Gun Digest December 2021

Well, this is the December issue, so please join me on the front porch to flip 2021 the bird as it drives on down the road. To be fair, it’s noteworthy that not every day on this year’s calendar was a bad one. Heck, I was never forced into a situation where I needed to rely on my CCW pistol, so I suppose that alone is enough to give the past 12 months at least a little credit. Still, I ain’t gonna miss it one bit. Most frustrating, of course, is the ongoing and collective “supply chain issues” that seem to kick every facet of American life in the shin these days. In the name of positivity, I’ve had enough toilet paper to get me by quite comfortably … and enough fuel to…

HISTORICAL NOTES Introduced in 2004 as a joint Hornady-Ruger project for varmint and target shooting, the .204 Ruger became the first .20-caliber cartridge to be produced on a large commercial scale. Remarkably, it also offers excellent barrel life. After shooting approximately 500 prairie dogs with the Ruger and Dakota rifles chambered for the .204 Ruger, a former contributing editor to this book found it to be an accurate, low-recoil round, superbly suited for long-range varminting. The .204 Ruger received the Academy of Excellence 2004 Cartridge of the Year Award. GENERAL COMMENTS The .204 Ruger uses the 47mm-long .222 Remington Magnum as its parent case, necking it down to accept .204 bullets and changing the shoulder angle to 30 degrees. It performs best with 26-inch barrels using a 1:12 rifling twist. The cartridge is available in…

Presbyopia sucks. I’ve written about presbyopia in these pages before, and how I had the prescription for my shooting glasses custom tailored to allow me to see the handgun’s sights and the target with near equal focus. In case you don’t know, presbyopia is the loss of your eyes’ ability to focus on nearby objects. It’s a natural and annoying part of aging and usually becomes noticeable in your early 40s. For shooters, the first sign of presbyopia is the inability to focus on handgun sights. Prescription shooting glasses are an obvious and common solution to presbyopia. The problem is, at least from a self-defense standpoint, that for glasses to help you see your sights you must have them on. If you must hastily respond to a bump in the night,…

It used to be hard to get a good 1911 trigger. Then, in the 1980s, it got a lot easier. And in the early 1990s, it got even easier. Now, it’s dead simple. We used to stone parts. Then, we bought better parts. Later, we bought the best. Now, we don’t even have to time the parts. Enter Nighthawk’s Drop-In Trigger System (DTS). They took the packet trigger idea and perfected it for the 1911. The idea is simple: The relationship of the hammer and sear to each other depends in no small part on the locations of the hammer and sear holes in the frame. If they’re off by a few thousandths or crooked to each other, your sear and hammer engagement won’t be what you think it is. That’s where we…

The Mossberg 590 was already an improvement upon the classic and well-proven Mossberg 500. With a redesigned magazine tube, the 590 was easier to maintain and modify than its predecessor, but it still typically had trouble reliably feeding 12-gauge mini shells. Now, in the biggest update the 590 line has seen since the release of the Shockwave, the new Mossberg 590S will eat any flavor of 12-gauge you can feed it. Available in four configurations, the Mossberg 590S is a direct upgrade over previous generations and features a distinct new capability that opens up a lot of doors. THE CHANGES If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Mossberg appears to have agreed with this principle of design while reworking the 590, as most of its wellproven design remained the same in the new…

I recently read of a case where an armed citizen observed a police officer in a fight with another individual, with the officer being in grave danger of being severely injured or killed. According to the article, the officer was on his back being pummeled by his attacker when the armed citizen intervened, and the officer told the armed citizen to shoot him. That was accomplished. The individual attacking the officer was killed, and recently, a Florida grand jury declined to prosecute the armed citizen. It’s this type of incident that, while rare, does happen, and the responsible armed citizen should know how to handle it. READING THE SITUATION First off, understand that assaulting a police officer is always a crime. So, if you come across a fight between a uniformed officer and…