THE INSIDER

American Handgunner Editor Tom McHale shares his go-to guns for concealed carry, including the holsters and optics he pairs them with.

If a 9mm is fine for protection, fine for targeting, fine for matches, fine for training, fine even for small game and fine for reloading — then why not...

In the middle 1970s I saw my first Thompson Center Contender in a local gun store. It was unusual, being a single shot, break open, external hammer gun but...

A .500 S&W Magnum can handle 50,000 PSI, for instance. A .357 Magnum can safely handle 35,000 PSI, while the friendly .38 Special peaks at 18,000 PSI. The...

After finally finding a newer TC Encore in .308, I snapped it up, looking forward to testing it in my backyard range. I scoped it with a Crimson Trace rifle...

About 40-odd years ago, I read an article by Skeeter Skelton where he mentioned MMC had made a tiny adjustable rear sight for his Walther PPK .22. But alas,...

American Handgunner, GUNS Magazine have been pulled off newsstands across the country by anti-gun retail chain store management.

To forget our past is to be ignorant of what’s transpiring now. We see things happening around us but we often miss the foundation.

When Springfield Armory introduced their SR-35 late in 2020 you’d have thought it was the second coming of something. Well, I guess it was actually....

Behold — the revolver. It appears I have peers among you who also suffer — perhaps not quite the right word, there — from an affliction I...

The old 1917 revolvers were dusted off yet the numbers were still far short. Smith & Wesson responded with a “Hand Ejector” .38 S&W Special revolver to...

What's the “funny three-tined spring thingy” in the 1911 grip? That’s the sear spring, so hang onto your seat and here we go for a simple explanation...

The “Buds” as they were fondly called, had all the features and benefits of something like a bigger S&W auto of the time, but were shrunk for shirt...

In 1894 S&W craftsmen-artists introduced the “Hand-Ejector” series of revolvers, assuring their places in wheelgun history.

There are no magic bullets and all bullets fail some of the time, so you need to be able to place any bullets you fire as accurately as possible.

I’ve got guns with warts on them. Nicks, a bit of rust, plating flaking off, signs of bad gunsmithing in the past or just plain honest wear — warts-all.

I’d always considered myself an amateur shooter — basically a gun-crank, as we used to be called — until one day in about the middle of my police career.

We are a burly, larger-than-life, muscle-bound country. America is populated with the off-spring of adventurers and the fearless people who took a leap of...

In light of all the “retro-this” and “retro-that” it suddenly dawned on me I was a “retro” myself. And, as a matter of fact, so are most of the...

A disconnector in a 1911 is a vertical bit of magic connected to the fire control system (hammer, sear, spring, etc.), moving up and down depending upon...

If we don’t take the time to build the foundation today, it will all die, now, with us. Don’t let it die. Take pre-emptive strikes. Reach out to new...

When the Colt Automatic Pistol, Pocket Model, Hammerless was introduced in Browning’s own .32 ACP cartridge in, oddly enough, 1903, America and the world...

Reader Alex Vrenios sent us a note asking to explain revolver “timing” as he recently had a problem with one of his revolvers having to do with that...

I honestly, really, completely wanted to dislike this gun. I mean, just look at it. It’s everything silly you can think up. It looks like a hose nozzle...

"Hey, um … uh … you’re talkin’ about a wood plane on a, um, you know, uh, like a gun website, you know?”

Amos lifted his welding helmet after working on a gouged side plate on a S&W revolver. Scout was always interested when Amos was TIG welding and although he...

Yeah, I know, we all have one or more of them, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In experienced hands — and I mean near-expert hands — they are...

If you read my Insider about putting a classic “Old West” patina on new guns, here’s a bunch of extra photos I had from the process.

It’s funny, but to many people — including me — a “cowboy” gun just doesn’t look right unless it has a certain patina.

This all started typically for me. I walked into a gun store on University Avenue in San Diego about 1980 and there, staring at me from the display case,