A Fighter And A Hunter: Standouts From Les Baer

shot with a bit more precision. That’s where the excellent sights and trigger on this TRS really helped me out. The f nal testing was done shooting off-hand at 25 yds. The pistol again delivered its payload to the vital zone of the target.

Having had a great deal of experience with the f rst generation of Baer’s Thunder Ranch guns, I can’t say that this 2nd Gen gun really surprised me all that much. I expected it to be an attractive pistol that shot and functioned accurately and reliably. And it was just that—good looking, accurate and reliable. It and its current equivalents, the Ultimate Tactical Carry and Custom Carry, are all pistols you could bet your life on.

The Hunter

The second Baer pistol I received for evaluation was the Premier II 6" 10 mm Hunter. I must admit that I don’t have a lot of experience with 10 mm Autos, a f aw that my shooting buddy Bart Skelton has continually pointed out to me. Bart is a dyed-inthe-wool 10 mm Auto fan. He likes the cartridge for hunting, and he has packed several 10 mm guns during his law enforcement career. So, I sincerely hope that he is reading this and will cut me a little slack because I was impressed with this big M1911, and I had a lot of fun shooting it.

The Hunter, in the resurgent and highly regarded 10 mm Auto cartridge, is indeed a big gun, sporting a 6" match barrel with a supported chamber, weighing in at slightly over 44 ozs. The Hunter has a fully adjustable rear sight and a green f ber-optic front sight standard, though a red version is optional. The trigger is a 4-lb. Speed Trigger. The gun has a single, extended, Combat Thumb Safety and black VZ Recon synthetic stocks. The frontstrap of the grip frame is checkered, while the mainspring housing is serrated. Two nine-round magazines come with each pistol. At the range, working again from sandbags at 25 yds., I tested this 10 mm Auto pistol with three different bullet weights. The most accurate load that I ran through the gun was the Winchester 175-gr. Silvertip hollow-point round, giving an average of 2.05". The fastest round was the Federal 180-gr. jacketed-soft-point load at 1312 f.p.s. As you can see from the accompanying table, accuracy was good with all three loads. Running through some speed work and f eld shooting, I found that the extra inch of barrel and slide simply didn’t matter as far as the balance and feel of the gun were concerned, and the longer sight radius was def nitely a plus. The trigger was also clean, breaking at 4 lbs. And the recoil of this 10 mm pistol wasn’t anything to be worried about; it was far more comfortable for me to shoot than the average .41 Mag. double-action revolver.

After working out on some of the same defensive drills that I ran with the TRS, I settled down to bust some dirt clods off the 50-yd. berm. While certainly an unscientif c test, it was, however, quite pleasing and indicative of the value of this 6" pistol as a hunting gun.

I really prefer that the rear sight of a pistol be black. However, I do like to have something on the front sight that draws my attention to it. Ordinarily, I use a gold bead on the front sight, but I have to say that this green, f beroptic front sight was certainly fast to get on target and helped me keep my focus on it, which, in pistol shooting, is really important for accurate work. It was also a bit quicker for me to acquire during fast shooting.

The Thunder Ranch Special 2nd Gen is a 5"-barreled, no-nonsense f ghting gun with the f t and f nish for which Les Baer M1911s have become well-known. Note the wellcontoured, combat-style rear sight and the wide area of front cocking serrations.

The Premier II 6" 10 mm Hunter is a longslide model chambered in a cartridge suited for the hunting of hogs and other game. Note the aggressive stock texturing and the nine-round magazine’s distinctive guide rib and oval witness holes.