Innehållsförteckning för December 2024 från Guns & Ammo

WOOD VS. PLASTIC Being 77 years old, I know I am an outdated human and generally do not keep with society. I own several nice walnut-stocked rifles: Ruger M77 in .220 Swift; Ruger No. 1 in .300 H&H; custom 7x61mm S&H with a AAA Claro walnut stock that I made; and a dozen others with wood stocks. Some are really nice; others are fairly plain. All look better than the plastic-stocked rifles. I know plastic-stocked rifles are less expensive to make, and I guess they sell better than the old-fashion ones. How did we, years ago, ever hit anything without an adjustable this or that? I know plastic is more durable, and generally more stable than wood, but does no company care about appearances anymore? A nice wood stock can…

THE RUGER SUPER REDHAWK IS A BIG, burly revolver. Since its introduction in Guns & Ammo’s November 1979 issue, it’s been chambered in powerful handgun cartridges. The .44 Remington Magnum has been its mainstay, but it was also the launching platform for the .480 Ruger in 2003, the first cartridge to bear the Ruger name. It’s also among few production revolvers to be chambered to the .454 Casull. More recently, it’s been chambered to 10mm Auto. In 5-, 7½-, and 9½-inch barrels, the standard Super Redhawk, in stainless steel only since 1992, comes supplied with Ruger detachable scope rings, bases dovetailed into the substantial frame, much like generations of Ruger centerfire rifles. In powerful cartridges and optic-ready, it’s a favorite among serious handgun hunters. Its more recent (and snubbier) sibling,…

SIG SAUER ANNOUNCED a number of new versions of its flagship P320 pistol. The P320-XFIVE SXG is a dedicated competition version of the striker-fired 9mm. Guns & Ammo staff first shot the P320-XFIVE SXG at an event in New Hampshire where SIG Sauer revealed more than 20 new products. SIG Sauer Team Captain Max Michel was available to walk G&A through the features of the new pistols, including the P320-XFIVE SXG. When production samples became available, one was sent to G&A for evaluation. The P320-XFIVE SXG is an all-stainless-steel version of the striker-fired P320. It has a 5-inch barrel and several unique features. It is chambered in 9mm and is provided with three, 21-round magazines. SIG Sauer has made XFIVE pistols for years, and they’ve always been competition-oriented pistols. They…

THINGS GO IN AND OUT of fashion all the time, sometimes for good reasons, and sometimes for no reason at all. Striker-fired pistols have been the dominant form of handgun in the U.S. for at least 20 years, replacing the double-action/single-action (DA/SA) semiautomatics that were everywhere in the 1980s and ’90s. However, DA/SA pistols are now coming back in demand as younger shooters discover older designs. CZ’s timing with the introduction of its updated hammer-fired DA/SA P-07 and P-09 pistols is perfect. Previously, CZ offered the compact P-07 and full-size P-09 models. They have been replaced with the P-09 C (compact) Nocturne and the P-09 F (full-size) Nocturne. It is unusual in the firearms world to see new hammer-fired DA/SA pistols with polymer frames. I think they’ve always been great,…

FIREARMS IMPORTING is not a game for the weak of heart or thin of wallet. Currency fluctuations can make a finely calibrated sales plan no more than a pipe dream. Foreign policy gyrations, whether on the U.S. end or in the country of manufacture, can make goods that were perfectly fine one day verboten the next. Customs regulations mean that nameless bureaucrats can make interpretations that keep vital merchandise locked in some bonded warehouse for months. Ghassan “Gus” Bader has been navigating that life for more than four decades, and is really quite good at it. I first got to know him in the 1980s while he operated American Arms, an importer primarily focused on Spanish shotguns. Bader was one of the first to discern the potential of Turkey as…

BRAVO COMPANY MANUFACTURING (BCM) has long built high-quality AR-15s and M4-style firearms. BCM is led by U.S. Marine Paul Buffoni, who founded the business building AR-pattern rifles that adhered to U.S. military technical specifications, but it wasn’t long before he improved on those designs and created faithful tributes to models such as the Mk 12 series and Recce. BCM’s approach is “brilliance in the basics.” Guns & Ammo tested an ideal representation of an AR-15 developed for general use and precision shooting. It sports quality components with thoughtful details included. For example, the 18-inch, 410 stainless-steel, medium-contour barrel has a rifle-length gas system, which maximizes velocity potential from the 5.56 NATO round. The long gas system is easy on the rifle’s internals and produces the least amount of felt recoil.…

AS IT RELATES to the physics of suppression, internal volume matters. Suppressor manufacturers face the perennial challenge of balancing size, weight and noise reduction. Silencer Central Director of Engineering Lukas VanLaecken’s proudest achievements in suppressor design are the Banish Backcountry and Banish Speed K, two cans that prioritize small size over absolute sound suppression. As the name suggests, the Backcountry was designed for lightweight hunting. The Speed K, on the other hand, was built to be as small as possible while capable of withstanding high-volume abuse. “The idea for the Speed K came from the law enforcement community,” said VanLaecken. “Working alongside Federal Ammunition, we met with SWAT teams, highway patrol, and various police departments from all over the country. We took their input and designed the Speed K. The…

I AM ALWAYS SKEPTICAL when a company touts a new product as “groundbreaking.” Often, changes are small and incremental to an existing design. Few products chart a new path, and even fewer make it easier to use. However, the Umarex Komplete NCR has done just that. It is the first pre-charged pneumatic (PCP) airgun to break the platform’s reliance on an external air-filling station. Instead, it utilizes NitroAir, a disposable, high-pressure cartridge that can be bought at an airgun supply store. Out of the box, the Komplete NCR pellet rifle is ready to shoot. ABOUT PCP AIRGUNS At the 2024 Outdoor Sportsman’s Group (OSG) Roundtable, many of my colleagues shot a PCP airgun past 100 yards for the first time. It was easy to get excited about the platform’s power…

MY FIRST extended shooting experience with the AK-47 occurred in Afghanistan in 2003. The Taliban had a lot of them, but so did the militia that were assigned to our Special Forces A-Team. Every American on the team was issued an M4 carbine, but I took an interest in the AK because just about everyone else in the country was shooting it. Soldiers on the battlefield were allowed to pick up and use weapons they found, and it didn’t take long before I had my own AK that I could use. Our firebase had a 100-yard range attached to it, so I spent slow days at the range working on my proficiency with both the M4 and the AK. What I learned would shape what rifle I carried and when.…