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Do you carry with a round in the chamber?

Carrying with a round in the chamber or not was previously always a debate for me and in the shop I hear all kinds of reasons why some do and others don’t. Almost any professional tells you that if you are carrying you might as well have a round in the chamber otherwise you’re less prepared, and missing out on one round of capacity. Depending on what you’re carrying that one round might be a substantial percentage of your capacity!

So why do some carry without one in the chamber? For me it was a simple matter of comfort. Despite logging nearly 1,000 hours of professional instruction and carrying for a few years the thought of accidentally touching off a round during the excitement of the moment frightened me. Fate was kind enough to put me through a few firefights and so I have the advantage of having experienced just how sensitive, and how insensitive we can become to noise, movement, our own finger strength etc while under duress. What if I bump into something, am startled, or some other what if and I end up hurting an innocent and going to jail? The culprit in our mental anguish is the, “what if”. We are carrying because of what ifs in the first place. Perhaps the least rational choice I’ve heard is from those who decide before they leave the house if they need a round chambered for the day or not. I can see that for a small percentage of the population it may make sense to think about the day’s duties and have an inkling as to whether or not they need that round, but for most people I highly doubt it. If we had premonitions that today would be the day to have a round in the chamber but yesterday wasn’t then we’d also likely be able to just avoid the situation in the first place.

It’s not outlandish to simply practice so that racking the slide is a part of your presentation, but it is outlandish to think that doesn’t slow you down some. This conundrum was always with me until recently. After our Zastava trip I came to really like the idea of a decocker. Zastava of course essentially copied Sig Sauer’s P229 and then added in some of their own features, but regardless it’s a great gun. Load the pistol, chamber a round, and decock so that you now have a round in the chamber, but a long, heavy double action first trigger pull that is not easy to accidentally fire. Sequential shots are short and light single-action.

Enter the Walther P99. Unlike many other striker-fired guns the Walther P99 (and the Turkish copy Canik TP9) can be decocked and recocked like a traditional DA/SA hammer-fired gun. This provides the user with the modern niceties of a polymer striker fire without the Glock-style “Safe Action” trigger or an obtrusive external safety. I realize that this is a “six of one, half-dozen of another” argument, but for me it was the argument that finally made me comfortable carrying with a round in the chamber. I’d love to hear from you, the reader, as to how you carry and what your rationale is.

My review of the ingenious P99AS can be seen below. How America missed out on this gun is a wonder to me. The design is nearly twenty years old at this point and yet the concept blows the mind of many as if it’s a futuristic design.

Photos by Author: Graham Baates

First Look: S&W Performance Center SW1911 Pro Series 9mm

S&W Walks the Line Between Competition and Basic with the Pro Series.

The Smith & Wesson Performance Center SW1911 Pro Series 9mm has a long tittle and for good reason. This is not just another 1911. In fact, it’s changed what I expect from a 1911 in terms of fit and finish. We’ll call it the SWPCSW1911PS9 for, “short”.

The Pro Series line is meant to bridge the gap between an all-out competition-style Performance Center gun and a standard production model. You may be inclined to ask why, but to me it makes perfect sense. A full-out competition gun is considered by many (yours truly included) to be inappropriate for daily carry. The SWPCSW1911PS9 is a 9mm with a 3″ barrel. It’s meant for carry. So why not include some nice features and tune it up to a gentleman’s gun while retaining a reasonable trigger weight?

That’s exactly what Smith & Wesson did. Beyond having some nice features, the fit and finish of the gun are impressive. This is not a budget gun in price or quality. Take a look at the video below and see for yourself.

Specifications are taken directly from the product webpage:

Features
• Oversized external extractor
• 3-hole curved trigger with overtravel stop
• Full length guide rod
• Round butt frame
• Grip safety
• Ambidextrous Thumb Safety

Specifications

Weight: 26.2 oz / 742.8g
Caliber: 9mm
Capacity: 8+1
Barrel Material: Stainless Steel

So why would anyone want a gun with the same capacity of a Shield but weighs 8oz more? Because reasons! We have so many handgun options because everyone has their own taste, needs, and preferences. Perhaps you’re looking for more class than plastic offers, or you’re just a 1911 fan. The reasons are personal and Smith & Wesson is offering an option.

I’ll get this little guy out to the range soon and conduct our standard battery of tests including the full-mag +1, “What’s for Dinner?,” and field accuracy. I have high hopes for the SWPCSW1911PS9 and am looking forward to this blend of production line and Performance Center S&W is calling Pro Series.

Guns In Movies: Beretta 92FS

Today, let’s take a closer look at the ubiquitous Beretta 92FS pistol.

History

Beretta first produced the 92 series pistols in 1976. However, the original 92 pistol design didn’t stay unchanged long. The same year, Beretta swapped the frame-mounted safety for a slide-mounted safety/de-cocker and called it the 92S. In 1981, Beretta made the safety/de-cocker ambidextrous, added a firing pin block, and moved the location of the magazine release to just under the trigger guard, changing the designation to 92SB. From the 92SB, in 1984, Beretta reshaped the trigger guard, chrome plated the chamber and barrel bore, and began using their proprietary no-glare Bruniton™ finish (replacing the original blued finish). This was the model submitted for the military testing, designated as the 92F. Although the tests that resulted in the Beretta 92 FS replacing the M1911 A1 as the standard issue sidearm for [most of] the US Military took place nearly thirty years ago, there is still much debate in the firearms enthusiast community over whether or not that was an appropriate decision. Initially, there were some reports of the pistol’s slide flying backward off its frame, only to smash into the face of the shooter. To address this, Beretta enlarged the hammer pin head (to prevent the slide from separating from the frame, even if it broke). This model, developed in 1989 is what we know today as the 92FS, designated in the military as the M9 (or M9 A1, for the models including a rail, aggressive backstrap checkering, and PVD coated magazines).

Specs

Caliber: 9x19mm

Capacity: 15+1

Weight: approx. 2.1 lbs.

Frame material: aluminum alloy (the INOX models feature stainless steel frames)

Slide material: steel

Barrel length: 5.0 inches

Price range: $600-$775

Where You’ve Seen It

Just about everywhere. There is a huge laundry list of movies, television shows, and video games that feature this iconic handgun. Some of the most notable films featuring the Beretta 92FS include Die Hard (it’s John McClane’s—played by Bruce Willis, sidearm in all 4 films), Lethal Weapon (Mel Gibson, as Det. Martin Riggs, totes it for the original and its two sequels), Terminator 2 and 3 (carried by the T-1000, played by Robert Patrick in 2, and by the T-X, played by Kristanna Loken in 3), Boondock Saints (both MacManus brothers, and their partner, Rocco wield 92FS pistols, as played by Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus, and David Della Rocco) and countless others.

You may have noticed the 92FS in one of your favorite television shows over the years as well. It’s made appearances in The Sopranos, Monk, Lost, Supernatural, and the Walking Dead (yep, that’s what Andrea carries). The Beretta 92FS, and its military counterpart, the M9, are also often featured in video games. A few of my favorite examples are Battlefield (2, 3, and 4), Max Payne (original and Max Payne 2), Splinter Cell (Conviction, Double Agent, and Chaos Theory), and the Resident Evil series.

There are plenty other games, movies, and tv shows where this popular Beretta crops up. What are some of your favorites that weren’t mentioned here?

by Destinee

Destinee is also a vlogger. She publishes videos on weapons, gear, and fitness on her YouTube channel every Tuesday and Thursday.

First Look: Regent CC45 Compact 1911

LKCI, LLC’s Regent CC45 brings the Commander-sized 1911 to the enlisted man’s budget.

Not long ago Zenith imported a batch of great, affordable 1911s made by Tisas. Unfortunately just as popularity seemed to be growing Zenith dropped their handgun line to focus on their roller-locker H&K clones. This left fans of the Tisas 1911s without a source. LKCI, LLC in Ohio has resolved that. They brought back not just some of the favorites, but also some new models like the Regent CC45.

Not wanting to just repeat the previous offerings, LKCI has mandated some changes in features. Most notably is an improvement in the machining quality and finish. The Regent CC45 comes with a nice rich Cerakote finish to it that not only looks great, but promises to protect the gun through years of hard use. In the case of the Regent CC45 this could easily mean sweat and holster time for those looking for a Commander-style 1911.

If you’d like to get a feel for the gun by the numbers specifications below are taken directly from the product page.

ACTION TYPE SEMI-AUTO
CALIBER .45 ACP
BARREL LENGTH 127.5mm / 4″
HEIGHT 135mm / 5.35″
TRIGGER PULL 3000gr / 105 oz
TRIGGER SA
CAPACITY 8RD
LENGTH 219mm / 7.6″
WIDTH 35mm / 1.37″
WEIGHT(WITHOUT MAG)- 1010mm / 34 oz

When I first tried a Tisas 1911 I was impressed with the feature that come standard at such an low price. What I didn’t care for much was the trigger. Fortunately after-market parts can fix that easily. I used a kit from Cylinder and Slide and had great results. A nice thing about a handgun model being around for more than 100 years is that there are plenty of options. All you need is a good set of bones and Tisas provides that.

If you’ve been looking to expand your collection, or wanted to experiment with tuning a 1911 LKCI, LLC offers some great options at affordable pricing. Sure the grips are plastic, but with companies like Alumagrips offering custom-made beauties like these there’s no excuse for your 1911 to wear grips you don’t like.

Which Handgun to Buy? How Will You Use It?

As a firearms trainer, one of the most frequent conversations I have with new shooters is some version of, “Which gun should I buy?” The question typically comes from responsible citizens, new or inexperienced in carrying firearms or owning one for home defense

I like to start by asking, “Where did you hear about out training and why are you here?” The answers about why they came to a class are usually thoughtful, with the decision to get a gun made after calm reflection. No one has shared any particularly dramatic reason, though that might be something elected not to reveal.

The most common reason: She says, “My husband has a gun, and having it in the house when I know nothing about it makes me nervous.” Second most common: He says, “I’ve had this pistol for a long time, and I have a carry permit, but I don’t feel like I know enough to be carrying it around.”

Many have not bought a handgun yet. They seek more information and experience, wanting to be an informed consumer. After a day of classroom and shooting and trying a variety of sizes of handgun, they leave far better informed.

A big part of being informed comes after reflection on what they plan to use their weapon for. Home defense only? Concealed carry? Leaving aside for a moment the legal requirements to achieve some of those reasons, each possibility will likely come with a different “this might be the best type of pistol to accomplish that” answer.

Home defense only? A full-sized pistol, one that feels good in the hand and is of a caliber with a recoil you have confidence in using. Higher capacity, so you are not likely going to need to carry a spare magazine in your other hand as you pad around the house in your pajamas in the middle of the night. A light rail is also a good option, allowing you to attach a white light option for that “bump in the night.” (Using a handheld or weapon mounted light on a handgun ought to compel you to further your training.)

Concealed in your car or truck? Similar to a home defense handgun, a full-sized handgun choice might be made for similar reasons. Or, given that the interior of a car may offer smaller places to keep a firearm handy, yet out of sight, a compact may be the best option. The compacts today have pretty good ammunition capacity and indeed are small enough to put in a small glovebox or center console, even inside the storage/cup holder spaces inside the driver door.

Concealed in your purse? Similar situation as the two options mentioned above, depending on the “cargo capacity” of the purse selected. As the man half of this venture, I won’t pretend to be conversant on this subject, but I will say that whatever handbag you carry, nothing but the concealed weapon should be in whatever compartment or pocket you choose to secret it in. Far too much can go wrong if other loose items work their way into the trigger guard of a handgun in a purse. Not to mention the purse being a frequent target of a thief who, taking that item, also now has your firearm.

Concealed on your person? This is where it gets fun. Summer? Maybe a sub-compact or small snub-nosed revolver that, despite limited ammo capacity, is easy to hide when dressed in board shorts and a t-shirt. Easy to carry a small spare magazine or speed strip of revolver ammo in your pocket.

Winter? Given that you will likely be wearing more clothing, like pull overs, sweaters, and jackets, a larger handgun again becomes a good choice. Easier to hide this time of year, with an ammo capacity that gives you more options until you can get out of there or help arrives. A critical factor here is accessibility, given that you are likely concealing the handgun under more layers. (Accessing your firearm while concealed is another progression in your training. Seek competent coaching and practice it dry!)

Spring and Fall can fall into either of the other two seasons and the choice of a defensive firearm. The fashions of the year will factor into these decisions. If only one handgun is in your budget, compromise between the various jobs you intend to have a firearm for, and dress around it.

Or,you can just buy a different pistol for every occasion and season. You know you want to.

Ron Flowers is a veteran of the US Navy Reserve, the US Merchant Marine and is a retired lieutenant of the Allentown (Pa) Police, and former LEP (Law Enforcement Professional) contractor in Operation Enduring Freedom. Ron owns Citizens Defense Training LLC (www.citizensdt.com) and trains vetted civilians, as well as providing training to small police departments with municipal police state training commission approved classes. He also serves the NRA Law Enforcement Division as an Adjunct Instructor. He can be reached at [email protected].

Photos courtesy of the author.

Browning’s M1911: Facts, Myths, and Legends

In the arena of handguns, no gun enjoys as great of a mystique or quite so strong a passion as John Moses Browning’s M1911. Truly, this pistol is one of the first mass-produced handgun styles that brought the idea of field maintenance and shootability to the end user in quite this way.

Previous examples of semi-automatic pistols up to that point all were complex, difficult to service, and bulky. With the M1911, Colt and John Browning brought a big bore cartridge to an automatic pistol, and it forever changed the thinking on handguns.

A Century of Change

When the Army first adopted this sidearm, it was a true sidearm. It was intended to be a backup if your main gun went down and you had to defend yourself at fairly close ranges. For that reason, the gun never had to be that accurate or tight, but it did have to run. And in that regard, the gun performed very well, and worked as it was expected to.

After the war, with a surplus of these guns and a popularity among vets returning home, custom gunsmiths grew up around the aftermarket to begin building these guns into more accurate, tighter , match-grade pistols. By refitting parts and machining parts that were oversized, adding metal here and there to beef it up and recut the frame rails and this piece or that, the gun found a niche in bullseye shooting in a big way. There really weren’t very many options other than this platform, and for that reason, it was the main focus.

By the time the 1980s rolled around, Colt’s Manufacturing wasn’t what it used to be. The guns it turned out were not built as well as they had been 40 years prior, with poor QC, poor fitting, and poor machining techniques. It was at this time more than ever that the 1911 earned a reputation of unreliability and needing a gunsmith tuneup to be the rule rather than the exception.

This was also the time when the patent on the gun ran out.

Gunsmiths turning a tidy profit taking colt guns and rebuilding them for competition or reliability got into the business of producing guns commercially, building pistols commercially with many of the changes that shooters wanted. And, from there, the knockoffs grew and grew and grew.

It’s a Platform, Not A Brand

Fast Forward to the modern age of the 1911. Today there are over 50 manufacturers who all make some version of the 1911.

When this gun was built to military contract specs, it worked because every company making the gun used the same set of details and blueprints, but without that military contract, no manufacturer is held to a certain set of specs. They’re not originals, by the true sense of the word, but each are made to the same basic design spec. This is why a 1911 from Kimber looks the same as a 1911 from Springfield and Ed Brown and Remington and so forth.

However, the devil is in the details here. Many people who malign or even pick up and regurgitate the hate about the platform do so for this simple reason. Like any other similar-but-different item on the market, no two manufacturers agree exactly on how to make this gun. Pin placement, part dimensions, clearances, tolerances, all of these basic details change from brand to brand.

Because of these variations, parts that would otherwise drop in are forced to be made oversized and fitted, as what is too big to work in one brand is undersized in another. Ask any gunsmith about “Drop in” parts, and they’ll explain the same thing.

Setting Expectations

Another factor that works against this platform is shooter expectations. A shooter goes to the store, picks up a glock, and looks it over. It’s fairly rough in its action, it rattles on its slide, it has a fairly rough trigger, but they understand that the gun is durable and reliable and so they are impressed that it’s built for reliability.

Bad 1911 Gunsmithing and Self Installs — Bad Gunsmithing and Self Installs can go horribly, horribly wrong

That same shooter comes in to look at a 1911 after hearing all sorts of stories about this legendary pistol and picks up one of the lower-priced models, and feels the rattle, feels the grit in the trigger, and then compares it to a high-dollar 1911 with more fitting, which is tight, smooth, and pristine. Something must be wrong with that lower-priced gun, it’s fitting isn’t perfect and it’s loose!

Because of the 1911’s popularity with accuracy smiths and the reputation of the gun for being “match grade” and the associated marketing of what the 1911 should be, many people who aren’t gun people assume that a 1911 that isn’t tight, perfectly fit, with light, smooth triggers are broken somehow, or are somehow bad. When the gun doesn’t shoot tiny groups, regardless of what they do, that’s a black mark against the pistol, since they don’t differentiate the brand from the platform.

Another expectation for the platform that many new shooters fall prey to is that they can endlessly modify their gun without issue, or use just any parts or magazines. AR shooters, and even Glock shooters these days, know that not every aftermarket part and mag are made equal. Some work, some don’t, and the quality varies from company to company. So our new shooter has spent some money on aftermarket parts and pieces, and find out that their gun suddenly has an issue. Because our shooter has heard that 1911s can be unreliable, it’s an issue with the gun. It must be.

But It Takes Work, Man!

Larry Vickers, the undisputed master smith of the 1911, combat pistol instructor, and former Delta operator, has often said that if you treat your gun like you treat your lawn mower, don’t buy a 1911. There’s nothing wrong with that advice, and in fact, even as a 1911 fan, I agree to a point. Most 1911s don’t take kindly to being left in salt water or shot and forgotten about without a little love. It’s not a gun you shoot then toss in a bag and never have to touch. However, the image that it’s a gun that won’t make it even 1,000 rounds without issues, is false. The key to reliability is to first find and verify a reliable pistol. ANY maker can make a lemon, and the worst thing you can do is to pick up a gun and assume it works. It’s a machine. It is subject to errors or manufacturing defects the same as any other machine. And you as the shooter have the responsibility to first verify that this gun will run without a problem over the course of about 500 rounds. That’s just basic common sense.

Once you’ve got a gun that runs, you as a user have to make sure that you’re doing the maintenance on the gun. Checking parts that wear like springs and extractors and other such parts is par for the course. Giving the gun a little lube occasionally is also on the list. Most good 1911s will run even if you’re just doing the basics, just like an AR or any other gun. But you have to do your part.

A Serious Pistol

Springfield proved this when they built the Professional model for the FBI’s HRT, the go-to gun for not only the HRT teams but also other law enforcement agents who want this platform. To be chosen, the gun had to run for 20,000 rounds without a loss of accuracy or a failure. The Pro did that. Even the Marine Corps runs 1911s for some of its units, with great success. Even Chris Kyle, in his recent biography, talks about choosing and carrying a TRP from Springfield as his primary sidearm as a SEAL. The gun still serves a serious role for high-end shooters.

Modern iterations of the 1911 are available for every taste. Need more rounds? STI can hook you up with a 1911 pistol that takes 18+ rounds of 9mm. Need lots of .45 ACP? STI and many others have 1911s that can take 15+ rounds of it. And with the right magazines, the 1911 will match most modern polymer guns in .45 ACP at 10+1 rounds.

1911s are even starting to come from the factory set up to run with suppressors and other accessories, adding to the platform’s capabilities.

Bottom Line

Rocking 15+1 in .45 ACP, this gun brings the 1911 in to the Hi Cap world

The 1911 isn’t for everyone, and any shooter who takes seriously his job as a shooter should seriously evaluate the tools he uses to make sure they meet his needs.

The platform has its own baggage, as you might expect for anything that’s gone through a century of change and diversification, and that baggage will be too much for some who want to shoot, but aren’t interested in the nuances of the tools they shoot with.

However, don’t count out this platform as a serious worker. It has a lot of benefits to it, too, but it will require you as a shooter to put in time and effort to learn to use it right.