Before sniping at new products, it's helpful to actually check them out and get some experience with them. Here, Dick Williams, shoots the Ruger Security-9 at MGM Steel Targets during a competition at Gunsite Academy.

Just like the changing of the seasons and the coming of day and night, manufacturers have announced new products. Every bit as predictable, the flood of internet experts have made their rulings on the appropriateness of each new product.

You see it routinely online.

“Meh.”

“But why isn’t it (fill in the blank with caliber, size, composition)?”

“Just like (fill in the blank with company name). No wonder they’re failing.”

Some of these internet experts actually have some experience, some skill, and some knowledge. Many more haven’t fired a gun recently – or ever – and nearly all haven’t even held of the object of their derision, let alone actually tried the product out.

Must be nice to know everything simply from looking at a picture.

I’ve been critical of product offerings in the past, sometimes unduly so. Likewise, I’ve seen a product or two and thought how neat it was, what a great idea – and hadn’t yet handled or fired the gun.

We’re all subject to this apparent need to be the first to say this or say that about something new. And it’s something not unique to the world of firearms. Just consider politics.

A couple of examples recently appeared. The first was Ruger’s announcement of the Security-9 pistol. A 9mm, made in a size that had nearly universal appeal – a result, no doubt of the “Tell the CEO” responses through www.Ruger.com –with the capacity called for and nearly all of the features you could want.

“It has a safety (insert appropriate sneer).”

“Hammer-fired? Why would they do that? It’s a ‘striker-fired’ world.”

Blah, blah, blah. What do you know about it?

Yeah, don’t ask me about it. I’ve fired a few hundred rounds out of one, shot four separate guns during one event, including competition between attendees. What would I know about it?

A competitor for the US Modular Handgun System, the FN 509 was a 17-shot 9mm with a 4-inch barrel. No one asked "why" when the 509 was introduced -- unlike the similar-format Glock 19X. Actually shooting the gun -- or at least handling it -- could answer some questions.

Can you imagine when Colt issued the Combat Commander 47 years ago?

“Great. From 27 ounces to 37 ounces – what did we gain?”

Well. Maybe someone said that. See, we didn’t have the internet to give all the gun shop commandos a soap box. They’d have to spread what passed for knowledge around the coffee shop, the barber shop (remember those?) and the gun shop. Back in those bad old days, even I knew everything.

It took well-considered words of Massad Ayoob and his explanation of the delayed blowback semi-auto pistol – the mass of the slide (and barrel, to some extent) – and how the Combat Commander simply handled better when shooting service ammo quickly than the Government Model did.

Now GLOCK has announced the G19X – effectively, the G17 Commander variant.

“Who the hell ever thought of that? What a dumb idea!”

Yeah, sure. Will it work out for them the way it did for Colt and the Commander line? I don’t know. I’d ask FN – because of their FN 509 pistol. It is a seventeen shot 9mm with a four-inch barrel, like the G19X. 

The GLOCK 19X is a recent offering and bears the brunt of criticism based solely on photographs. GLOCK photo.

I have shot the FN 509 and the “feel” of the piece was unique.

Since I don’t know everything, I’ll wait until I actually get to shoot the G19X. But people I trust who have handled and shot the gun says that it is unique for GLOCK, very “Combat Commander-like.”

I’ll let you know what I think when I have some experience to pass along.

-- Rich Grassi