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Ben Langlotz is a patent and trademark attorney with 24 years of experience working with the firearms industry. He is an author and educator intent on helping firearms business owners to navigate the minefields of patent and trademark law. Who better to offer some first rate advice about firearms nomenclature? Read on for Langlotz’s advice and learn how to keep yourself from sounding like an idiot when you write about firearms.

I just checked on-line. A Savage Model 111 Long Range Hunter Rifle chambered in .300 Win Mag with a 26″ Barrel and equipped with an AccuTrigger, an AccuStock, and an adjustable comb, sells for $863. A Lucid L5 6x-24 50MM Rifle Scope can be found for $327. Yours Truly is no super sniper, military or law enforcement high-speed, low-drag, kind of guy, but I can consistently hit targets out to one mile with this set-up. This means you can too! And if you are a really disciplined shooter, your results should be phenomenal.

If you like small guns, you’ll find the Bond Arms derringer both capable and versatile. Its capabilities stem from the fact that it’s not as punishing to shoot as you might expect. In fact, controllability and shootability are very good with every caliber shot for this review. Its versatility stems from the wide selection of barrels, calibers and grips available. Whichever of the eight models you select initially (nine including their new Backup model), you can add barrels and grips to turn it into any of the other models. Mix and match grips and barrels to customize it to your needs. Bond Arms’ price list shows a total of 21 barrels capable of firing 17 different calibers. Their 3” barrel, their most versatile, is available in .22LR, .22Mag, .327 fed mag, 9mm, .357/.38spl., .40 S&W, 10mm, .44spl., .44/40, .45GAP, .45ACP, .45Colt, and .45/.410 (2 ½” chamber). However, as in most guns that serve multiple needs, it does some things better than others. I toured the factory in Granbury, Texas, USA, with owner and president Gordon Bond to see just how these guns are made. With the exception of the 400 series stainless steel forgings from which the guns are machined, all the work is done in-house. It may be a small company, but that doesn’t mean they don’t use state-of-the-art equipment to ensure their high quality standards. From numerically controlled milling machines operating down to less than ten thousandths of an inch accuracy, to robotic arms which provide precision and repeatability in surface preparation, to the artistry of individual experts who assemble, polish, and time the  function of the finished product — quality is their principal driver.

Occasional when we run a story a comment will come in from the maker of a competing product offering to send us a sample to review. This product came in from an email to GA customer service after the article that Guy Sagi did on the Laserlyte ReactionTyme target system. That system is $179 and works with a dummy cartridge that activates a laser target downrange. This system, called the Pistolero, is a full $100 more, but it allows you to practice with not one but five different calibers. Ammo supply is starting to equalize back with demand because Obama has had to distract himself with keeping his job instead of registering your guns in a twisted gun confiscation plan, but ammo is EXPENSIVE. You can shoot up $279 worth of ammo in an afternoon these days, without even inviting any friends. The Pistolero is made by the Robert Louis Company, actually located in Newtown, CT, and it is clearly a hand made product created for serious shooters. Robert Louis makes the same kinds of systems for competitive shotgun shooting, and this pistol kit is made with the same attention to detail and care. Though I think the patent potential is dubious, it is a great idea and a nifty little product that will allow you to practice your competitive shooting, reactive shooting, and tactical shooting with a laser on target, without burning precious ammo. At $279, it’s a little steep for a lot of us, but that is what you pay for a hand made product from a smal company that makes them one at a time.

This article came about as an opportunity from Rock Island Auction. They are auctioning over 1000 Colts, including over 150 first generation Colt Single Actions, this coming weekend. We took this as an opportunity to gather a basic overview of collecting Colt Single Actions, with specific examples from the auction included here, to give the project an immediately tangible benefit. It is amazing what some of these guns go for at auction, and even as a spectator, interested in only the antiquity of old Colts, just seeing them come through the auction is a once in a lifetime birdseye opportunity to learn about the individual history of these specific guns. Most of these Colts are from the famous Gateway Collection and contain pictures of the documents proving their provinance right on the RIA website.

Many of these guns have no comparison anywhere in the market, and several will sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, including factory engraved Colts taken from the dead bodies of the Dalton Gang. Next week all of these classic Colts will be on their way again to the next private collection, and some of them will never to be seen again in the collector market. This is a unique opportunity to see into one of the greatest collection of Colt Single Actions, while learning a little about collecting the most classic of all classic firearms. This is by no means a comprehensive instruction, but if you are new to collecting old Colts, it should at least get you on your way, and guard you from getting ripped off.

Rock Island Auction Company (RIAC) is holding an auction later this month that it’s billing as “The Great Firearms Sale of the Decade.” That’s a pretty bold claim, even for the “nation’s leading auction house for firearms, edged weapons, and military artifacts,” so I did some checking to see what all the hype was about. I wanted to know not only what was going to be auctioned that makes this one so great, but also what the auction is like for sellers and buyers. Was this an auction just for well-heeled collectors and museum staff, or could an ordinary gun owner such as me simply find a deer rifle? Why would someone choose to sell a gun by auction in the first place, and of the major gun auction houses, what should I look for if I was going to sell off a collection?

Guns can be beautiful, but they can also be downright ugly. And even though a gun may have historical significance in its original condition, ugly is ugly. If you can afford it of course, some old guns are good candidates for a complete makeover restoration, back to factory original. Restoring an old gun can be a big decision.

What do you call a giant stainless steel .357 Magnum 1911 pistol? Well, if you listen to Coonan Arms, maker of this righteous beast called the Coonan Classic .357, the answer is that it may be many things, but it is for sure…

Not Your First Pistol!
The .357 Magnum is considered by many to be the most effective handgun round for human sized targets. But unfortunately the cartridge was created for revolvers, not pistols. So for fans of 1911 and other auto pistols, the .357 Magnum isn’t practical. It has a rim around the back of the case, unlike a .45ACP or 9mm that are flat and don’t. The extra lip that sticks out of the .357 Magnum and other rimmed cases creates trouble in semi-auto pistol magazines, and the .357 Magnum case itself is very long to fit lengthwise in the grip of a pistol as well.
This leaves 1911 fans who are also devotees of the .357 Magnum in a lurch, because though you can carry several guns at one time, you can only shoot one gun effectively at a time. Until now you had to choose between a 1911 and a .357 Magnum revolver. The Coonan Classic .357 seeks to combine these two choices, and they have done a really great job of it. If you are fan of both the 1911 and the .357 Magnum, you will be pleasantly surprised with this gun. It definitely isn’t for the uninitiated, but with a proper understanding of how the gun works and why, it isn’t a gun to be afraid of as a novice shooter . It works really well and is also a lot of gun for the money.

Gunsmithing is not something you can just sit down and teach yourself through trial and error. Guns are a high ticket item, and a little too much sanding here or a little too much pressure in a vice there and your treasured and expensive firearm could be destroyed. The destruction of the American family has produced a difficult byproduct in our generation. Skills that should have been handed down from father to son weren’t, and as the last generation passes on, the next generation doesn’t know how to do stuff that the previous generation did. Now, at 30 and 40 plus years old, a lot of us wish we could do some of that stuff, yet sadly we have nobody to teach us. Everything from electronics, to woodworking, to leatherwork, even sewing, are falling away as things that hobbyists know how to do. In gunsmithing, for someone who has never been taught, even taking apart the guts of a 1911 slide can be mind boggling.

The American Gunsmithing Institute, or AGI, has tried to fill this generational gap by producing a series of extremely good videos on the disassembly and reassembly of most popular firearms, gunsmithing basics, and even advanced gunsmithing courses. Some of them are so advanced that you would expect to have the mechanics of a gunsmithing degree in place before ever having access to such advanced skills. Believe it or not, there are still physical gunsmithing schools in the US (very few), but for those of us who don’t have the time or freedom to go to school, with AGI you can get a real gunsmithing education in your own home, right on the screen, as you have time or it. Depth is optional. Just an armorer’s course at $39.95 might be all you need.

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