Range Gear

You did it. You pulled the metaphorical trigger and purchased your first firearm. Now what? You’re responsible for your safety with your new firearm, as...

Real Avid continues to roll out DIY tools and gun-cleaning products for dedicated firearms enthusiasts. They recently introduced more do-it-yourself tools and packs to...

DeSantis Gunhide's newest accessory holster is called the Quantico AR Mag Pouch. The A104 Quantico AR Mag Pouch features dual tensioning devices, ambidextrous design, and...

Toward the end of each year, I survey the work R.K. Campbell, Roger Eckstine, Robert Sadowski, Tracey Taylor, and Joe Woolley have done in...

A handgun with a mounted red dot offers many advantages to the shooter, but there are few holsters available. Here we test a drawer full of optics-ready holsters. Some are fresh designs, while most are based on existing designs but are cut differently to accept the new high-rise sights.

Toward the end of each year, I survey the work R.K. Campbell, Roger Eckstine, Robert Sadowski, Tracey Taylor, and Joe Woolley have done in Gun Tests, with an eye toward selecting guns, accessories, and ammunition the magazine’s testers have endorsed. From these evaluations I pick the best from a full year’s worth of tests and distill recommendations for readers, who often use them as shopping guides.

The contestants: Venture Gear Amp BT, Walker's Razor Slim, Champion Ear Muffs, and Howard Leight Impact Sport. Do any of them offer more sound reduction for the buck?

Reader Walt wonders if laser trainers can be used for air rifle and smallbore programs. Great idea — perhaps one can. Reader Mark says that where he shops, tube-mag shotguns continue to rule.

Toward the end of each year, I survey the work R.K. Campbell, Roger Eckstine, Austin Miller, Robert Sadowski, David Tannahill, Tracey Taylor, John Taylor, and Ralph Winingham have done in Gun Tests, with an eye toward selecting guns, accessories, and ammunition the magazine's testers have endorsed. From these evaluations I pick the best from a full year's worth of tests and distill recommendations for readers, who often use them as shopping guides. These choices are a mixture of our original tests and other information I've compiled during the year. After we roll high-rated test products into long-term testing, I keep tabs on how those guns do, and if the firearms and accessories continue performing well, then I have confidence including them in this wrap-up.

In this installment, we are looking at some of the best 22-caliber pistols for all-around target shooting and training for marksmanship and personal-defense practice, with an emphasis on viability for personal-defense training. Some handguns are just fine for general plinking, but the modern shooter demands the ability to train with combat lights or even a red-dot sight. All 22s do not allow this type of versatility. Let's look at four 22-caliber handguns and see how they stack up as modern trainers.

The 22 self-loading handgun is a great firearm that every handgunner should own at least one of. The 22 is a great trainer, and it is also a good small-game handgun, and it is even useful in some forms of competition. The absence of recoil and muzzle report compared to centerfire handguns is often touted, but recoil and muzzle blast are there, simply in easily manageable portions. The shooter is free to concentrate on trigger press, sight picture, sight alignment, and grip. Practice in offhand fire, combat practice, firing for extreme accuracy from a solid rest, clearing malfunctions and hunting game are just some of the practice that may be accomplished with the 22 pistol. For small-game hunting, excellent accuracy is demanded. For combat practice—and this is an important point—the handgun should be similar to the centerfire defense gun in accuracy. In that manner, the shooter isn't given a false sense of security by a 22 that is much more accurate than the 9mm or 45 they use for personal defense. When practicing with the 22, the serious shooter should use the same grip and trigger press that he or she uses when mastering the 9mm or 45. Using a lighter grip or shooting fast just because the 22 is so controllable doesn't cross over into personal defense skills; it is simply shooting for fun.

We collected two 22-caliber handguns and two 22-caliber conversion units for comparison. One of the handguns is a new model and the other, a relatively new and often overlooked pistol. The firearms tested included the Smith & Wesson Victory 22, Beretta Neos 22, Tactical Solutions' Glock conversion unit, and a Colt 22 Ace conversion unit.

As prices continue to come down as the result of a gun glut (supply and demand economics), more folks will be buying guns, and we'll want to shoot them. So we will be adding enhancements to those firearms and feeding ammunition into them with a big grin. Here are some new products Gun Tests' staffers have taken note of that will make your firearms run, run better, or add fun.

The Mayville Engineering Company, better known as MEC, is probably the most famous name in reloading shotgun ammunition. The last MEC press one of our staffers purchased was a multi-stage motor-driven progressive press tasked with keeping up with his voracious appetite for competing in the world of trapshooting. So when MEC, active in the shooting sports for more than 60 years, decided to enter the metallic reloading market, we thought it was a good time to begin reloading the 6.5 Creedmoor brass left behind after our tests of the Ruger Precision Rifle. MEC's new loader is a single-stage hand-driven press called the Marksman.