Viewpoints

We haven't tested a lot of Coopers, mainly because of their expense. The last one was in May 2003, a Cooper Arms Custom Classic 22 LR priced at $1895. We said, "Opening the box on the Cooper was a sheer delight, and it takes quite a rifle to impress our somewhat jaded crew. Even at the end of our test sessions, everyone who picked up the rifle still had to say, ‘Man, what a lovely rifle!" Further: "The wood was really nice. The checkering was really nice. The ebony forend tip was really nice. The fit of the Niedner steel butt plate was really…. You get the picture. This was a looker. It reeked of quality… The balance was superb, belying the rifle's weight of 6.7 pounds. It was slightly muzzle heavy, which we liked… Intricate high-quality checkering like this that is extremely well done is sometimes glossed over or missed entirely, but one of the people who saw this rifle was a stock maker, and he said he'd spend a long time getting checkering that good.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a decision that upholds the exclusion of certain firearms from the protection of the 2nd Amendment. In 2014, Pennsylvania resident Ryan Watson filled out an application on behalf of a trust to make and register an M-16/style machine gun with the ATF. Despite a federal law prohibiting any individual from manufacturing or possessing a machine gun after 1986, the ATF inadvertently approved his application. Afterward, Watson had his machine gun manufactured. A month after that, he received a call from the ATF saying that his application had been "disapproved."

As a carry handgun, the Glock is rugged, reliable, and combat worthy. About the only modifications that actually improve the Glock are the addition of a better trigger and a set of aftermarket sights. We dealt extensively with the issue of trigger replacements in the April 2014. There, we installed a Zev Technologies' GlockWorx Ultimate kit from Brownells.com ($250, #100-006-566WB, Mfr. Part: ZTFULULT4G9BLK) into our Glock 17. We gave the Ultimate Kit an A grade, saying it "was the upgrade that produced the biggest difference in performance all by itself, increasing the accuracy of the Glock 17 from an average grouping of 2.3 inches down to 1.6 inches."

Also in the April 2014 issue, we looked at two sight-upgrade kits, both from Brownells. One was the Brownells Glock 17 Sight Upgrade Kit ($200, #080-000-919WB), which included a Meprolight (Kimber) ML-10224 Tru-Dot Night Sight System for Glock 17, 19, 22, 23, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39; an MGW Glock Sight Adjustment Tool, and an Ed Brown Front Sight Tool for Glock. Since we had the installation tools handy, we also ordered a set of TruGlo tritium fiber-optic Brite-Sites ($90, #902-000-107WB, Mfr. Part: TG131GT1Y), yellow rear and green front. We chose to put the TruGlo sights on the Glock 17 and the Tru-Dots on a G34 so that we could shoot them side by side.

With the Ed Brown Front Sight Tool for Glock ($20 sold separately, #087-017-001WB, Mfr. Part: 952) and the MGW Glock Sight Mover ($100 sold separately, #584-045-017WB, Mfr. Part: MGW309) for the rear sight, we started the switch with a disassembly of the slide to get access to the front sight. With the Ed Brown front sight tool and a small crescent wrench, we loosened the screw beneath the sight and removed it, then replaced the white dot with the new TruGlo front sight and tightened with the crescent wrench. Once the front sight was swapped, we hooked the slide into the MGW. The device came with some thin plates to raise the slide up the right height. We did not need them. The old sight drifted out with relative ease, going left to right pointed away from us. The new rear TruGlo sight did require some minor fitting with a file and a little more strength to slide in, but with the MGW tool, leverage was not a problem. We used the same process to put the Meprolite sights onto a factory Glock 34.

Despite the new TruGlo sights being fixed like the originals, we found them to be much clearer and easier to acquire and reacquire targets. We took to the range with the TruGlo sights installed, using all other original parts, and we cut our average group size down by almost half an inch, from 2.3 inches with the standard Glock to 1.9 inches with the TruGlo sights. We turned down the lights over the shooters, leaving the targets illuminated to check out how much the tritium would glow in the fiber-optic sights. The green front sight was quite bright, while the rear yellow sights were significantly dimmer, although still visible.

The Meprolight Tru-Dots provided an even more impressive change on the G34. We shaved just over a full inch off our average group size at 10 yards once we installed them.

Upgrading fixed sights can seem like a challenge to someone who hasn't done work on pistols previously, but with these tools and the simplicity of Glock's designs, this upgrade is a great place to start if you want to attempt a DIY project. You can drift the sights out with a punch, which will save $100 for the MGW tool, but you risk rupturing the tritium capsules. The MGW mover requires oil on the crankshaft, but it made drifting the dovetail sights in and out so easy we quickly misplaced our punch set. Overall, we found the TruGlo sights to be a nice upgrade and would recommend putting them in place of the standard non-tritium sights on any factory Glock. We gave them a Grade: A ranking, along with the Meprolight Tru-Dot tritium.

Naturally, readers asked about other sights, so we began looking at more replacements we could test head to head, rather than as a general Glock upgrade. So, again working with Brownells, we assembled a sextet of night sights suitable for installation on various Glocks. Also, we believe you can broaden our recommendations to include other firearms of similar size — the visual presentation won't be appreciably different on different platforms — though the installation process may differ gun to gun.

I'm really bad about looking at the events in California, Maryland, New Jersey, Maryland, and other gun-restrictive states and getting pessimistic about the health of gun rights in the country. I was told recently that such pessimism is a sin, and though I'm not especially religious, I saw the truth in the statement. Devout folks should be optimistic as a part of their character, because they see and proclaim the Good News every day. A fellow named Rick told me that in the hot tub of the club I swim at. I'm usually resistant to being proselytized, especially when I'm not wearing pants, but we had a nice visit and parted friendly. His testimony prompted me to look around for some Good Gun News, which was remarkably easy to find and widespread.

Regarding the Taurus settlement and the problems Lou had with his pistol: On August 4, 2015 I sent Taurus my PT-111 Pro and two magazines. Their website was very poor about updating progress of the return, but by 12/16/2015 I did have a new PT-111 G2 with two mags, all new in the box. I had to pay $25 for the FFL transfer fee, but I was reimbursed by 1/15/16. I am actually quite pleased with the new gun. To get reimbursed, I faxed an itemized receipt to Taurus at (305) 624-1126. I hope this helps Lou and perhaps others.

I am rarely worried when I write these editorials, but this time I am. Here, we are all Brothers and Sisters of the Gun, a community of folks who like to read about, shoot, maintain, accessorize, and buy and sell handguns, rifles, shotguns, and parts. There are few, if any, anti-gun readers sitting in their parents' basements in their pajamas — really, what would be the point of subscribing? So, with that said, I'm simply doing my job here and filling this space with gun-rights-related material because, sadly, politics matter in our ability to enjoy firearms freely.

But any time Donald J. Trump's name gets mentioned, folks tend to get agitated for him, or about him, or against him. I'm merely making sure that my readers know what the putative Republican presidential nominee has to say about firearms because it might get overlooked otherwise. Straight from his website, here are the major points of Trump's recently released gun-policy ideas headlined "Defend The Rights of Law-Abiding Gun Owners."

All in, I'm heartened by Trump's positions. I'm eager to hear your thoughts on these ideas, and please suggest any others you might want to see him adopt if he wins the general election in November.

Maybe, just maybe, doctors should focus on the fact that more innocent people young and old die at the hands of doctors each year than by children getting into unsecured guns at home. It is simply not their responsibility to counsel our young on this subject as in many cases they don't have a clue about firearms in general. I applaud you Todd Woodard, please keep up the good work!

As an avid shooter and a physician, I am really bothered by the idea that physicians need to ask about the presence of firearms and the safety measures in place in the home. Don't get me wrong, this is an important issue, but it shouldn't have to be handled during the annual physical. First, most docs will admit that they are totally naive about firearms and firearms safety. Second, patients have no obligation to be honest. Third, if a patient reveals firearm(s) in the home and that information winds up in the electronic health record, it's there for good. Who has access to this information and for what purposes will it be used? Last, remember the Freakonomics piece about the biggest threat to your children on a play date? Yes, the swimming pool is 100 times more dangerous than the handgun. The swimming pool is infinitely more dangerous than the properly secured firearm. Should I also ask patients about the absence or presence of a swimming pool and how it is secured? Where does this conversation stop? — Posted by: FirearmDoc

There's a lot not to like in Physicians Angelica Zen and Alice Kuo's opinion piece in The Washington Post entitled "Do you own a gun? Why your kid's doctor needs to know." It was published on April 1, but I'll avoid playing on the obvious joke there. In the story, the doctors discuss the risks of having guns unsecured in a home with children and the need for doctors to talk about the subject with patients. They spend several thousand words justifying such an intrusion into my business, but, short version, I'll take my own counsel instead of theirs, since I'm the guy who handles guns all day and they don't.

Did I take precautions when my kids were growing up to ensure they couldn't get their hands on test guns? Well, sure. That doesn't make me special. 99.9% of all gun owners do the same, and they're successful at it, based on the absurdly low gun-accident rates we see these days.

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.

The 10mm Auto cartridge seems to be going through a renaissance. There is new ammunition being manufactured in velocities the 10mm was intended for, like in the newer SIG Elite Performance ammo, and firearms manufacturers such as Glock and SIG have offered new pistols chambered in the round, the G40 Gen4 MOS and P220-10, respectively. We wanted to take a look at the 10mm in a full-size pistol that we could easily open-carry on the back 40 or concealed under a jacket or coat for in town. Since there are numerous examples of 10mm pistols to test, we also wanted to see if a different platform favored the big-bore caliber.

As we tested, we gained renewed respect for the 10mm round. Some testers even thought the round may be a liability in a self-defense situation due overpenetration. If we were in a crowded mall and were able to get solid center-of-mass hits on an attacker, we wondered whether certain loads would overpenetrate and hit a bystander. We do think it is a good round to punch through vehicles with and to stop big bears, and we also feel it is an excellent hunting cartridge if kept to bow-hunting distances on feral swine, whitetails, and small black bears. Around bystanders, we would most likely stick with the 10mm Lite or 10mm FBI loads if we carried the 10mm concealed.

The 10mm Auto creates a maximum pressure in the range of 37,500 psi. Compare that to the 45 ACP, which has about 21,000 psi with 230-grain ball ammo. The round was the brainchild of Jeff Cooper and a few like-minded individuals who wanted better terminal ballistics than the venerable 45 ACP could produce. The 10mm Auto exceeds 357 Magnum power and is very close to that of the 41 Magnum. The 10mm Auto is a brute of a round with the type of recoil you would expect from a magnum revolver. The mythical Bren Ten was one of the first semi-automatic pistols chambered in the round. The pistol never really lived up to its expectations due to magazine difficulties and the 10mm Auto thoroughly trouncing the Bren Ten's mechanism. The 10mm Auto has such a fast-moving bullet that it tends wreak havoc with the pistol's recoil mechanism. Colt first chambered its 1911 Series 80 in the cartridge in 1987, and it caused receivers to crack where the slide stop fits into the receiver. A relief cut was made by Colt to fix the situation, and the company's pistols in 10mm ran fine thereafter. When the FBI adopted the round after the Miami-Dade shoot out in 1986 due to agents' underperforming handgun cartridges, the Bureau soon realized agents could not or had a hard time handling the recoil of the 10mm Auto. The Bureau had adopted the cartridge first, then adopted the S&W Model 1076, which was purpose-built for the round. The FBI's solution was to load the 10mm light, which made it more tolerable to agents. The 10mm loads became known as 10mm Lite or 10mm FBI. We all know the light 10mm load is nothing but a 40 S&W in a longer case. The 10mm Auto produces about 300 foot-pounds more energy than the 40 S&W when the 10mm Auto is loaded to its standard velocity, and it's even hotter with niche ammo like that from Buffalo Bore. The 40 S&W changed the way law enforcement looked at cartridges, and the 10mm Auto might have been forgotten if it were not for some diehard fans — one of whom is on theGun Testsstaff.

Our shooters chose three very popular platforms to test the 10mm Auto: a 1911 design from Rock Island Arsenal (RIA), the SIG P220 model, which custom gunsmiths have been converting to 10mm for years, and the large Glock frame, which has been chambered in 10mm since 1991. All of these pistols in other calibers, namely 45 ACP, have received high grades in the past from us, so our expectation was these pistols would perform, and they did. All the pistols ran exceptionally well, with no malfunctions or jams. That says a lot because some 10mm Auto pistols are finicky because factory ammo is loaded light, standard, and heavy. We used an assortment of ammo; two light loads from Federal and two standard 10mm Auto loads from SIG in the Elite Performance Ammunition line, that are much faster than the Federal's load. The Federal loads consisted of American Eagle 180-grain FMJs which clocked slightly over 1000 fps, and Personal Protection 180-grain Hydra-Shok JHPs, which had an average muzzle velocity of slightly under 1000 fps. The SIG ammo averaged well over 1200 fps, except for the V-Crown 180-grain JHP in the Glock. The Glock showed lower velocity across the board with all the ammos compared to the SIG and RIA. Note the Glock barrel is also half an inch shorter than the RIA and SIG barrels.

We evaluated the Bond Arms Texas Defender 38 Special/357 Magnum and the Bond Arms Cowboy Defender 45 Colt/.410in the July 2002 issue. In that issue, we said, "In today's world, derringers are indeed marginalized firearms for people seeking to protect themselves. Lightweight metals such as titanium and scandium have made revolvers not only pocket guns, but in some cases possibly even shirt-pocket guns (at least in terms of heft). Double-action wheelguns offer more capacity and easier handling than derringers, we found in a recent test. Ditto that with small-frame pistols."

Of the Bond Arms Texas Defender and the Bond Arms Cowboy Defender, we said "Don't Buy" either of them for self-defense. "There are simply better, more modern guns out there that make more sense than a derringer, in our view." We added, "If we wanted a Cowboy Action derringer, the Texas Defender, whose trigger guard can be removed, would be ‘Our Pick.'" Another gun in the test, the American Derringer DA 38, earned a Conditional Buy (probably a B ranking today). We said, "If you have to have a derringer for self-defense, this double-action model is easier to use than the single actions. But it wouldn't be our pick for this job." In that test, we also looked at an American Derringer Model 1 in 45 Colt/.410. Of it, we said, "Don't Buy." We said, "For Cowboy shooting, we like the Bond Arms Texas Defender much better and the Cowboy Defender somewhat better. For derringer self-defense, we like the American Derringer DA 38 better."

A look at the data from that test gives you some ideas about the efficacy of the .410 shotshell versus the other chamberings. A Winchester 38 Special 158-grain roundnose lead Cowboy load in the American Derringer DA 38 created muzzle energy of 178 ft.-lbs. and 169 ft.-lbs. in the Bond Arms Texas Defender. With a Federal Classic .357 Magnum 158-grain Hi-Shok JHP, we got muzzle energy of 464 foot-pounds and 439 foot-pounds, respectively, out of those derringers. A Cor-Bon 357 125-grain JHP produces 519 foot-pounds and 494 foot-pounds muzzle energies, respectively.

Shotshells weren't in the same realm in terms of energy. A Winchester Super X .410 Shotshell 000 Buckshot (three pellets) produced muzzle energies of 229 foot-pounds and 217 foot-pounds in the American Derringer Model 1 and Bond Arms Cowboy Defender, respectively. A Rexio .410 Shotshell 00 Buckshot load (four pellets) generated 130 foot-pounds of muzzle energy in the American Derringer Model 1 and 126 foot-pounds of muzzle energy in the Bond Arms Cowboy Defender.

It is sad and worrisome, but nonetheless true, that four other justices did not and do not agree with Scalia's decision in the Heller case. So his passing puts that decision, and individual gun rights, at risk again. Other than in McDonald, the Supreme Court has chosen not to harden the effects of Heller in many additional decisions.

United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, author of the Court's landmark Second Amendment decisionHeller v. District of Columbia, died on February 13, 2016, at age 79. Justice Scalia was found dead of apparent natural causes at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort in the Big Bend region south of Marfa in West Texas. According to the San AntonioExpress-News, Scalia arrived at the ranch on February 12 and attended a private party with about 40 people. When he did not appear for breakfast, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found his body. We extend our condolences to the family.

Like Grant said in last month's letters section, I, too, lament the passing of the pride of custom-gun ownership and the common look of the Ubiquitous Black Gun. But, as was said, black guns are cheap and proven reliable. Also, I cannot justify carrying a nice custom pistol on the off chance that I might have to use it. In that case, I would have to surrender it to the police, and then it would be months at a minimum to maybe get it back by jumping through their hoops.

Yes, I would rather carry a "Rolex"-quality sidearm, but I often think that if I had to give up my Valtro, I'd don't know what I'd do.

A black gun I can give up with no emotion, and go home and get another one. I always enjoy the magazine, from the editorial remarks to the last page. — Dave