Feature Articles

I had a conversation with several other gun writers yesterday about carrying a gun on your belt. The consensus was that if I am going to belt carry a pistol, it ain’t gonna be no pocket 380. My experience over the years is that belt carry is seldom practical unless you want your whole life to revolve around carrying your gun. For that reason, I pocket carry, and as a fairly big guy, I can easily get away with the Springfield XD-S .45 in my pocket. Once before in these pages I shared my “secret” $25 source for pocket holsters, and I will do so again, but this time I want to share some of the other products from this ingenious company. If you carry in a purse, pocket or other “pouch” type of concealment, or if you want to hang a Kel-Tec P32 from your neck, you should check them out. I call these deep concealment holsters.

Size matters. With mouse guns, everyone is racing to the bottom. How do you combine power and performance, while taking away weight and size? Beretta has done it. The Pico shoots like a bigger gun. What you give up in ease of control, you make up for in performance.

Occasionally in this column we devolve into the reasons why many of us feel that some sort of survival strategy at this juncture is prudent. Most people are on a budget, so to divert some of your family resources to prepping that you may end up laughing about 10 years from now can seem a little, well… nuts.

For urban combat and self defense, many would argue that there is no better choice in a firearm than a pistol-caliber carbine. It has almost no recoil or muzzle rise, little muzzle flash and plenty of punch to get the job done in close quarters. The H&K MP5 is legend when it comes to SWAT and SPEC-OPS deployment, and it has achieved that status firing the 9mm cartridge, despite concerns of many that the 9mm is underpowered. The Taurus CT9 and CT40 are new entrants into the pistol-caliber carbine market, and they look and work a lot like H&K’s follow up to the MP5, called the UMP. The civilian version was called the USC, and is no longer produced (it was too expensive). The Taurus CT9 is a more full-featured gun than the USC, and with an MSRP of $879 and street prices under $750, this new carbine should fly off the shelves. As this article is coming out, the .40 S&W version was released, but we were able to test the 9mm gun. Our results showed the CT9 to be extremely reliable and tolerant of different types of ammo. The accuracy is at least as good as other pistol caliber carbines we have tested, and the features on the gun are all you could want for home and personal defense. This year is going to see a new emergence from Taurus since Mark Kresser took over the company. With the new focus on quality control and great customer service, the affordability of Taurus products will finally be backed up by a company that puts customers as #1. The CT9 is the first truly new product from Taurus for a while, and minus a couple peeves, it seems to be everything you could want in a pistol caliber carbine.

Last week, I offered up my top 5 list of compact 9mms. Some of you took issue with my choices. That’s cool. I get it. So I’m trying it again. This time, I’m looking at 10 of the best single-stacks ideal for concealed carry.

I have pondered the subject of perimeter security for some time and I have decided that it is probably the hardest to come up with a hard and fast rule. You have to sleep at some point. And even if you have enough people to keep watch, how much advance notice will you have? I have looked into 12 volt motion detectors, but so far I have not found a better option than these hand welded alarms on Ebay. They use a standard .22 short nailgun blank, available at Home Depot. If you are handy you could make them yourself, but at $20 each they are a pretty cheap investment for a pretty important aspect of long term survival.

Now that James Bond has an iron clad set of balls, it’s time he upgraded his arsenal. While there’s nothing uniquely gadget-like about the Primary Weapons Systems MK107P, it does come in a briefcase. Q would be a bit jealous. And a tuxedoed 007 would look sharp carrying the Kenneth Cole case, but to hell with Bond. The novelty of the briefcase evaporates when you pull the trigger. This AR pistol is a surgical tool–it’s better than Bond–the PWS MK107P is exactly what’s right about America.

When I think of the Henry brand, I don’t typically think about survival rifles. The company is much more well known for their lever-action powerhouses. But Henry makes other things, too, and the U.S. Survival Rifle, or AR-7, is a winner. It is compact, practical, and the AR-7’s accuracy will make you think twice about your go-to rimfire rifle.

When it comes to shooting gadgets it is very seldom that I want to jump up and down on my roof and yell “look at this look at this look at this!” But this is the way I feel about the Leatherwood M-1000 scope. I almost wish it was a $2,000 thing, because people would take it more seriously, but though it is based on technology going all the way back to 1970, and the MSRP is $459, with a generalstreet price under $400, it is one of the most excitingly nerdy thingamajigs I have ever encountered in the shooting world. It may be a little ugly compared to the more elegant scopes of today, but this largish awkward looking scope can give you the ability to “frame, aim and shoot, ” point of aim, point of impact between 100 and 1000 meters without ever having to lift your eye from the eyepiece. And you can change from one load to the next, or even one rifle to the next with two minor adjustments. Does that totally rock or does that totally rock?