Category: Review

I still remember, arriving at Ft. Lewis, WA in the Fall of 1969 and being issued the M-16 for my Infantry School training. It was a real joy to carry that rifle, especially after having carried the M-14, which weighed at 10 ½-lbs, in my Basic Training. The M-16 was only about 5½ lbs, so it was about half the weight of the M-14. There were some flaws in the early M-16, one of which was that the first ones to go to Viet Nam didn’t have chromed barrels, and the barrels themselves were considered “pencil” barrels, because they were …

I think I’ve been getting knife samples from Benchmade for articles about 23 years now, and I’ve toured their factory several times, though I haven’t been up there for a while. So, I’m over due for a visit to see how much they have expanded since my last visit. Les d’Asis, the owner at Benchmade, always seems to find the time to sit down and visit with me, and it has never, ever been a visit that was cut short. Les is “good people”; with no dress shirt and tie, and I’ve mentioned this before about him, he’s a real …

For a lot of years, Gerber knives was a major player in the cutlery field. However, some years back, they fell out of favor with a lot of consumers, and their line-up of knives really shrank quite a bit. Honestly, it’s been at least 15 years or longer since Gerber sent me any knives for articles. I don’t know if it was a change of shifts or powers-that-be, but they stopped sending me knives to write about. That’s okay; there are more than enough knife companies that do send me samples for testing and articles. One of the best fixed …

I did two articles on Ruger firearms. One was on their Mini-14 in .300 Blackout, and the other was on the new Ruger SR-556 Take Down rifle that comes in .223/5/56. In the latter, you can swap out the barrel and convert it to fire .300 Blackout/.300 Whisper ammo, which is a neat idea. I didn’t shoot any heavy, sub-sonic .300 Whisper ammo that Black Hills Ammunition produces, because this ammo is meant for use in guns with a suppressor on them. This isn’t the first time that Jeff Hoffman, at Black Hills Ammunition, asked me to do some testing …

When the first Springfield Armory EMP series of shrunk down 1911s came out, I took a wait and see attitude before requesting a sample for an article on SurvivalBlog.com. I was really impressed with that little gun. It was darn near the perfect packin’ pistol, as my long-time friend and fellow gun writer, John Taffin, has been searching for all his life. The little EMP sample I had was in .40 S&W, and it was a very snappy pistol in the recoil department, very snappy! There wasn’t much I didn’t like about it. Last December, my super-secret contact at Springfield …

There was a lot of ink back in the late 1980s, when the 10mm round became readily available to the public. Colt was the first mainline gun maker to come out with a somewhat affordable 1911 Government-style handgun in 10mm. It was called the Delta Elite. I jumped on getting one, and loved the gun. However, there were only limited types of 10mm ammo available at the time; one was the 200-gr FMJ round, and one was a 155-gr Silvertip round from Winchester. Still, I was extremely impressed with the 10mm. The power level was close to the .41 Magnum …

I’ve been a huge fan of Ruger firearms since 1979, when I bought my first Ruger centerfire rifle in .300 Winchester Mag. Everyone anticipated the first cernterfire semiauto pistol from Ruger in 1985, when it was first announced. Alas, there were problems, and the Ruger P85 didn’t actually come out until 1987. I lived in Colorado Springs, CO at the time and operated a small gun business with a friend out of his gas station as well as gun shows, but we couldn’t get our hands on a P85. One gun shop in the entire city had received one sample, …

I’m a fan of the AR-15 type of rifles. I always have been. So, when some gun makers started coming out with AR-15s that had a gas piston, instead of the direct gas impingement system, I tested several of them. I think we could have a debate all week long as to the merits of the gas piston system versus the direct gas impingement system and we couldn’t change one another’s minds. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the direct gas impingement system, other than your AR really gets dirty, in short order. Yes, I’m aware there were problems with …

I’ve seen it, not a few times and not a hundred times but thousands of times, while in gun shops all over the country. A person will lay down a large sum of money for a high-end firearm of some type and then ask the clerk behind the gun shop counter, “Do you have any cheap magazines for this gun?” Are you kidding me? The same goes when it comes to buying a holster for that new 1911 that cost a guy two grand. He’ll buy a $20 generic nylon holster to go on his ultra-thin dress belt! I just …

Wicked! That’s the word that comes to mind, whenever I think about certain types of knives, especially those designed for self-defense use. Of course, many will associate the word “wicked” with an ex-spouse, and I can certainly understand that! LOL! However, many knives have passed through my hands over the years for articles, perhaps a thousand or more knives. Many, while designed for self-defense, weren’t especially “wicked” looking to my mind. Oh, for sure, you could tell they were what many call “tactical” knives, whatever that means to different people. I’ve been trying to lay claim to a Cold Steel …