Ballistic December 2023 - January 2024 (Best of)의 목차

In a world awash with polymer-framed, striker-fired guns is it possible that the 1911 is still relevant? You’d think that after our military retired ol’ slabsides in favor of the 9mm Beretta M9 in 1985 it would slip quietly into retirement, right? And maybe it would have had it not been for one relentless advocate of using this pistol for defense. Starting with just 250 acres and a dream in 1976, retired Marine Lt. Colonel Jeff Cooper established the American Pistol Institute, which later became known simply as Gunsite. With a mission of training responsibly armed citizens, Cooper staffed his instructor cadre with men who “had seen the elephant,” his euphemism for someone who had survived a lethal encounter, and most of the rough-and-tumble group possessed military and/or law enforcement…

Let’s face it, shooting a lever gun is a bit more work than a semi-automatic rifle. They are generally harder to load, working a lever takes a bit of practice to get good at, they are heavy, and for the most part, lever guns are harder to accessorize. I was honestly a little nervous when Ballistic’s editors tagged me to head up a brand-new category for Ballistic’s Best. That changed when I learned it was lever-actions. I’m obsessed with these relics of the rifle world. The first task was gathering the contenders. Other categories within Ballistic’s Best have tons of options for guns and all of them can be ordered in the same caliber making it a little easier. New lever-action rifles are a bit tougher to find in 2023.…

Before we dive into the meat of this year’s Ballistic’s Best hunting rifles report, let’s take a close look at the evaluation process. To shoot and evaluate 13 new bolt-action hunting rifles, three experienced riflemen met at my home range in Middle Tennessee. Each of these rifles were given a score of 1 to 5 points each for aesthetics, ergonomics, sight mounting ease, trigger, recoil control, reloading ease, accuracy, reliability and value to price. The cost of these rifles ranged from an MSRP of $616 to almost $3,500. To present a more “apples-to-apples” test, we divided the 13 rifles into two categories—one below $1,600 (Economy), the other for those above that price (High-End). Hornady supplied the majority of the ammo for the test again this year, with more than 1,200…

Each year has its holidays and landmark occasions that divide the time and make things a little more interesting and special for a few days. In our case, one of those times begins around the middle of July each year and lasts a good bit longer than a few days. It’s when I start prepping for our annual Ballistic’s Best edition by sending out requests to companies for the hottest pistols of the year while other writers start their own process for the other categories. In this case, during a flurry of emails and phone calls, we were able to procure nine of the most popular full-size pistols of the past year for the selected evaluators to test, evaluate and then rank them according to specific criteria. On top of…

Shotgun testing takes a special breed. You either love the raw power or you scamper away with your tail between your legs. My cadre of shooters defi-former category. This year I rounded up my team and headed to Cowtown Range north of Phoenix where we took over an entire range to run seven cases of Federal shells through 10 shotguns (six semi-autos and four pump guns) in a grueling test to find out which two guns would win the Ballistic’s Best trophy. My band of testers comes from varied backgrounds and often looks at the guns in completely different ways. Detective Rich Worrell has 27 years of law enforcement experience and has an unbridled passion for sporting clays and dove hunting, along with an avowed shotgun addiction that may require…

After several years of development and growth in the boltaction rifle segment, things have slowed a bit—well sort of. While several boltaction rifles have been released, many fell into the lightweight hunting category, leaving only a few in the target/tactical/competition arena. This does make some sense because the hunting market is a big one and it’s easier to produce something lighter weight with, let’s just say, a less stringent, less consistent accuracy requirement as opposed to a heavier, beefier one that needs to be on point at all times and will see a lot of rounds in a lifetime. That’s the way I like to think of it anyway. This year we have seven contenders fighting for the Ballistic’s Best Precision Rifle crown. Four of them are returning competitors with…

Having been an avid gun enthusiast, shooter and collector for well over 35 years and a gun writer for more than 10 years, I’ve tried just about everything out there. I like a good defensive shotgun and appreciate a solid semi-auto rifle like my Daniel Defense DDM4 V7. However, I truly love pistols, particularly compact pistols. They don’t have the power of a shotgun or rifle, but to me, there’s more of a personal connection with a quality pistol. Maybe that’s because I carry or have at least one pistol with me 24/7, more than any other type of firearm that I own. Some of my appreciation is because a pistol (or even a revolver) is an easily accessible tool for most folks, and it allows them to be prepared…

By design and general nature, rifles are easy to run. We have multiple points of contact on the gun, a longer sight radius or optics, and the additional weight soaks up recoil. The only thing that makes them more enjoyable is when we chamber them in a pistol caliber. The advent and growth in the PCC market has been one of the most enjoyable and popular developments in the firearms world in a long time. Running essentially an AR-style platform or another rifle platform in 9mm, for example, is simply a blast. There is minimal recoil, and the guns are fast and accurate. Because of this growing sector of our beloved gun world, we thought it appropriate to look at a few new PCCs and run them head-to-head. Our goal…

Each year at this time one of the most detailed and logistically challenging events I take part in occurs. It is, of course, the preparation for the latest Ballistic’s Best awards issue. This year, my team and I had the honor of testing some of the industry’s best ARs head-to-head. Testing was detailed, and the competition was tough. In the end, we would gather some of the world’s best rifles, pull in every favor possible to secure thousands of rounds of ammo and find a place to do all the testing and evaluation. One slight variation in testing this year would include price points. To level the playing field a bit we built two categories, which means there are two winners—The High-End ARs at $2,000-plus, and the Economy Class priced…