Editorial

An error in our April 2012 test of 22 LR semi-automatic rifles, which included experimentation with a suppressor, stirred up a hornets' nest of telephone calls, and we owe the wronged party an apology. The error had to do with the description of services available from Tactical Firearms of Katy, Texas, a Class III dealer and home to what is arguably the most advanced shooting facility in the United States. Whereas Tactical Firearms can help facilitate the licensing necessary for the purchase of suppressors in states outside of Texas, that does not include every state in the union, as the article claimed. Instead of referring to a one-time fee… "that according to Tactical Firearms is applicable to any state in the union," it should have read "almost every state in the union," or "every state in the union where suppressors are legal." The offending text can be found on page 10 column 2 and in the caption on page 11. There was never any intention on the part of the author, Gun Tests Magazine, or on the part of Tactical Firearms to mislead the public or the authorities.

The Brady Campaign gave its best grade on the group's 2011 State Gun Control Scorecard to California. The Brady Campaign said California "continues to blaze legislative trails saving lives," earning 81 points out of 100 on the Brady scorecard. That's the state in which the total violent crime, murder, robbery, and aggravated assault rates were higher than national rates in 2010, the most recent full year reported by the FBI.

Later in this issue is a quick-hit list of new products the staff encountered at the 2012 SHOT Show in Las Vegas. Unlike some years in which manufacturers push banal items that are simply color or texture changes, we saw some cool stuff in the pipeline that's worth advising you about. Standard caveat applies: We didn't shoot anything enough to say "Buy It!", but we can comment about advances in design or execution that we believe hold promise.

On Black Friday 2011, gun dealers deluged the FBI with background-check requests for prospective handgun and long-gun buyers, breaking the previous record by more than 30%. Background checks, required by federal law, surged to nearly 130,000 during the day, surpassing the previous high of 97,848 on Black Friday of 2008. The second busiest day on record was two days before this past Christmas, with 102,222 checks. Dennis Henigan, acting president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said he was "skeptical" of the Black Friday gun surge. He said, "I think there may be no real significance at all."

Surreal experience today. Took an hour for lunch, and while munching on red beans and rice, I remembered I had the season-ending episode of FX's Sons of Anarchy on the TiVo. So I engage the box and start watching the cliffhanger. If you haven't seen that episode yet, stop reading now.

If I must say, one of my most endearing traits is the ability to buy perfect presents for anniversaries, birthdays, and Christmas — just ask the CFO, who's snorting coffee out her nose as she reads that. Seeing as this is the traditional time of year for commemorations of Christ's Mass, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, Saturnalia, and Yuletide, I wanted to pass along three thoughtful gift recommendations that are sure to wow your family, friends, and range buddies, though perhaps not in that order.

Over the past few months weve been testing a product that one of our readers suggested to us. The product is called NanoLube, and its a registered trademark of the NanoLube, Inc., company, with website at www.DiamondLube.com. The product is a combination of incredibly small, 0.1 to 4 nanometer, rounded diamonds in suspension in a light 5W oil. The tiny synthetic diamonds are spherical, not jagged, and once they are embedded into the base material of whatever youre trying to lubricate, they provide a slick surface with greatly reduced friction. So says DiamondLube Treatment Systems inventor, Chris Arnold.The evidence given by the reader and by the manufacturer fired our interest. The testimonials in favor of this product are many and varied. One stunning example was a video of two bearings side by side, one of which had normal oil and the other, NanoLube. The two bearings were spun by a blast of air, and then allowed to coast to a stop. The NanoLubed bearing spun far longer than the other. There are many testimonials of the use of this product on the company website, including its use in the bearings of over-the-road tractor-trailer drivers, who have seen significant improvements in longevity of their trucks as well as better mileage. Some of the companys claims and testimonials were in this products use on firearms. These included drastic reduction of trigger pulls, better function of semiauto handguns, and slicking of the bore that made cleaning the barrel easier.To assess these claims for what we considered to be a rather costly product, we obtained two samples from the maker. One was called NanoLube NDN70-ATM+P (7 milliliters, list price $37.50, + $3.50 domestic shipping, or $5 international). The other was a smaller bottle labeled Quicken Weapons Lubricant MIL 30-CLP. (We could not clearly determine its price from the company website, but our best guess is its a three-milliliter sample, which goes for $22.50.) We tried these oils in a vast array of comparative before-and-after tests on items ranging from firearms to tractor engines. Please be informed that our conclusions are empirical, not scientific. This, however, is in keeping with previous tests of metal-preserving oils that we put on bare steel and left outside to see how well they worked. We got some definite ideas from those tests, and the same is true in the case of NanoLube and Quicken.

As monthly deadline cycles loom, I sometimes forget to just go shoot for fun. I personally don't shoot handguns much, mainly because the testing I conduct favors long guns. But my wife, Tracey, my son J.T. and his friend and co-worker Angela, and Product Coordinator Kevin Winkle and I went to Memorial Shooting Center here in Houston recently and had a ball with sidearms.

In the latest development in the ongoing Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) 'Fast and Furious' scandal, the NRA-ILA reported that the Department of Justice has announced the appointment of U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota B. Todd Jones to serve as Acting Director of BATFE, replacing Kenneth Melson. The DOJ also announced that Dennis Burke, U.S. attorney for the district of Arizona, has resigned. And the Wall Street Journal reported that Emory Hurley, the assistant U.S. attorney responsible for the day-to-day operations of 'Fast and Furious,' has been removed from his post and reassigned to the department's Civil Division.

Some years ago, I sold two guns that I now regret selling. I used my Walther GX-1 22 LR for five years as a collegiate 3-position shooter at Texas A&M, competing all over the country and in Japan. As a working adult in New Jersey, I also shot it in a weeknight league in northern New Jersey and in a league that shot at West Point. Additionally, I had an LGR air rifle by the same manufacturer, using it to compete in the NCAA championships, where I met the really good shooters.

Ruger is one of the most aggressive companies at rolling out mid-year new products, and 2011 offers a bumper crop of new guns in the pipeline. Two new handguns caught my eye. The SR40c (directly below) is the compact version of the striker-fired SR40 pistol. The Ruger SR40c pistol has a 3.5-inch barrel and an overall length of 6.85 inches. The pistol weighs 23.40 ounces and features a height of 4.61 inches, with the same 1.27-inch-wide grip (across safety levers) as the full-sized SR40. It also has a fully adjustable 3-dot sight system and an integral accessory rail that accommodates most lights and lasers.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa is vowing to block President Obama's nominations until he gets detailed answers on a controversial program that resulted in drug cartels acquiring more than 1,300 firearms from the U.S., according a report in The Hill. Grassley is pressing the Department of Justice (DOJ) on who initiated the 'Gun Runner' program that authorized the sale of guns to people acting as straw purchasers for drug cartels in Mexico. Gun Runner might have contributed to the death of at least one federal agent.