The Authors

	Todd Smith, Outdoor Life's Editor-in-Chief, grew up shooting clay pigeons with his father out the back door of the farmhouse he grew up in. Upland birds and big game came later, as did a writing and editing career that has taken him from Petersen’s Hunting and Guns & Ammo to Outdoor Life. Smith has hunted on five continents, and while sporting rifles and fine shotguns are a love, plinking with handguns is something he also enjoys.
	John B. Snow is Outdoor Life’s Executive Editor and a certified gun nut. He oversees the magazine’s Guns & Gear section and can catalog a very diverse list of shooting interests, including big-game hunting, competitive shotgunning, reloading, amateur gunsmithing and plain old plinking.
	Slaton L. White is editor of SHOT Business, a magazine produced for retailers in the hunting and shooting industry. In that capacity he gets to sample a wide range of firearms, from big-game bolt-actions and law-enforcement pump shotguns to Sporting Clays over-unders and target .22s. He is a lifelong hunter of big-game, upland birds, and—obsessively, say some— turkeys.
	Andrew McKean is Outdoor Life's hunting columnist and judges a gun by its utility. He's been known to cover up fine engraving with electrician's tape because it's "too glinty" for the elk hunting. Whether it's hard-core mountain hunting, wingshooting or varmint hunting, McKean is at home in any season and area code with just about any firearm.
	Michael Bane once broke the heart of his professional fisherman grandfather by shooting a lake bass with a Ruger Blackhawk — "It tasted just fine," Bane notes. His obsession with handguns led him to help launch the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) and become founding editor of its magazine, Front Sight. As the host and executive producer of the hit Outdoor Channel weekly series, Shooting Gallery, Bane has once again managed to avoid real work while being paid to shoot.