The Best Modern Classics

Gun guys and gals will always have an appreciation of the classics. Older guns are always cool, and I think most serious gun owners go through phases. The average gun owner likely just wants a weapon for self-defense or to hunt with, but serious gun owners are the folks who keep buying guns. One of the phases gun owners go through is an appreciation for the classics. Shooters harken for simpler times in a world where black plastic rules and everything is better with M-LOK and Picatinny rails. 

Times where wood and blued finishes ruled. Times when guns were simple, and while maybe not as effective, they remained charming, fun to shoot, and just different. In a market ruled by AR and Glock, folks sometimes just want something a little different. That’s where the problem comes in. Most old guns are kind of pricey, and even worse, they are hard to find. 

That’s where modern classics come in. 

What’s a Modern Classic? 

A modern classic is something I just made up to describe this trend of gun companies embracing old-school design manufactured once more. This can be a rerelease of a specific gun or a company hitting their guns with a time machine and removing modern features to bring them back to a classic layout. 

Other times, gun companies are taking modern designs and retroizing them. They remove rails from guns and add wood furniture, use old-school finishes, and embrace the look and feel of classic firearms with not-so-classic firearms. These all fall into the realm of modern classics. 

These guns are admittedly a step behind many modern guns. They aren’t necessarily produced for defensive use or hunting but could certainly be thrown into those roles if necessary. These guns are better used as collectibles and as fun shooters to take to the range than as serious-use guns. 

These guns appeal to shooters because they combine aesthetics with an old-school enjoyable experience. They’re different, handle and shoot differently, and ultimately provide a different experience. It’s about the experience, and these guns have that in spades. 

The Best Modern Classics

The best modern classics are:

1. Heritage Roscoe
2. Mossberg 590A1 Retrograde
3. Henry Lever Action Supreme
4. Harrington and Richardson Retro Black Walnut
5. EAA Girsan MC P35 PI
6. Colt Python Blued
7. SIG P226 Retro

The Best Modern Classics – Editor’s Choice

Heritage Roscoe		Old School Revolver Design Classic Double Action Design  Wood Grips	Check Pricing
Mossberg 590A1 Retrograde		Bayonet Ready  Heat Shield Equipped  Heavy Walled Barrel	Check Pricing
Henry Lever Action Supreme		Available in Two 5.56 and .300 Blackout  Uses AR magazines Threaded Barrels	Not Yet Available
Harrington and Richardson Retro		Carry Handle Upper Wood Furniture M16A1 Layout	Check Pricing
EAA Girsan MC P35 PI		Compact Design Single Action Trigger Three Dot Sights	Check Pricing
Colt Python Blued		Ventilated Rib  Wood Grips Adjustable Sights	Check Pricing
SIG P226 Retro		DA/SA Action  Decocker Design  All Metal Design	Check Pricing

Spec Comparison of the Best Modern Classics

The Heritage Roscoe Review

What’s in a name? Heritage went with Roscoe for their new revolver. Roscoe is an ancient piece of slang from the 1920s that was widely used by hard detective novels in the following years. A Roscoe is a gun, and due to the era, it’s most commonly a small revolver. Calling their retro throwback revolver the Roscoe was a bit of genius marketing. 

Heritage’s bread and butter have been rimfire revolvers for as long as I can remember, so going with a centerfire double-action revolver is new ground. At its core, the Roscoe is a Taurus Model 85. Taurus owns Heritage, and since Taurus no longer produces the 85, it’s a good fit. Heritage went with classic stylings and avoided most modern features. Heritage did go with a transfer bar safety to create a weapon that’s safe to carry. 

The Roscoe comes with skinny wood grips and some nice checkering. The ejection rod lacks a shroud, and the gun has a ramped front sight. Heritage makes both 2-inch and 3-inch variants of the gun. The classic two-inch option looks like it stepped right out of a detective novel. It’s all black with a shiny blued finish that looks fantastic with the wood grips. 

It handles well at the range. The trigger won’t tire your finger and is fairly light and smooth. The front sight needs a little nail polish to make it easier to see, but it works fine in most environments. Due to the gun’s lightweight, we get a stiff recoil impulse, but it’s controllable and a viable option. 

The downsides are few; to me, the only one worth mentioning is the grips. They are tiny, and as a man with big hands, I felt like I didn’t have a lot of grip on the gun. That’s just part of the gun’s charm, and it’s retro-like design. 

While the MSRP states the gun costs over 300 dollars, the actual street price is closer to 275. This is an affordable five-shot .38 Special revolver that looks and handles much like an old-school revolver. At the same time, it’s not so retro that it can’t be effectively used for concealed carry or self-defense.

Heritage Roscoe Pros and Cons

Mossberg 590A1 Retrograde Review

You’re missing out if you’ve never seen a fighting shotgun with wood furniture. Combating a fighting shotgun’s aggressive, heavy metal look with classic wood furniture is awesome. Mossber must have seen the potential because they’ve produced five different Retrograde guns that blend the wood furniture and the fighting shotgun appeal. The best of these guns is, without a doubt, the 590A1 version. 

With the 590A1, we get a whole lot of heavy metal. The gun lacks the polymer trigger guard and features a heavy metal design. 590A1 guns come with heavier barrels, which the U.S. military requested. That military requirement also called for a bayonet lug, and so does the 590A1 Retrograde. A bayonet makes these guns look absolutely fierce. 

The 590A1 Retrograde variant comes with a heat shield and ghost ring sights. These are very modern shotguns that feature wood furniture. The wood is dark textured and blends well with the matte finish of the metal. The 590A1 Retrograde looks like a modernized trench gun that makes the Winchester 1897 feel nothing but pride. 

The United States military chose the Mossberg 590A1 for a reason. It’s durable, reliable, and made to last. It’s a gun soldiers can use and abuse without concern. It will just keep working. My favorite part of the 590A1 series is how it patterns. The thick-walled barrel and the multiple points where the barrel attaches to the gun create a tighter patterning design. 

I’ve compared the patterns created by the Mossberg 500 and 590A1, and the 590A1 patterns are about 50% tighter than those of the 500. It’s an impressive feature, and for home defense purposes, it’s valuable. The iron sights are very capable, and you can precisely land shots. 

The downside is the price of the 590A1 Retrograde, which is expensive and often hard to find. It’s also a hefty gun that’s front-heavy. Thick-walled barrels come with thick-walled weight. If you can find one and don’t mind the weight, the 590A1 Retrograde is an outstanding shotgun with old-school charm. 

Mossberg 590A1 Retrograde Pros and Cons

Henry Lever Action Supreme Review

You can toss on almost any Henry gun on this list. They are all products of blued steel and wood furniture. However, the Henry Lever Action Supreme brings us the classic look with a modern touch. That’s really what these modern classics are about. These are modern guns with a classic look, and they don’t get much more modern than the Lever Action Supreme. 

The Lever Action Supreme mixes the classic Henry lever gun with modern magazines and calibers. Specifically, the gun chambers 5.56 and .300 Blackout and use AR-15-style magazines. In the past, Henry has made guns like the Long Ranger that did something similar, but the Lever Action Supreme does embrace the AR-15 magazine and the .300 Blackout caliber. 

Newer features include a threaded barrel, a more aggressive stock design, and a short lever throw that makes the Lever Action Supreme stand out. It’s easy to write the gun off, but there are some benefits to the lever action design. With .300 Blackout, you can have a very quiet suppressed weapon since there isn’t an action slamming back and forth. 

The lever action design ensures the gun is fifty-state legal and can chamber modern. Light recoiling and mostly affordable rounds. The 5.56 and .300 Blackout rounds might not be that affordable at times, but compared to .45-70, they are downright cheap. They make for solid defensive rifles. The ability to easily add optics is nice, and you can easily add red dots or magnified optics. 

Outside of defensive use, the Lever Action Supreme is perfect for hunting medium game and predators. It offers quick follow-up shots and excellent range. The gun has excellent accuracy, a great trigger, and a slick and smooth action. 

What’s the catch? The price point. It gets into premium AR territory without the semi-auto design of an AR. The Lever Action Supreme is something different, and it blends old-school lever gun tech with new-school calibers and magazines. It’s an all-American weapon and one of the coolest I’ve seen in years.

Henry Lever Action Supreme Pros and Cons

Harrington and Richardson Retro Review

Who knows that when Palmetto State Armory purchased Harrington and Richardson from the dead hands of the Freedom Group, we’d get the best retro AR company ever? Now the initial enthusiasts of PSA and H&R are using the talents of the NoDak Spud team to create a variety of retro ARs. This includes plenty of CAR 15-style weapons, M16A2s and A1s, and some that never existed, like the H&R Retro Black Walnut. 

The H&R Retro Blakc Walnut takes the M16A1 style rifle design and outfits the gun with dark and beautiful wood furniture. The handguard, stock, and pistol grip are all made from wood and will give you instant Fallout New Vegas vibes. The gun features all the M16A1 stylings you’d imagine. The career handle, simple but awesome sights, a short length of pull, and the smoothness of a rifle-length gas system. 

The classic 20-inch AR is underrated. It delivers a crazy smooth recoil impulse and almost zero muzzle flash from the front of the gun. The impulse is light, smooth, and incredibly enjoyable. The M16A1 design is also just handy. It’s super lightweight and encapsulates why the M16 rifles were so superior to the M-14 design. 

These guns are almost laser-accurate for an iron-sighted gun. Sure, if you went through the process of attaching an optic and grouping at 500 yards, it wouldn’t compare to a modern free-floated design. However, with iron sights and steel targets, you’ll have a blast. The long sight radius makes the gun more accurate than you’d expect. 

Sadly, PSA and H&R have a slow production scale for these guns. As you’d imagine, the parts and pieces aren’t quite standard anymore. They are often tough to find and sell quickly. If you can get your hands on a Retro Black Walnut, you’ll have an eye-catching rifle that’s a ton of fun to shoot.

3M Peltor Sport Shotgunner II Low Profile Pros and Cons

EAA Girsan MC P35 PI Review

According to FN and Browning, the Hi-Power only ever came in one size: the full-sized model. The popularity of the Hi-Power carried it far and wide, and eventually, someone decided we needed a shorter Hi-Power. Argentina started it first with the PI model, and EAA recently revived the compact Hi-Power as the MC P35 PI. For the first time in a long time, we had an affordable, easy-to-find, compact Hi-Power. 

The MC P35 PI shrinks the Hi-Power design by cutting the barrel and slide to 3.88 inches. The grip length remains the same, and it still accommodates 13-round Hi-Power magazines, although in the modern era, that capacity has expanded to 15 and even 17 rounds. While shorter, the gun remains the classic Hi-Power we all know and love. 

I should attach a, for better or worse, to that. This modern classic design still features some of the Hi-Power’s quirks. This includes the magazine safety and the fact that the magazines don’t drop free from the gun. Oh, and you’ll get a little hammer bite from the gun as well. I’ll give it to EAA; they faithfully reproduced the Hi-Power and its many quirks. 

They also replicated what people love so much about the gun. This includes the weapon’s lightweight trigger and short reset. It’s quite nice and feels excellent. The gun’s accuracy is tough to beat for its size. At 25 yards, I was ringing an 8-inch gong with ease. The gun’s low recoil surprised me. I expected more from a compact firearm but walked away quite pleased. 

The EAA Grisan MC P35 PI is one heckuva long name for such a small gun. It could be a competent carry gun, but holsters are going to be tough to find. The compact Hi-Power idea might not be new, but it is far from common. The design fits in most fully-sized Hi-Power holsters, but you’ll have excess holster sticking around.

EAA Girsan MC P35 PI Pros and Cons

Colt Python Blued Review

For years, people begged Colt to bring abc the snake guns. Boomers held onto their Pythons like their lives depended on them, and they were beginning to near entry-level machine gun prices when Colt finally brought them back. They started slowly, adding a new Snake gun every year. Finally, they arrived at the most favored, the Python. Initial Python releases were stainless, but Colt has finally brought the Python with a blued finish. 

I assert that the world is a lesser place since bluing went out of style. It’s a more expensive finish that’s arguably not as good at protecting the gun as modern finishes but just look at it. It’s beautiful and shiny and perfect in every way. It’s like someone bottled smoke and found a way to finish a gun with it. The Colt Python coming back as a blued gun is just perfect. It blends two things the gun industry wants effortlessly. 

The new Pythons still embody that classic Python look and feel. Plenty of Gusy will talk about how the old Pythons are better but also never shoot them because they don’t want to lose timing. The new Pythons feature the same slick triggers, adjustable sights, and vent ribs and offer a high level of reliability and durability due to modern manufacturing. 

They are a blast to shoot and one of the best revolvers for people who don’t like revolvers. It’s just a ton of fun to shoot. Even with full-powered .357 Magnums, the gun is controllable. The grips are thick and help dissipate recoil. The sight radius is long, and the guns are super accurate. Hitting a four-inch gong at 25 yards with just iron sights brings me so much joy. The Colt Python blued gives me everything I want in a classic revolver, but admittedly, you will be paying for it. 

Luckily, the price point is nowhere near that of an entry-level machine gun. If you’ll fork it over the Colt Python blued, it will grant you an instant modern classic. This beefy revolver is a great shooter, so don’t make it a safe queen! 

Colt Python Blued Pros and Cons

SIG P226 Retro Review

SIG Sauer has taken over the gun industry. They won the Modular Handgun Contest and followed that up by winning the Next Generation Squad Weapon contest with both a rifle and machine gun. They’ve gotten their guns into the top tier of special operations forces, and they serve worldwide. That all started with the SIG P226. Some may claim the P220, but the P226 was SIG’s first international success. 

The weapon was tied with the M9 for the XM9 trials, but it was a little too expensive for the big army. The SEALs adopted the P226 instead of the M9, and the gun served as the Mk 25 Mod 0 for decades. The P226 has continued to grow and evolve and has long left its roots behind. After 40 years of service, SIG Sauer decided to bring the gun back as the P226 Retro. 

This step back delivers a classic P226 design, which is a gun many people have never had the opportunity to own. The P226 Retro lacks rails and optics cuts. It features that standard all black P226 design The little things are accurate, like the rool mark, the rear serratatiosn ,decoker, and even the grip design and lack of a true beavertail. 

It’s a step back to the 1980s and peak Wonder Nine design. It’s a classic reissue of a gun that armed counterterrorism forces for decades. The SIG P226 Retro might lack some features we love, but it could still keep up with fancy modern guns. That’s a testament to the success of the P226 and its design. 

The heavy metal P226 Retor is brand new but looks incredibly promising. I wouldn’t mind seeing an entire retro SIG collection. Someone needs to give me a P226 Retro! It might not happen, but it’s nice to see the Retro bug has bitten SIG. 

Kicking It Old School

Old school is still cool. Yes, it’s not the most efficient or effective weapon’s design, but it provides an enjoyable alternative to everything with the super tactical label. Modern classics allow shooters to experience old-school guns that are long off the market. 

As someone who enjoys shooting, these guns are appealing to me more and more simply due to the experience they offer. I have my serious use defensive, hunting, and competition guns setup and ready, but I still enjoy shooting older guns and modern classics more than my high-tech race guns. 

Do modern classics appeal to you? Let us know below!