Tamara Keel

5 days ago | shootingillustrated.com | Tamara Keel

The late, great trainer Todd Louis Green once teased me for bringing to class a range bag overloaded with all manner of gear, including two spare pistols. I’m the sort of belt-and-suspenders person who doesn’t want to risk a class weekend being ruined by a busted gun, Hey, “only lonely guns break.” Although I’d never needed to use one, I always brought a second (and maybe a third) pistol along to gun school, just in case. Fast forward to the summer of 2015.

1 week ago | shootingillustrated.com | Tamara Keel

It’s not often that I get really excited over the launch of a new handgun. This goes back long before my professional-reviewer days that started more than a decade ago. As far back as the late 1990s, I’ve been throwing shade at supposed “totally new directions” launched by various manufacturers. Sometimes this involves not getting ecstatic at the latest offerings from established makers.

2 weeks ago | shootingillustrated.com | Tamara Keel

While factory magazines are typically best, there are some great—and not so great—aftermarket brands. Learn to be a discriminating shopper. When you purchase a new semi-automatic pistol, odds are good it’s going to come with two magazines. It’s so common that it’s practically customary. Sure, a high-priced, bougie model might come with three, five or more, and a bargain-basement blaster billed to buyers on a budget may shave $10 or $20 off the MSRP by including only one, but two is the norm.

1 month ago | shootingillustrated.com | Tamara Keel

The micro-compact 9 mm pistol fad could fairly be laid at the feet of Kahr in the late 1990s, but for whatever reason it never really took off at the time. Maybe there weren’t enough “Shall-Issue” states, or maybe the early Kahr 9 mm pistols were too expensive, but regardless, these tiny nines remained niche. We hadn’t gotten around to railroading time yet.

2 months ago | shootingillustrated.com | Tamara Keel

Big-bore carry guns are trending larger now, although Charter Arms’ compact Bulldog remains in production. I’m at a point in my long association with firearms where I don’t have a favorite type of handgun or a favorite cartridge anymore. I’d like to say that it’s because I’m jaded and sophisticated and generally too cool for such things, but the reality of the matter is I just like too many of them to pick just one.