The Keefe Report

The magazine you are holding, American Rifleman, is not only the oldest continually produced firearms magazine—its roots date back to 1885, and Arthur Corbin Gould’s The Rifle—it also has the largest circulation. Every month, more than 2 million NRA members receive it either in their mailboxes or on their desktops. And that number is growing again, every day.

As a magazine that covers the full gamut of interests for firearm enthusiasts, shooters, collectors and Second Amendment activists, we cover topics that other magazines often do not. Exhibit A is Mark Sage’s excellent “National Treasure: The Lafayette/ Washington Pistols” starting on p. 50. But we also spend a lot of our pages reporting on what’s new.

With the size of our audience, we typically prefer to wait until a new gun, load or optic is fully in production before reviewing it—it makes little sense to tell millions of NRA members about a commercial product that is not commercially available. When we do review a firearm, we use long-established testing and evaluation protocols. For example, handguns are typically tested with three different loads, featuring different bullet weights and from different manufacturers. We specify testing distances—pocket pistols are shot at 7 yds., compacts at 15 yds. and full-size handguns are shot at 25. We fire five consecutive, five-shot groups for accuracy, as well as function fire the gun with as many different loads and bullet profiles as we can manage. If we have an issue, we report it.

There is good reason for our policies. In our April issue, Executive Editor Joe Kurtenbach reviewed the new SIG Sauer P365 (p. 48). Due to some confusion on my part, the first pistol that we test fired was not actually a production model—our mistake. We experienced some issues with the gun, and reported them. Subsequently, a second gun, fresh off the production line, arrived in our offices. That P365 exhibited no functional issues at all, and earned high marks from Kurtenbach. We reported that as well.

Another example can be found in this month’s review of the Smith & Wesson M&P380 Shield EZ (p. 56). That gun, we found, required a little breaking in before it was 100 percent reliable with all ammunition. Despite some early hiccups, after about 200 rounds and a good cleaning, our EZ would reliably cycle any .380 ACP we fed it. We test, we learn, we report.

But what if a gun simply doesn’t work? Well, we try not to put ourselves in that situation. For example, we waited on the Remington R51 until it was fully in production. Then, we found out there were some serious functional issues with the production version and again held off. It took Remington a while to get the gun right, but when it did, we reported on it—two years after the initial launch.

Another example where waiting proved beneficial was when Double Tap Defense (not to be confused with Heizer Defense) wanted to fly into our offices with photo samples and a functioning prototype. The company had been actively promoting its new design in these pages and elsewhere, but we needed an actual production gun for review. After we declined, the company instead flew to the offices of another gun magazine, and it appeared on that magazine’s cover with a full feature story—a cover and six pages on a gun that, at the time, no one could buy.

Senior Executive Editor Brian Sheetz, who has occupied the office next to mine for more than 20 years, describes us as the “publication of record.” I like to think of this magazine as the first draft of firearm history. So it is incumbent upon us, as the editors, to make sure we get it right, especially when it comes to new guns.

Sincerely,