home defense

Team Smith & Wesson’s Trevor Baucom: Go Big or Go Home!

May 14, 2013 By Tom Leave a Comment

If you’re thinking about getting into competitive shooting, you could always start small, maybe with a local club match. Of you could just go and enter the most challenging competition there is – the Bianchi Cup. That’s what Team Smith & Wesson’s Trevor Baucom did. Oh, and he did it from a wheelchair. You see, Trevor is a medically retired Chief Warrant Officer and Blackhawk Pilot who was paralyzed in a crash during a night assault mission in Afghanistan. Now, as a sponsored competitive shooter, he’s opening doors to the shooting sports for lots of folks.

We caught up with Team Smith & Wesson’s Trevor Baucom at SHOT Show 2013.

We had a lot of fun talking with Trevor Baucom. Here’s what we learned…

My Gun Culture: So Trevor, if we have our facts straight, you’re a relatively new addition to Team Smith & Wesson. Didn’t you join the team sometime in mid-2011?

Trevor Baucom: That’s right, I was formally introduced as a team member at the NRA Annual Meeting in 2011 in Pittsburgh.

MGC: Now for the interesting part – was your first major competition really the The 2011 Bianchi Cup National Championship?

Trevor: Well no, not really. Bianchi was my FIRST shooting competition PERIOD! I had shot plenty just playing around, but never anything in terms of serious competition. After a couple of months of training, Bianchi was the first match I ever shot!

MGC: Ummm, that’s kind of like learning how to read by picking up a copy of War and Peace isn’t it? For those who aren’t familiar, the Bianchi Cup is the most brutal test of handgun shooting skill.

Trevor: It’s all about accuracy. Meaning out to 50 yards with a handgun kind of accuracy.

MGC: So were you completely high on drugs to venture into competitive shooting this way?

Trevor: Nah… That was the first one and I kind of think “Go big or go home!” I had a blast and it was really fun.

MGC: So how did you do?

Trevor: Well, I didn’t come close to winning. Doug Koenig has nothing to fear from me! I’ll improve on it as I go. My goal is always to outdo myself every year. Hey I didn’t come in last place either…

MGC: How did the whole Smith & Wesson thing come about? Tell us about the chain of events that got you here.

Trevor: I had just gotten out of the hospital and was going to outpatient rehab. I was in and out of the rehab facility and I saw this car with GUNS-TV on the license plate and I thought “That’s pretty cool.” Then I saw a 2^nd Ranger Battalion license plate on the front of the car. And I did my first five years in the Army in the 1^st Ranger Battalion so I go out there one day and see a bunch of guys talking by that car. So I went over and asked who the Ranger was. The guy answered that it was actually his son, and it turned out the guy was Jim Scoutten, host of Shooting USA. Anyway, over the next week or so, we talked more and one thing led to another. He introduced me to the folks at Smith & Wesson and here we are.

MGC: Now you also shoot Steel Challenge right?

Trevor: Yes sir!

MGC: How’s that going for you?

Trevor: It’s a blast, I love Steel Challenge. I did the World Shoot the past couple of years. I’ve been improving my times year over year and did the Nationals this year.

MGC: We also heard that you’re starting into 3 Gun competition as well?

Trevor: I am. I am shooting the AR15.com match in July at Rock Castle. That’s going to be my first major 3 Gun match. Ithaca Gun Company has sponsored me. They don’t offer a semi-auto shotgun, so I have to shoot the Heavy Metal class. So I’m going hard core!

MGC: Let’s talk about your competition guns. For Bianchi and Steel Challenge what are you using?

Trevor: I’m shooting the Smith & Wesson M&P Pro Series with a 5 inch barrel. I’ve got a production version and an Open Class M&P that Apex Tactical has fixed up for me. For Steel Nationals, I’m going to shoot the new Smith & Wesson M&P Core. For 3 Gun I’ll be shooting a Smith & Wesson M&P AR, probably the 300 Whisper. So I’ll still be shooting the .30 caliber for Heavy Metal, but with a little less pop. Then I’ll use one of the Smith & Wesson M&P Core’s in .45 ACP for the pistol and of course an Ithaca Model 37 pump shotgun.

MGC: So with all that, you’ll leave Rock Castle with a nice, sore, shoulder…

Trevor: Nah, it’s alright. They hooked me up with a really nice recoil reducer. It has a strut inside that soaks up a lot of the recoil. I did a charity trap shoot with it a couple weeks ago and it was fine.

MGC: Let’s talk about hunting. You live in Tennessee right? Lot’s of hunting opportunities there, so what do you enjoy?

Trevor: There’s lot’s of hunting and fishing. I hunt deer, turkey, and HAVA (Honored American Veterans Afield) is working on getting me out for an elk hunt too.

MGC: So how was your deer season this year?

Trevor: I didn’t get out very much at all. But, my oldest son got his first deer. It ended up being a management buck, but it was bigger than the 10 pointer it was hanging next to in the freezer. So while it was a management buck, it was a big one. So that was the only one we got this year as we just didn’t get out enough. Turkey season is great because I don’t have to go anywhere. The farmer behind us has given us free rein to hunt 300 acres for Turkey. So as long as I don’t shoot his cows, I’m OK!

MGC: No worries, I’m sure the Bianchi Cup stuff has got your accuracy all set. So, since you’re an Army Ranger veteran and probably expert on this topic, you can settle a long-standing debate. My wife and I have been arguing over the best home-defense gun. I think it’s an MK19 Automatic Grenade Launcher, but she’s worried about the blast radius and collateral damage. What say you? Settle this for us, please.

Trevor: I got this. I coach soccer, and one of the soccer parents asked me about home-defense a couple of weeks ago. Her husband is deployed and there is a lot of construction where she lives, so there are lots of strangers coming and going at weird times. She went shopping for pistols and couldn’t figure out what she needed. I told her, look, we’ll get you a pump shotgun. First of all, the noise is going to scare the hell out of anybody. If someone tries to break in, take your boys into the bedroom, and if someone tries to come in, shoot them right in the junk! He’s not gonna mess with you any more! So that’s where I’m at. Load it with light bird shot – you don’t have to have anything heavy. It’s not gonna go through walls. If you hit him below the belt, he’s going to stop. And a pump shotgun has follow-up rounds if you need them. A shotgun is harder to miss with than a pistol and it’s not going to go through walls and such.

MGC: Remind me never to break into your house… So what’s your schedule for the year looking like?

Trevor: I’m competing about once a month on average. What I really love is doing HAVA shoots. I love going HAVA because you’ll get guys out there and see a 180 degree attitude change. We had a quadriplegic who hadn’t been able to get out. We set him up with a friend operating the stick because he can’t move anything. They had the sip and puff trigger where you blow into it and it shoots the gun. That guy went from not saying a word to anyone and moping to having a huge smile after the second round. He was happy, having fun, and talking to everybody. That’s why I love HAVA. You get the wives and kids out there. They teach everyone gun safety first and get them shooting. It’s a great organization.

We’d like to thank Trevor Baucom and Team Smith & Wesson for helping us get Trevor’s story out there. If you haven’t tried competitive shooting, you now have no excuse! No need to start with the Bianchi Cup though. You can leave that to Trevor.

Filed Under: People Tagged With: Bianchi Cup, Club Match, competitive shooting, home defense, hunting, interviews, military, Self-Defense, Shooting Competitions, SHOT Show, smith & wesson, Trevor, Trevor Baucom

You Don’t Have To Aim A Shotgun

May 6, 2013 By Tom 1 Comment

Fact or Fiction? You Don’t have to aim a shotgun!

Not many people know this, but shotguns were invented by actor Val Kilmer for use in the movie Tombstone. Kilmer needed a weapon capable of taking out a whole posse of Clantons and McLaurys – without much aiming. Hence the invention of a weapon capable of being fired from the hip, while giving the camera a sexy look.

A lot of people believe shotguns are great home defense guns, and easy to use, because you don’t really have to aim. If you just point one in the general direction and fire, it will clean house so to speak. Right?

Well, in The Terminator movie franchise, that’s how they work. In the real world, shotguns need a little more skill in order to be effective.

Just because a shotgun fires multiple projectiles – BB’s, pellets, buckshot or whatever you want to call them – that doesn’t mean that the shot spreads out like a giant cloud of locust intent on devouring a field of ripe Okinawan Purple Sweet Potatoes. It’s important to remember that the shot leaves the barrel of your shotgun in a “cloud” exactly the diameter of your barrel. That’s a pretty small cloud. To put it in absolute terms, the shot “cloud” leaving a 12 gauge shotgun measures just about ¾ of an inch in diameter.

While it’s true that shot projectiles spread out more the farther they travel from the barrel, they typically stay in a pretty tight pattern at realistic distances. That’s what that shotgun barrel does after all – keep the shot all together while it launches towards the target. If we’re talking self defense, a realistic distance is some fraction of the interior of your house – like across a room or down the hall.

Let’s take a quick look at a couple of range tests to see exactly how much the shot spreads out at realistic “inside your home” distances.

First, we’ll try buckshot. Buckshot loads contain a small number of very large pellets. In the first example, we’re using 00 (double ought) buckshot shells, which have 9 pellets that measure just about ⅓ inch in diameter. Typically, buckshot loads like this one will only create a “cloud” a few inches in diameter at short distances.

This 12 gauge buckshot load (9 pellets) was fired at the target from an “inside the home” distance of 18 feet.

If you choose to use shotshells with a smaller pellet size, the cloud of short will typically spread out a little bit faster. Even still, at short distances, we’re still talking a few inches.

Let’s take a look at Number 1 size shot pellets. Number 1 size pellets are about .16” in diameter, or about half the size of the 00 buckshot we tested. The Remington shotshells we tested contain about 125 of the Number 1 pellets per shell.

This Number 1 shot stayed in a pattern about 6″ in diameter at a distance of 18 feet.

Finally, we tried really small birdshot – Number 7 ½. These shells have pellets that are only 0.095” in diameter and these particular 7/8 ounce shells have about 306 pellets. As you can see, this very small shot spreads out even more, but still, at a distance of 18 feet, the pattern still falls within 8 inches with most of the density within a 3 inch circle.

The Number 7 1/2 shot spread out to 6 inches, but most of the pellets fit in a 3 inch circle.

The shotgun we used for these simple tests was a Mossberg JM Pro. It has a butt stock that’s just about 12” long. So if you held it like a club and tried to whack someone with it, you’d have to aim less than if you fired it.

The bottom line?

You still have to aim a shotgun.

Filed Under: Home Defense, Shooting Tips Tagged With: Aim, Ammo Tests, buckshot, Combat Shotgun, home defense, mossberg, Pellet, Riot Shotgun, Self-Defense, shooting tips, Shotgun, shotguns, shotshell, tips, Val Kilmer

Buyers Guide: Crimson Trace Lightguard for 1911 LTG-701

October 9, 2012 By Tom Leave a Comment

Although not invented by the late John Moses Browning, may he rest in peace, the Crimson Trace Lightguard for 1911′s was invented by the Association of Optics Genii – that’s plural for more than one genius by the way. Or so we’re claiming.

Springfield Armory TRP 1911 with Crimson Trace Lightguard for 1911

The Crimson Trace Lightguard for 1911 LTG-701 mounted on a Springfield Armory TRP

When we did a full review of the Crimson Trace Lightguard for 1911′s we found that it does a wonderful job of complementing 1911 handguns that are not equipped with a tactical rail. As 1911 dimensions vary a bit from model to model, Crimson Trace has engineered this piece of equipment to fit the following 1911 models: Kimber, Ruger, and Smith & Wesson – either full size or compact. Since we had a Springfield Armory TRP in for review, we tried the Lightguard on that one as well and found it to fit perfectly.

This accessory adds 100 lumens of bright light to your rail-less 1911 without bulk or duct tape as it leverages the trigger guard for support. The unit features an instinctive activation pressure switch so it’s on when you are. A positive on/off switch allows for daylight practice without battery drain.

This is a well designed, and very handy add on, for your 1911. Highly recommended.


Available Here	Crimson Trace Lightguard for 1911 LTG-701

Filed Under: Buyers Guide, Optics & Sights Tagged With: buyers guide, crimson trace, home defense, John Moses Browning, lightguard, Ltg, Self-Defense, tactical lights

Nightstand Perfection? Glock + Crimson Trace squared

March 2, 2012 By Tom 3 Comments

Glock 17, Crimson Trace Lasergrips and Crimson Trace Lightguard

Nightstand perfection?

The stars aligned, it was a slow day on cable and there was not another Presidential Debate scheduled for 18 more minutes. In short, we were bored and started tinkering. Coincidentally at this particular time we found ourselves reviewing a Glock 17 Gen IV, Crimson Trace Lightguard, and Crimson Trace LG-850 Lasergrips.

That moment of boredom is when it occurred to us that… you can put all these things together!

OK, actually we knew that it was a well thought out master plan for all these things to work together. What was less expected was how exceptionally handy this setup is. While we still recommend a hand held flashlight for looking around, it’s great to have light and laser aligned with your bore with no additional grip gyrations.

Here’s a detailed step-by-step guide to arming yourself, getting a light on target, acquiring a good sight picture in low light conditions and preparing to fire if necessary:

Pick up your gun

That’s about it.

You see, the new Crimson Trace LG-850 series for Glock Gen IV full and compact size guns is a rear pressure activated design. This frees up the front of the Glock grip for the Crimson Trace Lightguard activation switch. So when you pick up your Glock (or other supported model) the web of your hand activates the laser, your middle finger activates the light, and you’re ready to go.

The Lasergrip panels add a touch of circumference to the gun, so we’ve found that the smallest grip configuration of the Glock Gen IV makes the whole setup just about perfect for medium sized hands. With the Glock’s extra grip panels simply adjust as necessary to your preference.

It’s become the new nightstand configuration. For now. As we’ve been doing all sorts of ammunition testing for our Hornady Critical Defense Will It Expand series, we’ve come to be even more impressed with the performance of the .357 Sig round in all sorts of adverse conditions. We’ve had a Glock 32 for years and love it. Now we’ll have to take a close look at the Glock 31 Gen IV in .357 Sig for the nightstand gun.

Now if they could only figure out how to mount a cell phone…

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Filed Under: Gun Reviews, Reviews Tagged With: crimson trace, glock, home defense, personal protection, Self-Defense

Is The MK19 Grenade Launcher Appropriate For Home Defense?

June 13, 2011 By Tom 17 Comments

Suitable for Home Defense? The MK19 Automatic Grenade Launcher

In today’s edition of He Said / She Said, we examine the relative pros and cons of using the MK19 Automatic Grenade Launcher as a primary home defense weapon. Much has been said about the merits of pistols, revolvers, shotguns, and AR platform rifles for home defense, but little serious consideration has been given to suitability of larger and more powerful crew-served weapons.

First, some basic specifications:

350 round per minute cyclic rate
40 x 53mm high-explosive grenade rounds
Battle-proven
‘Moderate’ stopping power
Tripod and vehicle mount options


I’ve been looking into other options for our primary home defense gun. I’m thinking we need something crew-served – like the MK19 Automatic Grenade Launcher.
	Hmmm. Not bad. I like the stopping power, but you do realize it has an effective blast radius of about 15 meters right? That’s way bigger than our family room. I think the collateral damage might be a bit excessive. And we just got a new wide screen TV, remember?
Yeah but at least we wouldn’t have to worry about complex things like range estimation. I think it would be pretty much point and shoot since it would be indoors.
	Ummm. Have you considered that the MK19 grenades require at least 30 meters of flight time to arm? Our hallway is definitely not that long.
Well, we have been talking about getting a bigger house. Why not kill two birds with one grenade, so to speak? Maybe we can design in a longer hallway to the master bedroom and a larger family room at the other end to contain the blast radius.
	I’m not sure that we can count on bad guys only breaking in through the main hallway. What if someone tries to come in through a window? Have you thought of that?
But honey, those rounds will penetrate up to 2 inches of rolled armor! Awesome!
	Right. Have you even thought about ammo costs? We certainly don’t have room in our budget for 40x53mm high explosive rounds, or even practice rounds for that matter. And last time I looked, you don’t have reloading dies for the MK19…
No problem, I’ll check and see if Midway USA has some!
	And last I checked, the tripod mount only comes in black. And you know I’ve been wanting to re-do the master bedroom in a tangerine, turquoise, and aubergine palette. I do like the vehicle mount option though. I would feel a lot safer on those long drives to Florida…
So what do you think, is it a plan?
	How about let’s talk after you get me my new computer and come up with an extra 20 grand?