Handguns

For some people all that a gun needs is charisma, mainly due to its appearance in a number of Hollywood movies. If the Minneapolis-based firm of Magnum Research has achieved nothing else, then the Desert Eagle's place in history has been assured by its striking profile and big hole in the muzzle.

Taurus's new Model 24/7, $594, is a pretty good polymer pistol, but the pricey $830 Sigarms P226 shoots better. In comparison, the $450 FN 49 RSS is appealing on price, but it's average fare.

Smith & Wesson's $833 Model 610 10mm/.40 S&W is a slick shooter, but the $1000 Colt Anaconda in .44 Special/.44 Magnum is better than ever, in our estimation.

But we would advise you to leave the Mak P-64 9x18 alone. Though it looked new, we found substantial workmanship and function problems in our sample.

We pit a trio of custom production guns and learn a lot about what makes a topnotch .45 ACP. But did we like Kimber's LTP II, the Lone Star Lawman Match, or Wilson's CQB best?

In the fall of 2003, Earnest Langdon captured the Custom Defensive Pistol Division (CDP) at the annual International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) championship match held in Little Rock, Arkansas. That Langdon, a top competitor in the Practical Shooting ranks, was victorious is not news. What was news is that he did it competing with a traditional double action Sigarms P220ST pistol rather than a custom 1911, the type of pistol for which the CDP division was founded upon. Naturally, we wanted to know what was so special about this gun. Taking a quick look at it, we immediately recognized that another pistol, the Smith & Wesson 4566TSW, was similar.

We couldn't wait to strip these guns down and see if they differed radically on the inside, and then take them to the range. Keeping in mind that an IDPA Custom Defensive Pistol was allowed plenty of leeway in terms of modification we also wanted to find out if these pistols could be "hot-rodded" with aftermarket parts. What we found impressed us.

In this test we look at semi-automatic pistols that are small enough to fit into one's pocket and avoid detection. One such pistol is the proven Kel-Tec P32. Because that gun fared well in a previous test of pocket pistols (October 2001), we wanted to see how the parent company's slightly larger model in .380 ACP, the Kel-Tec P3AT, fared against the .32. To round out the field, we also tested another .32, this one a pistol from Guardian North American Arms in a proprietary cartridge, the .32NAA.

Naturally, we wanted to find out how reliable these guns were. We also wondered how much difference the round would make in this specific application, and we had questions about concealment and deployment. Is pocket carry safe? Under what conditions would these guns likely prove to be a valuable asset? Would these pistols convince us to buy into the concept of pocket pistols, or would we find too many liabilities for their owners to live with?

Here's what we learned:

The single-action-shooting craze with its cowboy theme is a mix of modern technology and Old West gear. Period wear is required for the shooters, but if you check out the equipment you'll likely discover that even the guns are costume. What goes on the hip may have the appearance of being old iron, but the most popular calibers at these matches were hardly dreamed of when the game was for real. Almost everyone seems to be shooting .38 Special or a light load of .45 Long Colt instead of black powder, or ancients like .41 Smith & Wesson and .45 Colt. So, with the appeal of the cowboy action guns well established, we were not surprised to find more than one manufacturer taking artistic license when it comes to new combinations of frame and caliber. Uberti of Italy has for some time been producing working replicas of American guns of the 19th Century. In this test we try one of the Cattleman series revolvers, a specialized version marketed by Navy Arms called the Deluxe SCW322 and chambered in .32-20, originally a rifle cartridge. We wondered if this round would give our Deluxe an Old World feel. Ruger revolvers are very popular in Cowboy Action circles. But with their improved sights and redesigned loading gate, the Ruger gang of guns has been relegated to the sport's Modern division. However, we did find a Ruger single-action revolver that was fit with more traditional sights and a Bird's Head grip as well. Chambered for .32 H&R Magnum, this gun was not meant to be an authentic reproduction, but we hoped the rest of the gun might give us a unique Western feel. Would these guns prove to be novelties or would they really shoot? Here's what we found:

Though larger rounds have eclipsed some of the .44 Magnum's "Dirty Harry" magic, the cartridge remains near the top of the power curve, especially when day-to-day carry comes into play. The .454s and the .480s and the .475s are simply too much powder and metal to shoot on a daily basis, but .44 Magnum remains manageable, if still high-spirited.

Almost 50 years ago Elmer Keith lobbied manufacturers to produce a beefed-up version of the .44 Special, a round which he had handloaded in Smith & Wesson TripleLocks and Colt Single Actions, among others. His handloads, according to his book Sixguns, pushed 250-grain bullets to 1200 fps in long-barreled revolvers, including Model 1926s and Model 1950s.

It wasn't until S&W and Remington teamed up in 1954 that the .44 Magnum came to life (the ammunition was 1/8-inch longer than the .44 Special so it would not chamber in .44 Special sixguns). Remington agreed to factory-load the rounds if Smith built guns for the cartridge, and toward that end, S&W rechambered four 1950 Target .44 Specials for the new round. In those guns, the new .44 Special Magnum ran at 1500 fps and higher.

Last month we tested two subcompact 9mm pistols that, based on the shared technology of polymer construction and striker-fired actions, were set to compete with the Glock Model 26. This month we take a look at Taurus's .40 S&W Millennium Pro 140SSP, matching it against Glock's subcompact, the GL27. The GL 27 and the Taurus pistols are almost identical to the 9mm handguns we tested previously, and we were particularly interested in how the .40s would stand up against the abuse the stouter S&W round delivers.

In the past, high-cap polymer 9mm semi-auto designs and frames rechambered for.40 S&W have not always shouldered the extra energy load too well. Structural failures sent many manufacturers back to the drawing board. Problems in polymer and steel-framed guns alike included cracked frames and slides and jumbled internal mechanisms.

Besides questions about durability, we also wanted to explore the operational differences between these two pistols. Would shooters be able to use the same techniques to ensure fast, accurate hits, or would the guns be so different that we would be forced to shoot them differently?

Here's what we found when we tested the Glock 27, $641; and the Taurus PT140 Millennium Pro 140SSP, $485, side by side:

In this test we had a chance to shoot two 9mm pistols that take aim at Glock's throne as the most popular polymer pistol. They are the Taurus PT 111 Millennium Pro and the Smith & Wesson SW99 Compact. Actually, we would classify both of these pistols as subcompact due to their overall dimensions, despite the suffix that follows the SW99's name. However, both of these pistols do offer 10+1 capacity and, like the Glock, striker-fired operation. The Millennium Pro is made in Brazil and imported by Taurus. The SW99 is a design that was developed by Walther of Germany and is now a product of a joint operation with Smith & Wesson.

Each pistol tries to one-up the Glock design, and each other, by offering additional safety systems unique to the current slate of available polymer handguns. It didn't take long to find out if either Taurus or Smith & Wesson had come up with a better mousetrap.

Last month's test of double-action revolvers showed two guns that suffered cylinder bind. This round, we encountered no problems whatsoever with the simpler models.