Guns

I always get excited about testing Daniel Defense rifles. They built the upper for the SOPMOD kits we had back in the day (and still do for all I know), and it was a huge leap forward over the old busted M4s we had prior to that. Black Creek, GA, has always turned out tough, high-quality products, and the M4V7 Pro is no exception.

The Girsan Witness2311 CMX XXX does something a lot of compact double-stack 1911s do not: it actually shrinks the grip. Add 16+1 rounds, excellent accuracy, an $899 MSRP, and more than 400 rounds without a malfunction, and this little 9mm gets difficult to ignore.

I turned a PTR 9KT into the MP5K I spent years building in video games, then dumped thousands of rounds through it in the real world. The final running total hits $5,008.58, and yes, I would absolutely do it again.

The Mantis Blackbeard turns an AR-15 into a fast-resetting laser dry fire trainer without making you manually cycle the action after every shot. After thousands of possible trigger presses per charge, boring dry fire starts looking a whole lot more interesting.

Shot three times and still refusing to quit, Dr. Arthur Martin-Leake became one of only three men ever to earn the Victoria Cross twice. His story makes most definitions of courage seem inadequate.

With pocket carry, there may be some issues with printing, yes, but with the right holster, it’s just a bulge in your pocket perhaps caused by a phone or a wallet or whatever.

The Savage 110 Core Tactical pairs a thoroughly modernized Model 110 with the low-recoil reach of 22 ARC. Ours was shooting around three-quarter MOA with factory ammunition almost immediately, then making repeatable hits all the way to 1,024 yards.

The S&W Spec Series VI M&P 9 M2.0 Metal Compact pairs a ported barrel, Aimpoint ACRO P-2, metal frame, and roughly $985 in included accessories with genuinely fast, controllable performance. After several weeks of shooting and carrying it, the $1,899 package makes a stronger case for itself than the sticker price suggests.

The G43 was the single-stack 9mm Glock shooters begged for, but the G43X and G48 changed the equation with larger grips, optics-ready variants, and dramatically more capacity. In 2026, the smallest Glock is no longer automatically the best Slimline Glock.