The Best Guns of 2025 (Year in Review)

2025 is coming to a close. The firearm industry is admittedly in a bit of a slump. Sales are slow, but innovation is high. Companies are scrambling to introduce new and sometimes wild designs to capture the shooting world’s attention. Some companies are bringing back old classics, while others are diving headfirst into radical departures from their normal firearms. For me, it’s been a great year for guns, and I wanted to bring you what I think are the Best Guns of 2025.

Making any kind of list like this can be contentious, mainly because I can only talk about the guns I’ve personally reviewed. This year I’ve reviewed plenty of guns, plenty of great guns, but eight truly stick out. There were certainly other guns released this year that likely deserve to be on this list. Some came out a little too late for me to review, like the SOLGW Mk 1 or the Glock Gen V, which could easily be included, but they arrived too late for me to get a full review completed.

Each of the guns on this list has impressed the hell out of me. They’ve done something truly interesting and shaken up the firearms world,or at least my world. Let’s dig into the eight best firearms of 2025.

Best Guns of 2025

#1 Benelli M4 EXT		See Best Price
#2 IWI Mafteah		See Best Price
#3 S&W 940		See Best Price
#4 H&R DOE		See Best Price
#5 Springfield Kuna		See Best Price
#6 Ruger RXM		See Best Price
#7 PSA Sabre-10A2 Super SASS		See Best Price
#8 Mossberg Aftershock		See Best Price

Best Guns of 2025 Reviews 

Benelli M4 EXT Review

I love the Benelli M4. It’s probably my all-time favorite semi-auto shotgun. Its service with the United States military is notable, and it’s easily the most proven semi-auto tactical shotgun. The Benelli M4 released to the civilian market has always been “neutered.” It lacked the collapsing stock, it was stuck with a five-round magazine tube, and it is expensive to upgrade.

Benelli must have heard people like me complain because they released the M4 EXT. The M4 EXT is what I’ve always wanted from Benelli. It’s a factory gun with a seven-round capacity. It appears to be a five-round magazine tube with a +2 extension. They also installed the Gen 2 stock with five positions that adjust a bit like an AR, rather than a twist-and-expand design.

The Benelli M4 EXT comes with a massive bolt release that makes reloading easier and is a gigantic ergonomic upgrade over the original’s micro-sized bolt release. The M4 EXT comes with multiple sling attachment points and even includes two sling swivels, so it’s ready for a sling right out of the box.

Like the classic M4, it has the ARGO gas system that provides incredible reliability. It has drastically reduced recoil compared to a pump shotgun, and has lighter recoil than most other gas guns. The system can run loads as light as 1,145 FPS without failure. It’s an extremely well-made shotgun that will serve you and yours well.

At the range, I have no problem putting two rounds of buckshot onto a single target in less than one second. I can put three rounds on three different targets spaced two yards apart in 1.5 seconds. That kind of control is tough to beat with a mighty 12-gauge gun. Benelli prices the gun at $2,599, and that’s a tough pill to swallow.

Benelli M4 EXT Pros and Cons

IWI Mafteah Pistol Review

Mafteah is Hebrew for key, and something like the Mafteah would be a “master key” in most situations. The IWI Mafteah is an inertia-operated, semi-automatic firearm. It falls into that same vein of gun as the Mossberg Shockwave. It’s a 12-gauge, semi-automatic firearm that’s also a pistol grip-only (PGO) design. I first shot one of these at a writer’s event and instantly fell in love.

The gun features a 14-inch barrel and uses a five-round tubular magazine. The gun features an attractive vent rib design that positions the sight slightly above the barrel. This ensures proper POI and POA. The handguard is quite long and offers several M-LOK slots for accessories.

The pistol grip is rubberized, providing an excellent grip. The controls are oversized and easy to engage. The loading port is beveled for a quick reload and doesn’t take a DNA sample when reloading rapidly.

The Mafteah isn’t just a quickly produced Benelli clone. IWI made a ton of smart design decisions that put the Mafteah in a class of its own. First, it’s one of the few shotguns that allows you to swap the charging handle to the left or right side of the gun. This makes it super easy to use with your support hand without breaking your firing grip.

Next, the optic mounting system is brilliant. It’s a receiver cut that lets you mount optics directly or use Glock MOS plates to mount a ton of different optics. You can pick from practically any modern red dot.

The Mafteah has light and controllable recoil. Shooting fast and straight is easy. I loved driving the gun between targets and hearing that beautiful ring of steel. The Mafteah isn’t a cheap gun, but no good semi-auto is. However, it’s priced fairly for such a rare bird in this genre.

IWI Mafteah Pros and Cons

S&W 940 Review

The Smith and Wesson 940 isn’t strictly a new gun, but rather a reissue of a revolver that S&W produced for a fairly short time period. The 940 is a J-Frame “snub-nose” revolver designed for deep concealment. The revolver fires the 9mm Parabellum cartridge. This five-shot pocket rocket gives you all the strengths of the revolver with the ammo availability and affordability of a 9mm pistol.

The S&W 940 series currently being produced is a Davidson exclusive and falls into the world of premium revolvers. This new 940 features a dovetailed rear sight that pairs well with the XS front sight. This combination of sights makes the 940 extremely easy to shoot. I could land five for five rounds into a piece of printer paper at 25 yards, and I hit a steel target at least three out of five rounds at 50 yards.

The S&W 940 series comes with dark red G10 grips. The dark red grips pair perfectly with the shiny stainless finish of the 940. A fluted barrel tops the gun off, giving it a very distinct and attractive overall appearance. The performance exceeds its appearance, and it’s a fantastic revolver.

S&W aimed to reduce crimp jump by producing a fairly heavy revolver. It’s 23.52 ounces, which makes it a half pound heavier than most of its competition. The extra weight reduces recoil and helps prevent crimp jump. 9mm cartridges aren’t made to be exposed to the G-forces of recoil in a revolver. The extra weight prevents crimp jump.

One downside that’s also a strength is the moon clips required to extract and eject the cartridges. The clips’ strength is that reloading is easy. They act like a speed loader. The downside is that moon clips are pretty fragile, so you have to be careful loading and unloading them.

S&W 940 Pros and Cons

H&R DOE Review

PSA bought the rights to the Harrington and Richardson brand and has turned that into its retro brand for various firearms. The former owner of retro AR masters NoDak Spud now leads the H&R brand. This has led to several retro firearm formats that we’ve never really seen produced at scale since their original lineup. H&R has produced some awesome retro ARs, but my very favorite is the DOE SMG or Department of Energy Submachine Gun.

This isn’t a real SMG, sadly, but it’s a large-format AR pistol that is built to resemble the Colt 633, aka the DOE SMG. The Department of Energy adopted the Colt 633 for their security forces, and that was one of the few adopters of the gun, so the name stuck. This format features a 7-inch barrel, with a folding front sight, a distinct handguard, and a hand shield, all paired with a carry handle upper receiver.

H&R tops it off with the HAR-15 blade-style brace. It’s built to resemble the original CAR-15 stock and completes the gun’s retro look. The DOE SMG uses Colt SMG magazines with their distinctive vertical design, which adds another excellent look and feel. The gun looks and feels fantastic, and it shoots even better.

The blowback-operated gun has surprisingly light recoil, and the iron sights are so much fun. The gun proved accurate out to 100 yards, able to hit the chest of a target with nothing more than iron sights and a dream. The DOE SMG handles well, and while its purpose is old school, it doesn’t feel that far behind a modern PCC.

This gun is an experience, and an enjoyable one. It’s old school, it’s well made, and an authentic representation of a weapon I’ve never been able to own.

H&R DOE Pros and Cons

Springfield Kuna Review

The Springfield Kuna is Springfield’s first pistol caliber carbine, or more appropriately, it’s a large format pistol. The Kuna comes from H.S. Produkt, a Croatian company. The Kuna saw adoption by police forces in Brazil, and Springfield wisely brought the gun to the American market. The Kuna series of firearms is a 9mm, roller-delayed firearm that’s modern, easy to use, and a ton of fun to shoot.

The roller-delayed design of the Kuna allows for low recoil, and it’s super easy to shoot. It runs like a total top and is a serious smooth shooter. Low recoil means high performance, and you can drive shot after shot into a target with minimal effort. This kind of control makes it an awesome home defense tool.

The roller-delayed design makes it super easy to suppress the gun, and there is very little gas blowback. In fact, the only time I noticed gas hitting me in the face was when the bolt locked to the rear as the magazine emptied. Load some 147-grain subsonic ammo in the gun, toss a suppressor on, and things get super quiet and a lot of fun.

The Kuna comes with all the modern features. It’s optics-ready, has an M-LOK handguard and rear 1913 rail for mounting braces and stocks. The Kuna series of firearms offers you a braced option for a slight upcharge, or a standard brace-free model, so you can choose the brace or SBR the gun if you so choose.

The ergonomics offer you ambidextrous controls that are easy to engage and well placed. Using the gun is intuitive and simple. Between the low recoil, the easy-to-suppress design, and the modular nature, the Kuna might be one of the best buys for a PCC in 2025. At under a thousand dollars, it’s cheaper than any other roller-delayed gun.

Springfield Kuna  Pros and Cons

Ruger RXM Review

The Ruger RXM is really nothing new. It’s a Glock Gen 3, made by Ruger, with a Magpul-designed and produced grip module. Sounds pretty standard, right? Well, not totally. The RXM might have the heart of the Glock Gen 3 gun, but it’s something a fair bit different and a fair bit innovative. The RXM uses a modular and removable fire control group, much like a SIG P320 or Echelon series pistol.

This design allows you to remove the serialized portion of the firearm and move it from grip module to grip module. This will enable you to swap grip modules and slides to change the gun’s size and potentially its caliber in the future. The RXM comes in a Glock 19-sized platform, but Magpul has already launched full-sized grips, with subcompact-sized grips coming soon.

Other companies like Flux have announced a PDW-style chassis with a brace or stock. The options are nearly endless. The Ruger RXM is more than a one-trick pony. The gun comes with an innovative optics mounting system that works with most optics and isn’t dependent on a plate system; instead, it uses a pin system and a series of threaded holes that make mounting optics easy and secure.

The Ruger RXM series of pistols makes a few welcome ergonomic changes to the Glock series design: a thinner, more svelte grip, a scalloped magazine release, and a true picatinny rail. The RXM surprised the hell out of me, and it’s a fantastic American-made pistol that’s also extremely budget-friendly.

The Ruger RXM is likely going to be extremely successful. It’s got two big companies behind it that seem dedicated to producing an outstanding, well-made, and modular firearm. Plus, it does take Glock magazines.

Ruger RXM Pros and Cons

PSA Sabre-10A2 Super SASS Review

I’m not a big full-powered rifle guy. The price of .308 keeps me at bay, but the PSA Sabre-10A2 Super SASS intrigued me immensely. The design promised a precision rifle on an AR-10 platform inspired by the military, which hooked me. The Super SASS name comes from the Semi-Auto Sniper System (SASS) name set that guns like the SR-25 wear. It’s not a direct clone, just an inspired design.

Precision AR-10s are not cheap guns. Getting anything near 1 MOA is going to cost you a fair bit of money with a semi-auto platform. Palmetto State Armory has worked hard to try to drive that price point a bit lower. The Super SASS is about 1,600 dollars, which isn’t cheap, but for a precision AR-10 it’s downright budget-friendly.

The Sabre-10A2 Super SASS is an AR-10 with a 20-inch barrel that features 5R rifling for increased precision. The Super SASS comes with a free-floating barrel and M-LOK rail system. The barrel is made from 416R steel and comes with a Sabre Compensator and an adjustable gas block, so you can tune that gas flow the way you want it. If you’re looking to shoot suppressed, the adjustable gas block is super handy.

In my hands, I’m not skilled enough to shoot a 1 MOA group, but I think this rifle can do it. You’ll need 1 MOA ammo and a 1 MOA shooter. I’ve shot groups well below 1.5 inches, but haven’t crossed that awesome 1 MOA line just yet. The trigger is a fantastic Two-Stage Black Diamond DLC trigger that’s uber slick and delivers a fantastic experience.

The rifle is hefty and made to be shot from a supported position to get the best results. It’s a great way to dip your toes into the world of semi-auto gas guns. The Super SASS might get you into precision shooting, AR-10s, and more, or it might just provide you with a fantastic experience overall.

PSA Sabre-10A2 Pros and Cons

It’s been a great year for 12-gauge enthusiasts. The Aftershock is one of two firearms that bring us a semi-auto action. Alongside the Mafteah, the Mossberg Aftershock offers a semi-auto platform with a short-barreled, pistol-grip-only configuration. The Aftershock uses a gas-operated design that’s partially derived from the 940 Pro Series, but redesigned to fit entirely under the handguard, leaving the rear of the receiver clear to accept pistol grips.

The name 990 is a blend of both 940 and 590. The 590 part comes in its ability to accept Mossberg 590/500 stocks. This makes it a great tax stamp candidate for a shorty semi-auto shotgun. The 990 Aftershock features the 940 Pro Series’ awesome ergonomics, and everything is larger than it needs to be. The safety, charging handle, and bolt release are absolutely massive and incredibly easy to engage.

Mossberg beveled the loading port to make it easy to reload the gun without leaving a DNA sample in the gun. The Aftershock comes optics-ready and features an included high-visibility front sight. The Aftershock design is fantastic and a ton of fun to shoot.

I’m a fan and enjoyed shooting the Aftershock immensely. It’s a bucking beast to hold onto, but it’s got a lot less recoil than a Shockwave thanks to the gas-operated design. That gas-operated design allows the Aftershock to reliably eat everything without much complaint. It can handle some seriously low-recoil stuff without complaint.

The redesigned gas system, the ability to accept Mossberg 500 series stocks, and the enhanced ergonomics make this thing a fantastic semi-auto 12-gauge overall. The 990 Aftershock is an awesome option, and between it and the Mafteah, this shotgun nerd is having a great year.

Mossberg Aftershock Pros and Cons

The End of the Year

2025 is coming to an end, and with it any new releases. SHOT Show is right around the corner, and we’ll see an entirely new crop of new firearms hitting the market. 2025 was a great year for guns, especially for guys like me who love shotguns, but it’s been good to everyone. Hopefully, 2026 will be just as good! Keep coming back to Gun University to find the latest and greatest in firearm reviews and news.