Todd Woodard

Hey Shooters: Lots to talk about in this edition of Straight Shooter's "Gun Report," your semi-automatic source of gun-culture news, new-product insights, and whatever else we could find when rooting around in the bottom of the metaphorical range bag.

During the past year, revolvers have gotten a lot of attention. The introduction of the Taurus AirLite six-shot revolver, basically a six-shot J frame, was interesting. Ruger introduced a seven-shot 357 Magnum version of the GP100. The revolver, it seems, continues to interest the self-defense shooter who wants his or her carry handgun to agree with the Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) maxim. We have done reports on revolvers and on self-loading pistol magazines, but we've never tested revolver speedloaders. It seemed long overdue. We got together a team of revolver shooters, collected a number of revolvers, and ordered a range of revolver speedloaders. While the basic design of all speedloaders is similar, we discovered that there are important differences in the speedloaders that will be important to the user. Whether the speedloader is used for competition or defense, we think the reader who carries a revolver would be well advised to carry a speedloader, master the technique to deploy it, and choose the device well.

NSSF CEO Steve Sanetti said the videos portray three different gun owners and their stories of ownership, along with the steps they took to make sure they will handle and store their firearms safely when not in use. The portrayals of "Whitney," "David" and "Mateo" embody NSSF's safety slogan: "Own It? Respect It. Secure It."

The 1911 is a legendary handgun, and it has been offered in many variations since its introduction 108 years ago. During the time after World War I, there were attempts to make the 1911 into a more accurate handgun, primarily for use at Camp Perry. The first National Match handguns were modified by Army gunsmiths for the task. Colt made the pistol commercially available as the National Match during the 1930s. The first guns featured high-profile fixed sights and were considerably tightened over the fit of the Government Model. Colt offered the Gold Cup pistol as a target pistol set up for light loads. Today, we like to have a 1911 with a lighter trigger action than the GI gun and with superior sights, but do we really need an expensive handgun or a target gun for overall utility? For personal defense and most forms of competition, the handguns reviewed will do a good job. They are useful for personal defense, some forms of competition, and for hunting varmints, and even medium-size game, at moderate range. The trick is, how much do you have to pay for this performance?

The 44 Remington Magnum has been a favorite hunting cartridge for some of our test team members who live in states where straight-wall cartridges are legal for deer hunting, but where short sight line conditions keep ranges way down. Chambered in short, carbine-length rifles, the 44 Rem. Mag. can be quick to shoulder, fast to shoot, and offer plenty of power. As one of our 44 Rem. Mag. hunters said: "They make big holes and leave a nice blood trail." These rifles are lightweight and make for easy carry. In brush-choked terrain when pushing deer, sitting in tree stand for a black bear, or waiting on pigs to wallow, these carbines offer power, and in lever-action models, super-fast follow-up shots. They can also make a good truck gun.

While lever-action 44 Rem. Mag. carbines are common, we wanted to look at something different and assembled three candidates. To serve as a baseline, we chose the Rossi R92, a clone of the iconic Winchester Model 1892 and a good example of a typical lever-action 44 Mag. carbine with exposed hammer, iron sights and tubular magazine that's loaded via a loading port. The Ruger 77/44 is quite different. It is a bolt-action rifle and comes with scope mounts and detachable rotary magazine. The Ruger 96/77 is a lever-action carbine similar to the Savage Model 99. The hammer is enclosed in the receiver, it has a scope mount built into the receiver, and uses a detachable magazine. The 96/77 was produced from 1996 through 2004 and our test sample was lightly used. The R92 and 77/44 are both current production guns and easily obtained; used 96/44 models are also fairly easy to find, especially on online gun-auction websites.