I saw this come across my feed a couple times, even had a conversation about it with a friend or two. Lake City, contractually under the control of Winchester, has allegedly been notified it will no longer sell M855 “Green Tip” 5.56 NATO to the public. M855/SS109 was the standard NATO round (rather NATO projectile, the SS109 is the 62gr copper, lead, and steel bullet, it’s loadings vary a bit nation to nation) from 1980 to present. Standard is a bit of a stretch too, through GWOT we’ve fielded other ammunitions and I believe our allies have too.
There’s a TTAG article I was directed towards to support the statement. It claims the clear reason, the only reason, that that this would happen is the Biden administration putting the screws to gun owners again.
His price hikes have certainly done a number on that front already, but is this more?
The relevant paragraph from TTAG.
That certainly seems like a kick in the teeth.
But let me direct you to the final bit. “M855 and SS109 ammunition produced in excess of the military’s needs”
The US Army started shipping the M855A1 rounds back in 2010. In February 2011 it was reported M855A1 was being used more than legacy M855. The Marine Corps also started shooting it in 2010 with a purchase of 1.8 million rounds, adopting it officially in 2018, replacing its MK318.
The Military’s “need” for M855 is over.
They have had a new 5.56 round for 12 years, it reached rear echelon support troops in the National Guard by 2019. I, serving in a Guard Maintenance Battalion, the last unit that could possibly need the new ammo, had the new ammo in 2019 shortly after bringing M4A1’s into inventory and retiring the final M16A2’s.
Surplus of?
So, before we lose our minds, how does one sell off surplus from the military’s need when the military no longer needs it? The only SS109 Lake City might be directed to produce on behalf of the military anymore, would be for export. Units with stock in Green Tip will be ordering A1 once it runs out or they will swap it 1:1 with A1 if they don’t feel like waiting to shoot it first. I’d be surprised if there is any LC M855 head stamped ammunition that isn’t several years old sitting in depots at this point. The last time I saw issued M855/M856, it was belted for the M249 in 2019. In 2020 it was belted M855A1.
Additionally, Army has a whole new ammunition it has to make. 6.8x51mm is set to be rolling to about 180,000 weapons and those are the weapons likely to see the highest rates of use since they’re in the hands of combined arms troops, not mechanics and admin types. Going to need a lot of ammo for those folks.
So, I’m not saying the calculations that this would change the amount of 5.56 NATO on the open market, and remove a direct government source of ammo which could be criticized, and stop sending ‘armor piercing bullets’ into public hands weren’t all talking points that could be exploited by the Biden camp as ‘further steps he is taking to reduce gun violence’ and so forth. I’m simply pointing out that the government telling Lake City to stop selling something they aren’t making, because they’re making M855A1 instead, is like telling Ford they can’t sell the 2022 Focus.
For anyone not going to do the Google-Fu, Ford doesn’t have a 2022 Focus.
My guess, and it is truly only a guess, is that SS109 continued to roll out of Lake City under Winchester because what else were they going to do with the old components now that A1 was standard? M855 started its retirement in 2010. Imported M855 from nations still making it, like the PMC X-TAC or IMI, are still around. On top of all that, they were usually cheaper than Winchester.
I firmly believe this was a change that was already coming logistically, and now it is here. I could be wrong, we shall see. But I feel like this has far less relevance to the market than the Russian ammunition ban did, and that one was a slow roll since it targeted new import licenses (at the time, pre-Ukraine) and not existing contracts.
Again, all I’m pointing out is there is no overrun or rejected lots to sell publicly as DoD run off if there is no more DoD contract production.
The shotgun can be a fairly simple weapon. Unlike a rifle, it doesn’t benefit as much from various upgrades. All you really need is a white light and a way to carry some spare ammo for defensive use. Slings and red dots are very nice to have, but you get by without them more easily. I’ve talked about lights before, so today, we are going to look at a means to carry spare ammo, specifically the Aridus Industries Q-DC carrier.
Side saddles are nothing new and have been a popular way to attach ammo to shotguns for decades. Attaching a few spare rounds to a shotgun is a simple task, and you’d think there wouldn’t be much room for innovation, but the Aridus Q-DC takes things a step further.
What Is the Aridus Industries Q-DC
The Aridus Q-DC is a shotgun side-saddle made from machined aluminum. Using aluminum is a fair bit different already since most use polymer or use some form of nylon. Metal is not the standard by any means, and while polymer and nylon do work, metal provides the durability most of us crave.
The cassette detaches easily.
What stands out the most is that it’s a two-piece system. Q-DC stands for Quick Detach Carrier. The first is the carrier that attaches directly to the gun. The carrier is then loaded with cassettes. The cassettes are the loops that carry your shotgun shells. The setup is similar to loading a magazine into a rifle, but it’s a cassette into the carrier.
Pop it out by hitting the lever.
Each carrier holds six rounds of 12 gauge ammo and pins it in place with a stainless steel retention spring. You can purchase separate carriers for a nominal fee that allows you to keep your carrier loaded with spare ammo. These cassettes can be carried in magazine pouches and fit fairly well in Blue Force Gear AR-10 Ten-Speed pouches.
The Q-DC works with both Mossberg 500 series shotguns and Remington 870 guns, but on top of that, you can use the Universal variant. The universal variant uses a 3M super-strong tape to affix the carrier to the receiver of your shotgun of choice. This allows any gun to be outfitted to damn near any repeating pump or semi-auto shotgun.
Will It Come Off?
The universal version of the carrier uses 3M double-sided tape, buts it’s not your average tape. It’s a high bond tape that’s like cement once attached. Adam from Aridus has several videos of him trying to knock the carrier off with a hammer, and it doesn’t budge. Over nearly a year of mine on my Benelli, I can say the dang thing doesn’t move.
I do suggest you go to the website and print the provided diagram so you can plan exactly where you want it. Cause once it’s attached, good luck moving it. The Q-DC clings on like a dependent on Tricare.
Reloading Your Reloads with the Q-DC
What’s the purpose of the Quick Detach function of the Q-DC? Great question. The idea is simple when you run a shotgun, one of your tasks is keeping it fed. Tube magazines limit you on ammunition capacity, and that’s why a side saddle is so handy. It allows you to quickly feed the gun.
A side saddle of six rounds might not be enough for a police officer or military member. They may want to top it off when they run through that side-saddle or even partially through it. This requires you to carry spare shotgun ammo and top the side saddle off one loop at a time.
These spring improve retainment of the shell.
Is this practical? In a dynamic situation? No. It is practical to remove the cassette and replace it with a fully loaded cassette you are carrying on your vest. The Q-DC makes it easy to detach the empty carrier and tack on a loaded carrier. The setup allows you to push one lever and ditch the empty cassette, and install a fresh one without much work.
For the average Joe, this might not be an issue. For a home defense scenario, you aren’t likely to run through your entire gun’s worth of ammo, and you won’t be wearing a battle belt to have fresh cassettes anyway for the average Joe, the Q-DC rules for training purposes. Multiple cassettes allow you to reload the side saddle quickly and keep training.
The Q-DC is more than just a side saddle with a gimmick; it’s also one of the best side saddles I’ve ever used.
Just As A Side Saddle
The metal design gives you massive points for durability. The six slots are plenty of extra ammo, and the design makes it simple to install and use. The spring-loaded retention spring makes it possible to use the side saddle with the ammo brass up or down with complete confidence.
As a shotgun nerd, I’ve lost plenty of shells with other carriers running brass down, so I stopped going brass down. The Aridus Q-DC has never lost a round. Even more importantly, the rounds don’t even slip and slide without real external pressure.
The spring keeps them in one place and at the same height as you loaded them. This prevents them from sliding down so low they are tough to draw.
There is some resistance when drawing a shotgun shell from the Q-DC, but it’s easily overcome. Drawing shells for port or tube reloads isn’t difficult by any means.
Not For Everyone
You might see the price of 185 dollars for a carrier and one cassette and be hit with sticker shock. The same might go for the 42-dollar carriers, especially when you can get Esstac cards for a similar setup much cheaper. I’d admit, the Esstac cards and shotgun cards, in general, are a great option. The Aridus Q-DC isn’t for everyone.
They are for very demanding shotgun fans. I’ve used and approve of Esstac cards but guess what? They wear out. I practice with my shotgun a ton, including reloads with dummy rounds, and I wear side saddles out. I can’t wear the Aridus Q-DC out, and it’d be an impressive feat if I do.
The Q-DC might be the best side saddle ever made, but it won’t check everyone’s box, and that’s fine. If you’re a shotgun nerd like me, I’d recommend giving it a try. It’s a buy once cry once affair for sure. Unless you own multiple shotguns…then you’ll be like me and crying lots.
Here’s a bit I saved from Above The Law. I thought it was genuinely interrogative and that seems far too rare outside the “in” crowd of the firearm community. People who don’t know and genuinely want to understand ‘why’ certain things are the way they are. Such as why well educated gun owners resist so vehemently so many of the gun control proposals. Are we just “bitter clingers” or was there depth to our arguments?
This won’t be a normal fisking, this feels more genuinely intellectual in its questioning than your average anti-gunner who merely wants to hear their answer from your mouth. Something along the lines of, “Your right, angry person with no practical knowledge or experience in this field. Clearly we should turn in guns for the greater good!”
But the real first paragraph intrigued me. The second triggered me a little, but we’ll get to that.
An interesting series of questions, Mr. Herrmann. Let me endeavour to answer them.
I’m an equal-opportunity offender. Allow me to offend everyone, by offering a few thoughts (on both sides of the issue) on gun control:
Bold. Let’s see where we go from here. I promise to only be offended if it is truly well deserved.
First, shouldn’t we require the microstamping of all gun cartridges nationwide? We should require manufacturers to place a microscopic engraving on cartridge cases identifying the gun from which the cartridge case was expelled. I understand that folks want to possess guns, but I don’t understand why anyone should have the right to fire a gun anonymously. Police should be able to immediately trace a cartridge to a specific gun.
Does anyone disagree in good faith?
Yes, this one is easy.
Microstamping is straight science fiction. A totally non-viable technology. Steel, brass, and aluminum under momentary pressures varying from 24,000 to 80,000 PSI don’t work this way. Neither the firing pin nor the chamber can in any way reliably imprint a QR code or whatever else someone is thinking onto a spent case. This is basic materials sciences.
This utopian pipedream sits firmly in the realm of ‘wouldn’t it be nice if’ and it will remain there, probably until the end of conventional metallic cartridge ammunition. This suggestion also assigns an absurdly over inflated importance to ballistic matching and tracing in criminal investigations. It isn’t that important. It isn’t unimportant but it isn’t that important. Tracking down people via the social aspects of their interpersonal interactions is going to remain the most reliable method, not checking to see if a microstamp on a casehead can find an owner through a trace report (which takes a good while) to a dealer.
So no, there is no ‘right’ to fire a gun anonymously, beyond the obvious protections you have against unreasonable search, seizure, and privacy in general. There is just no way to make this magic work.
Even if we could get a reliable case print with material durability, which we cannot, a few seconds with polisher compounds or something like swapping firing pins and all the effort to imprint cases is wasted. Heck a modestly forward thinking criminal type could pick up brass from a range and leave it at the scene, or use one of the many brass catcher devices. Reloaded ammunition would carry multiple microstamps. You could make it against the law to remove stamps, like mattress tags, but what particular brand of neerdowell do you believe wouldn’t take a basic defacement step to protect themselves? They already make the attempt with serial numbers.
(I don’t want to hear that requiring microstamping would increase the price of guns or ammunition. It probably would. The Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms, but it doesn’t impose any price controls.)
Like I said, my dude. This is impossible to do reliably and not worth it. The price control is that is doesn’t work. It cannot be funded to work.
Literally not worth it, ask a ballistic lab or a detective if they need microstamping to do their jobs. They don’t. This isn’t a data pool set that would significantly impact their clearance rates, it would just be minor corroborating data. At best it would add one extra correlative point in an investigation, one which can usually be established by other means and without any serial number.
So yes, this argument is silly. We might as well go down the rabbit hole of all the ways counter gravity could help us for all the ways microstamping could.
Second, those who oppose gun control are missing a trick: Although you hear this argument all the time, the truth is that almost no one ever fires a gun in self-defense. (I know that the pro-gun folks always insist that “a good guy with a gun” could have stopped a crime, and we see occasional anecdotal reports of this having happened once in a blue moon. But the average gun owner will never in his or her life fire a gun in self-defense.)
DGU is a tricky number to pin down. However all estimates point to more DGUs, the majority of of which are non-fatal and non-injurious, than homicides.
There are also more incidents of threatened violence than carried through violence, but the DGU is lawful under the condition of life threatening harm. Threatening felonious violence is as illegal as committing felonious violence, penalties just vary.
Some people, however, probably make a “defensive display” of a gun without discharging it. For example, a john is about to assault or rob a prostitute. The pimp enters the room and displays a handgun. The john leaves peacefully; no one is hurt. This defensive display of a gun served a useful purpose, but I’d bet dollars to doughnuts incidents such as this are not reported to the police (and thus are not counted in the statistics).
Or a rancher living in a rural area hears a suspicious noise downstairs. The rancher pulls out his shotgun and chambers a round. The thief hears the round being chambered and quickly leaves the house unharmed. Again, that’s a defensive display of a gun that served a useful purpose and is unlikely to be reported to the police.
The pro-gun people never talk about “defensive displays” of guns,
Oh, but we do. Nobody listens, but we do.
We’re just gun fanatics with tiny genitals. Ask the people we’re trying to converse with, they’ll tell you. Prevented/dissuaded assaults are the majority of DGUs, we have numerous videos showing this in shops and convenience stores.
but I suspect that happens far more often than an actual “good guy with a gun” shoots a criminal in the act.
Correct.
I don’t know if “defensive displays” would tip the balance for anyone thinking about gun control,
It won’t, usually. Most have no interest in being “tipped” into a rational analysis.
but surely that’s a benefit of gun ownership that any fair person would consider when thinking about the issue.
Your error, Mr. Herrmann, is assuming they wish to be fair. They wish to be declared right. They wish to win and get the self-righteous satisfaction of having done something, regardless of actual results.
Fair never enters the equation, if it were fair we would restrain our emotive responses in favor of reasoned ones. This is one facet that is purposefully overlooked and purposefully omitted in these conversations. Of the many reasons we cannot have a “reasonable discussion” on gun control, this among the most prominent. Reasonable requires all the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ data to be laid out in context. The contexts most often omitted, and outright refused to be acknowledged, are that you as a person have that natural right to arms in your defense and that guns are used, owned, and safeguarded properly by the vast majority. In these contexts, because you have the inalienable right to protect yourself effectively, what arguments for firearms laws that do not punishabehavior (like assault) and instead prohibit a ‘bad’ gun make any sense?
Third, society has attempted to prohibit many things that people want: Alcohol, during Prohibition; marijuana, until recently; child pornography, through today; and so on. Generally, those bans don’t work; people obtain illegal things that they want.
On the other hand, society does effectively ban many things that at least some people want: Civilians can’t possess grenade launchers
Lol. Yes they can.
Just add tax.
(although that would be fun, don’t you think?)
I do. And, again, you absolutely can. National Firearms Act, Destructive Device.
or tanks
Lol. Yes, they can.
You can also re-enable the gun, legally, again under the NFA. But tanks are expensive to run and not as practical as a personal carbine with a flashlight. We’re comparing apples to fruit orchards here.
or cruise missiles,
Using prohibitively expensive niche use items as an example is probably not the most relevant comparison.
Let’s not talk too loud about SpaceX. Those aren’t missiles afterall… despite their missile-y characteristics.
We can have drones though, but nobody would weaponize a guideable drone… [/sarc]
or chemical, nuclear, or biological weapons. Those bans work.
Do they? Do those bans “work” in truth?
One of the greatest fears of the 21st Century, thus far, has been a Bin Laden-alike getting their ‘private’ hands on a WMD. We also try to prohibit states from building them. How’d that work out with North Korea?
When we say ‘nobody needs a private nuke’ it’s mostly because we have a bunch of public nukes to do that job and executing warfare is a role of the state. A nuclear weapon, like large volume conventional high explosives, is a strategic weapon not an individual one. In reality a privately held nuclear weapon, by someone who could fund and store it, would be roughly as risky as state held nuclear weapons are and we already have those. Russia, China, North Korea, how are we feeling about those guys right now?
If society banned assault rifles (or handguns, if constitutionally permissible), how do we assess where that ban would fall on the spectrum?
Of? Spectrum of?
I’ll take a stab at this anyway.
Considering the autoloading rifle is objectively the most useful individual armament we have, followed closely by handguns and shotguns, they would rank at the top on the “2nd Amendment applies to me” scale.
A heavy machine gun in comparison (legal to own too by the way), which primarily rides on a vehicle or is set in a fixed position with a crew of 2 or 3 people, is used for force protection and area defense. IT requires a crew to service it properly, hence the title “crew served weapon” for the M2 or MK19 (a crew served machine gun grenade launcher, yes you can legally own one if you pay a tax). They are far less useful in the role of self preservation, but more so in community/force defense.
So if our ‘spectrum‘ is how useful a weapon is to an individual, not a group, then the AR-15 and its ilk are the most useful.
Ranking weapons by their practical strategic use level and human resource employability would be a reasonable consideration, and a nuclear weapon, a strategic bomber and munitions, a set of air superiority fighters, or even an artillery piece (you can buy those too) are all strategic combined arms level weapons to be employed in support of a large force or special missions. Private owners tend to use them at a very limited series of events for recreation because of the logistics.
A rifle, even an “assault rifle” is a personal weapon. It is the weapon you bring for yourself, not that you employ in a team in support of a larger force objective. Personal arms are the most assuredly protected by the provisions of the 2nd Amendment.
Would the ban work? And please don’t shout that you know the truth, and the truth is whatever side of the argument you favor. Think about it, and give reasonable people some way to judge the issue.
Okay. Let’s reason. Not shout. Maybe twist a little though.
Quick run down. Rough, probably low, estimate of 400 million firearms in circulation. Handguns are the most popular personal firearm, also most often used in crimes including mass shootings. Estimate a minimum 20+ million ‘assault’ weapons in circulation, meaning magazine fed autoloading firearms like the AR-15.
How popular are firearms with the general public?
Popular
424,873,463 requested, federally regulated, firearm transfers in the last 24 years, encompassing an estimated 100,000,000 people, give or take… This covers only a small percentage of private transfers that are required to pass through NICS. Demand between 2005, the first full year the assault weapon ban had expired, and 2020/2021 which is currently set to be peak demand, has more than quadrupled. 443.3% increase 2005 to 2021. These changes fueled by the Millennial GWOT crowd and the increased interest in firearms by Gen Z who are continuing the gun culture 2.0 arc.
So, you tell me. What percentage of efficacy would we need to achieve for a ban to “work”? What does “work” even look like?
Is “work” a substantive reduction in frequency of homicides or is it specific events? Considering those specific events, mass public killings, are a small percentage of homicides and year to year shifts can, and have, swallowed the totals deaths, what is our mean variation set? How will we know what is a fluke of luck and what is efficacy based?
If “work” means remove, there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell. We can’t get people to stop overeating and start taking basic healthy steps to keepthemselvesalive, heart disease remains our number one cause of death.
From 1999 –2000 through 2017 –March 2020, US obesity prevalence increased from 30.5% to 41.9%. During the same time, the prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7% to 9.2%.
Obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer. These are among the leading causes of preventable, premature death.
The estimated annual medical cost of obesityexternal icon in the United States was nearly $173 billion in 2019 dollars. Medical costs for adults who had obesity were $1,861 higher than medical costs for people with healthy weight.
You think we’re getting the guns off the streets with a prohibition, from 100,000,000 people, when we can’t get them to make small dietary and exercise changes that could save, extend, and improve orders of magnitude more lives?
Nope.
Fourth, if society bans some category of weapons, then minority groups will pay the price.
Thank! You!
Finally, someone paying attention to laws inpractice. The prevalence of folks who ignore the negative impacts of a law because it gives them the warm and fuzzies is infuriating. These are the same folks that support things like the S.A.F.E Act in New York because the acronym spells safe.
Look what happened with the war on drugs: Drugs were banned for everyone, but minorities were harassed and arrested disproportionately. Am I wrong to think that the same thing would happen if we banned some category of weapons? Maybe a ban would be worth the cost, but why don’t liberals ever mention this issue?
Because pointing out the negative consequences of your proposal could completely undermine it. If it cannot stand on its merits against its detractions it should not be policy, period. A cure worse than the affliction is no cure.
Finally, suppose 400 anti-gun Democrats bought assault weapons and then openly displayed those assault weapons (assuming this is legal in Texas; I’m really not sure) in a demonstration on the nearest public area to Gov. Greg Abbott’s house. Maybe next Saturday morning would be a good time for that protest. Would Greg Abbott be intimidated? Might he decide that allowing the purchase or open carry of these weapons wasn’t a good idea?
Like this?
Remember Chucklehead in Chief, Grand Master Jay? Remember him and his ‘bullpup’ that got kick? Remember when he tried to tell us that a bolt closing on an AR fired the weapon?
Okay, NFAC isn’t anti-gun. We just wish they we a little more clued in.
Now given that anti-gunners buying guns (an interesting hypothetical) and using them to protest lawfully, an action done peacefully many times over, defeats their own argument… I have a feeling Abbot would let that one be. If it turned into another situation with a negligent discharge like NFAC did (twice), maybe not a good idea but not illegal and certainly not worth prohibiting under the law.
Stupidity is not illegal.
The comments in the Twitter-verse and colocated spheres of commentary are not promising in this regard though. Anti-gunners regularly and vehemently push gun owners into a subhuman class where it is perfectly reasonable to wish death upon them and their families. Subhumanizing is a trait we’ve toxically adopted into our discourse and we need to exorcise it.
I’m not expressing a point of view here; I rarely do. I’m not a pundit, and I’m not crazy — I still work for a living.
I’m just asking: What do you think? And why are these issues generally overlooked?
I hope I have answered your points, Mr. Herrmann.
You asked some good questions. You made some statements that were provably false too, but that happens. We are not perfect. We learn. I think those questions show something important, it illustrates just how ignorant even a lawyer can be outside their primary areas of expertise. It voices the genuine concerns people have, often because they do not know, and instead of ridicule we need to explain. Not everyone is in the mindset to listen, but we need to explain and to continue to explain even to those unwilling to listen because somebody in the crowd is listening.
I feel Mr. Herrmann is one such person.
So, as to your final question, these issues are “overlooked” because looking at them destroys most of the narratives anti-gunners make use of. It can topple some goodly fuddlore too, something I am eminently okay with. But many anti-gun positions are built on emotive arguments and not upon a strong correlation of positive effects. They will claim otherwise with poorly crafted studies and polls and actively ignore negative effects by using emotive counter arguments about “safety” and “for the children” and so forth.
But the crux of it is that misconstruing the problems is the primary strategy of those pushing gun control, openly admitted too even back in the 90’s. They attack ‘assault weapons’ over the fear and public perception, not the actual threat they represent which would make the logical target overwhelmingly handguns. They make suspect correlations to conflate the threat, such as ‘gun deaths’ including suicide, instead of establishing the details necessary to tackle the variable individual sources of risk since an armed robbery, a revenge killing, and a terrorist attack have vastly different motivational sources.
If they are not honest about the problem(s), how can we assume they are honestly looking for an effective solution? I wouldn’t take that bet. If my mechanic couldn’t accurately describe to me the problem with my vehicle, especially if I can like I need new brake pads, and then kept arguing with me about the source of the problem and proposing insanely expensive and ineffective solutions like changing the windshield to a darker one and putting heavier body panels on the exterior, I’m going with a different mechanic.
I use the same logic to look at gun control proposals. I encourage everyone else to as well.
Just a few short years ago, pistol compensators were niche accessories relegated to the upper echelons of shooting competitions. You’d find them on race guns, usually alongside a massive magazine and a fixed red dot. They made sense there; to make Major power factor, you’d need a fairly hot round. Compensators could be carefully tuned with recoil springs and custom loads to create a platform that recoiled softly but still hit hard enough to get you out of Minor.
Then came the Roland Special—overnight, it seemed like every “tactical” pistol out there got a light, a red dot, and a comp. But with tactical and duty handguns these days being overwhelmingly chambered in 9mm, is there really any need for a compensator?
The Upside
To answer that, we need to first assess the actual uses and benefits of a good compensator. Their primary function is to reduce muzzle flip and/or recoil, depending on the design. Really, if a muzzle device is using side ports to reduce recoil, it ought to be considered a muzzle brake or hybrid device, but these days most any pistol muzzle device that helps you shoot flatter and faster tends to get labeled a compensator.
Compensators achieve this by redirecting the gas created by the gunshot to counteract the recoil and muzzle rise. The most common types use one or more top ports to put downward pressure on the muzzle, reducing rise. The benefits are obvious; less rise means faster recovery of your sights, faster reacquisition of your target, and overall faster shooting.
Comps offer some other fringe benefits as well, though. One of the original justifications for the compensator on the Roland Special was reduced fouling on the lens of the weapon light. For concealed carriers or operators for whom a pistol is a secondary weapon unlikely to see a high round count in a single confrontation, this benefit is negligible; just clean your weapon light regularly, and you’ll be fine. Police or security forces though, for whom a pistol may be their primary or only weapon, it can massive.
You can’t shoot what you can’t see. Even just a few mags through a pistol can be enough to seriously degrade the performance of a light—at least until the lens can be cleaned. The compensator directs the gas (and fouling) upwards and away from the light, keeping it cleaner and brighter, longer.
While not true of all compensators, many of the good ones allow users to relocate their front sight from the slide to the compensator. This allows the sight to remain fairly static under recoil, rather than reciprocate with the slide, further boosting sight recovery and target acquisition. There’s a reason these “island” style sights are popular on custom competition guns; they really do offer an advantage.
The Tradeoffs
At the end of the day though, there’s a very real question of whether the juice is worth the squeeze. The recoil-reducing properties of a compensator scale with the power and gas production of the cartridge being shot. This means you’re not going to see nearly as much benefit on a 9mm as you would on a full-power .40 S&W. Moreover, a full-size 9mm pistol doesn’t have a great deal of recoil to begin with.
Similarly, with the rapidly growing popularity of red dot optics on handguns, iron sights are becoming less and less relevant. What was once the primary sighting system on every handgun is now only a backup on many. The non-reciprocating front sight offered by certain compensators becomes a lot less attractive when it’s only a backup, unlikely to ever be used.
It’s not like compensators are all upside, either. They come with some real negatives. The biggest drawback to a comp is the same as its biggest benefit; they redirect gas.
Forcing the gas to travel upward rather than straight out from the barrel reduces recoil but it also puts all that hot air right into your field of vision. When shooting at night, this can result in a distracting fireball, even with flash-suppressant powder. A flatter-shooting pistol isn’t much of a benefit if a fireball is compromising your night vision or preventing you from reacquiring your target.
Worse still, if shooting from a retention position such as a pectoral index, a compensator can send those same hot gasses directly up and into your face. The blast from a 9mm isn’t overwhelming and dealing with it is certainly something that can be mitigated with training, but it’s a liability all the same.
Last (and honestly, least) of the factors that ought to be considered is the added length of the compensator. On a tilting-barrel action like that of most modern handguns, anything coming into contact with the front of the barrel and pushing it backward can force the gun out of battery, preventing it from being fired.
Should an armed confrontation occur within arms reach, a compensator that protrudes from the front of the gun beyond the frame or the front of the weapon light can increase the risk of the firearm being forced out of battery. Again, minor, but of note.
Certain compensators are designed to attach to the rail of the pistol, which alleviates this problem, but they tend to perform poorly compared to barrel-mounted designs and can be damaging to the frame. Other designs, like Staccato’s XC pistol, utilize a compensator that is fitted flush with the front of the frame, making it no more likely to be forced out of battery than any other pistol.
The Verdict
In the end, all of these factors need to be taken into account when making the decision for your pistol. Like all gear-related decisions, the mission and objective should be the primary determinant.
A security guard working a day shift at a checkpoint doesn’t really need to worry about the effects of a fireball on his night vision; for him, the reduced recoil may be an easy advantage. An urban police officer, on the other hand, might be much more concerned with nighttime performance and the added liability at hand-to-hand ranges.
Compensators aren’t for everyone, and on 9mm pistols, they’re not going to be the difference between winning and losing a gunfight. They offer certain benefits and are a good fit for some users, but you should think carefully before adding one to your gun.
Razor nicely summarizes my raw thoughts on the current bills, but it is filled with colorful language. Play with discretion.
Here is the crux of it though folks, Red Flag law, passage or failure, is about banking political leverage for an otherwise disastrous looking midterm.
The two proposals with actual teeth to move the needle on school safety and child wellbeing are the funding bills, red flags, mag bans, 80% bans, and so forth are entirely valueless in a society with 3D printing, hardware stores, and a healthy distrust of the ineptitude of government.
So tell them to vote no, and then vote them out when the clock strikes voting day in November. Put their records to task and clean house. 2022’s violence is being leveraged, successfully, because the parties that want to bank the capital rolled a “lucky” full house on two back to back exploitable incidents, while quietly letting the others get only enough attention to be counted in the tally of ‘mass shootings’ in the nation.
Mass shooting and mass killing are purposefully correlated to confuse you, remember that. A mass shooting means 4+ deaths or injuries at an incident, which will include the just about any public and many private settings. Where a mass killing equates to 4+ deaths, and a public mass killing is one in a public or semi-public space devoid of any other felonious motive. IE: A bank robbery where four people inside the bank are shot and killed in the robbery, is a ‘mass shooting’ and a ‘mass killing’ but will be reported as a fatal robbery because there was a felonious motivation separate from the killings.
I saw a comment flippantly and sarcastically stating, “Because gang bangers commit so many mass shootings…”
Yes. They do.
Exhibit: Chicago
Between 1980 and 2005 the percentage of associated felonious actions that also resulted in a homicide went from 55% of all murders to 77% of murders. Associated criminal activity is the norm for homicides. The super majority in fact.
Do these circumstances support strong efficacy implementing Red Flag laws? Magazine bans? 80% bans? Or do they suggest criminal justice reform, prosecutorial priorities, and bail/parole restructuring? Which is it? Where do we move our efforts to actually move the needle on homicides?
The answer remains, more so than ever, in the criminal justice circuit and in who we lock up, for how long, and why we do so.
These days it seems like we are constantly under siege from advertising. It’s everywhere, all the time, all at once. Yet, we still find ourselves both victims of advertising and fascinated by it. Mad Men is considered one of the best TV shows ever made, and it’s all about advertisements. With ads in mind, we will look at one of the earliest examples of influencer marketing in the firearms world. When Savage Arms released the M1907 pistol, they did it with a massive advertising campaign and grabbed a handful of gunslingers.
Savage Arms and Advertising
Savage Arms was already a little ahead of the game regarding advertising. They famously used the profile of Chief Lame Deer of the Lakota people as part of their advertising. In 1919 Arthur Savage was approached by Chief John Fire Lame Deer, wanting to purchase rifles for his tribe in New York. Lame Deer offered to allow Savage to use his profile in advertising in exchange for a discount on the firearm and an annual fee.
Arthur Savage was clearly ahead of the game when it came time to hire influencers. The profile of Chief Lame Deer became the symbol for Savage Arms, Chief Lame Deer might be the most famous example of influencer-style marketing. However, it was the first. The Savage M1907 saw heavy use of influencer marketing in its sales campaign.
What’s the Savage M1907
The Savage Arms M1907 was a pocket pistol-style firearm first chambered in .32 ACP. The gun descends from Savage’s entry into the M1911 contest. The original design was a .45 ACP pistol, but it didn’t do well against the M1911. Savage didn’t ditch the design. They just shrunk it and used smaller, lighter recoiling cartridges.
Savage Arms’ little pistol was reasonably innovative. It’s a striker-fired design with what appears to be a hammer. That hammer allows you to manually cock the striker or decock it. This was the first pistol to use a double-stack magazine, and the little .32 ACP held 10 rounds total. Additionally, the pistol used a delayed blowback system with a rotating barrel to delay the breech opening.
The pocket-sized M1907 was very much ahead of its time. Later, the gun would be produced in .380 ACP, holding 8 rounds total. That kind of innovative design translated into sales topping 230,000 M1907s sold.
Savage Arms and Influencer Marketing
Before Chief Lame Deer Savage leaned on two famous cowboys to advertise their new pistol. These men made their reputations with single-action revolvers, but Savage Arms managed to turn them over to the automatic. How? Well, likely lots of money.
Famed soldier, bison hunter, and proprietor of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, Buffalo bill, became one of their influencers, for lack of a better term. Buffalo Bill served as an Army Scout in the Indian Wars, earned the Medal of Honor, was a Buffalo Hunter, and later a showman.
Buffalo Bill was a six-gun man, but according to the Savage Arms ad, he received the Savage Automatic as a Christmas gift. He initially rejected the gun, but according to the ad, he took it out and shot fifty rounds from the M1907 and his old army revolver. He outshot himself with the Savage and scored higher with the Savage, apparently.
Dr. Carver, the world’s best wing shooter at the time, apparently wrote a letter to Savage requesting three Savage automatics that he intended to give three women to defend against burglars. The ad portraying this letter is hilariously sexist and credits Dr. Carver as a weapon expert.
Apparently, the Pinkerton Detective agency endorsed the firearm as well, but I can’t find any of the ads regarding this endorsement.
Enter Bat Masterson
Bat Masterson was a famed gunfighter, Army scout, and Sheriff of Dodge City. He rode with Wyatt Earp for a time and would later become a journalist. In those later years, he became an influencer for Savage Arms. Several ads featured Bat Masterson holding the pistol and making proclamations about its capabilities.
Including stating that, “A tenderfoot with a Savage Automatic and the nerve to stand his ground, could have run the worst six-shooter man, the west ever knew, right off the range.”
Bat Masterson even wrote a short book for Savage Arms called the Tenderfoots Turn. It detailed how to use a handgun and shooting techniques of the time. It also had some excellent illustrations and is easy to find PDF copies floating around the internet. The book talks about how hard it is to shoot a .45 Colt revolver and how easy it is to shoot a Savage Automatic.
If that’s not the equivaleSnt of paying someone to make a Youtube video about your gun, then I don’t know what is. The Tenderfoots Turn is an exciting example of influencer marketing in a time before influencers really existed.
Ads, Ads, Ads
Three things are certain in life, death, taxes, and ads. Firearms advertising has always been an exciting piece of history. Savage Arms clearly embraced the Ad Men early, and it shows with their innovative thinking and advertisements. It’s fascinating to see just how far we’ve come. Sure the technology has changed, but the techniques haven’t.
NEWINGTON, N.H., (June 13, 2022) – Following the success of the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy MK248 300WM Precision Sniper Rifle Contract, SIG SAUER is pleased to announce another U.S. Army award to manufacture the follow-on Advanced Sniper Rifle (ASR) 300 Norma Mag (NM) and armor piercing 338 Norma Mag (NM) ammunition.
“This selection by the U.S. Army to manufacture ASR ammunition reinforces SIG SAUER as the leading manufacturer of modern sniper ammunition for the U.S. Department of Defense, and demonstrates confidence in SIG’s ability to deliver the most precise ammunition in the world,” began Ron Cohen, President and CEO SIG SAUER, Inc.
The U.S. Army ASR ammunition contract consists of two cartridges: M1163, a 300NM, 215 grain round, and M1162 an armor piercing 338NM, 300 grain round. The $157MM maximum value contract includes 4.5MM rounds for the first delivery order.
“Sniper ammunition must be manufactured to the most precise standards. This award, combined with our proven success in the MK248 300WM contract, further demonstrates our most important customer’s confidence in our ability to build and deliver the most precise ammunition,” concluded Cohen.
All SIG SAUER Ammunition, including the Precision Sniper Rifle MK248, the Advanced Sniper Rifle M1162 and M1163, and the new Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) 6.8mm Common Cartridge, is American made and manufactured at our state-of-the-art ammunition manufacturing facility in Jacksonville, Arkansas.
Image via Barret product page
About SIG SAUER, Inc. SIG SAUER, Inc. is a leading provider and manufacturer of firearms, electro-optics, ammunition, suppressors, air guns, and training. For over 250 years SIG SAUER, Inc. has evolved by blending American ingenuity, German engineering, and Swiss precision. Today, SIG SAUER is synonymous with industry-leading quality and innovation which has made it the brand of choice amongst the U.S. Military, the global defense community, law enforcement, competitive shooters, hunters and responsible citizens. Additionally, SIG SAUER is the premier provider of tactical training and elite firearms instruction at the SIG SAUER Academy. Headquartered in Newington, New Hampshire, SIG SAUER has over 2,900 employees across eleven locations. For more information about the company and product line visit: sigsauer.com.
Shotguns are painfully long weapons. Especially when compared to the slate of braced pistols and carbines out there. The NFA makes it tough to get anything below 18 inches, and overall, shotguns tend to be long weapons. There are a fair bit of skills you need to train with for those of you who want a shotgun for home defense. One of those skills is something called short stocking.
Short stocking takes a long shotgun and makes it a little shorter. The technique is reserved for extreme close quarters scenarios where the situation doesn’t allow for a proper shouldering of the shotgun. You might navigate your home and come into short hallways and rooms where the shotgun is a long hassle.
My First Time
I learned short stocking well before I was a shotgun nerd. I was a Marine whose assigned rifle was an M16A4. The M16A4 is a big long beast of a rifle…well, at least compared to modern carbines. The 20-inch barrel and long length of pull make the M16A4 a big gun. In urban warfare, we learned short stocking when clearing tight rooms like closets, elevators, and stairwells.
Short stocking is fairly easy with an M16A4 because it’s a light recoiling rifle. The shotgun is an entirely different beast. As I soon discovered, the difference between the two weapons makes short stocking the shotgun its own thing, requiring its technique.
If you’re a shotgun fan and a person who uses one for home defense, keep reading because it’s one of the most valuable shotgun skills. However, with that said, examine your shotgun. You might be able to trim inches by choosing something like the Magpul SGA stock, where you can adjust the length of pull and knock an inch or two ff the gun’s length.
Short Stocking Your Shotgun
Short stocking isn’t a complicated task. It does require some practice, though. Let’s walk through the steps needed to successfully short stock a shotgun.
First, we will push the stock up and over our should with the gun canted 90 degrees with your ejection port facing upward. Pull the stock back as far as you comfortably can, make sure you maintain a good grip, and you won’t get hit in the face by your optic or rear sight. Try to keep the top of the stock against your neck to have a constant index point.
With your support hand, grip the pump or forend, and I’ve found it helps me wrap my thumb around the barrel. The thumb around the barrel makes it easy to utilize the push/pull technique to mitigate recoil. With a pump gun, just move your thumb off the barrel to work the action.
Pull rearward on the stock while at the same time pushing forward on the forend of the weapon. This recoil mitigation technique allows you to control the weapon with ease. It’s always handy but very necessary when short stocking.
Aiming and Maiming
Aiming is tough because you can’t use your sights. That makes aiming tough but think of short stocking like shooting from close retention. You’ll use it in close-range combat, and the close nature makes it easy to hit your shots with compromised aiming techniques.
I kind of just use the tip of the barrel to aim. It’s not great, but I can consistently put shots in the A-zone at 7 yards. Beyond that, I’m transitioning to a stock position. When using the tip of the barrel, you’ll appear to be hitting high, so I suggest aiming at the belt buckle level to hit their chest.
Due to the increased recoil of a shotgun and the unusual position you are shooting in, you need to make sure you’re indexing consistently against your neck between shots. This isn’t a technique you’re looking to use for long strings of fire, but landing two consistent shots on target in under 2 seconds should be your standard.
Short Stocking and Training
Many tactics and techniques can be practiced dry, but this isn’t necessarily one of them. I recommend walking through it dry a few times to learn how to arrange your body and what to expect, but you need that shotgun recoil to understand the technique.
Start with birdshot first, get a good technique and try not to burn your thumb on the barrel. Gloves help for training purposes. Once you have the technique down, move to the buckshot you use for home defense. Practice hitting a target’s chest until you can do two shots in two seconds at 7 yards.
Also, practice transitions from a high or low ready to a short stocking position and then back again. Move between positions smoothly. I recommend setting something up in front of you or using a wall and doorway and practicing transitioning from a ready position to a short stocked position and getting smooth, quick, and consistent with it.
The shotgun is a close-quarters weapon, so it makes sense to understand close-range fighting techniques. Short stocking is one technique that’s easy to add to your toolbox and should be a regular part of your shotgun training.
The idea of using cubes for packing seemed very OCD and over organizational when first hearing about it from some industry guys that go to A LOT of trade shows. Turns out, it makes packing and unpacking a breeze, all while keeping your things organized while in the hotel.
Packing cubes are used as a way to stuff your shirts in one, pants in another and so forth without taking up space in your luggage or adding weight. The cubes also are very inexpensive usually costing around 30 bucks for a set of 3. Not only does this help with packing and unpacking as everything is already organized to be put away, it also acts as sort of a dresser when you’re actually in the hotel.
The cubes are essentially a thin, very lightweight, usually made from nylon bag that has has some material structure to hold up a square shape and make packing rolled clothing easier. They zip, often have a handle on them, and come in multiple sizes. Many different brands have now started offering packing cubes however the best have been found from searching online on the Facebook group Carryology. (That group is my go to when it comes to purchasing a bag like product..)
Said to be “the standard” on Carryology, Peak Designs offers 3 for $85.00. Also keep an eye out on PeakDesigns.com and Ebay for preowned that still pass the quality test to snag a deal.
Made of light, strong ripstop nylon with a durable water repellent (DWR) finish
Mesh on top lets you see what’s inside and lets your stuff breathe
Top and side handles make opening, closing and expanding the cube quick and easy
Expansion zipper lets you adjust size from 3.5 liters up to 6 liters (small); 8.5 liters up to 13 liters (medium); and from 14 liters up to 21 liters (large)
Product meets the bluesign® criteria, the world’s leading system for managing the environmental and human health impacts of textile manufacturing
All main body fabrics are 100% post-consumer recycled and bluesign® certified
Covered by Eagle Creek’s Lifetime Warranty
When you buy these items as a set (not individually) you save almost 10%. There’s never been a better excuse to upgrade your favorite go-to travel besties.
Reveal cubes offer some material structure for optimal packing access (particularly if you’re a folder and stacker)
Large mesh window makes it easy to see what’s packed inside
Comes in Full for larger sizes, 10L and 20L and smaller sizes they come in Flat in 5L and 10L. $20-$30 each size dependant.
Specs + Materials
5L Flat Dimensions: 10″ x 8″ x 3″
10L Flat Dimensions: 15″ x 10″ x 3″
10L Full Dimensions: 10″ x 8″ x 6.5″
10L Full Compartment Dimensions: 10″ x 8″ x 2.75″
20L Full Dimensions: 15″ x 10″ x 6.5″
20L Full Compartment Dimensions: 15″ x 10.25″ x 2.75″
Features
Sturdy and light 200D Nylon keeps belongings safe
Packs down to nothing when not in use
Zippered mesh interior for easy organization
From the Author
This is what 8 days in Switzerland looks like. Packing in a Osprey 65L Fairview Wheeled luggage, I used 6 Osprey Packing cubes, 2 sets of small, medium, and large. I then had my makeup bag, bathroom bag, and shoes tucked in separate. This is my first time using packing cubes and it isn’t a joke, I was able to stay organized the entire trip while staying in three different locations. Usually my clothes are just thrown around but I actually was able to keep them separated into groups throughout the trip. I kept one packing cube empty for dirty clothes and the other cubes I rolled my clothing. One cube for pants, one for shirts, one for underwear and bras, and another for dresses.
As we well know, Europe is often pointed to as the Gun Control Utopia of the developed world. A place where murders are very rare, life is fairly tranquil, and even most every day police officers have no need to carry a firearm since it really won’t be necessary against criminal elements in these quiet homogenous countries… Then Russia invaded Ukraine. Number #1 in homicide in Europe invaded their neighbor
Even self defense with a firearm is culturally frowned upon, often considered excessive force. Many in Europe subscribe to the naïve belief that if you just resist, cause superficial injury, and otherwise use more polite and less lethal forms of self defense, everything will be a-ok.
We know it is more complicated than that. We know that crime, as all aspects of culture due, varies by regional, economic, and societal makeup. Our inner city criminals are not their inner city criminals, they are not comparable populations in nuance. Our Chicago criminals are not our Los Angeles criminals, and those are not our Detroit or New York criminals. Each center will have points of similarity but the criminal element is a product of their whole environment and their methods stem from that environment.
Projection, the Common Error
This is the classic projection error that anti-defense and anti-2A advocates make constantly, by believing that if they were robbing you or assaulting you and you resisted, at their deemed appropriate level, they would then cease their attack and leave you alone. This is often seen in discussions between Western Europeans and Americans.
This mode of thought completely disregards the fact that this attitude is coming from someone who isn’t going to assault anyone. Probably, ever. Certainly not now as they discuss their hypothetical use-of-force encounter where everything goes right and nobody gets seriously injured.
It prescribes predetermined proper behaviors for both an assailed person and the assailant. This is an error.
London, for example, has a very low homicide rate compared to Chicago, New York, or Houston. It’s violent crimes with and without injury, as they are described, put their violent crime rate at nearly double New York’s, but with fewer deaths. Crime, criminal motivations, and the ‘limits’ of prescribed average criminal behavior are sociological traits and environmentally shaped. London is not New York, London cannot be critically compared to New York based on the two broad categories of ‘developed’ and populations between 8 and 9 million people.
We cannot project modes of preferred behavior and then be upset at people who point out that the misbehaving person or group is the one with total control in how they behave. I can want my cat to stop jumping onto my computer keyboard, but the cat is making the decision.
Which brings me back to Ukraine and Russia.
The war that got boring
There is an actual active ground war in Europe, but since Putin failed to take their smaller neighbor with the might of the red army 2.0, and now must be content to fight to a suitable stalemate where he controls a part of Ukraine for resource control, we have largely moved on.
The war is relevant to the gun control debate though, and gun controllers don’t want that brought into the discussion and will use projection and ridicule to make certain it isn’t. The fact that the developed nation of Ukraine, as poor in comparison to Germany, France, or the UK as they may be (their cost of living is substantially lower too), needed to pass out rifles to its population to fight a no joke invasion by their neighbor is real. It just happened. It therefore can happen in the 21st Century, to developed nations, not the forgotten disputed regions within Africa, the Middle East, South America, and parts of Asia.
This means there are still people, and will always be people, who will play the political calculus games with a differing ruleset than the we do. China does. Russia did. Russia miscalculated and this war, even if “won” in the technical sense with the defeat of Ukraine’s military capability, is likely to cripple their conventional military power projection for a very long time. Perhaps permanently. The US is currently, with the other nations of Europe, fighting this war with money.
Relevant to the discussion
We shouldn’t mistake fighting this way with money to never having our citizenry, our whole militia of able bodied, to need to fight off a would be warlord or tyrant in the future.
I’m not talking from DC either, nor necessarily a national crisis enveloping the nation geographically. We probably don’t have to worry about Russia for a minute, lets be real. Yet, Mexico is far from the most stable place in the world and should a cartel get it into their head to annex something along our border, and perhaps within a smidge, the quickest response would be locals in conjunction with CPB, National Guard, and any regionally close active military. But the local population would be best placed if something were to happen in California, Nevada, New Mexico, or Texas. Saying it wouldn’t, or it won’t, is naïve.
It won’t… as long as conditions persist on both sides that make it inadvisable. Those conditions are always subject to change based upon the cost/benefit analysis and interpretation of those in the positions of power.
Why do these matter?
Because when an anti-gun person points to Western Europe, or Japan, or any alleged paragon example of how gun control should work in an idealist modern society, the comparison is automatically flawed by societal factors. Large cities are veritable nation states unto themselves with the social rule structures, written and unwritten, to go along with that. New York is not London, the United States is not the United Kingdom or Germany. If we take all of Europe, not merely the West, we can get a mixture much more approximate since it has cultural variance and multiple large urban areas. Remember that Chicago would be the 30th largest nation in Europe, New York would rank about 18th.
Keep in mind also that there are cities around the world that out populate most of our states, despite our nation being the third largest in the world. Our largest city is only the 45th largest by world standards. Tokyo, Japan would be the second most populous state in the US, behind only California and well ahead of Texas, but it is 70% smaller than Rhode Island. All of these things, people and their social norms, matter when it comes to. Shanghai and Delhi also out populate Texas. Those three cities, and the states of Texas and California, have wildly different social make ups.
Firearms are not, and never will be, a simple social problem. Prohibition, partial especially, will not be a simple solution to this complex problem. Arms are a necessary part of human society, their proper disciplined use is a fact of life.
The Croatian VHS-2 carbine is the latest European service rifle to grace US shores. It joins the AUG and the X95 in the list of available serving bullpup rifles that are commercially available. Springfield Armory, using their existing relationship with HS-Produkt (maker of the XD series pistols), completed the lengthy import process for the rifles, and managed to Americanize them a bit for our use at the same time.
But does this rifle compete favorably in a market owned by the AR-15 and AR derivatives? Does it have a place as a modern service rifle? Or is it merely an interesting collector’s piece for military rifle folk who like that they can purchase another of the NATO chambered service weapons of Europe?
The “Hellion”
Let’s get the name out of the way first.
I hate it. It’s stupid.
Hellion: a rowdy, mischievous, or troublemaking person, especially a child.
I bet it sounded cool in a boardroom somewhere and fit the odd pseudo macho vibe… but what was wrong with VHS-2 Carbine? This is an Americanized VHS-K2 and that is just fine. Springfield even teased it with thisimage.
This is a grade A+ internet tease. It is clever. It is a fantastic pun… and then they called it the Hellion…
That’s what it is, the VHS-2. It isn’t a trouble making child, it’s a 5.56x45mm NATO service rifle. We aren’t calling it the Hellion, it’s the VHS-2.
End of rant about the name.
The VHS-2
I won’t go down the whole description from Springfield Armory, it’s here and HS-Product’s is here.
The short version is that the Springfield imported VHS-2 is another European military bullpup, Americanized. It is a product of its Croatian service origin with a few popular and necessary US centric features. The crucial points are the suppressor tuned gas system (replacing the ‘adverse’ overgassing, if I recall correctly), the STANAG magazine insert, and the M-LOK compatible handguard and BCM pistol grip.
Here is the Springfield variant
And here is the comparable HS-Produkt variant, VHS-K2
Similar, but notable exterior differences. Consider it like how H&K does the HK416F for France and the M27 for the Marine Corps, this is the VHS-2 for the American market.
From Front to Butt(stock)
The 16″ CMV barrels are melonite treated, a feature I appreciate greatly in newer rifles, and capped with a serviceable 4-prong flash hider. Replaceable with your preference of 5.56 muzzle device.
The handguard is a 9 slot M-LOK variant instead of bolt-on NATO Picatinny rails. The side M-LOK isn’t quite 3 and 9 o’clock, more like 2:30 and 9:30, featuring a slight upward angle. The gas regulator is adjustable by hand and, as mentioned above, the setting is now to reduce the gas to run a suppressor instead of an ‘adverse’ overgas setting. Excellent feature set for this market space. The Coratian VHS-2’s are not designed to be fielded suppressed, but the American market loves it some shush tubes.
The Springfield VHS-2 adds QD sling sockets to the traditional European keyring type points at the front and back. Both sides of the rifle feature a forward point at the front of the handguard, forward and below the M-LOK slots (which could also mount a QD point). Two more are positioned just below the rear sight base, mid-receiver. The final two are at the rear of the stock in accordance with modern designs.
Now, let’s talk about these iron sights.
Actually no, let’s have HS-Produkt and Springfield Armory take a bow for these sights. The iron sight suite on the VHS-2 is phenomenal. It is an all finger adjustable front and rear, no pushing detents or crimping cases to twist anything. The front sight is fully shielded, with its adjustment dial below it. It features a finely tapered post that will aid accuracy. The rear sight has 5 appetures for distances in meters and calibrated with SS109/M855 NATO Green Tip 62gr ammunition. The sights lock in the down and up positions, no knocking them down against gear or the environment, and they are spring loaded to pop up with the corresponding buttons. The sight housings themselves are shorter than corresponding AR height systems, so a co-witness may not be feasible.
The top rail is uninterrupted picatinny, add your optics and other zeroables. Under that optical and sight rail is the charging handle, it is ambidextrously accessible and stows centerline. It will fold out to either side to cycle the gun. The safety selector drum is rotary, however the motion is more akin to a pull and push than the 45, 60, or 90 degree throws we are conditioned to in AR type rifles.
The pistol grip, a BCM MOD3, is mounted in an even more vertically aligned angle than it would be on an AR-15. The AR-15 compatible grip index has a rearward biased tilt, an interesting choice, but also one I do not dislike.
There are two ejection ports, one will be in the pinned closed position (default is the left) and the other will open when the bolt cycles. They are polymer and held under spring tension, like an AR-15, with a detent holding it closed and the bolt carrier nudging open as it cycles. Swapping ejection is a simple process, covered in the manual and online in easy to follow steps.
The stock has a molded riser section that fits nicely for a cheek or chin weld. With this shaped piece the VHS-2 can be fired from off shoulder, with brass passing in front of the shooter’s face, very easily since the shooter will more naturally index the gun with their face behind the ejection ports. The stock is adjustable for length of pull, a rare feature in bullpups, with 5 positions covering 1.5 inches of adjustable length.
The overall length of pull is long for rifles in general, like almost excruciatingly long, but works with the reward weight bias of a bullpup. It was not uncomfortable to shoot, just far longer than average and put your hands very close together towards the front of the rifle.
The magazine well is an insert and can be replaced with a different one for different magazine formats, the native HS-Produkt insert is for G36 style magazines while the Springfield import VHS-2 wisely uses STANAG AR format. The release is a rear paddle style that fits with the H&K and AK styled ergonomic origins, more on that later.
Behind that is the bolt release, a large tab that travels rearward. There is no external bolt catch, only the internal tab that interfaces with an empty magazine. Behind the large bolt release tab is a small nub that actually holds the trigger system in place and can be used to remove it when the rifle is disassembled.
Does it blend?
Where the VHS-2 came from is fairly obvious. The AK-47 was the previous large inventory service rifle of the Croatian Army, and the G36 was the largest purchased NATO standard service rifles before they built up the VHS for domestic service. While 750 G36 rifles may not seem like a large number, the Croatian Military has ~7,500 active members.
So, when the forces were looking to fix the VHS issues (resulting in the VHS-2) they had G36’s on hand as local NATO rifle example. Its influence can be seen in the charging handle, although the VHS-2’s doesn’t reciprocate, the safety selector, the magazine and bolt hold open system, all of it feels like a bullpup’d G36.
Where that becomes a limitation is in the handling.
To make this review a succinct as I can, the VHS-2 as a standalone is a perfectly adequate service carbine. It will serve well in most any role that you’d use any other mag fed semi-auto in. It can host all the modern force multiplicative options you’d want, lights, optics, and slings, and suppressor.
Where it runs into a wall is in smooth handling and manual of arms. The manual of arms is very much late 1900’s Europe and not 2020’s shooter optimized. The magazine release, bolt catch, and bolt release all point to a simplified and suboptimal manual of arms where you will not be able to run the rifle as fast as other designs. It borrows on the G36 and AK here, but that puts a hard limit on the options to keep the rifle fed with ammo.
The VHS-2’s reload a bolt lock mechanics are the most tedious, especially when coming off of an AR or X95 which operate with very well thought out economy of motion. I’ll explain.
On the VHS-2, to lock the bolt you must hold the charging handle to the rear and manually reach inside magazine well and press up on the bolt lock tab. There is no external control. This isn’t much more than an annoyance with an empty rifle, but on a stoppage where you might want to lock the bolt open you must manually hold the bolt reward instead. Even in this scenario it is more annoyance than flaw but it is a limit on my handling options.
The real problem is in reloading. The VHS-2 does not leverage drop free magazines or an intuitive bolt release motion.
When you fire the final round in a VHS-2, the bolt locks to the rear. Good. On an AR, AR Derivative, or an X95 you can now simultaneously grab a new magazine and hit your magazine release control. Even if the magazine doesn’t drop free when you hit the release on these rifles, you can pull the magazine free very easily before inserting the full one. On the VHS-2, with its paddle style release, you are married to the HK manual of arms which mandates the shooter first pull the magazine out of the magazine well. Then the shooter can go to an ammunition pouch for a fresh magazine.
No matter how many times or ways I tried to grab a magazine and then pull the VHS-2’s mag out with the new magazine in hand, I couldn’t make it a smooth series of movements. The smoothest reloads I had were always strip the empty magazine, pull and insert the full magazine, and then sweep my support hand back along the bolt release almost like I was working a pistol slide. There was no way, at least not with my hand size, to push back on the bolt release with just my thumb.
What these limitations mean is I cannot economize my reload movements and the controls are making my hands move in contrary directions for efficacy. I got good at the reload motions, very reminiscent of reloading an MP5, but the AR, X95, and similar have a significant economy of motion advantage.
Will this matter? Under certain circumstances it absolutely will. Competitive shooting environments most prominently. Any situation where the reload mechanics are utilized the VHS-2 hits that hard limit. Now, I will say I believe it is a touch better than an AK’s mechanics, but many AKs I can grab my reload magazine before clearing the empty magazine, so it is a close call.
Compare it to the X95, where the magazines will drop free reliably and the bolt release is in a location and moves in a direction that works within the economy motion, and the X95 can be reloaded much more quickly.
When clearing hard stoppages, the VHS-2’s ambidextrous charging handle and location come in handy. It is easy to manually keep the bolt pulled and brace the rifle into the chest to clear out problems, similar again to the AK and G36. There is no real limitation here and a double feed, stove pipe, etc. should be a quick clear, refeed, and on with life.
Conclusion?
The VHS-2 is a capable 5.56 rifle in its own right with several strong design features. It is not done any favors by its trigger, but the aftermarket may solve that. It’s real limitation is in its magazine manipulations, but those are designed around its progenitors and it does make sense to keep as much of a trained manual of arms as can be retained. That doesn’t translate as well outside the military market though, you will simply be unable to run this rifle as fast or efficiently as others in the space past the first magazine.
That is the VHS-2’s only major limitation however.
If you like it, buy it and learn to run it. This same criticism can be leveled at the AK and MP5 (the whole roller lock series actually) and doesn’t diminish their overall efficacy or how enjoyable they are as firearms on their own. Someone who can run this reasonably efficiently will not be outclassed by a neophyte with an AR-15.
I think it will find a comfortable niche and expand bullpup enjoyment here in the states. The aftermarket could take it and run a few rather nice upgrades.
The Fenix GL22 fits right in with tactical gear. Eagle plate carrier, Glock 19X, CS grenades, and Strider GB knife.
Fenix GL22
The first thing that I noticed is that the light/laser unit is surprisingly compact, with the dimensions being 2.64″ x 1.65″ x 1.22″. The light, including the battery, is 3.32 ounces. The finish is hard anodized (flat black) and the construction is T6 aluminum, which makes for a sturdy, hardy body.
The Fenix GL22 does not take up much room on the rail, yet it puts out a lot of light, and the laser provides a precise aiming point.
Mount up!
The light will fit Glock rails and comes with a rail plate for mounting on the Glock rail already installed. It will also mount on a standard 1913 Picatinny rail and there is a plate for that included. This covers many bases as far as being able to mount on various weapons systems.
Caution! Before mounting the unit, be certain to unload the firearm!!
Mounting is easy and straightforward. Just loosen the mounting screw, fit the rail clamp over the rail you’re mounting it on, and tighten the screw. It is not a quick on/off system, but it is very secure and versatile.
To be honest, I’d prefer it if they’d include a throw lever in the mount so that it could be removed and mounted more quickly. The pistol I mounted the unit on is my Glock 19X, which I don’t often carry concealed because I normally have it as part of my home defense battery. It resides in a place where it can be grabbed quickly in an emergency. Because of that, a fast on/off mount isn’t really imperative for me for this particular pistol.
The mounting screw can be seen here; the unit is quick and easy to mount. To remove the battery, the lens (on the left) is simply unscrewed. To the right can be seen the activation switch.
The light fits most full-sized pistols, along with some compact ones, including the Glock 36 and Springfield Armory XDs. As an option, this unit could do well on a carbine that has a Picatinny rail, it doesn’t have to be relegated exclusively to handguns.
On the bottom of the light, the zeroing screw can be seen. It adjusts the laser so that it shines on the point of impact.
Switches
There are two switches in the rear of the light that can be operated with either hand. A single click of either switch will turn the light on or off. If the user presses the light for more than one second, the user gets a momentary on mode.
There are switches on each side of the GL22 unit, easily within reach of either finger. Press it for one second and you get momentary light and/or laser. Press it for less than one second and get constant light or laser.
To switch between modes, turn the light on and hold one switch on while the other switch to toggle between various modes, which include: White Light only, White Light With Laser, and Laser only. There is also a Strobe mode should the user elect for that option.
There is a lockout option – with the light off, press both switches at once for five seconds. To unlock the light, press and hold both switches for one second and the light will return to whichever mode it had been in before being locked.
The GL22’s switches are very easy to reach!
There is also protection in the event the light becomes too hot (it will if used for a while) in which the light will reduce the output until it cools enough to resume operating at full output.
Output
Light output is 750 lumens using the included rechargeable battery, which will last for 35 minutes. Rechargeable batteries are great because we no longer have to dump money into batteries. However, this light has a surprise – a standard CR123 battery can also be used, which will give us 500 lumens for one hour of run time. The versatility is nice to have.
The Business End of the Fenix GL22. Just below the light lens, the laser aperture can be seen.
With the standard battery, the laser will run for 17 hours, and with the CR123 it will run for 24 hours. The color of the laser, by the way, is red.
At 750 lumens, Fenix rates the light as being effective out to 180 meters, and with the CR123 battery, 140 meters. The light’s beam is nicely focused so that it will reach out far, and also exhibits a good amount of “throw”, so it will light up a room or an area while you are searching. It gives distance and width, which is great!
Fenix GL22 Accessories
A few items are in the package with the light, including a manual, spare O-ring, Allen wrench (to adjust the laser), Glock and 1913 rail plates, a charging cable, and of course, the battery.
Zeroing
Underneath the Fenix GL22 is an adjustment to raise and lower the laser’s aim.
Laser/Light Combo Uses
Being a Plain Jane, Old School type of guy, I rarely use lasers and other electronics, instead of relying on iron sights (or often plastic sights in this day and age). Yes, I might be a Neanderthal, but the irons never let us down. So why would I open my mind to using a laser?
A few reasons. First, even if the laser goes down, I still have the iron sights, it’s not as if they would be affected if the laser either breaks or I don’t use it. Just use the irons as per usual.
Another positive use is as a Force Option. I know quite a few instances of bad guys giving up when they have been painted by a laser (though you cannot count on such a reaction). The psychological effect seems to take the fight out of someone who is not very committed.
Lights and lasers: a good light is a mandatory addition to the Battle Rattle. If you can’t identify a target, you won’t know whether it’s “shootable” or not.
The fact that we can use the light in conjunction with the laser if we choose is an advantage as well, as we can blind the adversary while having a precise aiming point. As I like to say, options are always good to have.
In bright daylight, the laser is visible outdoors at closer ranges of about 25 yards. It can be seen further away but is more difficult to see on dark surfaces during bright conditions. For pistol work, I’d think it’s more than adequate for its intended purpose. If the light is a bit dimmer, the laser is very visible for quite a distance. Obviously, at night, it’s visible for an extremely long distance.
All in all, the light and laser combo is extremely well made, compact, and light. The finish is attractive and durable too. You get a high-performance light, coupled with an effective laser, which gives you force options. The retail price, at the time of this writing, is $119.95, which is a solid deal these days. The fact that it’s rechargeable is a major plus. I give this piece of gear two thumbs up!
About the Author:
Jim Davis served in the PA Dept. of Corrections for 16 ½ years as a corrections officer in the State Correctional Institute at Graterford and later at SCI Phoenix. He served on the Corrections Emergency Response Team (CERT), several of those years as a sniper, and also the Fire Emergency Response Team (FERT). For 25 years, he was a professional instructor, teaching topics including Defensive Tactics, Riot Control and Tactical Operations, Immediate Responder, and cognitive programs as an adjunct instructor at the DOC Training Academy. He was then promoted to the title of corrections counselor, where he ran a caseload and facilitated cognitive therapy classes to inmates. His total service time was close to 29 years. He was involved in many violent encounters on duty, including incidents of fatalities.
Welcome to the world of guns. It’s a world that can be complicated, intimidating, and on occasion, frustrating. It’s also a world of self-reliance, confidence, and, well, fun. Guns are fun, but you have quite a few steps before you get to the fun part. Buying a gun isn’t just a one-click purchase as it should be and requires visiting a gun store or Federal Firearms Licensee holder.
That in and of itself can be intimidating. Guns and gun stores are somewhat niche, and if you’re not lucky enough to be born into them, then you might have zero experience dealing with guns and gun stores. Today we are going to dive into the world of firearms and discuss what you can do to be ready for your first trip to the gun store.
The Gun Store 101 – What To Know
Before you head to the gun store, there is a fair bit of preparation you can do before you darken the door of local firearms dealer. One of the first things you should know about guns is that safety is always paramount. Even at the highest levels of shooting and training, safety always takes priority. In the world of firearms, we have a variety of safety rules, but I won’t hit you with all of them.
The three you need to know before you go to the gun store are fairly simple and cover the basics of handling a firearm, even one you assume to be unloaded. Here are the three rules you need to follow before handling a firearm or going to a firearms dealer.
1 – Never Point A Weapon At Anything You Are Not Willing to Destroy.
That’s a tough one because a gun is always pointing at something, right? When I carry a gun from my safe to my holster, I do not want to destroy my floor by any means. However, I am willing to destroy my floor versus destroying anyone or any living thing. In the gun store, do not point the gun at anyone, be it a customer, friend, or worker.
If you’re holding a gun and get anxious and unsure of how to put it down or hand it back to the gun store employee, just freeze and ask. “Hey, I want to hand this to you. What’s the safest way to do so.”
2 – Treat Every Weapon As It Was Loaded
All guns are always loaded all the time. Gun stores don’t keep guns on display loaded. In fact, the worker will likely show you the weapon is clear. Even so, treat the gun as if it is loaded. Treat it with respect and with care.
3 – Keep Your Finger Straight and Off The Trigger Until You Are Ready To Fire
Keep your finger off the trigger as you handle the weapon. Where do you put your trigger finger when handling the gun? Simple, anywhere but the trigger! The second part says, “until you are ready to fire.” Are you going to fire in a gun store? No, but you can dry fire. Well, maybe, you need to ask first if you can dry fire and practice pulling the trigger. If so, you’ll aim in a safe direction, ensure the weapon is clear, and then pull the trigger.
Research Federal, State, and Local Laws
Federal laws are fairly simple, and you won’t go into a gun store that allows you to violate the law. However, knowing these laws will help you find the right firearm for you. Some states and localities have specific laws that might snatch the Gen 5 Glock 19 from your hands. This can also help you learn what you need to know about the process involving purchasing a firearm. Knowing these laws will also help after you purchase a firearm.
Establish a Budget
How much money can you spend on a firearm? We all have budgets, and with guns, it’s often a good idea to save a little more than shortchange yourself and your purchase. It’s fairly easy to research gun prices and establish a baseline of the cost of a specific firearm. Researching the price ensures you won’t get ripped off as well.
Here is where I hurt your feelings. Your budget isn’t just about the firearm. You’ll need to factor in the amount of money to purchase ammunition, accessories like holsters or weapon lights, and also a safe way to store the firearm, like a gun safe. Don’t forget some basic firearm training, and you’ll need to get that safety training and range time as well.
Research, Research, Research
The first question you need to answer is what is the goal of your firearm? Is it for concealed carry? Home defense? A bit of both? Maybe you want to start hunting or just something simple to learn how to shoot firearms. Different purposes require different guns. Once you know your goal, you can group different firearms together and do even more research.
Once you locate models you are interested in, look into reviews and real-world experience. One of the best ways to figure out if a gun has problems, and there are hardly any reviews, do an online search of that specific gun + on Reddit, and you can find all manner of information, good or bad.
Also, ensure you can find accessories like holsters for the gun, and make sure the ammo isn’t overly expensive. 458 SOCOM is really cool until it comes time to buy ammo. Most major companies will have a dealer finder that can put you in touch with a local dealer who sells that particular brand.
At the Gun Store
When choosing a gun store, Yelp and Google reviews can be a lifesaver. If the reviews list it’s one grumpy old man who yells at customers, well, avoid that store. If possible, choose a gun store local to you because, with waiting periods, you’ll have to come back to pick the firearm up. Also, if a gun store has a rental range, that can give an opportunity to shoot and handle several different firearms.
“Gun Shop Gary” a Meme for us all
Additionally, don’t be afraid to tell them you’re new to guns and looking for XYZ guns or good guns for concealed carry, home defense, etc. Try them on, so to speak, and handle them. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, and don’t be afraid to share information regarding your needs and what you’re looking for. The clerks and owners aren’t looking to harass you or judge you for your lack of knowledge.
Finally, don’t tie up a gun store and employees for an hour and then purchase online to save ten bucks. That’s fairly rude, and the phrase transfer fee will be something you’ll learn about the hard way.
Going Pow
Buying a gun shouldn’t be a scary event. Guns should be respected and treated as such, but purchasing one isn’t a scary thing. Having a plan, budget and knowing a few safety rules will go a long way. Don’t let the first step in gun ownership stop you.
Those pesky Brits sure do love their bullpup rifles. That makes some sense seeing as how it was a Brit who designed the concept. Professor Richard Potter reportedly designed the first British bullpup rifle as a massive target gun in 1860. This massive rifle weighed 13 pounds and fired a .60 caliber projectile. That might’ve been the first, but as well all know, it wasn’t the last.
The Great British Bullpup
The British would go on to be huge proponents of the bullpup rifle. They stumbled into some odd and unique ideas that were often ahead of their time. Today, we will dive into the world of British Bullpups and examine their evolution in the British Empire. To start, we need to go to 1866 with the first repeating bullpup rifle.
The Curtis Repeating Rifle
What’s fascinating about the Curtis rifle is that it’s a pump-action, drum-fed rifle designed in a bullpup configuration. The rifle is fired much like a portable recoilless rifle. It mounts on the shoulder, and a hinged stock sits in front of the drum. The user folds the stock down to brace it against the shoulder.
The drum held either 12 or 13 rounds of .32 WSL. It’s not a detachable drum and would be manually loaded before firing. At the front of the gun sits a bolt handle that resembles something you’d see on a traditional bolt action rifle.
This bolt handle is what the firing hand would grasp, while the support hand wrapped around a loop forward of the trigger. The weapon was striker-fired, and a trigger linkage in the form of a cable allowed the weapon to release the striker.
Interestingly enough, the only reason anyone remembers the design is that Winchester built one to win a lawsuit. They were being sued over the pump-action design of the Model 1900 and 1903. Winchester sent men to Europe to find earlier patents and prove to the court they weren’t infringing on the pump-action mechanism. It’s a British bullpup by way of American construction.
Thorneycroft Carbine
One of the more famed early British bullpup rifles came from an Englishman named James Thorneycroft. The Thorneycroft carbine resembles those memes where people bullpup random guns, but it was real. The Thorneycroft carbine was an effort to reduce the size of a fighting rifle after lessons learned fighting the Boers.
In 1902 the first Thorneycroft carbine came to be. The rifle was 10% lighter than the standard Lee Enfield rifle and about 7.5 inches shorter. Like most rifles at the time, these were bolt-action guns. They chambered the British .303 British round and fed from a 5 round internal magazine.
The rifle was rejected from military trials due to its excessive recoil and awkward ergonomics. Over time Thorneycroft developed several more prototypes to improve the design, including the very Enfield-looking models of 1903 and 1907. None ever saw adoption.
SREM-1
Did you think you’d only see one pump-action British bullpup rifle on this list? Ha, well, guess what? Here’s a second! The SREM-1 or Sniper Rifle Experimental Model 1 takes the cake as a second. Enfield designed the SREM-1 during WW2 as a prototype sniper rifle for British troops. The design is a bit nutty.
The pump of the firearm is the firing grip. After firing, the user would pull the grip rearward to eject the empty casing and push it forward to load the next round. The Brits chose the heavy-duty 7.92 Mauser round, and it used a 5-round internal magazine. The SREM-1 began development in 1944, and development stopped at prototypes with the war almost over.
The BSA Bullpup
After WW2, the Brits wanted a new, more modern infantry rifle, and surprising no one reading this article experimented heavily with bullpup rifles. The Brits wanted to standardize on the .280 round and commissioned a variety of rifles from Enfield but also from Birmingham Small Arms. BSA produced a prototype rifle.
This British bullpup was a select-fire rifle in .280, and that’s about all we know about it. Oddly, the gun appears to have two triggers, with one forward of the grip and one rearward. Why, I’m not sure, perhaps for hip firing? Also, the grip appears to be the gun’s magazine, making ergonomics a bit awkward.
The EM-1, EM-2, EM-3, and EM-4
In the mid-1940s Enfield Armory began developing a series of bullpup rifles for the British military. The various rifles were all competing designs. The EM-1 and EM-2 used the .280 British cartridge, and each was a bullpup carbine. The EM-3 used a .303 rimless cartridge, and the EM 4 used a round known as the .27 Broadway Trust.
The EM-1, nicknamed the Cobra, used a roller-locked short-recoil design. Modularity seemed to be the key behind the EM-1’s design, focusing on the military being able to turn the EM-1 into an assault rifle, a marksman’s rifle, or a support weapon. It’s fairly ahead of its time in that regard and heavy at 10 pounds unloaded. The EM-1 used an optical sight mounted on the carry handle which was fairly advanced for the 1940s.
The EM-2, nicknamed the Mamba, used a gas-operated, short-stroke gas piston system. The designers aimed to produce the EM-2 as a general-purpose assault rifle heavily relying on accuracy with a max range of 800 meters. The EM-2 was a lighter 8 pounds. Like the EM-1, it used an optic instead of traditional iron sights. This was declared the best British bullpup in the Great British Bullpup show in the 1940s.
The Other Two
The EM-3 and EM-4 didn’t make it very far and didn’t get cool nicknames. The EM-3 would chamber a round known as the .303 rimless, which never existed. The design would eject cartridges over the shooter’s shoulder, although only a single non-working mock-up was produced.
The EM-4 was another British bullpup rifle never produced. It was designed by Sir Dennis Burney of the Broadway Trust company. It’s an odd action that’s principle was an enlarged chamber that the gases expand into and then exhaust through the barrel using a high-low system. The design seems to move the barrel, bolt, and magazine.
I don’t quite understand it, and not many visual aids exist. The rifle used a 7mm projectile and didn’t seem to make it out of the prototype stage.
Break for the FAL
Eventually, the EM-2 was adopted…for all five seconds or so before the Brits went to the FAL, thinking the Americans would do the same. We all agreed to standardize on the 7.62X51mm round and on the FAL rifle. Of course, American pulled a fast one and swapped to the terrible M14.
Throughout the Cold War, the FAL reigned supreme. However, in the mid-1980s, the Brits finally got their bullpup rifle with the SA80 family, which is a whole different article for a different time. It took 40 years to get, and they don’t seem to be willing to get rid of it anytime soon. The bullpup is as British as Earl Gray and calling cookies biscuits.
GunMag Warehouse has announced (their) exclusive availability of AR15 mags. The Advanced Warfighter Lancer OD Green Mags are AR-15 magazines and are shown in the image below.
This is what the three different sizes of the Lancer OD Green Mags look like.
Available in 10-, 20-, and 30-round versions, these magazines feature:
• Hardened steel feed lips
• Impact resistant polymer body
• Steel-topped magazine catch
• Non-tilt follower
• Constant curve internal geometry
• a Stainless Steel spring
• Aggressive texturing on the body for a positive grip
• Slim body design
What it looks like to have Lancer’s green P Mag in your rifle.
The Advanced Warfighter Lancer OD Green Mags may be purchased in:
In addition to the Lancer OD Green mags, many of these magazines can be purchased in other colors: black, smoke, flat dark earth, translucent red, blaze orange, and translucent dark earth are all options, though it is increasingly difficult to keep them in stock. As a result, availability will vary with demand.
Lancer makes translucent and solid color magazines with the inclusion of red and orange mags.
About GunMag Warehouse
Founded in 2012, GunMag Warehouse has become the predominant gun magazine and accessory destination for new and veteran gun enthusiasts alike. We provide nearly every magazine currently in production, in stock, and ready to ship. Accessories too! We can take care of you. GunMag Warehouse has the largest selection of commercial gun magazines anywhere. Follow us: @gunmagwarehouse on Twitter; /gunmagwarehouse/ on Facebook. Connect on IG, @gunmagwarehouse. Also, be sure to follow our blog, The Mag Life.
