Handguns

Also, we loved Colt's Gunsite CCO, but it had what we thought was a fatal flaw, and S&W's SW1911 Sc may not go bang.

The new Taurus 24/7 is a great combat gun, and we liked Ruger's P345, but the person shooting the Taurus PT 945 must have big hands to get the right shooting grip.

You can't go wrong with the sexy Italian $875 Beretta Cougar Inox or the all-American $940 S&W 4013TSW. But our first pick is the slightly larger $758 Beretta 96 Vertec.

We thought Ruger's New Vaquero had teething problems, but we liked Beretta's Stampede. In our estimation, Cabela's Millennium still sets the value standard for .45 LC handguns.

Though the $2,000 STI Target Master was Our Pick, it cost twice as much as the Springfield Long Slide 6-inch .45, which we rated as a Best Buy despite some hiccups.

The Five Seven pistol is lightweight and accurate, and we like it, though it shoots the small 5.7x28mm cartridge. For rifle-accuracy upgrades, check out Don Bower's handiwork.

The guns in this test — Smith & Wesson's .45 ACP 325PD and .357 Magnum 327, and the Taurus .41 Magnum 451 — all have problems that would make us think twice before buying them.

One of the oldest and most concealable ways to carry a handgun is to use a bellyband, a close-fitting elastic band that hugs the body and includes one or more holster pockets. This type of concealment could be called "deep carry," since the pistol is located in a place where it's not expected. But to work as a deep-carry gun in a bellyband, the gun needs to be flat and light weight.

We recently tested three pistols we believe are suitable for this type of concealed carry: the Kahr TP9, $676; Kel-Tec's P11, $368; and the Smith & Wesson 908S, $603. In this specialized test, we compared the guns on reliability and other factors in our normal tests, but we particularly examined their lack of edges, assessed their speed of deployment from deep cover, and looked at their operation when only one hand was available. Here's what we found:

We review three high-end .45s from a single maker — Les Baer — asking, "Which model offers the most bang for the buck?" In this case, less is plenty.

We pit the STI Lawman and Springfield's ‘Loaded' pistols against the polymer-bodied Glock to see how they match up.

The $250 Taurus M605B and the $250 Rossi R46102 revolvers set the price point bottom for .357 Magnum service. The $225 Comanche isn't worth the savings, in our estimation.