Feature Articles

Choosing a gun for home defense can be tricky. Few people choose to wear their home defense pistols concealed, so guns chambered in .45 ACP are a popular choice. We’ll take a look at 5 of the most popular choices for full-sized .45s, and look at what makes each a solid choice for home defense.

If you think about it, communication with the outside world is going to become really important in the weeks and months after a system collapse or major disaster. You may have food and water for months, but you don’t have it for years. And as I explained in my article on seeds, growing your own food just isn’t that easy. But as several commenters pointed out on the first radio article in this series, there is a strong argument to maintain radio silence. Any experienced radio operator can triangulate your position as soon as you press the send key, and in any survival situation, you can bet that there will be hostiles out there listening for where they can steal some supplies. Radio silence has to be weighed against the benefits of reaching out to the world outside.

Some high-end 1911s are exceptionally well-built works of art that don’t seem to be designed for daily carry. They’re pretty. Not this one. The Christensen 1911 Commander is one of the most complex versions of the old Browning single-action I’ve ever seen. This titanium framed .45 ACP is built for several lifetimes of daily carry.

We take a look at 5 guns that made a difference at the Battle of New Orleans 200 years ago. The British Brown Bess, the American 1795 Springfield and the rifles both sides used on line Jackson at Chalmette Plantation. No alligators minds were blown during the writing of this article.

Fans of the venerable 10/22 typically have only one gripe with the gun: the trigger. Even so, the stock triggers on 10/22s are better than much of the competition. But Ruger now offers an improved trigger for the 10/22 and Charger. The BX-Trigger is a vast improvement over the stock Ruger triggers and is incredibly easy and quick to install.

The Magnum Research Desert Eagle is a big gun. It is Hollywood large. The pistol is so big that it isn’t practical for much of what we use pistols for. Yet the beast of a gun is a heavy hitting .50 AE with a lot of personality. And now, in the all stainless version, the Desert Eagle looks even better. And the built in compensator makes it even more practical. A practical Desert Eagle? Yes. Read on.

Preserving BTUs is what survival cooking is all about. An armful of sticks can burn up in a few minutes and cook you nothing, or it can burn for two hours and cook you dinner, sterilize your water, and heat your bath. It all depends on how much oxygen you can keep from getting to the flames while the wood burns. Initially I thought “rocket stoves” were a gimmick, aimed at draining the well meaning survivalist of some cash and little else, but now I’m sold. The StoveTec rocket stove you see here in the pictures is currently $118 on the StoveTec website, and on Amazon, with free shipping. It works killer, and will likely cook your dinner every night for years, in return for a handful of small dried branches you pick up from the ground.

Just in time for SHOT 2015, FN America has released a compact version of their FNS. The new FNS-9C is a solid pistol–it shoots well, has great controls, and is ideal for concealed carry. And the best part may be the price tag.

We ran a top 5 list of guns that define America yesterday. Some of you got bent about our lack of historical perspective. So here it goes again. Take two. This time we’re looking at the guns that defined the country, that meant a difference in how we saw ourselves and how we were seen by those at the other end of these guns.