We ask you to analyze whether you’re really prepared to use deadly force in a self-defense situation.
Are you prepared to use deadly force in self-defense? Most armed citizens would reply in the affirmative, but I wonder if the average citizen has really worked out in his or her mind how an act of killing another, whether justified or not, will change their life.
I came to grips with this issue in my early 20s when I first put a gun on my hip and started in the field of law enforcement. Thankfully, I was never forced to pull the trigger on a human being, although I did shoot up a ’76 Ford Pinto once (but that’s a story for another time).
What allowed me the luxury to have made that decision at an early age was the knowledge that if I did have to do the deed (assuming it was on-duty and justified) I’d have a law enforcement agency covering my six. And regarding the justified part: During my initial training in use of deadly force when I was a police recruit, I received what I felt was some pretty good training as how to make sure the use of force was justified.
We spend a considerable time in the academy understanding the concept of Ability-Opportunity-Jeopardy, and we also studied many of the USSC and appellate court decisions regarding both use of deadly force, but also lesser degrees of force. I’m happy to report that I can count on one hand the number of complaints that were filed against me during my police career, and those were all unfounded.
About 10 years into my police career, I decided to leave full-time and start teaching the private citizen how to use firearms for self-defense. At that time, I also made myself the promise I wouldn’t teach people how to kill, unless I also taught them when and when not they could legally use deadly force in self-defense. Twenty thousand people later, I’m proud to claim none of my students were ever prosecuted or sued after an act of self-defense. A couple years ago, I retired from teaching after developing a curriculum for my school and teaching those instructors how to do what I had been doing.
Fast-forward to present day and my current position as president of the Armed Citizen’s Legal Defense Network Inc. I’m also proud as heck to report that none of our members have been prosecuted for murder or manslaughter after using deadly force in self-defense, and only a couple have opted for a low-level misdemeanor plea bargain instead of taking the risk of a jury trial.
What’s the common denominator in all this? It’s documented training in the use of deadly force in self-defense. In the first two instances, the lectures I both received and gave were documented both with handout material and, of course, the instructor’s willingness to go to court and testify as to what was taught. In the latter, the Network provides over 10 hours of educational material (videos and a book) to each person who signs up. Of course, we’re willing to also help that member fight the legal fight, if needed.
Seek out online lectures and programs that teach use of deadly force in self-defense. When you’re viewing these lectures, document having seen them. If it’s not documented, it didn’t happen.
Lastly, there are in-person training courses in the use of deadly force. The good news is that the courses will likely be taught by an expert in the law and that expert will be available to come to court in your defense, if needed.
Now, getting back to the lead-in question: Are you prepared to use deadly force in self-defense?
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the February 2023 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
In this excerpt from Deadly Force, 2nd Edition, Massad Ayoob discusses the finer points of attorney selection following a self-defense incident.
Even the most righteous defensive use of a firearm can lead to a false allegation of wrongdoing. It might be an unmeritorious civil lawsuit motivated by greed or revenge or a criminal charge promulgated by a self-styled social justice warrior in a prosecutor’s office.
This article is an excerpt from Deadly Force, 2nd Edition, a complete guide to understanding your right to self-defense!
The poet Robert Frost once defined a jury as “12 people assembled to determine who has the best attorney.” There is much truth in this, and people who read this book—people who have accepted the responsibility to protect innocent people—need to take that to heart. Such people are alpha males and females accustomed to being in charge of important matters.
They have to understand that they are not the players when they are on trial anymore.
They are the stakes.
Their attorney is the player. Accordingly, they want the game’s best player to represent them at the table.
The ‘Game’
I don’t consider a trial to be a game. Neither should you. But many attorneys do, and it’s essential to understand that.
Many people think the best attorney for a shooting case is the most famous criminal lawyer in the region. That’s not necessarily true. That “Perry Mason of the community” often got his reputation by pulling rabbits out of hats and winning acquittals for obviously guilty criminals. That sort of legal wizardry employs tactics that are almost 180 degrees opposite of the best skillset for defending legitimate, lawful uses of lethal force.
Never forget that the defense of a genuinely justified use of lethal force is an affirmative defense! We are not claiming that we didn’t shoot our attacker; instead, we are stipulating that we did indeed shoot him, but we are maintaining that we were correct.
My work over the years has brought me into contact with many criminal defense lawyers. I can usually find time to ask them a few questions unrelated to the particular case at bar. One of those questions is, “Counselor, in all your years in defense bar, how many of your clients were innocent, wrongly accused men or women?”
The answer has always been a relatively tiny percentage who weren’t either guilty as charged or at least guilty of some lesser included offense. One with more than 30 years of practice answered, “Oh, it happens. A good 1 out of a 100 really is totally innocent.” Some others have told me they don’t think they’ve ever defended an innocent person.
If that is your professional experience, you will develop a formula of guilt mitigation and establishing some element of reasonable doubt because that’s all you, as a defense attorney with a guilty client, have to work with. It becomes your standard, automatic default. Let’s examine why that doesn’t work for the truly innocent defendant.
A guilty man’s lawyer never wants to put him on the witness stand: what can he possibly say that won’t be either an admission of guilt or a lie? The lie will open the client to the additional charge of felony perjury. If it appears that his attorney coached him to lie on the witness stand, the lawyer himself has to worry about the criminal charge of subornation of perjury and can hear his license to practice law grow wings and prepare to fly away. So, of course, his default practice becomes, “I never put my clients on the witness stand!”
In contrast, the defendant must take the stand in an affirmative defense. It’s not a “whodunnit” anymore: We’ve already established that it was the defendant who killed the deceased. It’s now a “why did he or she do it,” and who besides the defendant can truly answer that question?
The criminal defense lawyer whose experience is primarily defending the guilty routinely advises, “Never talk to the police!” The reason for that should be obvious: what can the guilty man say that won’t inculpate him and make his conviction all the more certain? He can lie, but he’ll almost certainly be caught in that lie, and lying to the police is another crime in and of itself. “Never talk to the police” probably is the best advice the lawyer can give to a potential future guilty client.
But the innocent person who fired in self-defense is poorly served by this advice.
A guilty man’s lawyer who gives an innocent client a guilty man’s defense will likely end up with a guilty man’s verdict.
If the client has established something like “This man attacked me” and pointed out evidence and witnesses from his first contact, he has made it much easier for his attorney to give him a solid affirmative defense. It is defense lawyers who have spent ninety-plus percent of their careers defending at least partially guilty clients who advise “Never talk to the police.” A defendant with the mental discipline to go through the “Five Point Checklist” I’ve described elsewhere in this book will have better paved the way for their attorney to drive them safely through trial to an acquittal.
Desirable Defense Attorney Attributes
All other things being equal, I would much prefer to have a law firm or at least a partnership defending me rather than a sole practitioner. Now, there are some exceptions to this. In the 1980s, I watched Gene Compton, a sole practitioner in Virginia, carry his wrongly accused client Mark Branham on a long, exhausting journey that lasted through three trials before winning the ultimate acquittal.
During that ordeal, focused exclusively on the Branham trial for weeks, Gene paid out of his pocket to keep the office open, knowing that the client couldn’t afford his usual fees. This was dedication “above and beyond the call of duty.” The attorney, after all, has a duty to their staff to generate enough income to write their paychecks and “keep the lights on.” Lawyers with that degree of dedication are not found in every office. A firm with multiple lawyers bringing in multiple fees can handle such things more easily.
During trial, good lawyers don’t get much sleep. The other side may be trying to surprise them at every turn, requiring them to burn the midnight oil between trial days. The emotional exhaustion of trial is exacerbated for any ethical attorney who knows they are defending an innocent person, which translates to physical exhaustion and running out of time when you have to do everything yourself without other lawyers taking the slack. Here’s an example from the 2021 trial of police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, which was the highest-profile case of its period and triggered riots nationwide.
On April 20, 2021, in my blog, in an entry titled “Thoughts On the Chauvin Verdict,” I wrote: “I don’t think the harsh criticism I’m seeing of defense attorney Eric Nelson is warranted. He was David against Goliath, the sole attorney of record that the police union could afford, against no less than three attorneys at the prosecutors’ table at any time and more behind the scenes backing them up. At the same time, Nelson’s only assistance in court came from a fledgling lawyer who had just passed her bar exam and was acting as an intern. I thought he did an excellent job cross-examining the State’s witnesses, and his necessarily long close was more professional than his prosecutorial counterpart’s.”
Chauvin was, of course, convicted. Many followed that case closely and think there was ample reasonable doubt as to whether Chauvin’s kneeling on Floyd for more than nine minutes caused his death—there was evidence that the deceased had enough fentanyl in his system to kill him and maybe enough to kill a couple of people—but I also had a sense of a defense team that was overwhelmed by a much larger prosecution team that also had media-driven public sentiment on its side.
An excellent lawyer, whom I won’t name here because it wasn’t his fault, lost a murder case in California. A sole practitioner, he learned before trial that his brother had been in a car crash and was not expected to survive. By trial time, he had been without sleep for days, living on black coffee and unfiltered Camel cigarettes. During the trial, I found him groggy, distracted, and “out of it.” In mid-trial, he collapsed and was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. There was no one to “pick up the ball” and run with it. His client was convicted and remains in prison.
In a murder trial in Florida, I saw something similar: The trial lawyer was a sole practitioner and a brittle diabetic whose illness was greatly aggravated by the long hours, insomnia and stress of the trial. He had no one to back him up when his disease hit him hard during trial, impairing his focus. The jury found the client guilty of the lesser included charge of manslaughter.
Many military combat survivors will tell you, “No one person can do it alone.” That is true to a significant degree in the combat of the courts. That’s why I worry about hiring a solo practitioner for the defense.
Don’t despair if financial considerations limit you to a public defender. Public defenders get a bad rap because they are notoriously underfunded and overburdened, but don’t fall for the stereotype that they’ll always give you a sub-par defense. The constant heat of their heavy caseloads has forged some excellent trial lawyers who began as public defenders; the great Roy Black in Miami comes to mind. Elsewhere in this book, Gila Hayes’ case study of the Larry Hickey trials demonstrates the splendid work public defenders such as Matt Messmer can do. A good public defender lives for the chance to exonerate a truly innocent client.
As noted earlier, you’re looking for the best attorney for an affirmative defense, not necessarily criminal defense in general. I, for one, wouldn’t want a flamboyant superstar known for courtroom shenanigans; they’ll often turn the judge against them, which never helps the client. The sort of lawyer who seems to have majored in Drama and minored in Law tends to aggravate a jury, and the jury tends to see lawyer and client as one, joined at the hip. If the attorney insults or angers them, the only way they can retaliate is to convict his client … you. I want my attorney to be calm, likable and dignified. I want a defense lawyer respected by the prosecutors and the judge alike: the sort of white-maned old lion (or lioness) of the courts that the Bar Association picks to give Ethics lectures at CLE (Continuing Legal Education) training seminars for other lawyers.
The lawyer must know the ins and outs of forensic evidence and proper investigation protocols in shooting cases. How do you find such an attorney near you?
One answer is: use the one the cops use.
It won’t be hard to find out what union or fraternal organization (such as FOP, the Fraternal Order of Police, or PBA, Patrolman’s Benevolent Association) represents your local police officers or county sheriff’s deputies. Reach out to that organization and ask them what criminal defense lawyer they retain for one of their members who is wrongfully indicted after a line of duty or off-duty shooting. That will be an attorney who knows the subtleties of handling a defensive shooting case. If that particular attorney only speaks for police, they will almost certainly be able to refer you to a lawyer who knows what they know and accepts private citizen clients.
Or you can reach out to your post-self-defense support group … if you belong to one!
Post-Self-Defense Support Groups
Over my decades as an expert witness, one thing that has always appalled me has been the enormous cost of legal defense, both criminal and civil, against unmeritorious allegations growing out of genuine self-defense cases. I’ve seen people go bankrupt. I’ve seen retirees have to go back to work full time. I’ve seen people who thought they would die peacefully in a home they owned free and clear to bequeath to their decedents, having to mortgage or reverse mortgage those homes to pay the legal fees. In my most recent murder trial of an armed citizen I helped get fully acquitted, I joined him for a celebratory beer the day after the verdict. He told me that his legal expenses had totaled $300,000 or a little more—and there was still a lawsuit in the wings, filed by the deceased’s family.
My colleague Marty Hayes has seen the same thing and did something about it. A highly successful expert witness in the same field as me since 1990 and a former LEO at ranks up to CLEO (Chief Law Enforcement Officer), Marty has also been one of the nation’s top firearms and lethal force instructors for decades. He graduated from law school in 2007 and founded the first support group for this sort of situation, the Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network (ACLDN, ArmedCitizensNetwork.org), the following year.
Hayes explains, “The idea of the Network came from discussing the aftermath of lawful self-defense with my students at the Firearms Academy of Seattle. Most students were very concerned about what to do after a shooting but did not have sufficient money to mount a legal defense. That was the beginning of the Network, and as I was at the time going through law school, I hit upon the idea that instead of becoming a practicing attorney, I would see if my students would pay a little money each year to have the possibility of assistance after an incident. They did, and the effort soon spread nationwide.”
The concept quickly caught on and was followed by many imitators, most with different business models. ACLDN is not insurance but instead is member-supported. Members receive several training videos featuring leading experts and attorneys in the field. ACLDN’s structure includes an advisory board consisting of Hayes and administrator Vincent Schuck, ace instructors Tom Givens and John Farnam, the same Dennis Tueller mentioned in this book, attorney and firearms expert Emmanuel Kapelsohn, pro-police and pro-gun attorney Marie D’Amico, and master instructor Karl Rehn, and this writer. The board members are available to assist members and their lawyers with trial strategy advice, expert witness appearances and additional support. ACLDN pays lawyers’ fees and related costs in criminal defense and civil lawsuits and pays bail if the member has been arrested. Coverage extends to all use of force incidents involving the defense of self or other innocent parties and is not limited to shooting incidents.
As a public service, ACLDN makes its monthly journal available even to non-members at the website listed above. A quick perusal of a few issues will give you an idea of where the organization, and its member lawyers, are coming from. Over the many years, ACLDN has resolved dozens of cases. None have had to go to trial. All have resulted in the most satisfactory outcomes possible. The organization will pay the attorney of the member’s choice or select and send in a suitable lawyer if the member doesn’t have a particular advocate in mind.
Issues In Selection of Post-Self-Defense Support Groups
While some of these groups offer insurance, many others are pre-paid legal services. The ACLDN is not insurance in any way, shape, or form, but rather a member support group providing a service analogous to a police union or fraternal organization promising to pay for legal defense for a wrongly-accused officer who belongs. Nevertheless, before signing up with any of them, I urge you to do what you would do with real insurance before signing up for a policy: READ THE FINE PRINT FIRST!
Consider the short-lived, ill-fated Carry Guard program once offered by the National Rifle Association. In this writer’s opinion, there were many things wrong with it, the cardinal one being their promise to pay every penny of your legal expenses … after you were acquitted.
Now, let that sink in. No attorney will take a criminal defense case on the promise that they will be paid only if—and after—they have won an acquittal. They require a substantial payment up front to draw from regarding legal fees and expenses as they go along. The expenses alone can be high. Volumes of paperwork (reports, depositions, statements, etc.) must be ordered beforehand, and I’ve seen the providers charge three dollars per page for these mountains of (sometimes triple-spaced) documents. Expert witnesses don’t work on later promises of payment either, nor do the court reporters transcribe depositions, etc. The attorney’s office staff have to be paid.
Reimbursement requirement is a big red flag. NRA Carry Guard is long gone, but there are organizations today that promise to pay all your legal fees and costs but require you to reimburse them if you lose the case in court. The most innocent man or woman’s case can be lost if they have an incompetent lawyer or for several other reasons.
Your support organization is supposed to be your staunch ally in your fight to keep your life as you know it. When it’s in the ally’s financial interest for you to lose the case, is that entity really your ally?
What I would call a no-violation clause could be another deal-breaker for me. This element of the agreement states that if you violate law, rules, or regulation in any way, even though the shooting itself was justifiable, the company does not have to pay for your defense. Let’s say you did not realize you were in a hotel that happens to be a “gun-free” zone, and you were carrying your gun in good faith when you had to shoot a rapist in the stairwell, an armed robber breaking into your room or a carjacker in the parking lot.
I have been in numerous establishments posted as “gun-free zones” but posted so poorly that the sign could not be seen until you left the premises, perhaps not even then. I’ve been in hotels where there weren’t any “no guns” signs in the lobbies or doors, but such a policy was stated on the hotel’s home page. We travelers rarely look at the fine print on hotel websites. But a “self-defense insurance company” will certainly look there after one of their clients has been involved in a justified shooting on such premises.
Is “no alcohol on board” a condition of coverage? If you had a pre-dinner cocktail before a two-hour dinner with friends, I would expect that small amount of alcohol to have metabolized entirely and be a non-issue when you paid for your meal, left the establishment, and had to defend yourself against an armed attacker in the parking lot. However, investigators knowing you left a place of business where alcohol is served, will doubtless check your bill, notice that you had a drink and include that in the report. Under these circumstances, a “no alcohol” policy might give the company a legal excuse to dump you and deny coverage.
Will the plan allow you to pick your own lawyer? This element is huge. If the support group insists on sending in an attorney of their choice, that might be the lowest-priced novice hungry for his first case. My Cousin Vinnie is a most enjoyable movie—I’ve met law professors who show it at law school—but the title character is the antithesis of what you want working for you when an affirmative defense is needed.
Do your due diligence and find a plan that works for you. Starry-eyed idealists still think, “A good shoot is a good shoot! None of those horror stories will ever happen to me!” That’s a mindset similar to, “I’ll never need a gun for self-defense; none of those horror stories will ever happen to me.”
But there’s another good reason to have post-self-defense support, which many people miss: deterrent effect against political prosecution or unmeritorious lawsuits. Whether in the criminal court arena or the civil, no attorney wants to bring a case he can’t win or browbeat the accused into accepting a plea bargain (criminal) or out-of-court settlement (civil). Part of their leverage in achieving that sort of thing, which I consider to be nothing less than legalized extortion when the defendant acted in legitimate self-defense, is the threat to bankrupt them with legal fees if they don’t plead or settle. When your attorney can smile at opposing counsel and say, “A third party is paying my client’s fees and expenses. Take us to court. We’ll beat you there,” the deterrent effect is obvious.
I strongly recommend that the armed citizen belongs to a post-self-defense support group for the same reason I recommend every law enforcement officer join their union, fraternal organization or bargaining entity. When wrongly accused in either criminal or civil court, it’s good to have a savvy, well-funded organization in your corner, paying for your defense.
Practicing your long-range pistol shooting at 100 yards will make 25 yards seem like point-blank range.
In creating this article, I originally imagined it would be an interesting how-to for stretching the legs of your optically equipped pistol. While I did make some interesting observations in the process, handguns—even like the one I’m using—aren’t designed to be fired at these distances, and a very dangerous situation can present itself to you and others if extreme caution isn’t exercised. It’s hard to shoot over a berm with a handgun bullet, but it’s very easy to skip them off the ground if you weren’t conscious of the drop. Any time you can’t safely stop a bullet, you’re asking for trouble. In the end, I didn’t walk away with the assumption that this was in any way practical with 9mm, .45 ACP or even 10mm Auto.
For this reason, I’ve included a recommendation on how to safely zero a pistol for longer distances; however, I don’t recommend you try this at home or at your local range. I was able to make some (not as many as you think) hits to a maximum distance of 500 yards, but, in reality, 200 yards with a proper zero is about as far as I feel is safe to go. I observed every precaution in creating this article.
Because virtually all dot-style optics are just that—a dot floating inside of a lens—there’s no real indicator as to where to hold or a means to estimate range. As such, most people tend to zero these optics for the ranges they expect to shoot at or try to create an average distance to take advantage of a given cartridge in point-blank range.
This is very common in rifles, and you’ll typically see different types of zeros being discussed and how they best take advantage of a given bullet’s trajectory. In the carbine world, we usually see a discussion on 100-yard zeros versus 25- or 50-yard zeros … and at what point the bullet’s trajectory rises above and falls back into the line of sight. Point-blank-range zeros aren’t a very good way to go on a handgun, as drop is significant in most cases. It’s far better to know your exact zero at all ranges and even dial in for it, as crazy as that sounds.
Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
All of this comes down to one simple word: consistency. Handguns are among the least consistent types of guns when it comes to accuracy. Across the board, it’s rare to find a handgun design capable of accurate shooting from offhand beyond 50 yards. Using a supported position, it’s not difficult to hit IDPA-sized targets at 100 or 200 yards. If you get into a stable, leaned back sitting position with your hands and elbows locked into knees, just like Elmer Keith taught us, you can shoot quite accurately at 300 yards and beyond. (When I talk about accuracy here, I’m talking about physically contacting the target, not X rings.)
Rifles, even in the same power level and bore diameter as a handgun, are virtually always better in terms of consistency and accuracy purely on a mechanical level. The Henry, with a 2-MOA dot, is vastly superior to even the most accurate 1911 with a 1-MOA dot given equal bullet weight and velocity.
A large reason why handguns aren’t very accurate (compared to rifles) comes down to how they’re built. It’s right there in the name. Anything designed to fit in your hand without a shoulder support or ability to be consistently slung up is never going to deliver its maximum potential. Human error is more than half of the problem; you’re never going to be able to be as steady with any pistol as you are with any rifle.
The 1911 is widely considered to be one of the most accurate designs ever made. Even at that, the aiming interface isn’t directly attached to the rigid structure in which the barrel is housed. The sights, slide, barrel and frame are all separate pieces on most handguns. Your accuracy with a red-dot sight is going to come from the consistency of the lockup between all of these parts when the slide is in battery.
Brownells offers a red-dot-capable 1911 slide. It’s not a drop-in job, but when fit properly, it’s a welcome upgrade.
From here it gets more complicated. Adding things to the slide, such as an optic, can increase weight. While this might seem insignificant, I’ve noted that all guns of traditional design that I’ve tested have benefited from a much heavier recoil spring when using a slide-mounted sight. I do believe there’s a correlation between added weight in the slide and the need for greater spring weight. In my own guns, I’ve typically moved to a 20- or 21-pound spring for shooting .45 ACP using a dot sight. Accuracy is likewise benefited with a higher spring weight.
Another significant note is the addition of frontal weight when it comes to shooting with a dot. Again, while it might not seem significant, the addition of a flashlight or suppressor seems to increase the accuracy and overall utility when it comes to dot shooting. You’re probably correct in assuming that adding mass will make for less movement in the hand during firing. I noticed that there was a significant increase in hit likelihood with the light I use attached, versus without. Anything that’s attached can have a dramatic impact on performance. Again, this is all for fun, I really don’t expect serious competitors or tactical types to start looking to shoot handguns at long distance. I hope.
Guns like the Magnum Research Desert Eagle differ substantially from the 1911, and similar pistols that have a slide/barrel lockup (think Glock, Beretta, M&P, etc.), in that it can mount a red-dot to the barrel itself, thus making for much greater accuracy potential. I’ve had the pleasure of shooting one of these guns in .44 Magnum with an Aimpoint on the barrel, and it was the most easy-to-use hunting handgun I’d ever shot.
Moving on, you may be wondering what type of accuracy you need on paper at close range to be able to determine if you’ll do well at longer ranges. At 25 yards, you should be printing five-shot groups at 2 inches to be able to contact a target half the time at 300 yards. Basically, if you can hit a playing card five times in a row seated at the bench using your optically equipped pistol, you likely have enough mechanical accuracy to get the job done, however you’re still only halfway there in the equation.
Note that a 2-inch, five-shot group at 25 yards is the equivalent of 8 inches at 100 yards—a tall order for most handguns. Keep this in mind going forward: As distance increases, you can expect a relative group size of 16 inches at 200 … even if your dot is 2 inches across at that distance.
Zeroing a Pistol for Long Range
Consistency here is an interesting topic. Optical sites on handguns allow for a much wider range of adjustment than iron sights. Unlike most pistols equipped with adjustable iron sights, optical sights can be much more adaptable to rifle-shooting styles in that they have a known and consistent size of the aiming point, and consistent mechanical adjustments. An example of this is the RMR site that I used for testing in this article. This is a 1-MOA dot unit (RM09) and has 1-MOA adjustments. It couldn’t get easier than this.
This is the same 1-MOA dot in this sequence. Brightness can have an influence on the eye’s perception of dot size. When on the lowest brightness (far right), the dot is so small it can be hard to find. Yet, the bloom increases not mechanically but as a sort of optical illusion. Keep this in mind, as you may be holding where your dot isn’t.
I find that a 2-MOA dot is about the biggest you can go while still being able to aim precisely. In the case of a 2-MOA dot, you’d be looking at an aiming point size of 10 inches at 500 yards. At 1 MOA, a dot is going to represent a 5-inch circle at the same distance. This might surprise you, but it’s very easy to hold on an IDPA target at that distance. In fact, you can even become somewhat proficient with range estimation using dot size alone. You can think of it as a rudimentary rifle reticle given that it behaves like a first-focal-plane scope. There’s one problem that you were going to run into, though, and that’s optical distortion and parallax, which is why zeroing is going to be different than with a rifle.
When using a rifle, it’s common practice to dial or hold on the estimated point-of-impact. If you know that you’re zeroed for 100 yards, and you know the velocity and ballistic coefficient of your bullet, you can plug all of that into a calculator and get a solution. From there, you go to the actual distance and test fire, wherein you might need to make small corrections. With an optically equipped pistol, you’re going to want to do all of your general adjustment at a short, known distance, such as 25 yards.
The trick to getting this to work correctly is to use a bastardized combination of precision rifle math and redneck mess-around. One of the problems with ballistic software is that it rarely has options for a handgun. And why would it?
Running Numbers
I used Hornady HAP bullets in .45 ACP for most of this in reloads. I load them a bit hot into +P territory, so I knew my velocity was 950 fps with an SD of 20 fps. That standard deviation number is going to be extremely important later on. The B.C. of that bullet is a paltry .188. Knowing speed and B.C., you can actually start to work it out in open-ended calculators.
Flat shooting isn’t the name of the game for any pistol cartridge; 9mm and .45 ACP perform about the same. There’s no distinct advantage to either at distance except added mass in .45 ACP. Both the .357 Mag. and .45 Colt are also near-equal if loaded similarly.
At this point, you’ll want to begin the zero confirmation at your chosen distance. Because we have a 1-MOA dot and a 1-MOA adjustment, things can be streamlined quite well. The reason I plug numbers in at close distance is for safety reasons. If I know that my gun is shooting consistent 2-inch groups at 25 yards, I can more easily move that group as opposed to trying to adjust for the MOA of the gun while also trying to figure out the MOA of the sights. In this way, I can more easily confirm the accuracy of my adjustments on paper before taking them to longer ranges.
Interestingly enough, the loads used for this article required an elevation increase of only 9 MOA to drop them into the center at 100 yards. After testing and confirming at short and long distance, I was happy with the 100-yard zero and began to move out farther. I chose to zero for the center of the group, not the tightest concentration. As you can imagine, this is a game of averages past 50 yards.
Past 100, I began to use the target itself, having a known size, as part of my compensation. Remarkably, there isn’t quite as much difference as I expected between 100 and 200. At 300 yards, things begin to get dicey, and I had to go back and add more elevation. I felt that hits began to become happenstantial at 400 yards, and by 500, I was able to hit the target only occasionally.
One of the test 1911s used for this article and a White River Firecraft 7-inch knife. Matching grips by LOK Grips.
A Losing Game
While it seems sensational to strike targets with a pistol at 500 yards using an RMR like a mini precision rifle scope to dial in my hits, this is obviously well beyond the intention of any of this equipment. On merit of consistency alone, I’d say that the long-range distance for an optically equipped semi-automatic pistol chambered for common calibers is 200 yards on an 18×18-inch target. If you’re planning to hunt with a setup similar to this, a long shot is 60 yards. Even with powerful +P loads, most handgun ammunition runs out of gas at 100 yards on game.
So why do it? Why shoot a close-range handgun at 150 yards? Because understanding what a setup can do at that distance makes a much closer shot—say 50 yards—seem more like point-blank range.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the October 2022 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
Walther has just reintroduced the famous PPK and PPK/s in .32 ACP.
There are many reasons why the Walther PPK has remained so popular since it was introduced in 1931. It has a rich history of use, is a pop culture icon and it remains a practical concealed carry pistol over 90 years later. It may not be the best by today’s standards, but it’s absolutely still viable. For years, if someone wanted a PPK in .32 ACP, they were forced to pay a premium for a vintage example. Thankfully that’s no longer the case, as Walther has just announced the release of new-production .32 ACP PPK and PPK/s models.
The .32 ACP Walther PPK, stainless steel finish.
Walther says that the new .32 ACP PPK and PPK/s are “vintage-inspired” pistols that “pay homage” to the originals. That’s because these handguns aren’t exact clones and feature some modernizations to improve performance. Information on exactly what all those changes entail is not yet available. That said, most of the handguns’ features are otherwise what you’d expect. Both models are DA/SA straight blowback pistols chambered for .32 ACP and feature a decocker safety and fixed sights. Both are also available with either a stainless steel or a black finish. The differences between the two are that the PPK has a shorter grip and a 7-round capacity while the PPK/s has a longer grip and an 8-round capacity.
The .32 ACP Walther PPK/s, black finish.
Jens Krogh, Vice President of Marketing and Product Development for Walther, said this about the new guns:
Few guns have withstood the test of time like the PPK … To this day, it’s still one of the most sought after concealed carry pistols on the market, which serves as a true testament to Walther’s long-enduring legacy. We have no doubt bringing back the historic PPK/S in .32 ACP will make our consumers, plus overall fans of the world’s most renowned secret agent, extremely excited too.
The .32 ACP PPK and PPK/s share an MSRP of $969 for either finish option.
We take a quick peek behind the doors of MidwayUSA.
As a gun writer, I often need odds and ends—and sometimes big items—to complete projects for assignments. And when I need something fast, I always check with MidwayUSA first. Every time. That’s how reliable MidwayUSA is.
It’s no accident, either, because Larry Potterfield planned it that way.
“Our vision is to be the best-run business in America—and the most-successful, most-respected business in our industry for the benefit of our customers,” Potterfield says.
How? A single-minded focus.
“Keeping the single mission of internet sales, with no retail stores, has allowed us to be possibly the ‘best’ shooting sports business on the internet,” he adds.
What Exactly is MidwayUSA?
“We are a family business with a great selection of products, fast shipping and the foremost supporter of the NRA,” Potterfield says.
MidwayUSA’s goals center on Potterfield’s single-minded dedication to the digital marketplace. “As an internet retailer of shooting, hunting and outdoor products, our goals are satisfying customers, employees, suppliers and shareholders … in that order,” he continues. “Engaging with our customers, always supporting our suppliers, and paying them on time have been defining strategies for MidwayUSA.”
While MidwayUSA’s digital philosophy remains the same, what they sell continues to evolve with the wants and needs of the shooting industry. “MidwayUSA’s roots are in shooting and reloading, where we offer ‘just about everything,’” says Potterfield. “Over the past several years, we’ve been steadily expanding into hunting, fishing and other outdoor products. Most of our future growth will be in those areas.
Humble Origins
In 1977, while most of us were fascinated by a new movie called Star Wars, Air Force veteran Larry Potterfield was building his own empire in Missouri that wasn’t that far, far away.
MidwayUSA started as Ely Arms Inc. and, according to Potterfield, “then changed to Midway Arms, Inc., in 1980, and then to MidwayUSA after the internet came along, about 1998. ‘Midway’ is now the brand, and we’ve established it over 40 years ago.”
“I got an FFL while on active duty in the Air Force back in 1972, and I maintained it for the next five years while in the service,” he says. “My hitch was up in 1977, so I left the service and started what is now MidwayUSA with my younger brother Jerry. (He left the business in 1980, and we bought his shares in Brenda’s name).”
The firearms business made sense to Potterfield, and it seemed to come naturally.
“Having bought, sold, shot, collected and traded guns while in the service, I enjoyed the business activities and the industry,” he continued. “I didn’t know how to find a job in the industry, so I just opened the business and have been in the industry ever since.”
MidwayUSA was created based on Potterfield’s vision to turn his wants and needs in his own life into a business to do the same for everyone else. As Potterfield stated, the direction was simple.
“It’s a hobby industry, and I’ve always liked guns, shooting and reloading—hunting. Just sell the things you personally want to use and talk about.”
Potterfield was more than just a gun guy with a bit of hustle. He saw the value in formal education and leadership, and he studied both to build his business. “I’ve always been a gun guy and a student of leadership and management; those have complemented each other in growing the business,” says Potterfield. “I’m just a country kid from Missouri; hard work and honesty came from my parents.
People First
MidwayUSA, through Potterfield’s leadership, has been and remains a customer-focused business, but that focus includes an equally dedicated commitment to MidwayUSA’s employees. In fact, Potterfield makes a point to credit MidwayUSA’s success to its employees.
“I must have some sense of hiring the right people, as employees grow the business not the boss,” he says. “We have nine core, basic-human values: honesty, integrity, humility, respect for others, teamwork, positive attitude, accountability, stewardship and loyalty. We hire people who share those values.”
Like any business, especially in the shooting industry, MidwayUSA has had to deal with obstacles. Potterfield says one thing above all else has been his most significant issue.
“Politics has always been the largest influence on the business, beginning with the Winchester Black Talon bullets/ammunition in the early 1980s, and continuing with most political cycles since then,” he said. “COVID-19 positively affected sales, as we were considered an essential industry, and demand across all categories was strong—especially ammunition.”
MidwayUSA doesn’t sit on the sidelines of America’s future, either. In fact, Potterfield and MidwayUSA have long held key roles as industry philanthropists dedicated to helping preserve and grow our industry. Potterfield humbly added MidwayUSA’s significant contributions at the end of our interview.
“I probably should mention the MidwayUSA Foundation that Brenda and I created back in 2008,” he said. “It’s a completely independent 501(c)(3) that helps communities raise money to support their high school and college shooting teams. Currently, the MidwayUSA Foundation has $250 million of endowed funds. In 2021, the Foundation paid out $7 million in cash grants to nearly 2,800 high school and college shooting teams to support their shooting teams for that year.”
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the October 2022 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
For some hunting rounds, the backside of the bullet is just as important as the front.
Regarding our choice of projectile, we reloaders have the world at our feet; if it’s available in component form, we can load it. During the past few decades, the conformation of our projectiles has changed radically, with some of the sleekest and highly technological designs ever seen. Yet, designs dating back as far as the later part of the 19th century remain effective, especially for those reloading their ammunition for hunting.
The round-nosed jacketed bullets so familiar to the lever-action community are just as deadly as they were a century ago, within a certain range. These are, invariably, flat-based bullets, which will carry their weight forward, and a considerable amount of the bullet will be outside the case. Compare that with the latest target bullet—like the Hornady A-Tip—and you’ll see a much longer bullet, which will be seated deep into the case, almost without exception with the base of the bullet below the case shoulder.
Flat-Base Spitzer
The flat-based spitzer bullet was the hero of the early 20th century because it offered an unprecedented downrange advantage over the round-nosed projectiles. While America was making the transition from the .30 U.S. Army—better known as the .30-40 Krag—to the .30-03 Springfield, they carried forward the 220-grain round-nose projectile. Most of the European armies have switched to the lighter spitzer designs, and America followed suit, revising the new cartridge to use a 150-grain spitzer bullet at a higher velocity, and the .30-06 Springfield was born.
Nosler’s famous Partition bullet is a dependable flat-base bullet, with a reputation for high weight retention. Inside of 300 yards, most hunters wouldn’t know the difference between this and a boat-tail bullet. Photo: Massaro Media Group.
The flat-base spitzer bullet is still a perfectly sound design, especially for hunters. Classics like the Nosler Partition, Speer Grand Slam, Hornady InterLock (certain models), SST and Swift A-Frame are all flat-based spitzers. I like them for the way they carry their weight forward, out of the case mouth, leaving room for the powder charge. In cartridges like the .308 Winchester, where real estate is at a premium, I like the flat-based bullets—especially when my shots are less than 250 yards.
Boat-Tail Spitzer
It's absolutely true that a boat-tail bullet with a sleek ogive will offer a flatter trajectory than will a flat-based spitzer that more closely resembles the G1 model, but you probably won’t see any of the benefits until you get past the 300-yard mark, because it generally takes the bullet longer to “settle down” during flight.
I’ve always felt that boat-tail bullets are easier to seat and found that they tend to have less runout. A good chamfer on your case mouth is certainly required for easy seating, and should you be loading one of the VLD (Very Low Drag) bullets, you might want to reach for a VLD chamfer tool, which increases the angle of the chamfer to match the more severe boat-tail angle of the highest ballistic coefficient designs. In addition, a seating stem designed for the longer and sleeker bullets will minimize the risk of ogive deformation.
Apples and Oranges
To give some insight into the differences between the varying bullet shapes, I measured three different 180-grain, .30-caliber bullets: Nosler Partition (flat-base spitzer), Barnes TTSX (spitzer boat-tail, monometal) and Sierra GameKing (cup-and-core spitzer boat tail). Because they’re all the same caliber, only the length of the bullet can vary.
The Barnes monometal is the longest (copper being lighter than lead) and measures 1.490 inches. With four grooves cut into the shank of the bullet, the TTSX has its 0.697-inch bearing surface reduced in order to keep pressures low and minimize fouling. The Sierra GameKing measures 1.264 inches, with a bearing surface of 0.376 inch, according to my caliper. The flat-based Nosler Partition isn’t all that much shorter than the Sierra boat-tail, measuring 1.254 inches, but it has a bearing surface measuring roughly 0.600 inch. Because of the larger amount of bearing surface, it’d be a logical deduction that the Partition would reach maximum acceptable pressure first and with the least amount of powder of the three choices.
These differences in bearing surfaces are also another good indicator as to why there are such wide variances in load data for different bullets, even if of the same weight and caliber. If the loaded cartridges all have the same overall length, it’s easy to see how the monometal Barnes bullet is going to be seated deep into the case, well below the shoulder/neck junction.
In the terminal phase, a traditional cup-and-core boat-tail bullet runs the risk of jacket/core separation; I’ve seen it with nearly all brands of cup-and-core bullet, though I must admit those bullets were recovered from dead animals. Bonding the core to the jacket, or choosing a monometal projectile, can overcome that issue on big game. For those pursuing furbearers and varmints, bullet separation isn’t an issue—and often desirable—as the hydrostatic shock generated results in a quick kill and can reduce the chances of pelt damage.
If your rifle shoots a boat-tail bullet accurately, I see no reason not to use it … even if you only shoot at relatively short distances. You might not be using all of the bullet’s potential, but it’ll work. If you shoot a cartridge that has limited case capacity—the .308 Winchester, .300 Savage, .350 Remington Magnum—look to those bullets on the shorter side in order to prevent over-compression of the powder column. Larger-capacity cases offer much more flexibility, so even the longest boat-tail spitzer bullets might not pose an issue.
I’ve found that a flat-based bullet can help solve some accuracy issues in a rifle with a less-than-perfect crown.
The escaping gases from a crown that might be out-of-round has a more pronounced effect on a boat-tail bullet than their flat-based counterparts. I do like the premium boat-tail bullets in those faster cartridges I use for hunting at longer ranges, like the .300 Winchester Magnum, .300 H&H Magnum and 6.8 Western. I won’t shy away from using a classic bullet like the Nosler Partition at those distances, which I feel confident shooting at game; however, my target loads most definitely feature the highest B.C. spitzer I can get to shoot accurately.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the October 2022 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
We take a closer look at the goodies included in each VIP bag given away at CANCON Arizona 2024!
At each CANCON event, a limited number of VIP tickets are sold, and the lucky few who manage to purchase one before they're sold out have quite a few extra things to look forward to. Besides having an additional private day to enjoy the fully-suppressed shooting, VIP attendees also receive a bag packed to the brim with tactical goodness. For CANCON Arizona 2024, the value of those items added up to more than $2,300. Calling it a singular bag is a bit of a misnomer, as it took three different packs to hold everything being given away.
So, without further adieu, let's dive into what was to be found in each one.
Anechoic Suppressor
The belle of the ball was the suppressor, and this year’s VIP attendees got a pretty sweet package thanks to Anechoic providing a coupon for a free can of their choice. Picking the exact muffler for your needs is a much sweeter proposition than getting one for a caliber you may not even own. Despite the value, walking away with a coupon isn’t very satisfying, so Anechoic even 3D-printed some fake suppressors to include with each one (pictured above). A neat souvenir to play with while waiting for the real deal to transfer. Website:asilencer.com.
SilencerCo Threaded Barrel
If pistol suppressors are your thing, then you’re going to need a threaded barrel. Thankfully, SilencerCo gave away a voucher for a free threaded handgun barrel of their choice. Options include barrels for 20 of the most popular pistol models, so they probably have your flavor. Website:silencerco.com.
Maxim Defense Discount Card
If you were looking to buy a suppressor or any other product from Maxim Defense, the $250 discount card they provided with each VIP bag will make it a more affordable proposition. Website:maximdefense.com.
TiON Discount Card
For those looking to add some titanium to their can collection, TiON also provided a voucher to get 30% off any of its suppressors. Website:tioninc.com.
Armaspec Victory Charging Handle
This charging handle from Armaspec was just one of many AR-15 upgrades VIP attendees found in their bags. It’s ambidextrous, has an ergonomic curved handle design and features integrated gas ports to redirect gasses away from the shooter. Website:armaspec.com.
Timber Creek Outdoors Greyman Selector
This ambidextrous safety selector from Timber Creek is another easy upgrade for any AR-15. Website:timbercreekoutdoorsinc.com.
B5 Systems AR Stock & Grip
The extremely popular Bravo stock and Type 23 grip from B5 Systems. Website:b5systems.com.
Mission First Tactical Translucent EXD Mag
MFT even threw in one of its brand-new Translucent EXD mags, a clear 30-round AR-15 magazine that’s reportedly just as durable as anything else on the market. Website:missionfirsttactical.com.
Breek Arms Sledgehammer Charging Handle
The second charging handle included, because who doesn’t have more than one AR-15 that needs upgrading? This model will prove extra useful for those with suppressed ARs given its gas-reducing features. Website:breekarms.com.
FN ARS Mechanica book
Less of a book and more of a tome, this behemoth from FN comprehensively covers the company’s entire history. Filled with both high-quality color photographs and heaps of detailed information, it’s just as much of a coffee table book as it is a serious historical reference. Website:fnamerica.com.
FN Shooting Mat
The FN shooting mat is beneath all the items on the table.
FN also threw in a branded shooting mat, a handy tool to have around for any shooter who felt like going prone without getting sandy. Website:fnamerica.com.
CRKT Cinco Flipper
This sweet little folding pocket knife from CRKT features an edge-retaining D2 steel blade, a smooth opening IKBS ball-bearing pivot deployment system and a durable G10/stainless steel handle. Website:crkt.com.
Mission First Tactical Sling Bag
The ACHRO 10L EDC Sling Bag proved very convenient for attendees to haul out all their loot, but given its incredibly useful suite of features for everyday carry, they’re likely to see much more use after CANCON as well. Website:missionfirsttactical.com.
The CANCON Arizona 2024 VIP bag was truly three bags. The Mission First Tactical is pictured on the left, the FN range bag is center and the 5.11 Rush is on the right.
5.11 Rush 12 2.0 Backpack
This 24-liter backpack from 5.11 held the bulk of the products given to VIP attendees, but even then, it was overflowing and required two other bags plus careful packing to fit everything inside. Thankfully, the Rush’s several well-thought-out pockets made that job much easier. Website:511tactical.com.
Swag
Of course, this list doesn’t include everything that was given away with each VIP bag, as tons of companies pitched in to provide plenty more swag and smaller pieces of gear. Everything from True Blue Gun Lube to an EOTech mousepad to some very cool hats from Dead Air Silencers. Special thanks to every company that helped make this year's VIP bag so special.
For more information on CANCON, when the next event is, how to buy tickets and more, please visit CANCONevent.com.
Raise Your Suppressor IQ:
The Suppressor: How They're Made, How They Work, And How To Buy One
A brief look at the new 120-grain 6.5 Creedmoor Solid Copper Super Match ammo from G9 Defense.
G9 Defense has just released a new 6.5 Creedmoor load that should have long-range shooters excited. Called the Solid Copper Super Match, it features a 120-grain monolithic copper projectile that was designed to push the limits of long-range accuracy.
Each 6.5 Creedmoor Super Match projectile is machine-turned, resulting in a ballistic coefficient with an impressively low standard deviation. G9 Defense’s patented side geometry has allowed for improved internal ballistics as well, and these changes mean that there’s less friction in the barrel. Result? Higher muzzle velocities while remaining within SAAMI standard pressures and longer fire strings without overheating your barrel. Further, G9 Defense is using premium brass from Alpha Munitions that features its Optimized Case Design technology.
Designed with competition, target shooting and training in mind, 6.5 Creedmoor Solid Copper Super Match ammo has what it takes to help extend your long-range shooting capabilities. It’s available now and the MSRP is $45.99 per box of 20.
We dive into the history of the iconic Winchester 1873 to understand the role this classic lever-action rifle played in winning the West.
Name a famous or infamous personality from the Old West and there’s a good chance they used a Winchester 1873. It was the gun to own. A Winchester Model 1873 could spit out lead like no other rifle of its day. Nothing came close. And that was the Winchester’s edge, rapid firepower.
Winchester marketed the rifle as “The Gun That Won The West,” and that tagline turned out to be true. The Model 1873 was a complete success and created a legacy of Winchester lever-action rifles. Over 720,000 Model 1873 rifles were built and even though it was quickly rendered obsolescent by newer, stronger Winchester lever-action rifles, it was so popular that manufacturing continued through 1919. Call the ’73 iconic, call it legendary, this is the rifle that made Winchester a household name.
The Model 1873 heritage starts with the Volition Repeating Rifle developed in 1848 by Walter Hunt. This unique lever-action used a tubular magazine and fired a Rocket Ball, an early attempt at caseless ammunition that featured a black powder charge loaded into the hollow base of a lead bullet. The design wasn’t fully baked, but Lewis Jennings purchased Hunt’s patent in 1849 and tried to work out the bugs. Jennings produced working rifles, but the design was still too complex to see success.
The next entrepreneurs to buy the patent and take over the development reigns were Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson who would go on to form Smith & Wesson. Wesson and Smith hired Jenning's shop foreman, Benjamin Tyler Henry, and acquired needed capital from investors to form the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company. Perhaps even more revolutionary than the lever-action rifle design was the work Smith did on refining the Rocket Ball concept. By adding a primer, and eventually a copper case as well, his improvements culminated in the release of the .22 Short rimfire cartridge in 1857, the first of its kind.
While the metallic cartridge was a big step forward, the Volcanic rifle itself wasn’t. The Volcanic Repeating Arms Company went belly up in 1856 and one of the company’s investors, Oliver Winchester, purchased the bankrupt company’s assets and in 1857 opened the New Haven Arms Company in New Haven, Connecticut.
Damn Yankee Rifle
Progress continued to be made on what would become the Winchester 1873, but it wasn’t there yet. Smith’s cartridge was reworked by Henry into the more potent .44 Henry, and the Henry 1860 lever-action rifle was developed to go along with it. Used by the Union Army in the Civil War, it earned the reputation of “that damned Yankee rifle that they load on Sunday and shoot all week!”
Following that, the rifle was improved upon and dubbed the Winchester Model 1866, but it was often called the “Yellow Boy” due to the color of its gunmetal (a brass-bronze alloy) receiver. Also chambered for .44 Henry, some of the Model 1866’s new features included a wood forend to protect the user’s hand from barrel heat, a side loading port and a sealed magazine tube. These rifles not only saw great success in the United States, but internationally as well, and it was leading the pack of repeating arms for a respectable seven years until the introduction of the Winchester 1873.
The Winchester 1873 offered several advancements over the Model 1866, but the most notable changes included the tougher steel receiver and the improved toggle link system. In turn, the Model 1873 quickly gained a reputation for being an extremely smooth-operating and reliable rifle.
The two most common models are the standard Winchester 1873 which featured a 24-inch octagonal barrel and the carbine version fitted with a 20-inch round barrel, though there was also a musket version with a 30-inch barrel. The Winchester 1873 offered incredible firepower for its day, and being able to spit lead faster than the other guy is an edge in any gunfight. Besides outlaws and lawmen, the Model ’73 was also very popular with hunters who went after just about any game smaller than buffalo.
As mentioned, the more robust steel frame was the most obvious new feature of the Winchester 1873, and they didn’t make the switch just for aesthetics. Steel is more expensive, so there better have been a good reason.
That reason was its chambering for the new .44 Winchester Center Fire cartridge, also known as .44 WCF and .44-40. This black powder metallic cartridge was more powerful than the .44 Henry rimfire round, and according to Frank Barnes in Cartridges Of The World, “has killed more game, large and small, and more people, good and bad, than any other commercial cartridge ever developed.” The .44-40 was loaded with a 200-grain round-nose flat-point lead bullet and 40 grains of black powder with a muzzle velocity is 1,245 fps. The legacy of the ’73 is inseparable from the .44-40 cartridge. Winchester would go on to chamber the 1873 for .32-20, .38-40 and some other calibers later on as well.
A .44-40 Winchester cartridge.
Sheer Firepower
Cowboys, lawmen, desperadoes, settlers, and Native Americans were immediately awed by the Winchester 1873 when it was introduced. An impressively large magazine capacity and the ability to fire rapidly were the Model 1873’s strong suits and were what made the rifle so popular. The added value of the ’73 was its ability to be paired with a revolver. Colt and Remington soon chambered their single-action revolvers in .44-40 which gave the average cowpoke, sheriff or outlaw the ability to share ammunition between their handgun and long gun. A six-shooter carried alongside a rifle with 12 or 15 shots in its tube was a formidable combination, especially at the end of the 19th century.
The governments of Canada, Mexico and other groups abroad all purchased the Model ’73, but the U.S. Army surprisingly never adopted the iconic Winchester. The Army preferred the power of the .45-70 Government cartridge over .44-40, even if the .45-70 was only available in single-shot rifles.
That said, most hunters in the Old West found the .44-40 adequate for most western game like mule deer and antelope, as well as larger game like elk. The Winchester 1873 would never be considered a tack driver, nor is it a long-range caliber, but the effective range for a seasoned shooter is about 150 yards, and accuracy is good enough for hunting or defense. In the east, hunters found the caliber and rifle well suited for deer, black bear and all other sorts of critters big and small.
Billy the Kid posing with his Winchester 1873.
From Saddle Scabbards to the Silver Screen
The Winchester 1873 earned its reputation in the hands of famous and notorious users, both real and fictional. The one existing photograph of Billy the Kid shows him posing with a Winchester ’73. Pat Garrett, Billy’s pal and lawman, used a Winchester 1873 as did Butch Cassidy and Belle Starr. Buffalo Bill used a special-order Winchester 1873 with a smooth bore barrel in his Wild West Show. Texas Rangers like Ranger J.B. Gillett used a Model 1873 during numerous confrontations with Kiowa, Comanche and Apache tribes.
Native Americans respected the ’73 as well, and many were decorated with brass tacks and leather. Cartridge casings found at the Battle of Little Bighorn indicate that some Cheyenne, Lakota or Arapaho warriors used the Winchester Model 1873 rifle with other repeating rifles against General George Custer and his 7th Cavalry. Custer's men were armed with single-shot Springfield Model 1873 carbines, which were slow to reload and were easily outgunned by the fast-shooting Winchester lever-actions.
The titular Model 1873 from Winchester '73 (1950). Photo: IMFDB.org.
Clever marketing helped to create the original hype surrounding the Winchester 1873 and the rifle’s real-world performance cemented its reputation. But Hollywood was what ensured the lasting legacy of the Model 1873. Model 1873s were prominently featured in about every Western film worth mentioning, most notably the eponymous 1950 movie Winchester ’73 which starred James Stewart. If you haven’t seen it, I’d highly recommend changing that as it’s a must-watch for any lever-action fan.
Collecting The Winchester 1873
Seriously collecting original Winchester Model 1873 rifles is a rich man’s game. The guns were already pricey when sold new, but today, you need to be ready to pay several thousand dollars if you want one in good condition or are interested in acquiring multiple model variations. Some 1873s in poor condition have been known to sell for around $1,000, but once you start looking at higher condition grades, earlier production years and rarer model variants, the price goes up very quickly.
Early examples in excellent condition can easily exceed a $10,000 value, and rare examples fetch even more. For a particularly desirable model with documented provenance, such as Thomas Stuart's One of One Thousand Winchester 1873, the auction price can even exceed a half-million dollars. That’s an extreme example, but the point stands that putting together a real ’73 collection will get expensive fast. If that’s something you’re still interested in doing, make sure you do proper research before dropping any major cash. The market is unfortunately rife with fakes and unscrupulous sellers.
Thomas Stuart's aforementioned One of One Thousand Winchester Model 1873 rifles. It sold at auction in 2023 for $528,750. Photo: Rock Island Auction Company.
Reproduction Winchester 1873 Rifles
Cowboy Action Shooting began to blossom in the early 1980s with competitors dressing up in cowboy garb and shooting steel desperadoes and cactus with six-shooters, shotguns and rifles. All the reasons why the Model 1873 was prized in the Old West proved to make the rifle popular again. The smooth cycling ’73 has the speed and power that contemporary cowboys and cowgirls require to blast through stages. Italian firearm manufacturer Uberti began cloning versions of the model 1873 in the early 1990s and continues to offer a variety of customized options just like special-order original Winchesters back in the day. Uberti also makes Model 1873 rifles for Cimarron, Taylor’s & Company and others to those companies’ specifications.
In 2016, Winchester reintroduced the Model 1873 with a 150th Commemorative edition and two years later started to reintroduce more models. New Winchester Model 1873s are manufactured in Japan by Miroku. Many of these Italian- and Japanese-made 1873s use modern steel and some have additional safety features that the originals did not have. Winchester incorporates two modern safety features including a passive safety in the bolt that prevents the rifle from firing if it is dropped and a more robust interlock on the lever before you can press the trigger. Winchester also re-engineered the carrier block to eject empties away from the shooter and not above the shooter’s head like the originals did.
New production 1873s are mostly chambered in .45 Long Colt or .38 Special/.357 Magnum, though you can also find them chambered for some original black powder cartridges like .44-40, .32-20 and .38-40. The caliber choice mostly depends on whether you’re more interested in collecting historically accurate reproductions or being able to buy enough ammo to shoot them.
The Top 5 Winchester 1873 Reproductions To Own Today:
Uberti Special Sporting Short Rifle
Specs
Caliber: .357 Magnum
Capacity: 10+1
Barrel Length: 20 Inches
Overall Length: 43.25 Inches
Weight: 8.2 Pounds
Finish: Case Hardened / Blue Steel
Furniture: Checkered A-grade Walnut
MSRP: $1,549
Pros
Handy size
Attractive finish
Cons
Only one chambering option for short model
Perhaps my favorite Spaghetti Western 1873 is the Uberti Special Sporting Short Rifle. This .357 has a 20-inch octagonal barrel, a color case-hardened receiver and a checkered pistol grip stock and forend made of A-grade Walnut. In my opinion, this rifle rivals any of the original special-order Winchesters offered back in the day. There’s also a Special Sporting Rifle variant with a longer barrel available in .45 Long Colt.
Taylor’s & Company 1873 Comanchero Rifle
Specs
Caliber: .357 Magnum ; .45 LC ; .44 Special ; .44-40 ; .38-40
Capacity: 10+1
Barrel Length: 18 Inches
Overall Length: 36..87 Inches
Weight: 7.39 Pounds
Finish: Case Hardened / Blue Steel
Furniture: Walnut
MSRP: $2,211.24 (.357 Mag.)
Pros
Features ideal for speed and comfort when shooting competitions
Available in both original and practical caliber options
Cons
Most expensive model on list
If you are looking for tuned performance against steel and cardboard desperadoes, the Taylor’s & Company 1873 Comanchero Rifle is your ticket to speed. This rifle has a half-octagonal and half-round 16-inch barrel so it helps absorb recoil yet swings quickly. It features a short-stroke action, meaning the lever arc is shorter than on a standard gun and it has a lighter trigger pull too. The butt and lever are wrapped in leather for softer recoil and less wear and tear on your shooting hand when operating the gun. This model is available chambered in .357 Magnum, .45 Long Colt, .44-40, .44 Special and .38-40.
Cimarron Texas Brush Popper
Specs
Caliber: .44 LC ; .44-40
Capacity: 10+1
Barrel Length: 18 Inches
Overall Length: 36.87 Inches
Weight: 7.39 Pounds
Finish: Case Hardened / Blue Steel
Furniture: Walnut
MSRP: $1,318.20
Pros
Good features for competition
Cons
No .357 Magnum chambering option
The Cimarron Texas Brush Popper is another good choice for cowboy action shooting. It features an 18.5-inch half-octagon half-round barrel and is available with either a straight or pistol grip style stock. These short rifles offer excellent balance and attractive case-hardened receiver finishes and are available in either .44-40 or .45 Long Colt.
Winchester Model 1873 Carbine
Specs
Caliber: .357 Magnum ; .45 LC ; .44-40
Capacity: 10+1
Barrel Length: 20 Inches
Overall Length: 39 Inches
Weight: 7.25 Pounds
Finish: Brushed polished steel
Furniture: Grade I Black Walnut
MSRP: $1,429.99
Pros
Features original Winchester branding
Most classic model on list
Original and practical chambering options
Cons
No improvements for shootability, not ideal for competition
The Winchester Model 1873 Carbine is perhaps the most classic of all the 1873 reproduction models. It features a 20-inch round barrel, a straight grip with a smooth, oil-finish walnut stock and forend and a deep-blued finish on its metal. It’s available in the original .44-40 chambering as well as .357 Magnum and .45 Long Colt.
Winchester Model 1873 Sporter
Specs
Caliber: .357 Magnum ; .45 LC ; .44-40
Capacity: 14+1
Barrel Length: 24 Inches
Overall Length: 43 Inches
Weight: 8 Pounds
Finish: Polished Blued
Furniture: Grade II/III Black Walnut
MSRP: $1,869.99
Pros
Higher quality and more attractive components
Better ballistics due to longer barrel
Larger magazine capacity
Original and practical chambering options
Cons
Added length, weight and value make it not ideal for competition
Life is too short to shoot an ugly rifle, so Winchester is producing the new Model 1873 Sporter, which could be a dead ringer for an original special-order Winchester rifle. Features include a 24-inch full octagon barrel, a Grade II walnut stock and forend, and a case-hardened finish. It’s available in .44-40, .357 Magnum, and .45 Long Colt.
Springfield Armory has just released the SA-16A2, a faithful yet enhanced clone of the iconic M16A2.
The past few years have seen retro AR-15s come back in a big way, with several manufacturers taking a stab at the new demand for old-school, military-inspired clones. The latest company to throw its hat in the ring is Springfield Armory with the new SA-16A2, a 5.56 NATO rifle inspired by the U.S. Military’s iconic M16A2.
The Springfield Armory SA-16A2 features a forged 7075 T6 aluminum A2-style upper receiver, boasting the iconic carry handle with an integrated rear sight. Like a proper A2-style upper, the rear sight features two sizes of aperture and is adjustable for both windage and elevation. Also made of forged 7075 T6 aluminum, the lower has “Property Of U.S. Government” receiver markings as well as SAFE/SEMI/BURST selector markings (the burst setting, of course, is nonfunctional). One feature that’s not clone-accurate is the addition of Springfield’s Accu-Tite tensioning system that eliminates movement between the two receiver halves. An invisible, but welcome addition.
Naturally, the SA-16A2 is sporting a 20-inch barrel with a 1:7 twist, and it’s chrome-lined as well. Covering the rifle-length gas system are the correct round polymer handguards that feature an integrated aluminum heat shield. As for the BCG, it has a hard chrome lined interior with a mil-spec phosphate exterior. Made of Carpenter 158 steel, each one is also high-pressure tested and magnetic particle inspected. The other features are also what one would expect from an M16A2 clone, including a bayonet lug, an A2 birdcage flash hider and a fixed A2-length buttstock with a trapdoor storage compartment. Each gun also ships with one aluminum 30-round magazine and a rifle case.
Steve Kramer, Vice President of Marketing for Springfield Armory, said this about the new rifle:
The SA-16A2 takes what made the A2 upgrade of the M16 rifle so great and adds some subtle — but significant — enhancements for today’s shooters … If you want a rifle that exudes classic appeal yet delivers modern performance, the SA-16A2 is the right choice.
Looking for a new iron or piece of kit to enhance the one you already own? Check out these 7 new bits of guns and gear to grow your firearms wish list.
Catering to diverse hunting regulations, CVA has introduced the Cascade SR-80 scout rifle in .308 Win. or .350 Legend. Equipped with a Williams rear peep sight and adjustable front sight, alongside a Picatinny scope base with long eye relief, the rifle offers versatile sighting options. Finished with a durable black graphite Cerakote and earth-colored synthetic stock, it blends reliability with aesthetics. Swivel studs for a traditional sling and a customizable length of pull ensure comfort and adaptability. Compact with an 18-inch barrel and 7.3-pound weight, the Cascade SR-80 embodies the essence of the scout rifle concept. MSRP: $925
Maxim Defense PDX-SD in .300 BLK and 7.62x39mm
Looking for a bit more thump in your AR-style pistol? Maxim Defense has just what the doctor ordered with the release of the PDX-SD in .300 BLK and 7.62x39mm. Even better—it being a Maxim gun—the petite firearm features an integrated suppressor for reduced signature and enhanced comfort and control. Engineered as an integrated system, the PDX-SD ensures efficient maintenance and easy upgrades and its finely tuned gas system delivers high-end performance while maintaining balance and quietness. Weighing 7.6 pounds, the 5.5-inch-barreled gun offers a very manageable system that doesn’t compromise performance, making it ideal for defense and tactical operations. MSRP: $3,700
CZ USA 600 Trail Rifle in .300 BLK
Compact? Check. Precise? Check. Stealthy? Definitely check. The CZ 600 Trail Rifle checks off all the boxes, especially the last now that the bolt-action comes chambered in .300 BLK. Paired with a suppressor, the compact chassis rig is ideal for subsonic shooting while maintaining the accuracy for which the model has become renowned. Prioritizing portability, the Trail features a PDA collapsible stock and only comes in at a scant 6 pounds, making it a rock-solid truck gun option. Better yet, the gun uses a slew of AR-15 parts—thanks to its AR lower—which makes it modular and extremely versatile, able to be tailored to your needs. To boot, the controls are very familiar to anyone who’s run an AR—which pretty much means everyone. MSRP: $1,080
Bear OPS Double Clutch IV
Knife or gun, auto rules the roost. And if you’re in the market for the easier-to-obtain former, then Bear OPS’s new drop might be of interest. The Double Clutch IV is an out-the-front automatic option crafted for deep everyday carry. As for keeping it under wraps, the knife measures in at a tiny 4.5 inches with the blade deployed, with the Double Clutch IV boasting a 2.5-inch blade. Made from D2 steel, the blade also offers great edge retention and a good measure of corrosion resistance. As to the action, it’s lightning fast, actuated via a thumb slide on the side of the aluminum handle. Available with a drop-point or tanto blade, the Double Clutch ends up a wicked little carry-along. MSRP: $290
Smith & Wesson M&P Sport III
Representing the latest evolution of the renowned M&P Sport series, the Smith & Wesson M&P Sport III keeps the rifle relevant to the times. Chief among the upgrades to the rugged and simple AR is the flat-top receiver and full-length aluminum handguard. Not only free-floating the barrel, this modification offers you enhanced optics mounting options and also allows you to doll it up, thanks to the handguard’s ample M-Lok slots. Utilizing a mid-length gas tube and a thinner pencil-barrel profile, the rifle remains a lightweight platform and quite nimble. Furthermore, with a 16-inch barrel and 1:8-inch rifling twist, it stabilizes a wide range of 5.56mm projectiles. For bargain-priced ARs, it doesn’t get much sweeter than this. MSRP: $800
Bear Creek Arsenal BC-201
It doesn’t get much sweeter than a Ruger 10/22. Except, perhaps, a 10/22 clone that’s geeked out to run like a top and comes in at a bargain-basement price. If that got your attention, it’s time to check out Bear Creek Arsenal’s new BC-201. This semi-auto rifle boasts a heavy barrel and Hogue stock, offering reliability and comfort. Compatible with Ruger 10/22 magazines and aftermarket parts, it ensures versatility and customization options. Notable upgrades include an AR-15-style charging handle for improved grip and a Ruger BX trigger paired with a stainless-steel bull barrel for enhanced accuracy. With an integrated 1913 railing for optics mounting, it caters to various shooting preferences. MSRP: $345
Weatherby SORIX
Made in Italy and finished in Wyoming, the SORIX is about everything a wing shooter wants in a field-ready shotgun. That includes affordability. Featuring a reliable inertia recoil system and Weatherby’s Shift System for left-handed operation, it ensures versatility and ease of use, not to mention a good measure of ruggedness. Oversized controls and an adjustable stock enhance comfort and functionality, while the Crio Plus choke system provides optimal shot patterns. With included fiber-optic sights and compatibility with optics, the SORIX is ready for any hunting adventure. Available in 12 and 20 gauges. MSRP: $1,500
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the May 2024 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
Colt has just added a 2.5-inch Python model to its catalog, the shortest model now available in the lineup.
Colt relaunched its iconic Python line of .357 Magnum revolvers in 2020, initially offering both 4.25-inch and 6-inch models. Since then, the family has expanded quite a lot, not only with different barrel lengths but with different finishes, grips and sight options as well. As for the classic Stainless Steel line, that included a 6-inch and a 3-inch model. Now, Colt has just added two more to the family, including a 5-inch model and a 2.5-inch Python snubbie.
The 2.5-inch Colt Python.
For those who couldn’t wait to carry a Colt Python, the 3-inch model released in 2022 wasn’t a bad option, but the new 2.5-inch Python is even better for anyone still looking to tote one around. The snubbie Python measures 0.5 inches shorter and is 1 ounce lighter than the 3-inch version, which isn’t a huge difference on paper, but smaller is always appreciated when carried on the hip. The 2.5-inch Python also features smaller Walnut grips with a different profile than what’s on any of the other Python models.
The 5-inch Colt Python that was also just added to the catalog.
Besides the barrel length and the grips, everything else about the 2.5-inch Python is the same as its brethren in the Stainless Steel line, including its price. MSRP is $1,499 and they’re available now.
There are many like it, but finding an original Enfield Jungle Carbine takes some investigative work.
During World War II, there was a great deal of wartime improv when it came to weapons. And, among those was the invention of a curious variant of the famous British Enfield: the legendary Jungle Carbine.
A Brief history of the Jungle Carbine
The British Empire was at war all over the world by 1944, and its soldiers found themselves spread out from their home ground to the frigid battlefields of Central Europe, to Africa and the Middle East, and to the jungles of the Pacific. Commonwealth troops fought battles against the Axis powers on all fronts … and they often found themselves carrying less-than-ideal weapons.
The receiver lines are classic and still hold up today.
The standard British military rifle of the era was what we call the Enfield, commonly the No.4 Mk1. The rifle was great for the time, if slightly less powerful than its American and German counterparts, and fired the .303 cartridge, typically in a 174-grain weight depending on place of manufacture. The rifle was the same general size as all the standard battle rifles of the era, not oppressive, but definitely not small.
In the latter half of 1944, a smaller, lighter Enfield-based carbine, the No.5 Mk1 and later Mk2, was developed for airborne forces deployed in Europe—not the Pacific—though the ideas behind it stemmed from jungle fighting. It would not be until the post-war years that it was dubbed the “Jungle Carbine” due to its use in the British colonies against communist forces.
Eventually, the carbine was retired from service, largely due to a condition that the British government referred to as “wandering zero,” which has since become a commonly repeated statement among military collectors. The alleged problems with the carbine stated that, at a point in a rifle’s lifespan, unpredictable to anyone, the guns simply stopped holding zero … and the British had to give up on the carbine.
The Jungle Carbine can load either by individual rounds, or by five-round stripper clips.
The reasoning behind why the rifles mysteriously began to collectively lose zero is largely unknown, because like many people who have owned and shot these carbines over the years could tell you, that issue seemed to have resolved itself upon their import to America. Yet, we Americans have our own rumors, such as receiver stretch in Enfields—again an unqualified bit of lore that likely stems from people installing improper bolt heads, which can cause headspace issues.
At any rate, the Jungle Carbine saw limited use as compared to other Enfield variants, but real examples of this carbine have become hot commodities.
So, what are these “real” examples?
Fake It ’Til You Make It
Supply has a way of running out before demand can be filled when it comes to military collectibles. See, the collector market never knows when a given type of gun will suddenly take off in popularity, and sometimes the values go through the roof due to that demand. Likely because regimes lacked foresight that collectors would want the weapons they used to oppress and destroy their neighbors, world militaries stopped making certain versions of their guns before enough had been made to fill enthusiast demand.
Due to the failure of government, various enterprising salesmen and importers began trying to replicate these popular models themselves, and there is likely no more faked military rifle than the Jungle Carbine.
The carbine was formidable with a 10-round, detachable magazine.
True examples of this carbine, like the one featured in this article, are very rare. This particular one is completely original and was “won” off a British soldier. It was a “bringback” and has no import markings, and I have verification from the seller that this rifle, and story, are as original as it gets.
A carbine like this can go for as much as $1,800 if it bears all the proper features. This rifle is in good shape, but I’ve seen better as in regard to overall condition. As you can imagine, with such a popular and distinct profile, there’s money to be made if one were to get creative with a supply of existing full-size Enfield rifles.
And that’s exactly what happened.
The odds of finding a completely original Jungle Carbine are slim. There was only about 250,000 made, and after spending a great deal of time on research, I came to some conclusions:
1. A large number of the real-deal carbines were left in British colonial territories and used by local and government forces in various small-scale conflicts through the next 80 years, most eventually lost to time and circumstance.
2. Roughly 10,000 of these guns might have made it to the United States between 1946 and 1960, but it’s impossible to determine how many remained in colonial service.
3. Many were destroyed or had receivers replaced to remedy the wandering zero issue.
4. More still were disregarded as original due to local-level alterations, such as installing a standard Enfield stock, replacing handguards, and removing or replacing the conical flash hiders.
With originals so few, it comes with an easy understanding that these guns were simply faked for the American market. The vast majority of Jungle Carbines stateside are copies, at an estimated 20:1 ratio—or higher. Importers were given a fairly wide range of options in the post-war era, and many types of guns were assembled here in the States after quantities of leftover parts were bought as surplus. One primary importer created all the confusion: Golden State Arms/Santa Fe. This company is responsible for altering countless Enfield rifles.
The main thing you must look for on a fake is the markings. If it has solid receiver stamping, or has any “US PROPERTY” or actual British model markings, it’s a fake. No manufacturer on this side of the Atlantic, or any other British factory except BSA and Fazakerly, made true No.5 carbines … and they didn’t stamp them with a model number. The Brits were in an understandable hurry and literally stenciled “No.5 Mk1/2” on the side of the receiver, or nothing at all. The visible stamping on the receiver wrist should read ENGLAND, and a year.
The correct wrist markings, showing “ENGLAND” and the date of manufacture. This is a genuine WWII carbine.
Another telltale feature for identifying an original is one often hidden: Under the handguard, the barrel has deep flutes cut around the chamber area. This was a standard model feature for the No. 5 and is virtually non-existent on fakes, unless they use an original barrel, which is possible. No versions of this gun were ever made in .308/7.62 caliber at the Ishapore factory, yet I’ve seen a hefty share of “Ishapore Jungle Carbines” over the years. If you see that, know immediately that it’s a fake. The only correct chambering for a No.5 is .303 British.
The critical flutes cut near the chamber. Some are “dished” out, others have more of an angular appearance. The later models have much cruder cuts.
The stock is also an interesting point of inspection on these guns. I’ve rarely seen a fake that did away with the No.5 buttplate; it’s such a distinctive part of the gun that it’s usually added to make it more convincing. Brass buttplates common to other Enfield variants are incorrect even as a replacement, but it isn’t hard to get a correct version should you find an otherwise original carbine.
The buttplate is distinguished by its hard rubber insert. Not much for recoil control, but it does stop the stock from slipping under recoil.
Curiously, the stock grip’s endcap is a heated point of discussion. True No.5 carbines can have either a metal endcap or a sporter-style rounded endcap. If you have a metal endcap, you can be sure it’s a real stock, but of note is that some field-repaired real-deal carbines will lack the cap. This is still a point up for debate among collectors: I fall into the camp that maintains a rifle should be totally original to be considered a true original because, if we let that detail slip, what’s to say that we start letting other details slip due to what may have been a one-off repair job?
The Mk2 rear sight shows elevation to 800 yards, a more reasonable distance, but still optimistic.
The rear sight of these guns is known to vary a bit on originals. Early rifles had elevation adjustments out to 1,300 yards, and later on models, the sight was altered max out at 800, as shown on the rifle in this article. Both are technically correct for the Mk1 carbine, so don’t get too caught up on this detail. That said, all Mk2 carbines should have the reduced-range sight, as is the case on my carbine here.
There isn’t much ado about the front sight/flash hider assembly. True examples will have a bayonet lug, and be on the lookout for any that lack this, as they are incorrect.
The front sight and flash hider assembly is one of the more iconic features of the already sought-after Jungle Carbine.
How to Find a Real Jungle Carbine
I’d love to share some special knowledge I have on exactly how to find these, but there is no magic. I bought this particular rifle at a local gun shop. I will say that gun shows are not the best place to go if you want an original. If you want an altered rifle, or just one to have fun with, be my guest and demand a price less than $500. The minute a military rifle is sporterized, it loses all general value, and don’t be convinced to pay more for a chopped-up Frankenstein.
For your best bet on locating that needle in a haystack, pay attention to specialty gun stores that deal in military surplus, or surprisingly, your local Class 3 dealer. Guys who deal in machine guns are often tight with military collectors. It’s helpful to leave a note explaining that you aren’t looking for a knockoff, and give them this list: Stenciled No.5 marking/no marking on receiver, .303 chamber, ENGLAND wrist stamping, milled flutes under the handguard, painted/enamel finish, stock endcap, and 1300/800 yard rear sight.
These are the minor details you’ll want, and the rest you can visually determine, like the correct buttplate and bayonet lug. These guns do pop up from time to time, with a realistic price ranging from $800 for a beat-up example to $1,800 for perfect specimen. So you can compare, mine, as in the gun featured in the images in this article, would likely sell at $1,000-1,500 … depending on the demand at the time.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the June 2024 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
More Classic Military Guns:
Why The Mauser C96 “Broomhandle” Still Looms Large
The IWI Carmel is a non-AR rifle that’s worthy of careful consideration.
Have you ever found yourself really, really wanting to like something—a person, event or thing—and despite your best efforts, getting hung up on certain things? That’s the situation I found myself facing when I’d had enough time behind the trigger of the IWI Carmel.
Now, right out of the gate, it’s worth noting that, functionally, the Carmel works … and it runs very well. But also, from a functionality perspective, there are things that could’ve been done better. Maybe I’m too picky, and they won’t bother you a bit. That call has gotta be yours.
Regardless, here’s the great news: Most anything you don’t like can be swapped to fit your shooting pleasure.
On the left, you see the regular controls.
Quick Hits
IWI Carmel SPECS:
Type: Semi-auto carbine
Caliber: 5.56 NATO
Capacity: 30+1 Rounds (Uses standard AR-15 magazines)
Ambidextrous safety/selector, bolt latch, and magazine release
Two-stage trigger design with a clean take-up and break
Cons
Faster heat transfer to the handguard
Boxie receiver and handguard
Limited grip options on the fore
Relatively heavy
The Winning Recipe
OK, what’s to like about it? Well, it’s not an AR-15, which is a good start. It uses your basic AR-15/STANAG magazine or clones, copies or substitutes, and that’s just fine. If the AR magazine were any more common, more ubiquitous, you’d be able to buy them at your local 7/11 or gas station mini-mart. (And for all I know, some places you can.)
It’s a piston-system rifle with a three-position gas regulator. The barrel is cold hammer forged. There’s a 1:7 twist, a 5.56 chamber/leade, and the chamber and bore are chrome-lined. The muzzle is threaded, and there’s a compensator installed from the factory.
Lotsa good checkmarks so far.
The receiver has a lot of polymer in it, and the handguard has M-Lok slots at the 3, 6 and 9 o’clock positions, so you have options when mounting gear. The controls are all where we’d expect them to be—plus they’re ambidextrous, so lefties ought to rejoice. Well, with the exception of the charging handle. That’s up over the handguard, set up so you can run the rifle with your left hand and not take your hand off of the pistol grip to do so.
The ambi controls, safety/selector, bolt latch and magazine button.
Wait … a bonus feature: You can swap the charging handle from one side to the other. So, everyone ought to rejoice.
The pistol grip is a B5 systems grip—which is not my fave. A lot of people like them, but the receiver at the pistol grip is exactly like that of the AR-15, so you can swap off the IWI Carmel pistol grip and install the one of your choice.
This is as far as you have to go to do most cleaning.
On the back end, the Carmel has a folding stock. And as if that wasn’t enough, the stock also has an adjustable cheekpiece, so you can lift it up or lower it, to get your eye directly behind whatever aiming system you have installed. Also, there is no lack of ways to attach a sling. The M-Lok slots up front, of course, then a set of QD sockets at the upper rear of the receiver, then HK-style loops for a sling clip on the stock itself.
If you are enamored with HK sling hooks, you’ve got loops on the stock for them.
In testing, the good stuff keeps on keeping on. The trigger is excellent, and it’s a two-stage design so it has a clean take-up and a clean break. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the design is not compatible with the AR-15 trigger system, so if you want some other trigger on your Carmel, you can’t have it. Were the Carmel trigger other than excellent this would be a real problem, but it’s more than good enough, so you won’t have to go swapping out fire control systems here.
The ambi controls make running the Carmel easy, regardless of left- or right-handedness, and if you want to swap to fire around a corner, you can easily do so.
The charging handle swap is particularly easy. Lock the bolt back, and then slide the charging handle (it’s non-reciprocating) until it lines up with the clearance notch in the handguard. Then, push the charging handle over to the other side. Reach over and tug on it, to ensure it is fully over, and then slide it all the way forward. Done.
The three-position gas regulator is also accessed by way of a relief cut made to the aluminum handguard. The three settings are regular, extreme and suppressor. I suspect that extreme would be used only in … oh, ah … extreme circumstances, like arctic cold or to keep it running even though you haven’t been able to do any maintenance on it for a week of heavy fighting. Now that’s something the IDF would know about, the rest of us not so much. And the suppressor setting should be obvious.
The gas regulator for the piston system can be accessed through the relief cuts in the aluminum handguard.
The trigger is very nice, and the ejection is forward, so if you are running the Carmel from your left shoulder you don’t have to worry about brass in the face. I tried a magazine from the left shoulder, just to see if there were any face-gas problems, and there weren’t. I’m happy on that point.
The stock is length-adjustable as well as cheekpiece-height adjustable, and it was easy enough to get it set up to fit me. The stock folds by pressing a button on the left side and hinging the stock around to the right. It’s pitched so it doesn’t block the ejection port when folded.
The stock length adjustment is easy—grab the stock, press the latch inside to unlock the stock and pull.
The stock is also the way to disassemble for cleaning. Unload and close the bolt. Hinge the stock folded. In the rear plate that’s uncovered is a button. Lean hard on the button and slide the stock-latch clip out to the left. Now, use the charging handle to pop the action open and also open the rear plate. It all comes out in one piece and is easy to clean. The trigger assembly is simple as well: Press the rear takedown pin (there isn’t a front one) from right to left (it, too, will fight you like crazy), and then hinge the housing down and out.
Yes, the action assembly comes out as a unit. You can easily clean and lube it, then reinstall it in the receiver.
In testing, I put a Leupold scope on top and the Carmel proved to be superbly accurate. The nice trigger and the adjustable stock were parts of that, but IWI clearly knows how to make a good barrel.
BRAND AND BULLET
WEIGHT
VELOCITY (FPS
ENERGY (FT-LB)
GROUP SIZE (INCHES) SMALLEST
GROUP SIZE (INCHES) LARGEST
GROUP SIZE (INCHES) AVERAGE
Fiocchi FMJ
55 grains
2,759
929
1.2
1.7
1.5
Hornady Full Boar
50 grains
2,929
1,047
1.1
1.4
1.3
SIG OTM
77 grains
2,337
934
1
1.3
1.2
Black Hills OTM
77 grains
2,622
1,175
0.9
1.3
1.1
Accuracy results from four, five-shot groups fired at 100 yards with sandbags as a rest. Velocity derived with a Labradar chronograph, programmed to read velocity 15 feet from the muzzle. Velocity is an average of 10 shots, fired at 55 degrees F.
Certain Considerations
So, with all these good points, what’s the deal? Why has it proven so hard to warm up to the Carmel? Sigh.
First up is the mode of manufacture. The upper (which is the rifle, that’s where the serial number is) is a polymer/aluminum assemblage. The receiver portion is an aluminum-reinforced polymer shell. The handguard is aluminum. What gets hot fast when you shoot? The barrel, and it radiates it to the handguard. So, the handguard is going to heat up faster than the receiver and make it more difficult to hang onto.
The upper receiver is the firearm, as you can tell with the serial number visible through a slot in the polymer shell molded around the aluminum supports.
To be fair, it works just like an AR-15, by the way, except the polymer receiver of the Carmel isn’t going to dissipate heat from the bolt—not that it gets much, since it’s a piston system. But a piston system must vent gas someplace, and they do so at … the handguard.
The polymer/aluminum design creates a boxy receiver set. At times, it felt like I was schlepping around a 1980s camcorder. The AR-15 has been undergoing a diet of sorts, becoming slimmer in its outlines, and for the Carmel to not only go backward but back past the blockiest AR-15 ever is something to get used to.
As an example, on the slimmest AR-15 handguards, I can wrap my hand fully around the handguard and have my thumb and fingers touching. A lot of shooters who are taking their cues from the special ops people like to wrap their hand around the handguard with their thumb up on top. That’s not possible with the Carmel. Maybe, if the Carmel catches on enough, some aftermarket maker will come up with a slimmer handguard design.
The handguard is boxy, and it isn’t possible to wrap your hand around it.
And then there’s the stock. Now, the adjustments are easy. Grab the stock buttplate with your fingers inside of the triangular loop, squeeze and it’s unlocked. Push or pull to the length you want and let go; it will lock in place at one of the six settings. That’s the good part. The cheekpiece has a hinged lever: press in on both sides, and push or pull the cheekpiece to the height you want and let go. It isn’t ergonomic; it takes force, and there are four settings.
The button to unlock to hinge? Eat your Wheaties, because you have to have it fully depressed to unlock it, and that’s apparently where the spare Buick suspension springs all went. Halfway measures won’t do here. Similarly, when you want to unfold the stock, you have to practically slam it to get it to lock, because the locking tab is a big, beefy chunk of steel that won’t lock without force. And the locking tab is the worst part. The locking tab protrudes up and out of the rear of the receiver when the stock is folded.
The stock latch button is something you will have to press on hard to get the stock to unlock (as in, don’t be shy).
Then, when folded, the stock makes the already portly Carmel into a salesman’s case-sized package, and while it’s not long, it is fat. Admittedly, no folding rifle is skinny when folded, but the Carmel is particularly egregious in this regard.
Lastly, the comp? Well, it does do its job, but the Carmel starts out at a smidge over 8 pounds. By the time I had a scope and loaded magazine on it, it was over 9 pounds. If you were to add a sling and a light, now we’re talking a rifle that easily weighs as much as an M1 Garand. It’s easy to get an AR-15 that starts under 7 pounds, so the Carmel starts more than a pound over.
The price is within the range of a well-built AR-15 these days, but you can easily find an AR for a lot less, rebuild it to be a folder if you wish, and still have money left over for practice ammo.
But remember, as I said in the beginning: This is not an AR. Maybe these items I find to be hindrances don’t bother you a bit. To each his—or her, of course—own. It’s gotta be your call.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the June 2024 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
We take a quick look at the M4 Sight Adjustment Tool, or M4SAT, from Otis Technology.
The scene was the same in every class. Officers would show up with rifles that were dirty, lacking lube and not zeroed. Not all, but enough of them. Applying oil solved the dry and dirty, but the non-zeroed ones had to be sighted-in.
And that’s when the cursing would begin—cursing at Stoner and the front-sight design, which is so minimalist that it barely exists.
Getting the plunger depressed and then rotating the front sight got to be such a hassle that we dreaded the task. Special tools, a new approach, extra hands—they were all for naught at times.
Well, Otis has a solution: the M4SAT. The name? M4 Sight Adjustment Tool.
Admittedly odd-looking at first glance, the Otis sight adjustment tool is slick and makes quick work of adjusting the front sight on an AR-15.
This is a special plastic and brass tool that fits onto and over the front sight, depresses the plunger and rotates the sight post, with tactile clicks as it rotates each quarter-turn. The military manuals will tell you that you can use the tip of a cartridge and it can do the job, but that’s often laughable.
So, we end up using small screwdrivers, sections of wire coat hanger or even dental picks, and end up marring the finish or leaving big smears of brass while trying to use a bullet tip.
Well, no more.
Looking underneath the M4SAT, you’ll see a slotted rod made of brass inside the housing, and the housing has a nub at one end.
In use, it’s simple. Just press the tool down with the nub, compressing the front sight plunger. Once it’s fully in place, you can then rotate the cruciform cap to turn the sight. Remember: clockwise raises the point of impact, and counterclockwise lowers it. Once you’ve done the clicks you need, lift and make sure the plunger rests in a notch in the sight.
The front sight on an AR-15 can vary enough from one to the next that the M4SAT won’t work on all of them—but then nothing does.
OK, this is all very clever, but there may be some problems.
One, the cruciform is tactile—yes, but it’s four clicks to a full rotation. Those of you with legacy A1 front sights that are five to a turn will find that the cruciform and the sight don’t always agree. That’s a small problem, and you’ll figure it out.
The second is what’s called “dimensional variance” in tech-speak. No, not the newest Marvel superhero, but that some makers of products aren’t as good about staying within specs as others.
The front sight flange diameter, the size of the notches in the flange and the clearance for the plunger tip, vary enough that in some instances turning the sight is work. I worked my way down the rack and found one rifle (granted, a real crap-tastic Frankengun) that couldn’t fit and turn the sight.
Now, the M4SAT comes in a two-pack, for $18.
Do you need two of these? No, but after your buddy steals one of them (they are that slick), you’ll still have one … and a lesson learned. So, get yours and keep one of them hidden so your “friends” will have to buy their own.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the June 2024 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
We put together a lightweight AR build that’s designed to be used hard with some help from Bravo Company USA.
Most articles on building a lightweight AR-15 end up veering into some sort of bizarre “what the heck?” universe. The results are often a “rifle” that incorporates exotic materials of fabulous cost, with the various parts having more piercings than a 19-year-old purple-haired coed at a liberal arts college, and a “full up” weight of 3.5 pounds.
And, if you drop it, it breaks.
Yes, I want lightweight, but I expect my tools to work—and to survive at least as much hard use as I myself can withstand. It has been a long time since I willingly jumped out of perfectly serviceable aircraft (at my own expense, not courtesy of Uncle Sam, to be clear), but I still trip and fall now and then. So, at the very least, I expect a rifle I’ve fallen on to still work.
To that end, I rang up Paul Buffoni at Bravo Company USA (BCM) to see what we could do.
The complete lightweight Bravo. With optics and steel BUIS, it’s still under 6.5 pounds.
Building A Lightweight Bruiser
On the lower, there wasn’t much. Short of chopping holes in things, or using polymer (which both of us agreed was out of bounds), a basic AR-15 lower was going to weigh what a lower weighs. For this project, that meant a lower that weighs 35.6 ounces.
Now, that’s with the BCM Mod 0 stock, and this is where I get to cheat a bit if I want to. The Mod 0 stock, while very comfortable, is heavier than needed. So, if I swap that for a plain ol’ CAR-15 stock, I can shave off a grand total of 3.9 ounces.
Hmm, for comfort’s sake, I’ll keep the Mod 0 thank you very much.
The Bravo lower came already assembled, and if I wanted to save some weight, I could swap the Mod 0 stock for a CAR-15 stock.
The BCM lower came assembled (I like a project, but I’m not a masochist), and that included their PNT trigger assembly, which is made of investment castings in 8620, precision machined, and then after the sear surfaces have been surface ground and polished, it gets a nickel-Teflon coating. It’s Mil-spec tough but nearly High Power clean and crisp.
In addition to the Mod 0 stock, it had a BCM Mod 3 pistol grip. I much prefer the original Mod 0 grip, but this is how it came, and they’re easy enough to swap that I’m not worried. There was nothing to be done with the lower, nor would I want to, so that part was easy.
However, the upper is something we can make some progress on.
Buffoni is justifiably proud of his single-side Mk2 (medium) charging handle, and I can’t see adding enough weight to justify a USGI handle, so we’re in at one full ounce. A bolt and carrier are the same regardless, but the BCM parts are all Mil-spec, tested and top-notch, so there’s 11.5 ounces. That leaves the receiver and handguard.
There isn’t much weight savings to be had once you go to an M4 upper, but the one-sided charging handle does shave some weight off.
For a receiver, we went with a flat-top M4 because … well, why not? And if I need iron sights (and I do, we’ll cover that later), I don’t want them in a carry handle. So, I went with the flat-top to give me sighting options and the M4 because I want the M4 feedramps. There’s another 8.3 ounces.
Choosing a Bullet Tube
OK, now what for a barrel?
Another cheat that people use to minimize weight is to make an AR pistol or an SBR. By foregoing 5 to 7 inches of 4150 steel tube, they can shave off a significant amount of weight. Yeah, no. I’m not a real fan of AR pistols, and not everyone can have, or be willing to go through the hassle of getting, an SBR.
So, a carbine it is.
I could go with a 14.5-inch barrel and a pinned and welded flash hider, but the weight savings end up being minimal at best. What to do? Simple: flutes. Bravo offers a 16-inch fluted, lightweight 5.56 barrel that tips the scales at 22 ounces. (By comparison, a 14.5-inch of the same weighs 20.5 ounces. But you still need a flash hider long enough to make it to 16 inches, so there goes most or all of your 1.5 ounces “saved.”)
The barrel is where you can get some significant weight savings. Combine a slim barrel with a low-profile gas block and you’re down many ounces.
The lightweight barrel is fluted, but it’s already such a slim tube that the fluting isn’t the “drainage ditch” you might expect. They’re shallow, but they do shave some weight off. The overall profile of the barrel is so slim that the gas block doesn’t have a shoulder to stop on. And the stop-shoulder at the muzzle for the flash hider? That has to be increased from the barrel diameter, so the flash hider and its washer have enough of a shoulder to actually stop and torque up to.
A low-profile gas block and gas tube add to the ensemble, and they’re going to weigh the same regardless of what barrel you use. Lacking a stop shoulder and not enough steel to permit a crosspin, the gas block has to depend on a small dimple and two setscrews.
I’m usually not a fan of set screws for this application. In fact, I’d be really leery, except for one thing: The handguard fully covers the gas block. It can’t get impacted, so it can’t shift—especially when I use Loctite on the setscrews, and wicking Loctite between the barrel and gas block. I’ve done it this way before, and—done right—things stay in place.
That leaves the handguard. I could go retro and stick with the plastic carbine or rifle-length ribbed handguards, but if I wanted to mount a light, I’d be out of luck. Plus, that means an A-frame front sight, and those add weight.
The MCMR13 handguard comes with its own barrel nut and anti-rotation steel clip.
So, I went with the Bravo Company MCMR13, an M-Lok-slotted aluminum handguard that free-floats the barrel and adds only 10.5 ounces to the overall weight. Now, I could opt for the MCMR10, the carbine-length handguard, and shave it back to 9 ounces, but I have long arms and the extra length (sigh, an extra ounce-and-a-half of aluminum) makes things easier. The MCMR uses a proprietary barrel nut (with wrench included) and an anti-rotation steel clip. It also uses a pair of through-bolts to clamp it in place.
How do I know all these weights? I’d like to say I was diligent and weighed them all (I did), but for that I have to give Buffoni credit. Being curious and weight-conscious, he weighs all the gear to keep track. All parts in the mix, he calculated that the weight so far (no sights, sling or magazine) would come to 90.5 ounces … or 5.66 pounds. That’s pretty darned light, considering that my XM177E1 clone tips the scales at that same weight.
But that weight has no provision for optics or light.
Icing the Cake
Buffoni shipped the parts, and I got to work. I could’ve had it sent as a complete rifle, but where’s the fun in that? I know how to assemble an AR-15, and when all the parts come from Bravo, you know they will all play well with each other.
For sighting, I opted for the BCM optics mount, a heck-for-tough steel mount (OK, an extra ounce or two, darn) that’s not a QD mount, and an Aimpoint T2. For all of it being steel and tough, the mount weighs less (2.6 ounces) than the Aimpoint (3.4 ounces), or the backup irons I insist on.
The Bravo Company optics mount.
Yes, for a lightweight rifle, I’ll add the weight of some backup sights, and here I opted for the Mission First Tactical folding BUIS in steel. At 3.1 ounces, they’re not heavy, but the extra ounce or so I might have saved by going aluminum or polymer just doesn’t interest me. If the situation has gone sideways enough that I need my BUIS, I want something that will survive the experience.
Where does that leave us? With the 5 pounds, 10.5 ounces of our start weight, I added 9.1 ounces of sighting hardware. That puts the bare rifle up to 6 pounds and 3.6 ounces. Add in a sling and a loaded 20-round magazine, and we’re under 7 pounds, ready to go.
The folding BUIS from Mission First are out of the way until needed.
Admittedly, there’s no light mounted, but lights can have weights all over the map. (If you don’t mind me mixing my metaphors.) You could go as light as a no-longer-made Insight M3 (I’ve got a basket of them) for 3.3 ounces, or go up to “signal the mothership illumination” SureFire M640DFT-Pro at 5.5 ounces.
Even with a light, we’re barely over 7 pounds, and the racks of gun shops across America are stuffed full of AR-15s that start out heavier than this and as bare as the day they were born. Oh, and a sling? I’m a minimalist, so we can count on that adding 2 to 3 ounces at most. Still supermodel skinny and lightweight.
It’s Lightweight, But Does It Shoot?
Test-firing? Really? You have to ask? The trigger makes consistent release a simple task, and the stock is comfortable enough to have a consistent cheek weld. Granted, the light weight means the BCM Lightweight is a bit sporty on the bags, but that’s only in the context of the AR-15.
Velocities are averages of 10 shots measured on a Labradar chronograph set to read 15 feet from the muzzle. Accuracy average of four, five-shot groups at 100 yards from a shooting rest
Really, if the recoil of a 5.56 in a just-barely 7-pound rifle is something you find uncomfortable, you really need to eat your Wheaties. And when you consider that you’ll spend days, months and even years carrying the weight and minutes experiencing recoil, the trade-off is worth it.
Cost? That one was a puzzler. I had to pore over the Bravo Company catalog, keeping track of the various parts, to determine that … it was worth it. Then, I found out that Bravo could’ve saved me the trouble, because they make the exact upper I built, ready to go. So, order a basic BCM lower and their Enhanced lightweight fluted complete upper. After that, you’ll have to decide on sighting options yourself—but that’s the fun part.
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