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Perfect gun hygiene isn't really that hard: Don't put guns and ammunition where kids can get at them. I took the additional step that, when I was handling firearms in my home office (measurements, photos, and the like), I didn't have any ammunition for those firearms on site. Could the 15-year-old version of Darling Daughter have bought 45 ACP at school and brought it home? Yeah. Very unlikely. And the guns were in a safe if I wasn't home. So, there were better chances of being hit by a smoking meteor of death than her getting in my guns. Now, she's the skeet coordinator for the National Skeet Shooting Association in San Antonio. Must be a coincidence. Number-One Son has a creative side business he calls Young Guns Media, and he's acquiring quite the collection of firearms as his budget allows. He's obviously traumatized by growing up around guns all the danged time.

At the range, we used three loads. The Black Hills Ammunition 200-grain lead semi-wadcutter bullet was our training and practice load. Next, the Hornady American Gunner 185-grain XTP represented a lightweight-bullet defense load, and the Winchester M1911 230-grain jacketed hollowpoint stood in as a heavy defense load. These are affordable 45 ACP choices likely to be used by shooters. We expected that heavy bullets with a long bearing surface would demonstrate good accuracy, but in this case, the lightest bullet weight gave the best accuracy. Also, our shooters noted the heavier push of the 230-grain load.

The high-capacity 9mmhandgun continues to be apopular personal-defensechoice, for good reason.Many of the fi nest handguns in theworld are chambered for the 9mmLuger cartridge and nothing else. Ina handgun of 30 ounces or so, loadedrecoil is light to manageable. Practicalaccuracy may be outstanding. Amagazine capacity of 15 rounds ormore is reassuring and gives a goodreserve of ammunition. With theseconsiderations in mind, we testedtwo modern economy-grade 9mmhandguns whose performance wasacceptable, especially consideringthe price, though our shooters foundwe liked one pistol better.

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