Indholdsfortegnelse for February 2025 i Firearms News

On December 2, California Superior Court Judge Wendy Behan summarily dismissed a lawsuit against firearms manufacturer Smith & Wesson, which in reality, was intended to cripple the firearms industry in America as a whole. The lawsuit was filed by Brady Legal, the division of the Brady Group responsible for all their frivolous legal actions. Through incomprehensible mental gymnastics, the suit alleges that Smith & Wesson, including a host of others named as defendants, are in some way accountable for the April 2019 synagogue shooting in Poway, California, leaving one worshipper dead and three others wounded. The truth is that the shooting was carried out by John Earnest, a crazed anti-Semitic who said, “I can only kill so many Jews” and “I only wish I killed more.” Earnest is a guest…

Sometimes you find out you had a lottery ticket in your pocket all this time. Not the biggest one (or else I’d not be here, writing this) but enough to put a smile on your face. The B&T Impuls IIA here is one such beast. B&T makes suppressors; we know that. This one is a pistol 9mm suppressor with a booster built into the rear cap. The Impuls IIA is an aluminum tube with stainless steel baffles, and it disassembles for cleaning. (All pistol suppressors must be, or else they stop being effective as suppressors.) The exterior is given a black Cerakote finish, and the end result is supremely durable and manageable. The weight is not out of line with comparable suppressors at three-quarters of a pound. The booster keeps…

There are times when I wonder what is in the water in the corner of Texas abutting Arkansas. Bill Wilson just keeps coming up with superb rifles, pistols, and shotguns, and one of these days my credit card is simply going to burst into flames. The latest? The EDC X9 2.0, where Wilson combat makes the EDC X9 even better. The “Two-point-Oh” is the latest improvement on the already excellent EDC X9 that saw the light of day back in 2016, but just “good enough” isn’t, for Bill. Okay, the base pistol, before we give you the design and engineering changes for the 2.0. The EDC X9 is a double-stack magazine 1911, which is like saying a BMW M4 is a quick car with two doors. The X9 starts with…

My sister, daughter and I were recently having lunch in Amanda’s Bakery & Bistro (their pie is to die for) in downtown Abilene, Kansas when I took note of an “I like Ike” sign. These are often seen in Abilene as it’s the boyhood home of Dwight D. Eisenhower and home to his presidential library and museum. You have to cross the railroad tracks when heading from downtown to the small, humble home where America’s 34th President was raised. The museum is a must-see for any history buff as it covers not only his life, military and wartime service but also World War II, the Cold War, Space Race and threat of nuclear war. Eisenhower was president during a difficult, but transformative, time in this nation’s history when the East…

The federal government has asked a Fifth Circuit panel to rule it may legally disarm citizens under domestic violence protective orders without any explicit finding that the person poses a credible threat of violence. Wait, did I read that correctly? Before we can even discuss the facts and history of the case, we have to ask ourselves if society and the judicial system have been dumbed down so far that we can’t see problems with this on its face. The first hurdle that the judicial system must be intellectually accountable for is how a domestic violence protective order can be issued against a person who has not been found to pose a violent threat in the first place. Since this makes zero sense in the universe we occupy, I’ll share…

Back in 2018, Wolf Performance Ammunition made a splash by bringing the Soviet 9x39mm subsonic cartridge to the US commercial market. Developed for Russian special operations, the cartridge had both historical and practical appeal to U.S. shooters and collectors. While its future initially looked very bright, the ban on imported Russian ammunition seems to have killed it off on the US commercial market. My question though, are there lessons we can learn from this medium-bore subsonic cartridge? The 9x39mm is an intermediate-size cartridge developed from the Soviet 7.62x39mm M43 cartridge case. Unlike its parent though, the 9x39mm is a subsonic design developed expressly for use suppressed. It maintains the same 0.447-inch case head and 2.2-inch overall length, but the case is necked up to accept larger diameter 0.364-inch projectiles. Wolf…

Turkey has been steadily taking over the market for tactical shotguns, but there’s a long-standing player that can still give them a run for their money: Italy. In a world where the “Turkinellis” are taking over, the European shotguns powerhouse refuses to give up. And it’s not just the big names—Beretta, Benelli, Franchi—who are stalwartly holding their position: there is another player in the field of tactical shotguns that hauls all the way from Italy, maybe less known, but not less important. We’re talking about FABARM. Best known in the US for their extensive line of over-and-under and semi-automatic hunting and competition shotguns, and for their FP6 model distributed in America by Heckler & Koch for a few years starting in 1998, FABARM has been offering a dedicated modular pump-action…

US Army snipers are currently lavishly equipped with a host of ultra-modern state-of-the-art rifles, optics and ancillary gear. However, while it may come as a surprise to some unfamiliar with military history, this has certainly not always been the case. There were decades when the US Army and USMC largely ignored sniping and sniper equipment. In the 1960s, it was the Soviets, not the US, who fielded the most advanced sniper system in the world. A key part of this system was a highly advanced optical sight, the PSO-1 or Pritsel Snaypersky Optichesky (Sniper Optic Sight) which we’ll exam here. Let me preface this discussion by saying it’s very important to consider this optic through the lens of the time period in which it was developed and fielded, rather than…

Those of you who’ve read our article about gun laws in Italy will be familiar with that Country’s system of classification—i.e. authorization to civilian sales—for firearms classified as “common,” “sporting” and “hunting.” (See Gun laws and Gun Ownership in Italy, Firearms News, February 2023, Issue 3, and Stopping by a Gun Store in the Caput Mundi, October 2023, Issue 19—both articles at FirearmsNews.com.) They’ll also be familiar with the fact that some calibers are, or were, still banned from civilian ownership in the country, one of those previously being 9mm Luger (9x19mm)—fully legalized in 2021. Previously, all firearms in 9mm had to be chambered for 9x21mm which was a non-military caliber. Prohibition of .50 BMG for Italian shooters ended unexpectedly on September 9, 2024, when the Banco Nazionale di Prova—the…

The S&W Performance Center has a pistol that will knock your socks off. I traveled down to Florida back in the winter to see it when it was new, and it was, and is, da bomb. The M&P 2.0 Competitor is a metal-framed 9mm M&P with a five-inch barrel, a sweet trigger, and 17-round magazines. It is of course given front and rear cocking serrations, and an optics plate on top, because them’s the things these days, and good ones at that. Now, a five-inch barrel calls for some slide mods, because the M&P doesn’t usually come with a slide that long. So, S&W stretched the slide to match the barrel, but then also cut side slots in it at the muzzle, (and along the top) to keep the weight…