Gun Review – The Rossi Brawler

Cheap, silly guns will always be my favorite firearms genre. Sure, sometimes they don’t work all that well, and other times they aren’t all that useful. When they work, they tend to be a fun way to turn money into noise. One of the latest to cross my path was the $200 Rossi Brawler. Taurus … Read more

Gun Review: Charles Daly AR 410 Upper Receiver

You gotta love the AR-15 as a platform. Even if it can be a bit of a bore in terms of everyone making one, it’s such an adaptable, flexible, and ever-evolving platform. It’s one of the few designs I can actually call a platform without feeling a little cringey. That’s mainly because it can be … Read more

Gun Review: Henry Lever Action Axe .410

If you are the type who doesn’t take every gun purchase seriously, then the Henry Axe .410 might just be for you. This isn’t a terribly practical or necessarily useful gun for most people, but man is it fun. The Henry Lever Action Axe .410 isn’t really a shotgun. It’s a firearm — technically a … Read more

Gun Review: The Puma Camper Multi-Gauge Shotgun

Impulse buying guns isn’t easy to do with the price most go for. Even “cheap” guns rarely offer enough value for an impulse purchase. However, sometimes a low price and a lot of value gets me in trouble. For example, that time I ran across the Puma Camper. The Puma Camper — also sometimes advertised … Read more

Growing Up (Mostly) Gun-less


I am a child of Television. It’s true. Most kids first words are “Mama!” or “Da-da!” Mine was “Popeye.” I am not making this up. I grew up on a steady diet not of ABCs and phonics, but of ABC, NBC, and CBS. I watched everything from Captain Kangaroo and Kukla, Fran and Ollie, to Eliot Ness and Matt Dillon. As such, I was intimately acquainted with guns. Six guns. Shotguns. Lever action carbines. Tommy guns. You name it, and I saw it on TV. And of course, growing up in the 1960s, guns were a regular part of my play. I had that Mattel belt buckle with a derringer in it, where if I pushed out my stomach, I could flip it out and fire it at the bad guys. I had a Mattel M-16 Marauder (a.k.a. a toy M-16/AR-15). I even had a toy Thompson submachine gun. So riddle me this, Batman: why did it take until I hit my mid-forties, before I bought my first handgun and learned how to shoot?

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Gun Review: S&W Governor (Take Three)

When Smith & Wesson introduced their ‘Governor’ .410/.45 Colt/.45 ACP revolver at the 2011 SHOT show, many gun guys assumed Hell had frozen over. Smith & Wesson imitating Taurus? More specifically, the Taurus Judge, a shotshell revolver widely panned for its dismal accuracy and poor double-action trigger pull. And? As Elvis said, Smith & Wesson … Read more

Here Come de Judge. Again. To the NRA Show.

Taurus is back. No bull. And this time they’ve brought something like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Not-So-Nice-Guy to the party. I don’t know if this piece is a lever-action rifle that want to be a shotgun, or the illegitimate child of an incestuous relationship between a rifle and a shotgun, with a little threesome action from a six-gun. I dunno. I don’t know because the show starts tomorrow, and there was nobody in the Taurus booth. The booth had a caseload of handguns – but only photos of this new FrankenGun. TTAG is on the case, however, and we’ll have details tomorrow. I can tell you that this gun will be to firearms what Certs is to candy. (“It’s a BREATH mint.” “No! It’s a CANDY mint.” “It’s two…two…TWO mints in one!”)

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