecting of 1911s is a joy and a field all to itself. But after 100 years, the 1911 still soldiers on, and not for nothing.

My focus is on use of the 1911, not collecting, but I am a student of history and the history of the 1911 in use for what it was intended is one of sublime success. My intent here is to touch on that use as well as some personal shooting impressions. I intend to spend a good bit of time on the “real” 1911. That is to say, U.S. Military issue and Commercial Government Models made before 1924 when the transition was begun to the 1911a1. To be sure the 1911a1 has very few fleas on it, but it is a slightly different pistol in my estimation.

My first personal experience with a 1911 was not exactly an auspicious occasion. My father was an excellent shot, worked for the Army for most of his adult life and was a WW-II veteran. Like many former military men he had an abiding respect for the .45 Automatic. And so, other than an old double barreled shotgun that had belonged to his father, the only firearm that he owned was an ex military 1911 for which I believe he paid the munificent sum of $15.

At the age of five, I had my first encounter with this pistol. It did not bode well. My dad had to help me hold the gun up but I was the one to press….ah jerk…on the trigger. Ear plugs? Real men did not use earplugs in the early 1950s! So their little boys didn’t either. Eye protection you ask? Nobody thought about it.

When I touched that pistol off I thought the world had come to an end! There was noise, and recoil and I probably would have dropped the blamed thing if my Dad’s hands hadn’t been wrapped around mine. To add injury to insult the hot empty case dropped right down the neck of my shirt and stayed there!

My next one 10 years later, didn’t do anything to improve my assessment. My first centerfire handgun was not a 1911, it was a 1911a1. I saved up money from soft drink bottle deposits and at age 15 bought a surplus Remington Rand .45. I did not buy it because I wanted a .45 Automatic. I bought it because I wanted a center fire handgun and it was cheap. By accident of birth and circumstances I was able to purchase this gun legally, though the owner of the pawn shop insisted that my Mother vouch for me. Just two years later I could not even purchase ammo as the 1968 Gun Control Act started taking effect.

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LaserMax Guide Rod Lasers https://www.lasermax.com/ by Thoughtful Reader Let’s just get something out of the way. I’m not a “gun guy”. I don’t frequent forums and discuss the finer points of this firearm or that, nor am I concerned with the incessant caliber debates. To me, the gun I carry is just a tool, like [...]

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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Marching to the beat of your own drummer can be a challenge in the gun world. But over and over again, Kel-Tec CNC, the company we all know for their tiny extremely affordable and reliable pocket pistols, keeps showing up with a new beat, and the guns are some of the most interesting in the entire shooting world.

The Sub 2000 is a folding pistol-caliber polymer carbine, and that is about where standard descriptions run out of gas. At first glance you may try to compare it to a gun you already know, but quickly you realize that it is unlike any other gun you know.

You find yourself saying, “It’s kind of like a … um, no, it’s kind of like nothing.”

The Sub-2000 cocks in the rear, and all of the moving parts of the gun are located in the rear. If you look in the pictures, that whole front barrel assembly swings up from a release in the trigger guard and the entire gun effectively folds in half. It is pretty much a totally unique firearm.

At an MSRP of $409 and a street price well under $400, the Sub-2000 is loaded with features that you wouldn’t expect in such an inexpensive gun. It takes Glock 17 mags in the standard model, but Kel-Tec is also shipping them in Glock 19, Smith & Wesson 59 type, Beretta 92 & 96, and Sig 226 configurations, and the gun is available in both 9mm and .40S&W. The plastic rear sight automatically flips up when you deploy the front of the rifle, and the front sight is a completely adjustable fiber optic. The barrel is 16″, and the weight is only slightly more than a pistol at 4lbs. It fold down to 16″ long.

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I recently visited the Islands of Hawaii, putting some of my hard earned vacation dollars to work. While there, I noticed something unusual in the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center in downtown Waikiki. It was a billboard ad for a shooting range, of all things, where tourists could rent guns and shoot!
Now I’m from California, and a shooting range is the next thing to an adult book store there, so I was pretty surprised to see the ad, much less in an urban shopping center. Since my interest was piqued, I had to wander up to the top floor to see what’s what.
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Cool new guns always do well with the early adopter crowd, but seldom does a new firearm design last and thrive the way the KRISS Vector has since its introduction in 2007. You could not turn on the Discovery Channel back then without seeing the episode of Future Weapons that featured the KRISS. Now here we are in the future four years later, and the KRISS Vector has come into full consumer production, and it is again featured on TV. The Military Channel has named it the best close quarters combat weapon.

If you haven’t seen the KRISS on TV, it is truly a novel firearm. The patents are not just applied for, they are awarded. Compared to other pistol caliber carbines and rifles, the KRISS is just simply different. The bolt, upon firing, travels back and downwards, into the handle, and the recoil is absorbed in a spring in that downward position. The result is significantly reduced felt recoil and muzzle climb.

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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…

Nobody wants to shoot someone by accident, not even if you already shot them once. But something that many people don’t understand is the criminal and civil liability that can arise from doing just that. It is hard to think about a concept such as “gunfight safety.” It is an oxymoron of sorts because a gunfight by nature is not safe. But when you choose a firearm, for concealed carry or as a duty gun, as a police officer or private security, you have to consider how likely is that gun to get you in trouble if you are in the heat of a potential or actual gunfight. Even if you are protected by statute from criminal liability as a police officer or if you live in a state with castle doctrine laws, lawyers can find a way to sue you regardless, and your ability to not fire the gun under stress could potentially effect your life as much as being able to fire the gun under stress.