Alright, I need all of you to take out your red pen and cross out the “0” in the cover line “Taurus 990: 2 guns in 1” on the this month’s American Rifleman cover and write in a “2” (as illustrated below). This seems like a better solution than trying to get each and every of the 1.7 million issues of the magazine back out of your mailboxes and attempting to fix them all myself.  

If ever you are at an NRA National Defense Tactical Rifle Match and they ask if you want to shoot, say yes. I didn’t and I regret it. I decided that taking video and photos at the first one was more important. Bad decision. The new NDM was created by NRA’s Competitive Shooting Division, and they found the right guy for the job, former Navy SEAL Trey Tuggle. The match is a speed and accuracy event designed to test a shooter’s ability to perform drills that relate to real world defensive-shooting scenarios—and best of all, it is fun. Think of it like NRA Action pistol, but using a rifle, and the targets are fired from 7 to 500 yards in three classes. You shoot prone, kneeling or standing. You have to shoot from a barricade and—horrors—you have to shoot from your weak side, too. I was fortunate to be at Camp Perry, Ohio, on August 14 and 15 for the first National Defense Tactical Rifle Match. While limited to just a rifle match at this point, this is NRA’s first match that is similar to the exciting 3-gun gaining so much attention around the country.

“Joe needs you to write up a rifle. It will be here Tuesday,” read the somewhat-cryptic message across the screen of my Blackberry. Executive Director of NRA Publications Joe Graham doesn’t usually make such assignments so my curiosity, as well as my attention, was up; he is my boss, after all.

For the first half of the 20th Century, one of the bread and butter mainstays of the revolver line was the New Service.  A double-action sixgun of generous size, the New Service was big enough to take all of the big cartridges of the day—.476 Eley, .455, .45 Colt, .44-40, etc.—as well as .38 Spl. and other milder calibers. Made from just before the turn of the century until the beginning of World War II, the New Service was used primarily by police and military personnel. Variations included adjustable-sighte “Target” models, as well as the legendary Shooting Master of the 1930s. The gun's greatest use was in World War I, when the government bought a total of 151,800 5 1/2-inch barreled 1917s, all chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge. That was the most numerous variation of the many New Service models. It is a big, rugged gun that could (and often did) take a lot of abuse. But, for reasons I have never understood, the New Service has never drawn the same interest as other contemporary handguns.