Testing: A New Standard for Handgun Testing

By Tyler Kee

Creating objective reviews of handguns is harder than I thought it would be. I feel I’ve done my level best to standardize testing, but at some point, a sandbag accuracy test doesn’t tell the whole story of how a gun runs. The starkest example I can think of is the SD9VE I tested in late 2012. That gun could be made accurate off a bag, but start to speed up and group sizes got big quickly thanks to the craptastic trigger the gun ships with. I knew I needed a standard that covered a variety of shooting situations to convey a coherent review…

 

I turned to Karl Rehn, owner of KR Training, with a question. How could I evaluate the “shootability” of a pistol designed for everyday carry in a repeatable and scientific fashion? Ideally, the test should be easy to set up at nearly any range that allowed drawing, moving, and shooting, and didn’t need to be needlessly complex. After a flurry of emails back and forth, Karl sent the following together.

The Rehn Test

Set up: One IPSC target at 5 yards (left), one at 10 yards (right)

Scoring: IPSC “minor” scoring (A=5, B/C = 3, …read more

Source:: Truth About Guns