The American pistol market is larger than ever. In 2020, there were more than twice as many handguns produced than rifles in the U.S. alone, and those pistols accounted for nearly half of the 11.1-million firearms manufactured that year. Concealed carry rights have been on a constant march of expansion for the past several decades, and nearly half of the states now boast some form of permit-less carry. The use-case presented for all of this has largely been self-defense use, so it’s no wonder that many handgun makers have been focusing on concealed carry.
Beyond that, the more general acceptance of MDS (micro-dot sights) on handguns for both competition and defense has produced an equally popular subcategory of “optics-ready” handguns. It was only a few years ago that, if one wanted to put an MDS on their handgun, they had to find a gunsmith to mill a rectangle out of the top of
