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Tom

About Tom McHale

Tom is the Editor of American Handgunner Magazine and has published numerous books on shooting, concealed carry, reloading, and the United States Constitution. You can find his print and ebooks here..

Shooting Competitions Suck

By |2025-11-30T20:18:22-05:00November 30th, 2025|

Some writers like to tackle controversial topics like a rodeo bull gearing up to take out a flock of clowns. Half the time, the pot stirrer may not even care one way or the other about the topic they’re either defending or hyping. I get the strategy, but it’s just not me. And trust me, I’m not trying to do that here, although I will admit the title is somewhat provocative. On purpose …I’m addressing the topic of shooting competitions because I have a genuine love/hate relationship with them.
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This Old Gun: Ruger’s Speed Six

By |2025-11-25T11:53:17-05:00November 25th, 2025|

Back in the day, not long after station wagons roamed free and kids slept on the rear window shelf on long highway trips, a highway patrolman bought this Ruger Speed Six .357 Magnum as a backup and off-duty carry gun. As you can see, it’s still in (not surprisingly) great health and ready for the range. The holster might be overdue for an upgrade, but I consider those consumable parts anyway. Well, after 30 or 40 years in this case.
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Goop, Gunk & Good Sense: Cleaning and Testing for Reliability

By |2025-11-25T11:50:10-05:00November 25th, 2025|

Gun cleaning marketing suffers from the same problem as diet fads: spiffy photography and sometimes questionable science. Some products are game-changers in extreme environments; most are not. For average users, what separates success from failure isn’t a proprietary magic chemical. It’s far more mundane. You know, stuff like good cleaning habits, proper placement of lubrication, and simple functional checks.
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OODA Schmooda: The Loop in Normal and Useful Terms

By |2025-11-07T18:37:23-05:00November 7th, 2025|

OODA. No, we’re not talking about some new yogurt that keeps you regulated.We’re talking about the famous Air Force acronym developed by Air Force Colonel John Boyd to describe human decision processes.In the gun community, this concept has been used, abused, misunderstood, and, in my view, misapplied to the point where it’s become some abstract bastardization of simple strategy.
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A Stroll Down Accuracy Lane

By |2025-10-31T09:58:24-04:00November 7th, 2025|

I made at least one good decision when I started writing about guns a couple of decades ago. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then, right? I started to keep some basic records about the performance of the guns and ammo that came and went for various stories. I’m mainly talking about the significant stuff, like bullet velocity, basic notes on any performance issues with the guns, and accuracy results.
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Kimber CDS9 Threaded: Small Gun, Big Attitude

By |2025-10-31T09:56:51-04:00November 5th, 2025|

When pondering the unique value proposition of this pistol, I was going to describe it as a “miniaturized combat pistol optimized for carry.” Then I looked at what the “CDS” name stands for. It turns out CDS represents “Covert Double Stack.” Close enough.
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Seeing the Unseeable

By |2025-11-03T22:08:52-05:00November 3rd, 2025|

Most people think of “night vision” as those green glow images of commandos from old spy movies and the covers of Tom Clancy books. That’s not wrong, but it’s only half the story. Night vision and thermal vision both let us see when our eyes can’t, but they do it in completely different ways. One amplifies what little light there is. The other ignores “seeing” with light entirely and reveals the invisible world of heat and the lack thereof.
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Back to the Future: Why DA/SA Still Deserves a Spot in the Holster

By |2025-10-31T09:53:16-04:00November 1st, 2025|

I like a variety of action, how about you? Single, double, double and single. They’re all good in my book. Striker-fired is fine too, although for reasons we’ll explore in a minute, I seem to have drifted away from that a bit for my most common daily choice. For now, I will say I seem to be a founding member of the minority group if we’re segregating by action types.
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Little Fingers…

By |2025-10-31T09:51:42-04:00October 31st, 2025|

I work out of the house, so my carry gun lives in my office — the room right off the front door. I don’t often carry in my own home, but I’d still like a gun to be easily accessible in case the coyotes making more frequent appearances in my neighborhood start getting cranky. Or something worse of the human variety. People are crazy.
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