Medal of Honor: Edward G Wilkin
Corporal Wilkin spearheaded his unit's assault of the Siegfried line in Germany. Heavy fire from enemy riflemen and camouflaged pillboxes had pinned down his comrades when he moved forward on his own initiative to reconnoiter a route of advance. He cleared the way into an area studded with pillboxes, where he repeatedly stood up and walked into vicious enemy fire, storming one fortification after another with automatic rifle fire and grenades, killing enemy troops, taking prisoners as the enemy defense became confused, and encouraging his comrades by his heroic example. When halted by heavy barbed wire entanglements, he secured bangalore torpedoes and blasted a path toward still more pillboxes, all the time braving bursting grenades and mortar shells and direct rifle and automatic-weapon fire. He engaged in fierce firefights, standing in the open while his adversaries fought from the protection of concrete emplacements, and on one occasion pursued enemy soldiers across an open field and through interlocking trenches, disregarding the crossfire from two pillboxes until he had penetrated the formidable line 200 yards in advance of any American element.
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Colt’s Cloverleaf – The House Pistol
The Colt Cloverleaf revolver was the first Colt revolver designed specifically for metallic cartridges, making them a quintessential addition to any Colt collection. Besides the handy ejector rod, it is also noteworthy to Colt collectors or students of handgun design that the Cloverleaf was the first incorporation of the countersunk or recessed cylinder breech.
This small recess where shells were loaded allowed the rim of the cartridges to sit flush with the surface of the cylinder. Much like the cylinder pin, this innovation was also promptly shelved by Colt and not to be seen again until the following century when it was marketed as the "embedded head cylinder." Smith & Wesson wouldn't commonly use this feature until the 1930's with the advent of their .357 magnum (Smith & Wesson's Straight Line single shot technically first used this in 1925).
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Springfield’s New A-CUT Echelons with Pre-Mounted Aimpoint COA Red Dots
The front of the optic with the new mounting system dovetails into a matching cut on the slide and the rear sight clamps the optic firmly in place. The A-CUT is one of the strongest, most robust mounting systems to come along in years. Why talk about a 2025 optic in 2026? Because Aimpoint’s COA was exclusive to GLOCK until SHOT Show 2026 when Springfield Armory became the first non-GLOCK Aimpoint partner to adopt the COA A-CUT mounting system. Springfield will now offer the Echelon 4.5F, Echelon 4.0FC, and Echelon 4.0C with the A-CUT, each shipped with an Aimpoint COA included.
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Which Medium-Frame .22 Revolver Is Best? A 5-Gun Comparison
What are these guns actually for and why do they cost so much? We’re used to semi-auto .22s being cheaper than centerfire pistols because they’re mechanically simpler and use fewer expensive materials.
Double-action .22 revolvers are different. They’re essentially the same as their centerfire counterparts but with smaller holes. In some cases, they require more machining, and they’re usually produced in smaller quantities. So, if you’re comparing otherwise identical models, the rimfire version will typically cost about the same, or sometimes even more.
So why spend $1,000 on a medium-frame .22 revolver if they’re not ideal for self-defense? For a lightweight kit gun, a small-frame .22 usually makes more sense and for a dedicated target gun, semi-auto .22s are generally more accurate. There are two main reasons to own one of these. First, they’re outstanding training tools. You don’t need a centerfire revolver to get the training benefits that come from mastering a double-action trigger.
Second and perhaps more important--they’re just fun. These guns have the weight, balance, and mechanical feel of a centerfire revolver, without the noise, recoil, or ammunition cost. Unlike a lot of semi-auto .22s, they feel like serious guns instead of range toys.
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Marking and Numbering Magazines
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I was asked by a magazine editor what sort of sidearm I would suggest for "the elderly." This caught me somewhat aslant, since I am pretty elderly myself and I do not feel a need for a firearm especially attuned to my aged condition. For one who has handled firearms since early adolescence, as most of us have, it is hard to discern any age differentiation when it comes to shooting. Certainly eyesight tends to degenerate with the advancing years, but as long as one can see at all he ought to be able to use Gun A as well as Gun B.
An exception to this, however, may be the "pistol ghost-ring" devised by Steve Wickert of Wells Sport Store in Prescott. Several old timers now have reported that this sighting system does wonders to make up for the increasing stiffness of the cornea that normally comes with age. This arrangement is somewhat more obtrusive than conventional rear sights on a pistol, but not enough to invalidate it as a holster weapon. If you find it increasingly hard to pick up that front sight in a hurry, you might well give this arrangement some thought.
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AMERIGLO Ghost Ring Pistol Sights
The tritium inside both the rear and front sights was very fresh and started to glow even in the early hours of the evening when the sun hadn’t completely set. Aiding in the visibility was the really impressive green outline of the front sight post and this single feature turned out to be both a benefit and a detriment in my opinion depending on the situation. After the sights were seated and drifted it was time to take the rig to the range and see what all the rage with ghost ring sights was about.
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Surveillance Mapping is a term used to describe the mapping out of the area around a given property, as it relates to potential surveillance vantage points, and the information that can be collected on the property from those vantage points.
A vantage point is a location from which a hostile surveillance operative can conduct surveillance, and a good surveillance vantage point is one that will give the operative access to a large amount of visual information, while allowing him/her to collect this information covertly.
The idea of a fortress makes for a good analogy here. Many people think that fortresses are made to be impenetrable, which is quite incorrect. The general idea of a fortress is simply to narrow down the probable avenues of attack, and then concentrate more attention on those avenues, instead of thinly spreading your attention over all locations equally. Ultimately, there is no such thing as an impenetrable fortress because even fortresses have weaknesses. Any entrance, for example, is an obvious weakness, and yet, what would be the point of a fortress with no entrances? The idea is simply to limit as much as possible the number of such weaknesses, and then understand and protect the remaining ones.
To fully understand the weaknesses in your property, you need to find out where your adversary can observe these weaknesses from in the first place. After all, the knowledge about your facility’s weaknesses does not simply materialize in the mind of an attacker, it must first be observed – and must be observed from somewhere, i.e. a vantage point.
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Toward a Neurobehavioral Taxonomy of Trauma
The human body has only so many ways to defend itself, and those defenses often look similar even when the causal agents are entirely different. The response to nerve agent poisoning can resemble the flu in important respects, even though the cause is completely unrelated. Similar outward effects do not prove a common source. They only tell us that the body has a limited repertoire of reactions available to it under stress, injury, or insult.
The same problem appears in our understanding of trauma. Human beings also have a limited repertoire of defensive responses to danger, helplessness, prolonged threat, violent action, and moral shock. Hypervigilance, emotional numbing, intrusive thoughts, withdrawal, irritability, guilt, sleep disruption, dissociation, and aggressive overreaction can appear after very different kinds of experiences. Because the symptoms overlap, they are often grouped together under the same broad label. But similarity in symptoms does not mean sameness in cause.
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There are people in the gun world who wonder why this far into the 21st century anyone would choose a revolver over a modern semi-auto pistol. Well, we’re glad you asked. We’re reminded of the late Pat Rogers and his old axiom: “The mission drives the gear train.” In short, for some people, and some situations, the revolver can be the dreaded “just as good as,” or an even better.
While it is true that the modern military-grade semi-auto service pistol has replaced the revolver for hard use in defensive carry, police and military service, this in no way means the revolver isn’t a capable handgun for defensive and sport use.
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It has been a little over ten years since Ruger and the original manufacturer of ARX ammunition introduced us to the concept of ammunition using fluted bullets. Ruger bowed out of the deal fairly early, and the original ARX ammunition is now branded as Inceptor ARX. The concept caught on and we now have cartridges using fluted bullets prevalent in mainstream manufacturing and the bullets are popular with reloaders.
The flutes have no effect on mechanical operation within the gun or stability in flight. Once the bullet reaches the target, the rotation of the fluted design traveling at a high velocity causes havoc. The spinning flutes create lateral dispersion of energy with the forward dispersion along the bullet’s path causing a significant wounding effect.
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Yes, this retiree had been to the range earlier in the week, haphazardly unpacked the range bag when she got home, and a couple of days later threw in some clothes and headed for Albuquerque International. Guess what the TSA drone spotted2 in her carry-on at the X-ray? If you said, “A bang-stick,” congratulations.
Comment: This happened to a close friend who was going through security while getting on a cruise ship. My friend had inadvertently left a speed strip with five rounds of .38 special in their carry-on. No firearm. From what I was told, you would have thought those bullets could have sunk the ship. The ship’s Captain allowed them to complete the cruise; however, much hassle was endured. Good advice in this article.
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Iran’s decision to target Diego Garcia with two missiles represents a calculated expansion of Tehran’s operational strike geometry beyond the Middle East theater. That neither missile reached its intended target—one suffered an in-flight failure, while the other was intercepted—does not diminish the operational significance of the attempt.
Instead, the launches demonstrate that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intends to stress-test its extended-range delivery systems under live operational conditions, and target locations previously considered beyond Tehran’s reach. The attempt aligns with Iran’s geopolitical objective of delivering strategic effects on a global scale to pressure the administration of US President Donald Trump into ending the war.
Israeli military assessments characterize the weapon systems Iran employed in the strike as a two-stage ballistic missile with an estimated operational range of approximately 2,500 miles. That characterization carries considerable analytical weight for any attempt to determine the system Iran may have used.
Comment: Long read, but very informative concerning Iran’s current and potentially future capabilities.
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The team over at Barnes has built an entire line of subsonic ammunition just for those of us who love the challenge and pure joy of shooting subsonic, both on the range and in the field. With the $200 NFA Tax stamp for silencers finally gone—Barnes saw the writing on the wall. A massive uptick in suppressor sales was coming, so they went to work. The result is the Suppressor Series, a line specifically designed for shooting through cans. Combining premium Sierra bullets with a clean-burning propellant, they engineered semi-auto reliability with reduced gas blowback and tighter accuracy downrange.
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FBI Labels China-Linked Hack of Surveillance System a “Major Cyber Incident”
The Targeted System
The system at the center of the breach is reported to be an unclassified component of the FBI’s Digital Collection System Network (DCSNet), the bureau’s internal infrastructure used to manage court-authorized wiretaps and foreign intelligence surveillance requests; specifically, DCS-3000 (known as Red Hook). The system processes pen register and trap-and-trace surveillance operations, which law enforcement use to monitor calls made to or from a specific phone or websites visited by an internet-connected device. While these tools do not capture the content of communications, they collect call metadata, including numbers dialed, routing data, and the identities of individuals under active FBI investigation.
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