Sometimes we shooters do things because, well, why not? It’s as good reason as any, right? At first glance, the .450 SMC cartridge may appear to fall into the “why not” category. When you start to look at specifics and potential use cases, it can make a whole lot of sense. What’s a .450 SMC […]
The 6.8 Remington SPC: An Up Close and Personal Look
I love the AR platform. And yes, it is a platform as it’s a design model that allows of near infinite customization. You can add accessories until your rifle looks like a Pakistani Jingle Truck. More importantly, since the rifle is a platform, you can obtain or build one in a dozen or more […]
300 AAC Blackout Fundamentals – Ammunition and Reloading
Recently when I wrote a review of the Daniel Defense DDM4v5 300 Blackout rifle, I mentioned that I’d be doing a drill down series on different aspects of the 300 AAC Blackout. Well, it starts here. Including this article, we’ll be looking at the following topics over the next few weeks: 300 AAC Blackout Ammunition […]
Top 10 Self Defense Ammo Picks
With a controversial and opinionated topic like this, I have to include a couple of explanations and disclaimers. You do have to be careful about blanket statements when it comes to ammo performance. There are just too many variables. For example, you can’t necessarily say things like “Mega Blaster Yellow Tips” are the best. You […]
Winchester’s PDX1 Defender 12 Gauge Buckshot and Slug Ammunition
I was working with a Beretta 1301 Tactical shotgun I have in for review and brought along a box of Winchester PDX1 Defender Personal Defense shot shells. Winchester makes a couple of varieties of this product line in 12 gauge. One is a segmenting slug design, where the slug is designed to fragment into three […]
Ammo Review: Winchester Ammunition Train and Defend
When it comes to designing ammo, many of the objectives conflict with each other – you can’t have them all. For example, perfect ammunition would have all of the following: Low recoil Low blast and muzzle flash Low noise Reliable expansion, even after passing through tough barriers like 10 copies of the New York Times […]
Celebrating Diversity with the 300 AAC Blackout
People get all worked up about whether the 300 AAC Blackout is better than the .223 Remington, 5.56mm or perhaps the AK-47’s 7.62x39mm. I don’t care, mainly because I’m all about celebrating diversity. To me, the 300 AAC Blackout is a fascinating caliber on it’s own merit. It doesn’t have to be better than any […]
Winchester Ammunition’s Long Beard XR: Turkey Hunting or Home Defense?
While at the professional outdoor media conference range day I had the opportunity to check out some new shot shell loads from Winchester Ammunition. Winchester’s Long Beard XR is designed to create a tighter pattern at longer distances, resulting in twice the number of pellets in a 10 inch circle at distances up to 60 […]
Ammo Review: Speer Gold Dot .45 ACP +P 200 Grain
Since it’s the giving season, I decided to bring a pile of different ammo types to the range for some quick and dirty testing. Ammo makes great gunny gifts by the way. In these times of scarcity, your giftee will know you worked for it! First up is a .45 ACP load I had high […]
Choosing Ammunition for the Springfield Armory XD-S & Other Short Barrel Handguns
The performance of any gun is only as good as the ammunition you put into it. And I’m not just talking about using any quality self-defense ammunition. One of the reasons that 9mm guns are more effective today than ever before is the performance of modern 9mm ammunition. Of course, improvements are not limited to […]