Table of contents for August/September 2024 in Handguns

Crisscross A comment about the En Garde article “Crisscross” (June/July). You’re making a mountain out of a mole hill. After years of right-handed shooting and right-eye dominance, a hand injury a few years ago has forced me to switch to shooting handguns left-handed, creating a cross-eye dominance. According to the article you’d think it took years of practice to regain shooting skills. Not even close to being the case. It was automatic, no extra thoughts or physical processes necessary. Each eye has a line of focus to the target, like an isoceles triangle with the base across the bridge of your nose. Even though I have switched hands, I still bring the firearm’s sights into the same line of focus of my right eye (both eyes open), with the only…

RULE 4 BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET AND WHAT’S BEYOND IT THE NEWEST MEMBER OF THE BURRIS FastFire family is the FastFire C—a red dot designed specifically for today’s popular sub- and micro-compact pistols. Its composite polymer frame has low deck height and will co-witness or lower-third co-witness with the sights on most pistols—as it did with the Ruger Max-9 four-inch I mounted it on. If you find it doesn’t co-witness with your gun, Burris includes a small, removable open sight in addition to a white stripe on the rear of the housing for sighting reference. The FastFire C uses the popular Shield RMSc footprint, so it will fit many of today’s small pistols, and quite a few will direct-fit with no need for an adapter plate. It’s powered by…

IF YOU SIMPLY CAN’T GET ENOUGH GUNS and shooting, the My Outdoor TV (MOTV) app is a resource like no other, a curated treasure trove of firearms- and outdoor-oriented television shows and videos. For example, MOTV offers nine seasons—102 episodes—of “Handguns” (formerly “Handguns & Defensive Weapons”) alone. The show focuses primarily on personal protection and includes plenty of recreational shooting activities such as plinking and action-shooting competitions. It features reviews of the latest firearms, ammunition and shooting accessories, as well as advice on marksmanship, gun handling, self-defense techniques and a host of other handgun-related topics. But wait, there’s more! There are 10-plus seasons of the popular “Guns & Ammo” television shows, encompassing more than 200 episodes available on the app. You can also check out past episodes of shows like…

The stated mission of the starship Enterprise was “to boldly go where no man has gone before,” but the boldest move a new firearms manufacturer can make is to offer up a new product in the hotly contested polymer-frame semiauto pistol market. That’s the plan for Texas-based upstart brand Rost Martin, and its new RM1C 9mm semiauto is venturing into the most crowded field in firearms. It’s certainly a tough road when major players like Glock, Smith & Wesson, Springfield Armory, CZ, FN and several other established brands are already competing for sales and display space in gun stores. But despite Rost Martin being a new company, owners Chris and Stefany Toomer aren’t new to firearms or the gun industry. Chris served as an infantry officer in the 3rd battalion,…

KIMBER, BEST KNOWN FOR 1911 PISTOLS, ventured off course a few years ago with the introduction of the R7 Mako. In fact, the Mako was about as far as you could stray from Kimber’s well-trodden 1911 path. While a different direction for Kimber, manufacturing a polymer-frame, striker-fired subcompact pistol is far from a novel idea. But the R7 Mako and its latest evolution, the R7 Mako Tactical, distinguish themselves from a heavily saturated market. Both guns feed from double-stack magazines, but while the original comes with a flush-fit 10-round magazine, a standard 11-round magazine and an extended 13-round magazine, the new Tactical model ships with two 15-round magazines. These not only provide additional ammunition but also extend the Mako’s grip to better accommodate the shooter’s hand. The R7 Mako Tactical…

THE FOUR BASIC GUN SAFETY RULES RULE 1: ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED RULE 2 NEVER LET THE MUZZLE POINT AT ANYTHING YOU’RE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY She come to the joint,.44 in each handSaid stand aside all youwomen and men‘Cause I’m looking for my man—“Blue Yodel No. 9” by Jimmie Rodgers (1931) IF YOU’RE A FAN OF OLD-TIME COUNTRY or traditional music, you may have noticed the .44 Special crops up in quite a few of the murder and mayhem ballads that were kind of a staple of this genre. Whether this was due to the popularity of the cartridge or the way “forty-four” rolled off the tongue or fit into verse…well, I don’t know the answer to that. What I do know is that the .44 Special is…

THE RED-DOT REVOLUTION HAS STIRRED debate regarding the benefits and drawbacks of both iron sights and red-dot optics. HiViz’s new FastDot H3 (HIVIZSIGHTS.COM) offers an interesting alternative to both traditional iron sights and reflex optics, and it can be argued that the FastDot H3 is a better solution than either of these traditional sighting systems because it incorporates the best aspects of both. The FastDot H3 is, by strict definition, an iron sight. It fits into the existing factory sight mounts on your pistol and does not rely on battery power for illumination. However, you can’t truly classify the Fast-Dot H3 alongside traditional pistol sights, either. The FastDot H3 provides the shooter with a glowing dot that is visible day or night when the sights of a handgun are properly…

Make no mistake: The Ed Brown FX2 is one bad-ass pistol. A Commander-size 1911 chambered to either 9mm or .45 ACP, it’s got all the qualities you look for in a fighting gun—plus head-turning looks and the high-end construction you expect from Ed Brown Products. The gun comes with a Trijicon RMRcc red dot installed—or simply optics ready if you prefer—and it features a unique co-witnessing iron-sight setup that I’ll dig into later. Normally I wouldn’t dive right into the aesthetics of a gun, but I think in this case it’s justified. Both the slide and frame are stainless steel, with a finish the company calls “industrial.” I’m not a good enough writer to describe this as well I should; thank goodness for photos. It’s almost but not quite the…

Beretta is a leader in the double-action/single-action semiauto market, and one of its more popular pistols has been the PX4 Storm, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. In recognition of this, Beretta partnered with Langdon Tactical Technology to offer the new PX4 Storm Compact Carry 2, which features a slew of custom upgrades. I had the opportunity to shoot alongside LTT president and CEO Ernest Langdon several years ago while filming for “Guns & Ammo” TV. It was a humbling experience. A combat veteran and competitive shooter, Langdon possesses a wealth of knowledge when it comes to shooting and tactics. As a gunsmith, he’s consulted with several major firearms manufacturers over the years—making good firearms even better. Having worked for Beretta for several years, Langdon is keenly aware of…

RULE 3 KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON TARGET COLT’S ORIGINAL SNAKE GUNS—THE Python, Cobra, King Cobra and Anaconda—are highly prized by collectors. The lightest of the snake guns is Colt’s Cobra. Chambered in .22 rimfire, .32 Colt New Police and .38 Special, the Cobra traces its origins to the Police Positive Special. The Police Positive Special was a six-shot .38 Special revolver of unusually compact dimensions, introduced at a time when folks wishing to carry a lightweight handgun had few choices. Introduced in 1907, it featured barrel lengths of four to six inches and a rebounding safety that made carrying the fully loaded revolver safe. But as Colt spokesman Fitz Fitzgerald pointed out, heavy, long-barrel revolvers were difficult to handle quickly from an automobile,…

WHILE A TWO-HANDED GRIP WITH YOUR dominant hand pressing the trigger is going to feel most natural, injury or having to fight, fend, open a door, move someone aside or operate a flashlight with one hand could require you to shoot one-handed—maybe even with your non-dominant hand. While you may never shoot as well with one hand as with two, being proficient at shooting with either hand could save the day in a defensive scenario. If shooting with just your dominant hand, you should grip the pistol exactly as you would if your support hand was involved. Contrary to how I was taught, you don’t have to step forward with your dominant-side leg. This motion is often exaggerated to the point where the shooter resembles a fencer lunging forward with…

In 2005 Smith & Wesson introduced the M&P series of polymer-frame, striker-fired pistols. Nineteen years may not seem that long to those of us who can still remember when Reagan was president and gas cost less than a dollar a gallon, but it’s a substantial length of time for a pistol to remain relevant in the ever-evolving semiauto pistol market. The reason the M&P line has remained one of the top options for years is simple: Smith & Wesson started with a solid design, and it hasn’t been afraid to tweak its guns to meet the demands of the market. The latest additions to the M&P family are the new Spec Series guns. The first was the Compact model, with a polymer frame and Bull Shark Grey Cerakote finish. Now…

One could reasonably assume that the further we progress in the development of handguns, the more the public would drift away from older designs such as the 1911. That assumption would be wrong. More than a century after its introduction, John Browning’s masterpiece remains a relevant market force, albeit with some changes. The 1911 hasn’t died—it has morphed. Innovation has driven the 1911’s evolution into capable handguns that embrace the design’s classic shootability but with significantly greater capacity. The Alpha Foxtrot 1911-S15 is a prime example: a compact 1911-style handgun with a double-stack magazine that provides a capacity on par with more modern platforms. Alpha Foxtrot is a U.S. subsidiary of Dasan Machineries Co., a Korean firearms manufacturing firm with more than three decades of experience producing OEM products for…

BACK IN 2021, SMITH & WESSON AN-nounced it was leaving its storied roots in New England and moving a third of its workforce to the state of Tennessee—a state more friendly to firearms. Now the company is celebrating with special, limited editions of both its M&P 2.0 and Shield Plus pistols featuring a Tri-Star laser-engraved emblem on the barrel denoting the Tennessee state flag and its Grand Divisions of West, Middle and East Tennessee. “M&P striker-fired pistols have remained a cornerstone of Smith & Wesson’s legacy over the years and embody our brand’s ethos of reliability, performance, and durability. These extensions proudly bearing the engraved Tri-Star emblem are a tribute to our historic move and the rich heritage of our new home in Tennessee,” said S&W handguns product manager Andrew…