Ever since Magpul showed the FMG-9 at SHOT Show 2008, there has been quite a bit of hoopla built around the folding submachine gun. It’s covert, futuristic, and looks like something James Bong would approve of. This was revitalized recently, with Magpul announcing the FDP and FDC 9 and now B&T showing off their P320-based BCW folding platform. For a lot of people, the folding SMFG is new, but for me, it’s an old hat because of the Ares SMG and Syphon Filter 3.
I was a huge Syphon Filter fan, and it’s actually one of the games that got me interested in firearms. The third game had the Marz FMG, which I later found out was, in reality, the Ares FMG. You see, Magpul didn’t invent the idea of a folding PDW-style SMG. It dates back to the 1980s and would continue through the 90s and even become an international niche weapon. It all starts with the Ares FMG.
Early Origins of the Ares FMG
Who exactly is Ares? A few companies have used the name in the firearms industry. Ares being the god of war, seems to attract arms manufacturers. Ares Inc was a small company founded by Robert Bihun and Eugene Stoner in 1971. They were an innovative company and way ahead of their time.
In 1984 they were the first to attempt to develop lighter ammunition and cut the weight of 50 BMG rounds by 33% by using plastic-cased telescoped ammunition. They designed guns, ammo, and even internal parts to improve existing systems. In 1985 they developed the Ares FMG, FMG standing for Folding Machine Gun. A man named Francis Warin of Oak Harbor designed the gun.
The idea was simple. Provide a concealable, covert weapon that delivers more firepower than a pistol. The weapon would be discrete and not appear to be a gun until it was ready to fire. It was designed to be a businessman’s defensive weapon and was inspired by a number of kidnappings that occurred in South America at the time.
The Ares FMG folded in half, with a hollow stock encapsulating the grip and magazine when the weapon folded. It was a little larger than a carton of cigarettes and designed to resemble radios of the time.
Breaking down the Ares FMG
There were only ever two Ares FMGs ever made. Both are considered prototypes. The first used an MP28 magazine that had been trimmed to allow the weapon to fold. The second utilized Uzi magazines that made folding a nonissue. The first prototype lacked a trigger guard and placed the charging handle on top of the weapon. The second had a trigger guard and used a charging handle at the bottom of the gun that doubled as a finger guard.
The weapons lacked sights and were selective fire. These guns personified spray and pray. The Ares FMG was a 9mm weapon with a 6.75-inch long barrel, an unfolded length of 20.6 inches, and a folded length of 10.6 inches. The weapon weighed four pounds and dispersed 9mm rounds at 650 rounds per minute.
It’s a very simple blowback-operated SMG. The design isn’t complicated, even though it does admittedly fold in half.
The Fate of the FMG
While the weapon was shown to some government officials who expressed interest, they seemingly didn’t express enough interest. The design languished, and Ares only ever produced two prototypes. The Hughes Amendment killed any idea of civilian sales, and the NFA world of SBRs wasn’t nearly as big as it is now, and large format pistols weren’t a thing. The Ares FMG might have been a little too early to succeed.
At least that is how I am choosing to believe the conversation went inside Glock HQ as they began producing the Glock GR-115, which is an AR-15. I modernized and well laid out AR-15 with an intriguing optic upon it, to be sure, but an AR-15.
We’ve been hearing rumors of a Glock rifle for years, it appears that someone finally solicited Glock to do their carbine and the result is a very modern AR-15. Ambidextrous lower, LPVO and red dot, suppressor, I believe an adjustable gas system, and all in the modern tan low vis finished that do better both visibly and under alternative spectrum observation devices, thermals and NODS, ended capped with a can.
Glock perfection is apparently Stoner and Sullivan inspired.
I don’t know if this one is a piston or DI design, I am also not particularly bothered knowing until and unless this becomes a contract gun somewhere neat with more details or we get a domestic launch here in the US at SHOT or NRAAM.
I am very intrigued by the scope, the rumor mill around that piece of glass is that it really is something hot in the LPVOsphere and I have been intrigued by challengers to the Razor III’s current top seat every time I hear about them. So of all things I want to know about this carbine, the carbine itself really isn’t the priority compared to whatever is riding in that AUS from Reptilia.
Anyway, Glock confirmed makes an AR now. So we’ve got that going for us. Which is nice.
Above: Shooting my Beretta 92FS Inox with a particularly good seven yard group on an index card that was part of the 3×5 Card Drill.
The 3×5 Card Drill is something I first came across at Pistol-Training.com many years ago. This is a very simple drill that with no time limit or real score that involves shooting a group at index cards on the 3, 5, 7, 10, and 15 yard lines. The official description at Pistol-Training asks that shooters fire a six round group at each index card. However, I always preferred shooting a five round group in order to be able to shoot this drill twice with the standard box of 50 pistol rounds. In the case of TDA pistols, I fired three double action shots and only two in single action. The description also mentions only moving on to the next distance if you group all previous shots in the corresponding index card, but I like to shoot the drill at each successive distance to help get used to shooting at smaller targets further away. I also liked to score it my own way in a similar style to IDPA (down 0, down 1, down 2 and so on).
Shooting the 3×5 Card Drill at an indoor range in California with a CZ-75 SAO.
Because this drill does not require starting from a holster, a large amount of ammunition, crazy reloads or a shot timer, I found it ideal as a new shooter who had limited time and money. In those days my access to a “competition” or “training” style pistol bay was limited and I shot pistols mostly at indoor ranges. Therefore, the 3×5 Card Drill became staple of my early days. Ironically, it is probably one of the most convenient drills to run on a lane at an indoor range, since you can tape five index cards to a piece of paper or target and just move the pulley after shooting the previous group. Shooting this drill at a public indoor range also will not attract any negative attention to get you kicked out. Since the drill uses only a handful of rounds each time, using ban-state compliant low capacity magazines is also not a problem.
The best aspect of the 3×5 Card Drill is that it is a self-paced and self-directed drill and can therefore be extremely beneficial to new shooters. Moreover, it is a good way to get exposure to taking slightly longer distance shots at relatively small 3×5-inch index cards—not impossible to hit but easy to miss if you don’t clamp down on your handgun fundamentals. If you’re a new shooter or rusty in your fundamentals, go get some cheap index cards and some masking tape and give the 3×5 Card Drill a try at your indoor range! Remember, shooting it my way with a box of 50 rounds gives you two full runs.
An old target of mine I most likely shot with my gen 3 Glock 19 with five different 3×5 index cards meant to be shot at certain distances. The top cards were always shot at 3 and 5 yards respectively, while the middle one was shot at 7 yards and the bottom two were shot at 10 and 15 yards. You’ll notice that there are plenty of misses, but that’s the point, eh?
As a shotgun and small arms history nerd, books like Osprey Publishing’s US Combat Shotguns strike me just right. US Combat Shotguns is a quick read. It delivers a ton of information on the United States’ use of combat shotguns. The title literally says it all, and it’s one of the few books you can judge from its cover.
US Combat Shotguns is written by Leroy Thompson, who has been writing about guns for decades. He has several books to his name, with many published by Osprey Publishing. Personally, I’m adding a number of them to my list because I enjoy the format and information provided.
The book is a quick read at only about 80 pages. It’s a solid book that tracks US Combat shotguns throughout their inception in the United States. The book specifically focuses on the military use of shotguns and barely mentions police use, but that’s fine with me.
The book goes from the early days of buck and ball loads all the way to the Global War on Terror. Admittedly the front half of the book is a bit more loaded than the last half. The use of shotguns in the United States military has shrunk considerably. War has changed and the carbine has taken over.
US Combat Shotguns – Informative and Entertaining
US Combat Shotguns predictably start at the beginning. The beginning of what exactly? Well, the development of fighting shotguns. We get a fairly short few pages on muskets loaded with shot and early repeating shotguns. Once we get into the 1900s, the book really begins to flesh out US Combat Shotguns and their use.
From here, the book goes from era to era and discusses the type of shotguns and how they were used in that genre. They discuss advantages and issues based on the environment and situations soldiers and Marines found themselves in.
We get a great mix of both purely informative data and narrative from the men armed with shotguns in war. These include reports, excerpts from books, and many more that really flesh out the historical information with on-the-ground analysis.
In between learning that the Army ordered 22,000 Ithaca shotguns for Vietnam, you also read about a SEAL armed with an Ithaca 37 and another wielding the short-lived Remington 7188 and their impressions of the guns.
This mix of dates, quantities, and model numbers beside user-operated tales form an interesting, educational, and, yes, entertaining book. We can also see how shotguns have evolved for combat use and how much they’ve remained the same.
Along the way, there are discussions on ammunition, its evolution, and sidenotes into guns like the USAF M6 Aircrew Survival Weapon. These break up the focus on US Combat Shotguns and keep things interesting without getting distracted.
There are also some awesome pictures and diagrams that range from informational to historical.
US Combat Shotguns – My Complaints
The information provided is fairly high level. If you want an in-depth discussion of why the Mossberg 500 and Remington 870 replaced the M12, Ithaca 37, and similar shotguns, you won’t find it here. The terms trench and riot gun are thrown around a fair bit, but neither is defined very well. What makes a trench gun a trench gun? You don’t get that detailed here.
I’d love to see more information or even sidebars talking about the benefits of a gun with dual action bars versus a gun with a single bar. I’d like to have seen more on the shotguns used during the GWOT as well. It’s a bit glossed over, and while carbines rule, shotguns were used a fair bit during Fallujah and similar urban battles in Iraq.
Those are small complaints, and this is a great place to start if you have an interest in US Combat Shotguns. It’s less than 16 bucks and is available on Amazon. I’m about to grab the M16 book by Osprey Publishing as well since the Black Rifle is out of print. Sometimes we can take some time off from the range to learn a thing or two about our favorite firearms, and Osprey Publishing and their books seem to make that an affordable proposition.
Today the boys start off by immediately going off the rails and talking about dinosaurs and special effects. Eventually, Jack saves the episode by bringing it around to the original topic, which is the most amazing loot drop in history, where a couple found some legit M16s in milsurp crates. Oh also we talk about Battletech.
It is no secret whatsoever that I like IWI products. Their catalog of firearms, their training program for those firearms, and the ways in which IWI has developed their recent catalog of offerings.
TheFirearmBlog, good ole TFB, also houses bullpup converts, and they have just released their ‘6 Reasons’ video on the Tavor X95 and why it is better than the M4. Linked and playable above.
I happen to agree. Not in all aspects or for all purposes, but in the role the X95 was envisioned I believe it serves better than the M4.
What is that role?
A carbine optimized for limited space.
Interior structure CQB and vehicles present very real challenges to anyone using a long gun. Space is at a premium. Rifles get their staying power from their muzzle velocity, primarily, and the shorter we make a rifle to make it easier to handle in small spaces the more velocity we give away. That is a topic that has been written about, rewritten about, co-written about, caveated off of, hyperlinked, sub-headed, and just about any other variation of communicated about. Shortening a rifle gives up efficacy. The ‘window’ in which the 5.56 rounds will have their optimal terminal effects gets shorter as barrels do.
The M4 gives up speed from the M16. The MK18 gives up even more speed from the M4. The X95 in its short 13″ configuration is smaller than the MK18, about the length of an MP5k with the stock out, but is retaining the more effective M4 muzzle velocities.
The 16″ and 18.5″ varieties of X95 retain size advantages too, the 18.5″ barreled X95 is an inch and a half shorter than an M4 with the stock fully collapsed.
Velocity retained.
I will continue to give both overall weight and overall accuracy, in modernized configurations, to the AR-15’s. It is easier to get an AR tuned to a sub 2 MOA, and especially a sub 1 MOA rifle than it is an X95. This is due to how the barrel and receiver interface on the two rifles. We aren’t talking drastic accuracy improvements, just notable ones and perhaps need specific ones. Neither an X95 or a 1:7 twist AR, nonfloated, are going to shoot 55gr rounds into a spectacular group. This is one of the reasons there are a great many 1:8 AR barrels on the market. Cheap training grade ammo will be especially inconsistent as it isn’t loaded to the exacting velocity standards of match rounds. Both rifles are going to tighten up their groupings significantly when shooting high quality match ammo, but the AR in an accurized configuration is going to edge out the X95.
The most influential factor is the barrel and receiver lockup, as I mentioned above, which was designed with reliability and ease of maintenance as the priorities. A 1 MOA accuracy standard was not a priority in the design.
However the factor that causes most of the poor performance with the X95, and bullpups in general, isn’t this barrel/receiver design. The challenge people don’t get past is interfacing with the rifle. They don’t learn how to shoot it, even though it is shaped and weighted differently. This is the one most people miss, it is the trade off for shortening the rifle. The short rifle often translates to some more muzzle movement if you don’t account for the fact that everything has moved closer to you, that combined with the different feeling trigger, weight distribution, and viola! Initial poor performance with a bullpup when you’ve been trained on the M16 series. Initial poor performance equates to poor opinion of bullpups. The X95 is different enough, but also similar enough, to attribute the performance shift to the rifle and not the operator when in fact it is mostly the operator. Some of the very nice features on the M16 series are babying the shooter, the familiarity with the rifle is babying the shooter too, we tend to cling to the item we are comfortable with. My hesitation to run anything that wasn’t an ACOG, especially LPVOS, or to put dots on handguns are perfectly in alignment with that ‘liking what I have an know’ sentiment.
However…
Once operating operationally and running the controls and trigger the way they should be on the X95, a short learning curve from an AR but it does exist, the performance gap shrinks to an inappreciably different margin for practical accuracy and you get two rifles that can do their jobs very well, one may be more generally comfortable and come with a few small edges in accuracy and familiarity, but the other is a powerhouse when space gets tight. Instead of a rifle you like and a rifle you don’t, you have two rifles with similar performance envelopes optimized for different environments.
We live tight spaced lives
We live indoors. We venture outdoors. We live in houses, apartments, vehicles, and we use them to keep ourselves in the flow of society and to keep comfortable our lives and property. This makes the X95 stand out as an exceptional rifle for the lives we live, because it is a rifle optimized to move within the spaces we live while giving up nothing of what makes the 5.56 and the M4 so effective. It is a rifle for tight spaces. Tell me I’m going to be in a structure or in and out of a vehicle and the X95 is an option, I’m taking the X95.
To be fair, having any reliable 5.56 rifle is probably ‘enough’. An AR user need not rush to pick up an X95 just because you understand the space better. To open that envelope further, having a relatively modern carbine in any pistol or rifle caliber, using 20+ round magazines, mounting a light and preferably an optic, and that you are familiar with operating, is enough. They can be made to work.
But I don’t like having a tool that can be made to work, I like having the tool that fits the job. If a vice grip would make my life easier, I want a vice grip. So I use and recommend the use of the X95 for a limited possible/probable space (home) knowing that it can also reach out into the normal ranges of a 5.56 rifle.
We’ve all seen that Chik-fil-A AR-15, but whatchu know about the Chik-fil-A plate carrier? Not a Chil-fil-A-themed plate, but the one we’ve seen their employees wearing on these hot summer days. These things look far from tactical and are a high visibility yellow. They are worn by employees who are standing outside and taking orders and seem quite odd.
The only chicken place that seems to need plate carriers is Pop Eyes after the great chicken sandwich debacle of 2019. Let’s face it. No one is getting riled up and fighting at Chil-fil-A for some unseasoned, dry chicken. Yet, their employees are rocking plate carriers, so what’s the story?
The Chik-fil-A Plate Carrier – The Truth Behind the Plates
These aren’t plate carriers, well, not in the traditional sense. They do carry plates, but those plates aren’t designed to stop bullets. Those plates are designed to cool down the employees wearing them. A company called Qore Performance produces both the carrier and the ‘plates,’ and it’s a company I’m fairly familiar with.
Way back at my first SHOT Show, I met with the guys from Qore. At the time, it was a fairly small company, and they hosted a micro event at their hotel room outside of SHOT. They showed off the earliest versions of the Iceplate. The Iceplate is the plate sitting inside the Chik-Fil-A plate carriers.
These Iceplates are filled with 50 ounces of water, then placed in the freezer overnight. It’s a fairly simple idea that relies on the sun being more dangerous than bullets. Obviously, some missions dictate one danger over the other, and the Chik-fil-A employee working outside in the summer height ain’t breaching a room.
These frozen plates keep employees cool and keep them from passing out. The carrier is also produced by Qore and is a simple high-visibility setup designed to support the Iceplates. These things aren’t designed for real plates or protection but for these exact situations. It’s a simple idea that works. As a guy in Florida, I’m thinking about grabbing one of these plates to keep things cool at the day job.
The Qore Iceplate
The Iceplate itself costs 45 bucks for a single plate, and you can rig up a system with two plates or a single plate. It’s shaped and sized like a medium ESAPI plate. The plates are 9.5 inches wide, 12.5 inches tall, and only 1 inch thick. They are curved for comfort and would drop in nearly any other plate carrier.
The 50 ounces of water can be frozen, but a user could also add hot water to keep their body warmer. While these plates are popular with Chik-fil-A employees in Texas, Florida, etc., when winter arrives, employees in the Dakotas, Michigan, and similar frozen hell holes can get some use out of them.
The Iceplates can be rigged with a tube and mouthpiece so you can sip at them and drink a little water throughout the day as well.
Beyond Chik-fil-A and Iceplates
Qore makes several products that encourage cooling. I haven’t followed Qore for some time, and that’s a mistake as a Floridian. They make a number of accessories for the Iceplates, including a Camelback-like rig for those who want a sportier look.
They also make a number of pads for holsters, gear belts, and plate carriers to improve comfort and create greater ventilation. Let me tell ya. Your boy is about to be cooling down this summer. The ideas seem sound and are simple additions to most of your basic gear to improve gear and comfort.
It’s easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle of new guns that you might forget to shoot the guns you love. We buy firearms with the purpose of shooting them, and let’s face it, we don’t have a cheap hobby. Guns are expensive, ammo is expensive, and if you’re looking for a way to pinch a few pennies, then I’ve got five free targets you can print at home to save some dinero. (Or to really save some money, print at work….I take no responsibility for you getting fired for chewing through 500 sheets of paper.)
There are tons of free targets out there, and lots of them are fairly silly. Silly targets are fun for plinking, and I even included one, but I really want to focus on targets to help shape your skills. I wanted useful and effective targets for defensive firearm training. With that in mind, let’s dive into my five favorite free targets.
Sage Dynamics Targets Vital Anatomy Targets
Aaron Cowan of Sage Dynamics has done a lot to advance the firearm community. His white paper on pistol-mounted red dots changed the firearm’s world. He runs one of my favorite Youtube channels, especially when it comes to optics reviews. He also produced and provided a set of free targets called the Vital Anatomy Targets. The two targets consist of a headshot target and a center portion of the torso that exposes the heart and lungs of a target.
I use these targets for everything, and they are some of my all-time favorite targets for defensive firearm training. I even use them for patterning shotguns to get a real visual indicator of where my buckshot is going. These targets outline the vital portions of the body and allow you to effortlessly train shot placement with a handgun, rifle, or shotgun. You can run tons of drills on these targets, and they are adaptable for various uses.
Kit Badger Ambush Targets
Kit Badger was inspired by Sage Dynamics to create his own set of free targets. These are similar to the Vital Anatomy targets, but instead of having the threat facing you dead on, they are facing to the side. This allows you to practice your shot placement at an angle most of us don’t practice enough with. Assuming a threat will always face you head-on seems like a disastrous affair.
These targets are detailed and very nice. They include a light skeletal design to allow you to further examine where your shots are hitting inside the body. Mixing these with the Sage Dynamic’s targets offers you a fairly versatile system to train with.
Bill Blowers Tap Rack Tactical B8
I know that B8s has become a lot of people’s personalities on the internet, but they are still very versatile targets for training purposes. They offer a uniform standard and are very simple; plus, when your fudd range doesn’t let you use silhouette targets, the B8 is a great option. The B8 has a very long history, and there are plenty of people who offer them for free online, but a lot of times, the dimensions are wrong.
Big Tex Ordnance hosts a B8 from Bill Blowers of Tap Rack Tactical that is made to the proper dimensions. It’s simple, easy to print, and provides you with B8s on demand. The B8 makes up the standard for a number of different drills and allows you to practice speed and precision and easily see how one affects the other.
Dot Torture
Dot Torture is both a free target and a drill that is a healthy piece of training. This is a simple target made up of 10 small dots, and each dot has a specific drill assigned to it. This includes drawing, reloads, one-handed shooting, and more. The target requires fifty rounds of ammo and is an all-in-one target.
The Dot Torture target was designed by the late Todd Green but has early origins that go back to pro shooter John Shaw. It’s great for all skill levels and is versatile. It can be shot with a timer at a variety of distances, and you can add and adapt the drill as you see fit. There are other variants, including a DA/SA version, a rifle version, and more.
KR Defense Battleship Target
Finally, let’s end with a fun one. Plinking is still a joy, and plinking with others makes the basis for a great day. KR Defense hosts a target designed to replicate the classic game Battleship. Print two of these targets, and you can have some fun with a friend and be fairly competitive. You can even mix it up and challenge the shooter to shoot with one hand from the draw or assign each circle a certain number of hits.
It’s simple, but a ton of ton. My son and I enjoyed the game, and it made him want to shoot more, so why not? I don’t mind a little competition. It exercises basic skills and does require some marksmanship fundamentals.
Free Targets Forever?
Who doesn’t love free stuff? In the gun world, it’s rare beyond a pin and sticker. A few free targets can hopefully get you out there and on the range a little more. With that said, let me offer a tip. If the target doesn’t print correctly, set the scale to 100 and try. That usually resolves issues. Second, download them, and save them somewhere.
I’ve had a few of my favorites just disappear after years of use. If you want them forever, download them and save them. Free targets out there, and hopefully, I’ve helped you find a few great ones for practical training purposes.
In the interest of observing National Preparedness Month, I made a new purchase. Admittedly I already have several alternate sources of cooking in my emergency supplies. I have a gas stove/oven in my kitchen, but I also have a small propane camp stove, a sterno-type stove, and a rocket stove which I have written about before which is about the size of a scrub bucket or one of those holiday popcorn tins.
But did I recently buy another smaller size rocket stove? Of course I did! My purpose in doing so was to have something which would use even less fuel (sticks and yard waste) if I only wanted to do a quick heat up job. Like say – heat some water for tea or make a single bowl of soup. This size stove would also work for backpacking or bug out, but that is the option of absolute last resort for me. I’m getting too old and cranky to carry everything I own on my back – if I can help it that is.
This Solo stove runs on “biomass” – sticks, pine cones, corn stalks, etc. And because of its smaller size, uses an even smaller volume of such biomass than my bigger rocket stove by Silverfire. This potentially conserves fuel during an emergency – especially if I am only cooking for myself.
When cleaning up my yard/garden every spring and fall I have taken to tossing the random pieces of broken up stick into a tub in my garage to save for emergency fuel. Thus I have a backlog of dry “biomass” to use in case of – gawd knows what.
But what if you live in an apartment or townhouse with a patio to have a small fire on, but don’t have a yard? What if your owners association or city maintenance dept are so on the ball that there are never sticks to gather even in the public spaces?
Experiment
I wanted to try an experiment. I wanted to see if this little stove would burn bigger chips of MULCH. Yes, the purpose of mulch is to suppress weeds and retain moisture, thus the mulch is almost always damp. But what if you gather big pieces when it is dry or what if you buy a bag of it to store for fuel? Fancy-schmancy mulch can be expensive. But I found stuff at Menards that looks like it is merely chipped up construction waste for 2 bucks a bag. This is what I spread between my garden raised beds, so I started picking up some of the bigger drier pieces for my experiment.
A paper lunch sack of dry mulch pieces.
I did this experiment on my deck, on a coffee table I made out of pallet scraps. I used a hunk of wood and a metal tray to protect the table from excessive heat – just in case. It took only 13 minutes and literally a handful of dry wood chip mulch to boil 2 cups of water. And most of that time was spent in getting the fire really going. Within about 7 more minutes the fire had burned down/out and the stove was only warm to the touch. This was GREAT!
Fire in a jiffy.Water on to heat.Boiling water in about 13 minutes.Tea for one.
Met My Needs
This little stove met all my needs. I wanted something that would not require commercial fuel, that wouldn’t take an hour to produce hot coals, and that wouldn’t then need to be monitored for another hour while it burned back down. This little Solo Lite Stove was so quick and easy! The size is perfect for a get home bag and it cools off quickly enough to be stowed for getting back on the road in a reasonable time.
Fuel on Hand
Apartment/patio dwellers who don’t have a yard with sticks could consider buying a bag of big chunk mulch like this and keeping it in a Rubbermaid tote in a closet. Keeping emergency fuel on hand for a small stove like this would be a wise idea. And sticks are perfectly safe to store indoors – unlike some other fuels. For a stove this small you don’t need big wood or tree limbs – just sticks. You aren’t cooking a three course meal, you’re heating soup or boiling water to rehydrate your freeze dried Mountain House dinner. Keeping it simple is the best strategy. (Caveat that you should use this stove at your own risk. It is not recommended for use in an enclosed space or under a flammable overhang.)
Little pot(s)
One thing with using a very small stove like this is that the usual household pots/pan are often too big. Thus in the interests of preparedness I also bought a small pot from Solo into which the stove fits for storage.
I do (believe it or not) still possess my fifty year-old Girl Scout mess kit, but it is aluminum. (Do Girl Scouts even camp or cook over fire anymore? Or is that an anti-feminist global warming sin or something nowadays?) In a pinch the aluminum would be fine, but over the years I have moved away from using aluminum cookware and prefer stainless steel or cast iron if I can help it.
In addition to the pot that I bought, I also found a small stainless pitcher/pot in my gear which fits perfectly so that’s what I used for the experiment. As the saying goes, “Two is one, one is none.” So now I have two pots to fit my little Solo Lite Stove and I can have tea AND soup when the grid goes down.
This stove passed my test and did what I bought it for. If you are looking for a small camp stove for small jobs which runs on random fuel you find lying around, consider the Solo Lite. Even if you only need it once – it’s worth the cost if it saves your butt in an emergency.
Featured Image: A Remington 870 Police Magnum with Vang Comp’s Stainless Steel follower.
Most shotguns use a tubular magazine to hold and feed shells into their breech. Tubular magazines are typically underneath the shotgun’s barrel and have a capped end, a very long and thin coil spring, and a follower. When fully assembled, the coil spring provides enough tension to push shells towards the breech via the follower. The follower’s job consists of sliding up and down the magazine tube under the coil spring’s tension is simple but vital. Critical wear or damage to the follower can put the entire shotgun’s reliability in jeopardy.
Most OEM followers found in shotguns are simple inexpensive metal or plastic parts. While these may work fine, it is a good idea to periodically keep an eye on them to ensure that they have not cracked or lost their shape as they are subjected to tension and pressure between the coil spring and shotshell column. In some cases, followers can be victims of cost-cutting and some shotguns may ship with less than adequate followers as well. The last thing anyone needs in a defensive shotgun is a compromised follower that will not feed shells properly or create some other type of blockage.
Inexpensive broken OEM plastic factory follower taken off a Remington 870 shotgun. Image credit: Rem870.com
Fortunately there are many aftermarket follower options that cater to shotgun shooters for both the tactical/duty space and the competition world. For the most part, these aftermarket followers have a few things in common such a robust and thicker construction. Some are engineered with less bearing surface so they can easily travel through the magazine tube without grinding and binding with dust or debris. These followers will also have some type of texturing or void, as texturing allows shooters to tactilely feel something uniquely different than the back of a shotshell. Naturally, any well thought out follower will also be made of a different material and color to make it distinguishable from shotshells. Though shotgun followers are simple parts, the fact of the matter is that when a defensive shotgun is needed, nothing can be left up to chance. (This is why it is also a good idea to periodically replace the magazine tube coil spring as well).
Carrying spare ammo with a shotgun isn’t the easiest task out there. One of the often proclaimed problems with the shotgun is its lack of capacity. This has led to things like side saddles and the original Speed Feed stock. The Flash 5 takes a little inspiration from the old Speed Feed stocks, but the comparisons would be limited to the idea of keeping ammo in the stock.
The Flash 5 might keep ammo in the stock, but it does it in a means that’s much better than the Speed Feed stocks. Instead of shoving two rounds into two tubular magazines, the Flash 5 keeps five rounds in what’s essentially a magazine loaded into the stock. As the name implies, the stock holds five rounds of ammunition and feeds out of the bottom of the stock. The stock is available for Mossberg 500 series shotguns and Remington 870 shotguns.
The Flash 5 Breakdown
The Flash 5 is an interesting design because it not only has to be a good source of extra ammo but a solid stock. Tactaload designed the stock to accommodate the three most common 12 gauge shell sizes, 2.75, 3, and 3.5 inches. To accommodate the long boi 3.5-inch shells, you’ll need to remove an internal spacer.
That wasn’t a concern for me. I’m a 2.75-inch fella myself. The stock uses a spring with a follower as well as a spring-loaded gate to keep the rounds from popping out before they are needed.
This setup does offer a few benefits over the side saddle. Most obviously, this setup makes the ammo source for spare rounds ambidextrous. Side saddles are distinctively set up for right-handed shooters 99% of the time.
Your spare shells are also protected from the environment and shielded within the stock. This prevents them from getting beaten up, rusting, or deformed by environmental exposure. The shotgun also remains streamlined with something hanging off the side.
Reloading with the Flash 5
The setup is simple and fairly intuitive to use. The brass and rims face toward the shooter. The spring-loaded gate keeps the rounds in place, but when the shooter grabs the rim, it’s easy to press down and is a natural part of your draw stroke. The Flash 5 is rapid to reload and is a fair bit faster than a side saddle reload.
Reach rearward with your non-dominant hand with your pointed finger pointing at you. Pinch and grip, and as you do, rotate your wrist forward, and you can shove the round into the tube. Where the Flash 5 is a bit slower than a side saddle is in an emergency port reload. It lags behind by half moment or so but isn’t painfully slower.
Grip, rip, and reloading isn’t difficult. The internal stock magazine ensures the next round is always ready. The rounds stay put until drawn as well. Even butt stroking my Century BOB punching bag didn’t dislocate a round.
The Flash 5 as a Stock
Your stock is a fairly important part of your shotgun, and a good source of reloads doesn’t beat out a well-made stock. Tactaload did a fantastic job of designing the stock. It’s a traditional stock with what appears to be a fat bottom. The stock itself can be adjusted with optional spacers, and the LOP can be as short as 12.5 inches.
There are multiple butt plates, including a recoil and a tactical version. The recoil pad extended the LOP about an inch, so be prepared for that. I stick with the tactical variant for a shorter LOP overall.
The stock provides a nice comb for using either optics or iron sights and supports a nice cheek weld. I would texture it a hair bit more. When using the push-pull with sweaty hands, I felt the grip slip a bit. September in Florida will do that.
The original setups did not include a sling swivel setup, but the latest models have that as an available upgrade. It’s a modern take with all the modern options shotgunners love and appreciate.
Reload and Reload
Keeping your shotgun topped off in the middle of a fight is a must. For home defense carrying spare ammo isn’t easy, and it has to essentially be locked onto the gun for it to be of any value. The Flash 5 keeps things locked to the gun much like a side saddle, but with a few advantages. It doesn’t have to be an either or situation either, as I’ve attached both to my Mossberg 590A1 and like the spare ammo it offers. Check it out here.
M16’s, ladies and gentlemen. Still in the crate and all of their select-fire fun still intact… What a find! The Texas couple had these delivered to their home ready packed. Some private somewhere, told to be decommissioning these crates for surplus, and their NCO are about to catch merry hell. The armory who are supposed to be in custody of these, and it might be contracted out too so a civilian agency woops, are going to have their books tossed by DoD and ATF as applicable.
Fun times.
To be fair, very fair, to the couple who bought the alleged surplus crates and only crates, getting found with missing military weapons that you just ‘didn’t get around to filing a report for’ after finding them would court all kinds of legal troubles. The ATF would probably be sympathetic, as they seem to be in this case, up to a point but that failure to report would likely result a charge or few. Probably a single violation of the NFA, depending upon how cooperative you were after discover, and that single violation can still catch you a 10 year prison term.
Not fun.
Still, the temptation to just not make too much noise about a find like that would be substantial. Those appear to be M16A2′ and those are largely decommissioned rifles pulled from all forms of duty. So they got fumbled in transit somewhere noncritical going to somewhere else noncritical since the military is fielded up with M4’s, A4’s, M4A1’s, and M27’s at the moment. No unit needing rifles would be missing these rifles, these are meant to sit dusty as an Indiana Jones artifact taken into government custody by “top men” and lost.
Which is exactly how the couple got them in the first place, they got lost in the .gov transportation pipes. That happens, a lot more than you would think. Just google search how many nukes we are missing.
Or don’t. It’s not a confidence inspiring number, nor how they went missing.
Mossberg created an entirely new fad in the shotgun world. They released the Retrograde series a few years back, and since then, everyone has made a retro shotgun. These can be both riot and trench guns. We are seeing lots of wood furniture equipped shotguns, some with heat shields, some with bayonet mounts, and most embrace that retro look. The Retrograde series has become a favorite of mine, and I own three of them. Today we are looking at the Mossberg 500 Retrograde.
The 500 Retrograde shotgun is a lightweight, pump-action shotgun that’s about as simple as a shotgun gets. The 500 Retrograde is very simple and is the most affordable of the Retrograde series. The Mossberg 500 is a very simple shotgun and is an American classic. The Retrograde series of guns harkens back to the good old days of the simplistic riot gun, and that’s exactly what the 500 Retrograde is.
The 500 Retrograde Riot Gun
So what’s a riot gun? Typically they are defined as repeating shotguns with 18 to 20-inch barrels and simplistic operation. Pump action shotguns are the most common riot guns. The term riot gun is a bit an old-school term that goes back to the first successful pump action shotgun, the Winchester Model 1897.
The Mossberg 500 Retrograde wears wood furniture with a dark finish. The wood furniture also takes an old-school approach. This includes the famed honeycomb pump action. This means you get a nice aggressive level of grip texture. The stock is also dark wood with a textured pistol grip. At the end of the stock sits a classic recoil pad.
The barrel is 18.5 inches long and fit with a standard gold bead sight. The magazine tube is capped at five rounds, and at the end of the tube sits a sling swivel. A matching sling swivel sits attached to the stock as well. The finish is a nice rich black finish that’s a bit glossy and deliciously old school.
The gun weighs only 6.75 pounds, so it’s nice and light. Light is good with shotguns, and a light gun is an agile gun. A light gun is an easy-to-manipulate gun.
The Mossberg 500 Retrograde At the Range
This little light gun handles well. It’s fairly ergonomic with a decent length of pull. It might feel a little long for some, but at 13.78 inches with the recoil pad, it’s not terrible. Mounting the gun is easy, and the comb aligns well with the bead sight. The aggressive texturing of the pump and the pistol grip texturing makes a good push-pull technique easy.
This helps you beat recoil and makes the light gun kicks a lot less like a mule and a bit more like a mad rabbit. Controlling the gun isn’t hard. The action cycles rapidly and fairly smoothly. Mossberg pumps famously have a bit of slack to them, but the 500 Retrograde feels smooth and rapid.
As a pump action, it’s awesomely reliable. The gun blasts through anything from two inches to 3 inches long. Some 1.75-inch mini shells cycle fairly well but are not reliable enough for anything but plinking. Adding an Opsol mini clip might be a great way to go if mini shells are your thing.
The main problem I have with Mossberg and their bead sights is the fact it’s pasted directly to the barrel. Other companies figured out long ago to raise that bead. The Mossberg appears to hit high if you rely on the bead sight. You have to aim at their belly button to hit them in the chest.
I added a set of TAC Star bolt on sights. Admittedly these sights aren’t very rugged and will be removed fairly soon and replaced with a red dot anyway. They work fine for plinking and blasting away for fun with slugs at 500 and 100 yards.
Classic Shoulder Artillery
The Mossberg 500 Retrograde is a handy little shotgun with some old cool stylings. Sure, you could add an M-LOK pump, a Magpul SGA stock, and all the tactical doo dads you want. However, that kills the joy of the Retrograde series. I added a Steiner Mk7 and the sights, and I might add a Velcro side saddle, but the wood furniture is staying put.
There are more modern options for home defense, but if classic stylings are your cup of tea, then the Mossberg 500 Retrograde is about as classic as it gets. The 590 series are nice guns, but they aren’t classics like the 500 series, and I feel the 500 series is as classic as it gets and wears the wood furniture well.
Check out the Retrograde series. Mossberg started the trend and, to me, still has the best Retro riot gun on the market.
If like me, you’re a fan of classic cinema then you are no doubt familiar with Steve Martin’s “The Jerk”.
While there are several iconic scenes in the movie, the relevant one to this article is where Navin is writing settlement checks and goes on his famous “This is all I need” rant:
I see a lot of concealed carriers getting caught up in similar thinking.
All they need is this pistol.
And this spare magazine.
And this red dot.
And this tactical knife.
And this med kit.
And this backup gun.
And this pepper spray.
And this handheld flashlight.
And this weapon-mounted light.
All of a sudden you have someone that works in accounting or IT that’s carrying a load out that rivals what you find on a police officer’s duty belt!
It’s easy for newcomers to the concealed carry lifestyle to find themselves caught up in this cycle of gear acquisition, especially when driven by the mantra “it’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it”.
There are, however, practical limitations to that thought process, otherwise, we’d all be running around with rifles and plate carriers.
Many of my friends and mentors are fond of an expression coined by the late Pat Rogers “Mission drives the gear train”
If your job is to run towards the sound of gunfire or to detain people that really don’t want to be detained, the equipment necessary to do that looks very different than the toolset needed to “break contact” (to steal a line from Claude Werner, the Tactical Professor).
This is challenging because it requires a really objective, self-aware analysis of your needs and risk profile. It’s much easier to just whip out the credit card and buy another solution.
If your lifestyle realistically supports carrying all that equipment, that’s awesome. I won’t sit here and tell you that you’re wrong, or that there’s even a better way to do it. Unfortunately “optimal” and “practical” are sometimes in opposition. Don’t let your desire to be “ready for anything” override your needs and reality.
Image of ArtPrize Exhibit "Right to Bear Cute Arms"
A troubling current trend in the wake of any tragedy involving firearms and violence is to mock and belittle those who offer their thoughts, prayers, condolences, and even open their personal resources to help the victims and community. Unless you are rapidly attacking the very existence of firearms and proposing absurdly impractical solutions to solving the complex equations of violent motivations, you aren’t doing enough.
But those impractical and entirely unworkable solutions, along with most efforts to bring “awareness” to the violence (believe us, everyone knows), are just another spin on the same idea. We are sorry this even happened, we do not like that it happened, we want to support the victims… thoughts and prayers.
So, to ArtPrize we go… (A delightful interactive Art Exhibition in Grand Rapids, Michigan if you weren’t aware)
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Moved by the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting in May, a Danish artist decided she would create a piece for ArtPrize that illustrates the number of lives lost in mass shootings in the U.S.
Fair, it is a topic we are bombarded with comparative to its risk for a number of reasons. The most sickening being that the clicks sell, they generate traffic to the sources covering the horrific event. It isn’t that we cannot or should not cover a horrific event, but the attention has a distinct negative effect too when it is a deliberately caused event. This is an unavoidable negative consequence of our largely open information system.
Publicity fuels these particular type of dangerous people. This pastel modeled AR-15 and its pile of rounds representing the slain will fall into the evil amalgamation of motivational forces that drive these terrifying killers. Someone, someday, somewhere, will want to add to that total. That isn’t a normal, moral, or rational thought, but it is going to be one someone has sometime in the future. There is dickall we can do to stop that thought from forming and being acted upon, we can only disincentivize it. We can only make it cost too much, to be worth too little, and we cannot possibly make it too costly or too worthless for every evil person.
There is value in life… and therefore there is value in taking life.
“We heard a lot about that in Denmark and about the statistics…,” Junette Bay, the artist behind “The right to bear cute arms,” said. “…I read a lot about mass shootings in America and I heard a lot from podcasts and about how many weapons there is here.”
I would be curious to hear and read these sources.
Which ones are more emotive hot take versus the far less emotive data from which we try and make best practices, policy and response improvements, search for better indicators, and any number of other things we and try and do to generate positive outcome interventions earlier and prior to an event. What we constantly fail to acknowledge is that this isn’t just a herculean task, it is impossible without removing human free agency entirely. Media and LE sources have been focusing heavily on any stopped event than can, due to the very toxic public perception of law enforcement ineptitude after Uvalde.
We can’t switch off evil (minus ballistically under very specific legal circumstances). We can’t get people to return their shopping carts, an act that costs nearly no effort and provides the small reward of knowing you helped the staff of the establishment, and yet we seem to believe
Bay is a designer, muralist and street artist in Denmark. She said that her ArtPrize entry is “very different” than what she normally does.
“The art that I do is very cheerful. I use pastel colors and patterns and people always tell me that it is very uplifting to look at my art. But when I heard about this happening in America, I felt that I was not going to do a piece that was going to be uplifting. So I wanted to do something a little more serious,” Bay said.
“Serious” art, something looking to generate a darker introspection, takes a tremendous amount of effort, not least of which comes from the context of the art and the context viewers bring to the art. Some art works in that regard very well, viewers perspectives help shape their experience in the viewing but they all grow with the experience.
This, by contrast, well…
During her research, she said she wanted to depict an AR-15 because “it is the most commonly used for mass shootings.”
It is not. Handguns are. By a substantial margin…
So here, in her carefullyresearched work from Denmark via podcasts and the internet, she already has failed her viewers and herself in trying to depict the costs of violence upon the innocent. She has taken inaccurate information, easily verifiable, and used it within her messaging. So to her viewers who know better, she is lying or ignorant. To her viewers who do not know better, she is spreading false information and making them ignorant liars by proxy.
And if the counter argument to that is, “Well this is art. It’s really only to make you feel a certain way. Make you think, you know?”
Oh? Make me think? To generate thoughts and pray we come up with a solution? That is a noble effort, except the piece is actively mocking what it is itself doing. Perhaps she only means the thoughts and prayers of politicians, which I would concur are often as worthless as their promises, and if so I think that message gets lost in the overgeneralization.
Perhaps she could take specific statements from politco types over the various events and point those out specifically, not mock everyone who feels sorry the community who is hurting by telling them they aren’t helping right, followed up by doing nothing particularly useful yourself because you don’t know any better solution either.
“I tried to get a replica from Denmark but that is not possible. So I ordered a replica from a California company that (makes) props for the movie industry,” Bay said.
Hmm, looks possible
She painted the replica AR-15 with her signature style of pastels and patterns. She said the contrast between the cheerful colors and childlike patterns and the deadly weapon gave her a constant knot in her stomach.
This comment, not a quote but a comment within the story, feels like hyperbole. Some of the same we’ve seen around the AR-15 before when trying to describe its destructive capabilities in ludicrous fashion. PTSD inducing effects… in a rifle that a six year old can fire without discomfort.
“I was feeling sick really because the light and cheerful colors and the object that is designed for killing, combining theses two, just feels so wrong,” Bay said.
Umm.. yours is fake… these are not.
Bright colors were embraced by the firearms community for fun a long time ago. This color scheme is far from an original concept and has been done repeatedly upon working firearms, some even that parents have done for their children to making shooting a more fun experience for them.
Because shooting is fun, is safe, and can be learned in a safe manner as children mature and learn other safe practices. This has been done for centuriesnow.
Along with the AR-15, the Danish artist created 3D printed bullets, each one representing a different mass shooting that has happened in the U.S. this year. As of Sept. 19, there were 573. The bullets have the words “thoughts and prayers” on them.
If you couldn’t tell, this is where the art project really fell off the track for me. Mocking thoughts and prayers with an art exhibit that is nothing more than something to provoke thought and praying it will ‘trigger meaningful change’ or some other such lofty ‘goal’ that doesn’t translate well into policy, mental health awareness, criminal prosecution practices, or any of the other myriad topics that influence rates of stress triggered violence, recidivism, criminal mischief, extreme sadism elements, and all the other influences that combine to form a violent outburst seems unproductive too.
People insist upon treating gun crime like it is this linear item we can do very simple things about, when it’s more like watching for natural disasters forming by reading as much sign as we can.
A mass shooter is a tornado, a wildfire, a hurricane in human skin, except we have exceptionally more superior tools for tracking weather effects and atmospherics (and still get it wrong on the daily) and we’re nowhere near to being able to track the emotional atmospherics of a person, to say nothing of 330,000,000 of them (for the US) or 7,000,000,000 globally.
Especially if they are motivated to hide problems, which they are.
“(These) words are used a lot here, and these are just words. It doesn’t seem like there is any action behind the words,” she said.
Like making a brightly colored AR replica might be an image worth thousands of words, but it isn’t delving into motives, causes, multi-tiered effects of policy decisions, and other things that take the problem on in a more direct manner? Because those are hard? Because those don’t always have nice clean answers? Because those don’t always end in an ‘answer’ at all?
She said she’s excited to hear people’s arguments for and against guns as well as their personal experiences. Since installing her artwork at the DeVos Place Convention Center, she said she has received a lot of feedback from visitors.
“I’ve seen some of the reactions and some of them almost made me cry,” Bay said. “There was some teachers coming up to me and saying, ‘Thank you for doing this,’ and also younger people are thanking me.”
That is fantastic that the piece is garnering attention and generating a dialogue, those fall into the thought category of thoughts and prayers. The question remains does anyone have a good idea on what to do now?
I do mean a good idea, one that has been thought out to its second and third order effects. The realistic likely effects of the policy or policies and their positive and negative outcomes, possible or probable consequences, and any unintended consequences that can be speculated on like the opening of additional illegal market spaces to compensate for a demand.
In short, this is nothing that will be solved by abstract art and people agreeing that violence against children is a bad thing. It doesn’t make the exhibit bad, or wrong, or useless, but it isn’t anything more than another form of condolences.
