Complete CCW information and gear in one location: GunDigestStore.com
Training and information are the most important elements of effective concealed carry. Now Gun Digest has brought together all the best information on choosing a concealed carry firearm, concealed carry holster and honing your shooting skills to prepare you for virtually any situation. This total package of CCW information provides information and training from the top names in defensive pistol shooting and self-defense. You'll get books, videos and handy gun storage rug to help you get your pistol and gear back and forth to the range. Whether you shoot an old-school revolver or modern polymer pistol like a Glock or Smith & Wesson, the information contained here will help you improve your skills and hone your mental edge. Everything you need to improve your concealed carry skills is right here at one low price. Now that you are ready to take your Concealed Carry skills to the next level, take a look at all this package has to offer from the best names in the business at a discount that can't be beat.
Get a look at the latest in ultra-precision rifles for designated marksmen, sharpshooters, scout-snipers or long-range shooting enthusiasts. It's a sniper rifle gallery!
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This photo gallery is an excerpt from Gun Digest Illustrated Guide to Modern Firearms.
The Gun Digest Book of Classic Combat Handguns is an absolutely unique compilation of articles celebrating the greatest combat pistols of all time, as they originally appeared in the world's greatest firearms annual, Gun Digest, from 1944 to present.
The Reflex is a great retention holster for CCW use and is now available for the M&P Shield.
It was only a matter of time before Uncle Mikes made the great Reflex CCW holster available for more pistols. Now is it up and running for the S&W Shield. Uncle Mike's has introduced the Uncle Mike's Reflex Holster for the new Smith & Wesson M&P Shield. The Reflex holster offers M&P Shield owners a dependable, dual-retention concealed carry holster.
Featuring the exclusive Integrated Retention Technology (I.R.T.) from Uncle Mike's, the Reflex Holster securely retains the firearm by combining a retention lug on the outer wall and a press arm on the body side of the holster. This simple retention system is designed to allow users to easily draw a firearm when an individual's fine motor skills have diminished during a stressful or threatening situation.
With the Reflex Holster, the user is able to get a full and secure grip on the firearm before they begin to draw. While I.R.T. secures the firearm in the holster, the technology allows the shooter to easily release the firearm with a slight rotation of the firearm toward the body.
Constructed with injection molded, impact-modified polymer, the Reflex holster includes a paddle attachment and pancake style belt loop to fit belts up to 1 ¾” wide. The Uncle Mike's Reflex holster fits both the 9mm and .40 caliber Smith & Wesson M&P Shield, and is available for an MSRP of $38.95.
To learn more about the Uncle Mike's Reflex Holster, visit the product page online. For more information about Uncle Mike's and its complete line of shooting accessories, visit www.unclemikes.com or call 1-800-423-3537.
Recommended gun books for those who carry concealed handguns:
There is an interesting development happening in the gun world and it resembles what has occurred in other shooting sports: a move back to the retro. In the sport of paintball, there is a movement that is shying away from the newly developed rapid-fire, high-tech paintball guns. These weapons throw out an enormous amount of paint downrange and have changed the sport for better or worse. There is Speedball where combatants shoot at each other in a McDonald's playland-like field of inflatable bunkers so the players don't get a boo-boo. And there is Woodsball where the players, as the name suggests, blast away at each other in the woods.
This leads to stock-class paintball which is defined as, “Stock class aims to retain the way paintball was at its birth: before electronic markers, high rates of fire, and overshooting. Players often play stock class for different reasons: some grew up playing paintball this way and don't like the direction the industry has taken the sport, some play this way to save money, and some simply enjoy the challenge of not being able to rely on a fast marker to get eliminations. The common theme among all stock players, however, is a desire to play in a limited fashion. That is, to intentionally put oneself at a disadvantage in relation to other players on the field.”
Stock-class paintball guns resemble the guns from the early days of the sport: they needed to be cocked, had a horizontal feed, and used a 12-gram gas powerlet. It forces the player to be more careful with taking a shot and puts more of an emphasis on stealth, strategy and all-around sneakiness.
This is very similar to other shooting sports with intentional handicaps : the hunter that takes up muzzleloading; the archer that forgoes a compound and uses a recurve bow, or a clay pigeon shooter intentionally starting from the low-gun position rather than shouldering the shotgun before the call. All of those examples go back to the early days of the sport.
The same is happening with stock-class paintball which aims to “retain the way paintball was at its birth.”
The birth of paintball, the very first game ever played, was chronicled by the late outdoor writer and novelist Robert F. Jones in Sports Illustrated in 1981. He described their weapons: “Our pistols were large-bore Nel-spot 007s, CO[2] handguns manufactured by the Nelson Paint Company of Iron Mountain, Mich. for the marking of cattle. The guns fire dye-filled plastic balls about half an inch in diameter which burst on contact, thus marking the “victim” with paint. Effective range, we were told, was 30 yards—a long shot for even a finely built conventional handgun, especially under “combat” conditions.”
Which leads us to vintagerex.com, a website dedicated to paintball history and collecting old paintball markers. What is interesting is that the authors of the website have developed a Blue Book of paintball gun values. The information provided is similar to the Standard Catalog of Firearms: the researcher can look up the manufacturer, model and information about the gun. The prices are categorized by fair, good and mint conditions.
By the standards of today's paintball guns, the Nel-Spot 007 used in the first-ever game is an antique. And a collector's item. It's part of the evolution of the paintball sport, which is still very young and the idea of collecting a vintage paintball gun resembles the market of collectible firearms. As the players mature, the market for old paintball guns will grow.
Train with a flashlight. Grap a copy of "Own the Night" from the Gun Digest Store.
Understand that a defensive handgun is most often used in low-light or reduced light situations. That is because most crimes are often perpetrated in low-light situations. Criminals are predators. Predators like the advantage they get on their prey by acting in areas of low light. So, take that advantage away. Carry a flashlight and use it often. A flashlight is a must-have tool on your gun belt. If you have to choose between carrying a two spare magazines or a spare magazine and a flashlight, go with the flashlight. Here is why.
A flashlight gives you a tactical advantage without being threatening. If you are walking to your car in a dark parking area, pull your light, keep it in your support hand and shine it on anything or anyone that catches your attention. Not only does this let you see what and who you are dealing with, it lets predators know you are prepared. They hate that. As a force option, you can shine a powerful light into the eyes of a potential attacker, which gives you the chance to move to a better position or draw your concealed carry handgun when he is momentarily blinded.
If you want more tips on using light to your advantage, check out this book by Scott Wagner.
If you need a light pouch to wear on your belt, click here.
I regularly carry a small, but powerful light and it comes in very handy. If anyone asks why I carry it, I just tell them, “I'm afraid of the dark. Bad things always happen in the dark.”
The U.S. Army has announced, “that soldiers may use only government-issued magazines with their M4 carbines, a move that effectively bans one of the most dependable and widely used commercial-made magazines on today's battlefield,” Military.com reported.
The Army's “safety of use” message didn't mention any specific make or model of magazines, though according to Military.com, the PMAG polymer M4 magazine, made by Magpul Industries, is the favorite non-Army magazine of the troops.
The PMAG's “rugged design has made it as one of the top performers in the small-arms accessory arena, according to combat veterans who credit the PMAG with drastically improving the reliability of the M4.”
The Army's safety of use message, “did not single out PMAGs, but instead authorizes only the use of Army-issued aluminum magazines. The message offers little explanation for the new policy except to state that ‘Units are only authorized to use the Army-authorized magazines listed in the technical manuals.' Nor does it say what Army units should now do with the millions of dollars' worth of PMAGs they've purchased over the years.”
Gun Digest is the source for firearms news, pricing and guns for sale. With a subscription to Gun Digest, readers benefit from in-depth editorial expert advice, show reviews, how-to instructions and Second Amendment issues.
The latest addition to the Gun Digest stable of top-notch information on CCW is available now on the newsstand. Should be arriving in subscribers' mailboxes very soon. Stories from Massad Ayoob, Paul Markel, Bob Campbell, Erik Lawrence and many others cover everything from guns and holsters to training tactics and firearms accessories. Expand your knowledge of CCW issues, gear and tactics with the help of Gun Digest.
The Gun Digest Special CCW Edition is available now!
In this survival guide blog from Scott Wagner, choosing a survival pistol is covered. What makes for a good survival handgun? The author picks the Beretta 92FS.
The Beretta 92FS gets the author's seal of approval as a survival pistol. Image by BerettaUSA.com
Let me put the five principles from my previous post together in making a decision concerning a pistol. Clearly, I am examining only one selection, because there are MANY pistols available that would work in this role, which I will discuss in the future. The pistol I am going to examine is my all-time favorite combat pistol: The Beretta 92FS. This is known to the military as the M9 or M9A1.
There is no questioning the reliability of the original Beretta 92FS. It has been given the ultimate field test since 1985 as our Armed Force’s standard issue pistol, and the M9 and has passed with flying colors. The latest rendition purchased by the military is the mildly modified M9A1, which has a light rail on the frame.
Click the image to download Beretta exploded gun drawings.
With smoothness of operation rivaled only by custom pistols, the 92 was for much of the 1980s and into the 1990s second only to Smith and Wesson autopistol designs in terms of police service use. That dominance changed with the advent of the Glock design and its widespread acceptance for police use due its somewhat simpler design. But the 92 just runs and runs and runs.
In terms of ruggedness, the same qualities that make it reliable bolster its ruggedness. Its design has stood up to the worst environmental conditions on earth, and the worst neglect possible by men in combat. It would not still be going strong some 27 years after it was adopted if it wasn’t rugged.
Portability is less of an issue when discussing defensive handguns then it is when talking long guns. While the 92 may not be the best choice for deep cover carry, it still can be done. I know because I have done it. There are many ways to carry the 92 concealed. Backpack, sling pack, fanny pack or IWB holster work well just to name a few.
I mentioned simplicity of operation as a factor earlier. This is an area where the 92 gives up some ground to designs such as the Glock. There is a manual safety/decocker, and the standard DA/SA trigger requires transition practice. While some find this a problem, I haven’t, as the first duty auto’s I carried in my law enforcement career were the early Smith and Wesson series with the same design, starting with the elegant Model 39. Training and practice will overcome any such concern when using a DA/SA auto.
Finally, we come to effectiveness. Yes, clearly the 9mm in FMJ bullet profiles is not as effective as the .45 in the same configuration in terms of raw potential to stop a determined assailant.
However, the 92 carries more rounds in the magazine vs. the .45. That's 15 per magazine rather than seven or eight. Get proper hits with all those smaller bullets and you will be effective.
Keep in mind, too, that all pistol calibers fail. The much-vaunted .40 S&W can claim quite a few rather spectacular failures. If you need close-range protection from large amounts of people, warding them off from my position, be it in the open, in a structure, or in a vehicle, I want to put as much ammo downrange.
The high capacity of a 9mm Beretta 92 will allow me to do just that.
What type of survival pistol are you choosing? Leave a comment below.
Tom Turpin's new book, Custom Rifles: Mastery of Wood and Metal will be hitting the bookstores this month. It's a handsome hardcover and heavy with photos printed on glossy paper. Turpin takes the reader inside the workshop of one of the best custom riflemakers in the world: the David Smith Company.
In Turpin's words, on this fine gunmaker: “To my knowledge, no other custom riflemaker has ever been featured in the Wall Street Journal – David Miller Co. has. No other custom gunmaker, to my knowledge, has ever been awarded the prestigious Robb Report “Best of the Best” Award even once– David Miller Co. has received it twice. Only a few custom riflemakers have ever had their creations featured on the cover of a widely circulated magazine even once. David Miller Co. has been featured on covers twenty-one times, nationally and internationally.”
Much of the custom rifle barrel work in any shop takes place on a machine lathe, as in this typical set-up.
Learn about the three kinds of barrel rifling in this article about custom rifle barrels.
The vast majority of custom rifle makers do not manufacture their own barrels. It is simply too costly to perform this function in-house due to the cost of the equipment necessary and the relatively few barrels that the maker will require. This is, simply put, another area that required years of expertise to achieve anything close to perfection. Instead, they rely on specialists that usually do nothing but manufacture barrels.
The three basic methods in common use for rifling a barrel are cut, button and hammer forging. Each method is widely used for custom rifle barrels. Each can and does produce quality barrels.
Cut Rifling
Cut rifling is the oldest method and has been in use for about 500 years. I-read somewhere that it was invented in Germany about the time Columbus was sailing the ocean blue.
It is performed basically as it has always been done, the only exception being the equipment used to perform the cutting. To simplify, cut rifling involves actually cutting or scraping the grooves in the steel to eventually form the lands and grooves of the rifling.
These days, specialized equipment is used to insert a cutter in the drilled-and-reamed bore of the billet in order to cut and remove a small amount of steel with each pass of the cutter.
While the cutting is going on, either the steel billet or the cutter is slowly rotated to form the twist in the rifling. Such twist normally is specified in number of inches required to complete one full turn in the bore.
For example, the usual twist for a 30-06 is one in ten or 1:10. That means that the rifling requires ten inches to make one complete turn in the bore.
The cutter is passed through the bore as many times as is necessary to cut the grooves to the desired depth, one groove at a time. The number of grooves cut in a barrel is variable, but three, four or six are the most common.
Button Rifling
The operator prepares to cut the action threads on this Krieger barrel.
Perhaps the most commonly used method today among custom barrel makers is button-rifling.
In this method, the deep drilling and reaming are the same as for cut-rifling, except that the finished hole is slightly undersized for the button system. The barrel maker either makes or purchases a carbide “button” that contains the rifling impression in reverse in the button.
Once the bore is drilled and reamed, this button is either pushed or pulled through the bore, essentially “ironing” the rifling into the steel of the bore.
Whether pulling or pushing the button is the best method remains the subject of debate with advocates on both sides. I think that it is safe to say that a majority of barrel makers using the button method pull the button through the bore.
Still, some much prefer pushing the button through. Excellent barrels can be and are made using both methods.
Hammer-Forging Rifling
The third method of rifling is hammer-forging.
Another German development, this method is not in common use among custom barrel makers. In fact, I don’t know of a single one that hammer-forges their barrels.
Many factories do, however. The cost of the equipment to hammer-forge a barrel is very expensive and is cost effective only for high volume barrel production.
A lathe is set up for cutting the chamber and fitting the custom rifle barrel to the action.
Hammer-forging is quite similar to button-rifling. In hammer-forging, the barrel billet is drilled and reamed as with the other systems. However, the billet is much shorter and much larger in diameter. The billet is inserted on a precisely finished bore-size mandrel containing the rifling (and in some cases, the chamber and outside contour as well) in reverse.
This mandrel, with its stubby barrel billet attached, is then inserted into the hammer machine which literally pounds the steel in the billet to form not only the rifling in the bore, but some machines also forge the outside of the barrel billet to the final contour.
One company, I believe it was Steyr from Austria, proudly proclaimed that their barrels were hammer-forged and the spiral hammer marks were left on the outside surface of the barrel to prove it.
This system is very fast and very efficient at producing barrels in quantity and quality. The best of the hammerforge machines will produce a barrel about every three or four minutes.
The commonly held view is that hammer-forging produces the least desirable quality barrels of the three methods although I haven’t found this to be particularly true. Very high quality barrels can be and are produced using all three of these methods of production.
Personally, I think the major difference in quality of barrels produced by all three methods is much more dependent on the experience of and care exercised by the operator and the condition of the equipment being used than it is the method employed.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) is offering schools the opportunity to receive–free of charge–educational videos about firearm safety and wildlife conservation.
The firearm safety videos help teach students how to react when encountering a firearm in an unsupervised situation.
In addition, the conservation titles educate students on how wildlife and wild lands are protected, and how hunters support this effort with contributions amounting to more than $1 billion annually.
The Firearm Safety DVD offers these three videos: “McGruff the Crime Dog on Gun Safety,” for students in kindergarten through grade 6; “It's Your Call: Playing It Safe Around Guns,” for students in grades 6 through 9; and “Firearms Safety Depends on You,” which covers the 10 commandments ofgun safety and is for audiences of all ages.
The first two titles help teach students how to respond if should they encounter a firearm in an unsupervised situation at school, at home or at a friend's home.
The Conservation DVD contains “Wildlife for Tomorrow®,” which is designed for students in grades 4 through 7; and two other videos, “The Unendangered Species®” and “What They Say About Hunting,” which are for students in grades 7 through 12.
“Wildlife for Tomorrow” and “The Unendangered Species” tell the story of how game animals such as the wild turkey, white-tailed deer and Rocky Mountain elk were once endangered and have been restored to abundance.
“What They Say About Hunting” takes a close look at hunting and its relevance today through a pro-and-con debate.
Teachers in more than 100,000 schools nationwide have shown these NSSF videos to students in their classrooms and have praised them for handling the topics with sensitivity.
Educators can order or preview the free videos online at https://www.nssf.org/education/video.cfm.
A Great Gun Cleaning DVD
An excellent gun cleaning DVD.
Education is one part of gun safety. The other is maintenance. The Cleaning and Lubrication of Firearms DVD offers simple, easy-to-understand instructions to keep firearms functioning their best.
The Bianchi Allusion Model 135 Suppression CCW holster is an inside the waistband, or IWB holster design, which is all about concealability and comfort.
Bianchi's new Allusion is a top-notch IWB holster with lots of features.
The first word in concealed carry is, obviously, “concealed.” For the longest time that meant simply hanging a holster on your belt and covering with a shirt or jacket. But as consumers demanded more options, holster makers became more creative and the Inside the Waistband (IWB) Holster has come a long way since the original “lay-flat” pouches used to hide J-Frame revolvers.
Today you have all kinds of options including tuck tabs so you can tuck your shirt in, but still have access to the pistol and, most importantly, molded internal components keep the holster open so you can easily re-holster your pistol, should you need to do so.
Still, there is one thing most IWB holster buyers forget: You need to get bigger pants when you carry IWB. The pistol and holster combination adds another entire waist size to your belt line. If you usually wear a 36-inch waist, get 38s to help you carry your .38 comfortably.
Now back to the holsters. One of the biggest names in the holster business has a new IWB that you will love. The Bianchi Allusion Model 135 Suppression inside the waistband design is all about concealability and comfort. Concealability is enhanced by the holster sitting low enough that the thickest part of the weapon lies directly underneath the belt, helping to obscure the shape.
Meanwhile, two shirt-tuckable C-clips grasp the belt and, taking as little real estate as possible; give the appearance of an empty belt. The gun cant is optimized to put the grip into the kidney area of the back, minimizing any visible printing. Comfort is enhanced with a body-facing holster liner composed of soft foam covered with an anti-microbial mesh coating to reduce bacteria growth and odor.
The MSRP for the holster is $74, but you can find it online for $55.
Bianchi Suppression Model 135 Holster Features:
• Dual tuckable C-clip design for attachment to the belt • Provides strong belt retention on the holster • Minimizes visible portion show • Anti-bacterial and microbial foam padding on inside liner • Prevents germs and odor from accumulating • Padded liner provides added comfort • Slight detent in trigger guard for enhanced weapon retention • Available in Plain Tan or Plain Black finish • Carry: Strongside
Looking to go armed, but are stuck in the weeds as to what to arm yourself with? Here are 20 excellent concealed carry gun options that will keep you on the defensive.
