As you can imagine, we use a bunch of gear for training and personal protection. We’ve tried LOTS of stuff, and we provide recommendations to our students when we find something that works. We figured we might as well publish a page with these recommendations. This page will change over time, so check back often.

Secure Your Firearms

Whenever you keep a firearm in your home, especially if you prefer to keep it loaded, you need to balance speed of access with anti-theft security and local child safety laws. These options cover all the bases.

Long Gun: To keep your home defense shotgun close at hand (e.g., in a bedroom closet), here’s a great option from Hornady. There’s a version for the modern sporting rifle, too.

Handgun: Keep your handgun safe and at the ready with this bedside solution, the GunVault Speed Vault 500.

Gun Safe: The ultimate protection from theft and fire, this gun safe from Winchester can be opened quickly should something go bump in the night. And make sure to get a dehumidifier to keep the contents from corroding.

Ammo Box: Whether storing ammo at home or (temporarily) in your car, you can’t go wrong with a Plano locking ammo box and a simple key lock.

Train With Your Firearms

You should train regularly. These days, you don’t even need to leave your house to practice the fundamentals of grip, sight alignment, sight picture and trigger press.

Dummy Rounds: Snap caps are the best thing you can get to train with your firearm. Learn proper trigger discipline and ditch your flinch with these (9mm shown).

Laser Pistol: We use one of these LaserLyte pistols for the bench rest portion of our training, because the instructor and the shooter can see what’s working and what isn’t.

Laser Insert: Combine the snap cap with a laser and you’ve got this great training aid. Depending on your firearm, you may need to manually reset your trigger.

Airsoft: If you want to shoot indoors and can’t afford the laser options, then get yourself and airsoft gun like mine, some ammo and a target to go with it.

Shoot Your Firearms

For most people, (hopefully) the only shooting you do will be at the range or when hunting. Everyone needs eye and ear protection, and we recommend one more thing…

Eye Protection: There are tons of options for “eye pro”. We recommend starting with adjustable, clear shooting glasses like these.

Ear Protection: For most shooters, we recommend passive over-the-ear headphones with a high noise rating and that fold up to fit easily in your range bag, like these.

Lead Removal: Removing the lead from your hands soon after shooting a gun can literally save your life. Keep some LeadOff wipes in your range bag.

Clean Your Firearms

Cleaning is a necessary part of being a gun owner. We’ve been through thousands of cleanings, and we swear by our 10-minute process.

Ultrasonic: An ultrasonic cleaner is the only way to clean handguns, long gun bolts and anything else you can fit in the cleaner. Get some Simple Green Pro HD to throw in it.

Gun Brush: In between cleaning cycles, take out your barrel, slide, etc. and hit it with a  gun brush with nylon bristles. Buy several and replace them after every tenth cleaning.

Compressed Air: After you pull your gun parts out of the ultrasonic, shake off everything, dab with a towel, then knock any remaining moisture out with a can of compressed air.

Lubrication: Keep your gun working smoothly after cleaning by adding a drop or two of CLP in just the right place(s) with this precision pen.

Carry Your Firearms

For those of you with the proper permits or who live in Constitutional carry states, you’re going to want to take your gun with you when you leave the house.

Deep Concealment: We almost exclusively carry deep, and have been using this SmartCarry gun + magazine holster for years.

Pocket Carry: On the rare occasion where we can’t or don’t want to carry deep, we use a pocket holster like this one.

[We’ve yet to find an IWB or OWB holster or gun belt we feel confident recommending.]

Disclosure: If you buy something via a link on this page, we’ll get a very small commission on most items — we think that’s fair for having gone through the time, trouble and expense of testing in order to be able to recommend what actually works.