Combat Handguns September/October 2020

When the coronavirus pandemic locked down America in the spring of 2020, many states wisely declared gun shops to be “essential” businesses under the umbrella of safety and security. But that didn’t prevent many lesser officials from ordering local gun dealers to close, triggering lawsuits from the Second Amendment Foundation and others. That said, even if the shops were open, some states require waiting periods. In 2018, a RAND report stated, “A few jurisdictions impose a waiting period to purchase a firearm. For example, California and the District of Columbia require a 10-day waiting period before buyers take possession of a new firearm. In Hawaii, buyers must wait 14 days to receive a permit to purchase a firearm. Other states impose waiting periods only for handguns or only for handguns…

Lena Miculek has been hitting the range and attending shooting competitions since she was three months old. But considering that she’s the daughter of legendary shooters Jerry Miculek and Kay Clark-Miculek, this isn’t much of a surprise. Shooting is very much a part of her DNA, and she competed in her first event, the Sportsman’s Team Challenge, at just 8 years old. Not quite big enough for a shotgun at the time, Lena competed with a .22 LR rifle and pistol, winning what she describes as “a big giant medal” for being the youngest competitor, which wasn’t an actual category. Due to Lena’s passion for competition, they later added a new “sub junior” category for her and others her age. It seems Lena was already making an impact at 8…

New technology. Refined. The ultimate. These are all marketing catchphrases we’ve come to expect in the gun world. I totally get it, and I’m very happy whenever the new product actually lives up to the hype. But one word is usually a buzzkill for me: modular. Whenever that pops up, I roll my eyes and shake my head. It’s not that I don’t think it exists—it’s just that it never seems to be done well. One of the challenges with modularity is that it all starts out with good intentions, then cascades into a void of nonessential possibilities and options that won’t necessarily improve the shooter’s experience. It creates a flood of options and parts but complicates things with no clear advantages of one over the other. That might not…

Back in the early 1990s, I remember checking out the Magnum Research Baby Eagle, a sharp-looking piece in stainless steel. Unfortunately, it had a doubleaction first shot, and as a devotee of single-action pistols, I ending up passing on the gun after trying it. The forerunner of the pistol was first imported by KBI of Pennsylvania, then by Mossberg as the Uzi Eagle. Magnum Research then began marketing it as the Baby Eagle (some were even marked “Desert Eagle Pistol”). More recently, IWI US began importing both steel- and polymer-framed versions as the Jericho 941 in 2015. NEXT-GEN STYLING Based on the CZ 75, the Jericho 941 was named after its original chamberings: the 9mm and .41 Action Express. Eventually, the .40 S&W pushed the .41AE out of the market,…

I’ve always felt that Glocks are like hammers—they’re useful tools that come in enough sizes, shapes and weights (calibers) to get the job done. I shoot thousands of rounds of pistol ammo every year, but I wasn’t really bitten by the Glock bug until I got a chance to build a clone gun. A few years ago, I hired a former Marine as a book editor for a small publishing company. He spent more than his share of time in Iraq hunting for bad guys. Since we were publishing gun books, we had a lot of time to discuss a broad array of gun-related topics and pulled triggers every chance we could. Ryan was a big Glock fan and told me that the first thing he did when he got…

SURE, WE ALL KNOW THAT GLOCKS are super-reliable pistols. But if you’ve ever used one straight out of the box, you also know that they’re a bit lacking in certain areas. Thankfully, a few companies have picked up where Glock left off, and the biggest has to be Zev Technologies of Centralia, Washington, which truly perfected the platform by listening to what shooters actually want. Then Zev turned heads by introducing the “Original Zev 9mm,” or O.Z-9, series. With this modular, striker-fired platform, you can take one fire control unit and pair it with different frames, barrels and slides, creating entirely new pistols. You can also start with different base models, like the O.Z-9 Compact and O.Z-9 Covert. But one model that’s really burning up the ranges is the O.Z-9…