Defense Articles

Benelli USA is now importing the popular Franchi Model 48 semi-auto line of long recoil-operated shotguns with a quick-handling English stock. The English stock not only enhances the shotguns appearance, but it reduces its weight. A high-grade oiled walnut stock and forend accent the gun’s polished blued finish and gold trigger. Available in 20 and 28 gauge.

the SWAT cops and Special Forces operators have learned, combine it with the best components in the hands of a master pistol-smith, and you get something close to the ultimate home defense handgun.

An “entry gun” is what a SWAT raid team deploys up front when it goes through a door into unknown territory after something that is likely to have guns of its own. The paradigm entry gun is the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun. Benelli made a 14″ barrel version of their Super-90 12 gauge semiautomatic shotgun that they call the “Entry Gun,” and it lives up to its name.

Sometimes — more often than you’d think — the entry gun is a handgun. People who have to go into unplanned places and move rapidly sometimes choose mobility over firepower.

“Firepower” is something we associate with very powerful hardware, unleashed from a fixed location into an already known and aligned area of fire. Think “artillery.”

As desirable as artillery is, once the foe is engaged, the final mop-up (and, often, the first hostile contact) tends to fall to the infantry. Infantry is mobile, fast reacting and capable of doing a whole lot more than just blowing something to pieces.

When you think of what the first man breaching the door on a police raid has to accomplish much if not most of the time, think infantry. This is a point man who will probably have to communicate more than he shoots. It is often a job best accomplished with a handgun.

The team member(s) wielding the battering ram are good candidates for entry pistols: the handgun won’t get in the way of the ram as an MP5 on a GSG-9 sling might, yet it can be drawn the instant the door goes down and the ram is dropped. NYPD Emergency Services Unit established that game plan decades ago, and it still works.

Point Man

The generic term for the first guy through the door is “point man.” British SAS refer to those who go into those deadly uncharted waters as being “on the sharp end.” The two terms really say the same things, but the Brits do have a way with their native tongue, and “sharp end” says it better.

In that position, you need light to identify the situation and for other things as well, you need fast reaction, and you need to deliver accurate, powerful blows to whatever threatens you.

Thus, there has evolved another type of entry gun for this sort of work, the “entry handgun” if you will. The design parameters are pretty much agreed upon by the professionally armed. The gun must be as powerful as it can be. The gun must contain many cartridges, because you might find yourself alone against foes in greater numbers who may have cover when you don’t.

Any of those scenarios– let alone, God forbid, a combination of them all– can suck ammo out of your gun uselessly as you return fire until you have time to recognize the situation, react and go to Plan B or Plan C. Thus, the need for an entry handgun that holds lots of rounds.

We all know that the handgun is a poor manstopper compared to the shotgun or a high powered rifle at CQB distances. This means that multiple hits are very likely to be needed if all you have in your hand is that highly mobile pistol. This means high capacity magazines.

Fast And Accurate

When you come through that door, you have to react to what you see in front of you. The other guy is the actor, and you’re the reactor. We all agree that “action beats reaction.” Thus, any entry gun, and the entry handgun in particular, has to be capable of delivering accurate, rapid fire into the threat.

Accuracy is essential. In these situations, an opponent who knows cover and heard you coming may present only the tiniest slice behind his gun. There may be a very narrow corridor of safe fire to the threat, between the victims or hostages, so target accuracy is desirable.

Finally, because you’re likely to be coming into a dimly lit area from a brighter one, you need to be able to project light to find your way to the situation and back. You’ll need to be able to positively identify the opponent as a lethal threat. You’ll need to be able to deliver accurate, rapid fire to whatever you’ve spotted in that bright beam of what cops call “white light” in time to neutralize any threat it might present to you.

Morris Custom

We go back a few years, to the late 1990s. Mark Morris was an ace pistolsmith and a good IPSC shooter. He was also licensed to carry concealed and he took the responsibility seriously. He knew how to make guns that shot fast, straight and reliably. He took them into competitive arenas. He adapted what he learned in the heat of competition to make his guns work better.

Before long, a disproportionate number of the people in his native Pacific Northwest who won major combat matches were shooting Morris guns: Marty and Gila Hayes, Bill Lloyd, Les Larsen and, on the East Coast, Buddy Riva, just to name a few.

I had noticed the dominance of Morris Custom shooters in that part of the country, and when Morris took training from me I watched him run 500 Hydra-Shoks through his own Morris Tactical Colt 1991A1 without a hitch. I wound up owning the gun. It became one of my favorite carry .45s, a 1″ gun at 25 yards.