Feature Articles

Born from Cold War military requirements and carried into the civilian mainstream by the AR-15, the .223 Remington became America’s most popular centerfire cartridge for a reason. From low recoil and staggering rifle variety to its complicated relationship with 5.56 NATO, this little cartridge still has plenty to say.

The InfiRay BOLT TH50C packs sharp 640×512 thermal imaging, intuitive controls, and dependable battery life into a familiar riflescope form. It is expensive, but after a week of night hunting, sending it back still hurt.

A dead Old West train robber, a 1970s TV show, a busted fun house mannequin, and one very real bullet wound all collided in one of the strangest showbiz afterlives ever. Elmer McCurdy was a lousy criminal, but as a corpse, the man had range.

The Chiappa Rhino 60 DS 10mm looks like a sci-fi prop, fires from the bottom chamber, and somehow makes full-power 10mm Auto feel far more civilized than it should. I ran it with defensive, hunting, and range ammo to see if the weird design is real engineering or just revolver theater.

The FN Reflex combines a surprisingly good trigger, .85-inch best-group accuracy, and flawless reliability in a palm-sized carry gun. This little 9mm ran clean, dirty, and gritty without giving us the first problem.

Most people who spend more than two decades climbing mountains eventually decide to stop climbing. Tom Taylor tried. It did not take.

Five shots, one old-school cylinder, and 30+ years of carry experience make the CCW revolver harder to dismiss than the high-capacity crowd wants to admit. The J-Frame is not for everyone, but in the right role, this little wheel gun still has teeth.

I bought a Silencer Central Banish 30 to find out if getting a suppressor shipped straight to my door is really as painless as advertised. The short version: the paperwork was easy, the wait was not, and yes, the postman eventually brought an NFA item to my house.

Pearl Harbor dropped a half-crewed destroyer into bloody chaos, and a young Ensign with just eight months of active-duty experience answered by taking command, getting USS Aylwin into the fight, and driving her out to sea. Stanley Caplan was no comic-book superhero. He was something rarer, a very young American officer who performed magnificently when the world caught fire.