Not Your Dad’s J Frame — Lipsey’s Ultimate Carry
Smith & Wesson's J frame revolver – if there's a ubiquitous back-up gun for uniformed officers, the J Frame is it. History The first J Frame revolvers - Chief's Specials - were produced in 1950 and have included a number of models since then. When the 442 debuted in 1993, I bought mine from a local gun store. It is an alloy frame five-shot with a front sight blade that matches the rest of the [...]
In Praise Of Small Guns
I’ve always thought the advice to “carry enough gun” was sound. After all, all handguns pretty much suck when it comes to “stopping power” (a term which can’t be defined and can’t be measured, but we all know what it means). Really, if you want “right there/right now” stopping power, [...]
Sights For Rusty Eyes
When Your Eyes Go Fuzzy And You Aren’t Ready For Optics Atop Your Handgun, There Are Still Options In (More Or Less) Conventional Sight Setups. Ya know, for a lot of us, it really is the eyes that go first. Opthamologist friends tell me that somewhere around age 40, we [...]
Reliability VS. Round Count
This has long been an issue in handgun selection. It remains so today and can take many forms. Back when I was a young cop in the early 1970’s, the service revolver was standard issue for most of American law enforcement. When most officers asked their bosses for autoloaders, or [...]
Reconsidering The .357 SIG
Mas Wasn't Crazy About This Bottleneck Blazer At First, But After A While... Did you ever meet people you didn’t like at first, but after a while, you discovered they had redeeming qualities? Was there ever a job you disliked at first, but after a while you became comfortable with [...]
A Special Purpose Wheelgun
Yes, Even An 8-Shot 9mm N-Frame Has Its Niche. Smith & Wesson’s Performance Center recently introduced an 8-shot N-Frame revolver chambered for the 9mm Luger cartridge. Its barrel with tapered underlug is almost 7 inches long counting the removable recoil compensator at the muzzle, it weighs 44.2 ounces, it’s more [...]
Close Look At: Hot New Handguns
Updates And Some New Ideas. Sometimes just a tiny thing can make a big difference. Changing a caliber on a handgun can suddenly make it hugely popular — while introducing a groundbreaking new design is often a giant gamble, even for old school companies. We’ve sorted through what’s out there [...]
The Comfort Zone
The 1911 Not Only Abides, It Flat-Out Thrives. So here I am in the front seat of a van with a laptop on my lap, remembering the student who asked me yesterday why more training staff than not were wearing 1911 pistols, when we were obviously familiar with more modern [...]
Silent Service
Gould & Goodrich B897 Leather Holster. In the time of Kydex and other holsters, some makers cleave to the old ways and make scabbards of good old fashioned leather. This is not a bad thing, and a reminder was found in Gould & Goodrich’s new B897 Tension Belt Slide Holster. [...]
J-Frame Upgrades
SThough Not What You Might Want For A Match, The Ubiquitous Small-Frame S&W Offers Important Carry Attributes. A few years ago at our sister publication American Handgunner, editorial director Roy Huntington did a poll of his writers as to their preferred carry guns. The answers encompassed everything from Glock to [...]
Ayoob’s Law Of Necessary Hypocrisy
Sometimes, You Just Have To Make Do With What You Know Is A Less Than Ideal Solution… In my decades on masthead staff at GUNS magazine, I’ve been privileged to work with many fine editors and, to my great and enduring relief, no bad ones. One of those editors was [...]