Shivworks ECQC is a pivotal class for a lot of people, and I’m no exception. Among the changes that the course brought about for me was the realization that pepper spray is a very useful component of my EDC.
During the Managing Unknown Contacts portion of the class, the role-player I was working with was doing a very good job of getting in my head, keeping me talking, and being able to encroach.
I very quickly realized that “Man, I wish I had something a little more compelling to get this guy to f*ck off if he won’t just take ‘no’ for an answer!”
As I delved into the topic, I realized there were a bunch of benefits to carrying pepper spray.
Not only can OC go places were guns can’t/shouldn’t, but there are a lot more situations we’re likely to find ourselves in where a degree of force is justifiable, but the threshold for deadly force has not yet been met.
Social media gives me ideas for articles all the time. I don’t go looking, but rather, I get to see things that people are doing that aren’t always advisable. A recent thread on a shotgun group brought up the subject of red dots, and I saw several shotguns wearing full-sized red dots. I don’t want to be a jerk, but a big, full-sized red dot on a shotgun is a silly idea. When I say full-sized red dots, I mean anything larger than an Aimpoint T-2.
Today, we will discuss why you shouldn’t use a great big, full-sized red dot on a shotgun.
What’s the Problem With Full-Sized Red Dots On Shotguns
There isn’t just one problem with full-sized red dots on shotguns. There are three problems that are almost entirely exclusive to shotguns. With that in mind, this article is about standard shotguns. If you have an AR-type shotgun, a bullpup monstrosity, or something just odd, these might not be your problems. If you’re using a Mossberg 500, a Beretta 1301, or something like that, strap in and pay attention.
Port Loads Get Limited
A big red dot gets in your way when it comes to emergency port reloads. A port reload is what happens when everything has gone to hell, and you’ve emptied your shotgun but need to fire another round. With this reload, the ejection port is opened, and the user is shoving an emergency round into the gun.
The shooter closes the action and can now fire the round. Port loads can be done one of two ways: over the top or under the receiver. With pump guns, I go under the gun because it’s more natural to find the pump and get the gun running.
I go over the top with a semi-auto because it’s naturally faster from a side saddle for me. Environmental factors can force you to use one method over another.
When you go over the top, a full-sized red dot gets in the way. It’s just a big block in your way, making it difficult to get the round in the chamber and get the gun firing. You can always go under the gun unless the environment doesn’t allow you to do so.
Your Head Sits High On The Gun
Standard shotguns have standard stocks, and they don’t use an inline stock system like an AR. This means when you use a full-sized red dot with a shotgun, your cheek leaves the stock, and your head floats a bit above the shotgun’s stock.
This causes us to have two problems at once. First, you can’t get a good cheek weld on the gun. If you can’t get a good cheek weld, you can’t get a quick and consistent sight picture. Since shotguns dominate close-quarter’s use, you want as much speed as possible.
The second problem comes down to recoil and pain. If your head is floating and your cheek weld is a chin weld, the gun will start to beat you up. You want your head low and against the stock, not floating and getting a slight jab with every trigger pull.
Height Over Bore And Shotguns
Let’s remember that shotguns really dominate that zero to twenty-five-yard range. That’s extreme close quarters, and at close quarters, you want your shots to hit where you’re aiming. If you use a full-sized red dot that sits a bit high on your gun, you’re going to run into height over bore issues.
This is a real pain with modern loads like Federal FliteControl, which hit more like a slug at close ranges. We want the rounds to hit exactly where we are aiming with shotguns. Trying to come up with a hold for a shotgun just seems silly.
What’s The Best Size For a Shotgun Red Dot?
I stick to pistol-sized red dots. The largest I’d use is an Aimpoint T-2/H-2 in a low, shotgun-specific mount. I find pistol-sized dots to be perfect, and with the right mount you can still co-witness with your iron sights. Short, small, and sitting low is best for a shotgun sight. If you can, avoid full-sized red dots on shotguns. With the gauge renaissance, many optics and mounts are well suited for the modern shotgun.
One thing that “gun people” are big on is Situational Awareness. The irony is that lots of those same people dismiss the importance of understanding the mechanics of style as somehow trivial and vain.
Oddly enough, I found that once I developed a deeper understanding of style, especially how clothing is SUPPOSED to fit, it made the concealment attempts of others blatantly obvious to me!
We’re not just talking about the casual gun carrier whose shirt is too tight or who didn’t realize that it’s ridden up to expose the firearm. I’m talking about professionals who make their living deceiving others:
Professional magicians!
Ok, probably not what you expected, but it’s true. I was in the 5th row at a Penn & Teller show, and I noticed some inconsistencies in their stage suits that made it more obvious as to how they accomplished certain aspects of their illusions.
While this may seem silly, there’s a lot of similarity between professional magicians and professional criminals. They both make their livings lying and deceiving people. The only real differences are that the magician TELLS you they’re going to lie to and deceive you, and they don’t use those abilities in a nonconsensual capacity.
Whenever Situational Awareness & Printing are discussed, the examples used are so extreme as to be almost comical.
Developing an understanding of how clothing is supposed to look and function allows you to key in to much more subtle tells. Why not put in a little extra effort to get something that equates to partial x-ray vision?
We live in an era where it’s seemingly tough to produce anything new, modern, or cutting-edge. It feels like we’ve reached the pinnacle of gun design until we find some new lightweight, tough material, something new ballistically, or something that implements technology into a handgun design. We are always chasing incremental improvements. The use of rotating barrels is one of those supposed incremental improvements.
The improvement is supposed to be a recoil reduction. The question is, is it true? Can a rotating barrel reduce recoil when compared to your typical Browning short recoil system? Pistols with rotating bolts haven’t been especially common, which calls into question why they aren’t popular. If they’re so great, why hasn’t everyone adopted the rotating barrel? Can a company be so audacious as to make false claims?
Especially companies like Beretta? I don’t think so, but I couldn’t say how much recoil rotating barrels cut down. To find out, I found myself a Grand Power P1. Admittedly, I purchased it for more reasons than that, but I was curious about this whole rotating barrel thing.
The World of Rotating Barrels
Browning famously designed the short recoil system, which sits at the heart of most semi-auto handguns. He also designed a rotating barrel system. Browning never produced a pistol with a rotating bolt, but he received a patent for one in 1897. The famed and very sturdy Steyr 1912 used a rotating bolt. The French MAD PA-15 also used the design.
One of the most famous modern examples is the Beretta PX4 storm series. Beretta also uses the same system in the Beretta Cougar. The latest seems to be the S&W 5.7 pistol. Tucked in between those guns sits the Grand Power, a Slovakian pistol series that comes in numerous calibers and uses a rotating barrel.
This isn’t a new invention. It seems to come around every now and then and promptly gets forgotten. It’s not a common feature, but it’s not uncommon either. The rotating barrel design has never seemed to have caught on.
Rotating Barrel Vs. Short Recoil
Short recoil is the most common system of operation for semi-auto handguns. It’s been that way since 1911, or at least since the M1911 patents expired. Short recoil works and works well. The idea behind short recoil is simple. When a weapon is fired, the barrel and slide recoil together for a very short distance before the barrel stops, and the slide continues rearward and completes the cycle of operations.
Short recoil guns do reduce recoil, at least compared to a direct blowback gun. The barrel and slide moving together allows for a light slide, which allows light recoil. The rearward motion also absorbs some of the initial recoil. The barrel recoils rearward, and the rear of the chamber cams downward while the tip of the barrel tips upward.
The rotating barrel system used in most guns is also a short recoil system. The barrel rotates and moves rearward with the slide. It doesn’t cam downward or tilt upward. The barrel stays on the same linear plane and rotates. Most modern guns will have locking lugs that unlock as the barrel rotates. The barrel rotates in the opposite direction of the projectile.
Finding the Truth
To figure out if the rotating barrel reduces recoil, I grabbed the compact 9mm P1 and shot it side by side with the compact 9mm Glock 19. I took the Bill Drill as an influence but didn’t start from the holster. I just fired six rounds as fast as possible into an ISPC sized A-Zone. Timers and accuracy don’t lie, and the P1 presented a tighter group fired fractionally faster.
From a side-by-side perspective, the difference is noticeable, especially when firing a long string of fire. The difference in recoil reduction is fractional. It’s not even equivalent to a compensator on a handgun. I don’t think a lot of casual shooters would even notice the difference between the two.
In fact, it’s probably going to provide high-level shooters with the most real benefit. I’m certainly not at that level, but I do feel that the P1 has less recoil than the Glock 19. There can be other factors that also affect this. We can talk about bore height, grip design, and recoil springs. I’d say when you compare the price points and designs of the handguns, they tend to be fairly equal.
The rotational barrel design takes a bite out of recoil, even if it’s not the biggest bite.
Downsides To Rotating Barrels
There are downsides to these guns and the rotating barrels, one being price and complication. It’s not as easy to produce as a short recoil system. The gun also demands a wider slide for those recoil lugs. The slides on the Beretta and Grand Power aren’t dainty. It can also complicate suppressor use since your suppressor/Nielsen device relies on threads that are pitched in a specific direction.
I do think there could be a good reason to use a rotating barrel design for the incremental difference it makes. However, it takes more than a neat design to make a pistol successful. Maybe if Glock brings the 46 to the states, we’ll see a revival in such a system.
One of Leupold’s most classic reticles across its tactical riflescope lines has always been the Tactical Milling Reticle (TMR). It was originally implemented approximately two decades ago as an improvement over more archaic “mil-dot” reticles. These earlier “mil-dot” style reticles used round spheres or oval-shaped footballs that subtended in one mil increments. However, the TMR did away with those since the round or oval markings tended to be less precise and, due to their size and shape, obscured targets.
Instead, the TMR did away with those orbs and introduced a series of flat, straight hashes arranged in more precise patterns across both the horizontal and vertical stadia lines. These hash marks decluttered the middle of the sight picture and ultimately made it easier for any shooter to take advantage of the reticle’s milliradian-based system. By today’s standards, the TMR looks quite ordinary, but at the time of its design, it was one of the most cutting-edge reticles.
At first I wasn’t enthused by it, but the more I shoot with this reticle, the more I appreciate it. My appreciation for the TMR most definitely increased after realizing it was the reticle that succeeded the old-school mil-dots. As such, I stopped taking it for granted because even today, the TMR still possesses some strong points.
It’s also interesting to note that this reticle is a veteran of the GWOT and was prominently used in many of Leupold’s Mark 4 military scope models, especially those mounted on original 5.56mm NATO Mk. 12 SPR and 7.62mm NATO M110 SASS semi-automatic rifles. Such rifles were paired with TMR-based Leupold Mark 4 LR/T 2.5-8×36 and Mark 4 LR/T 3.5-10×40 models.
An American warfighter shooting a Mk. 12 MOD 1 SPR rifle off his pack with a Leupold Mark 4 LR/T scope. Image source: Leupold
The Leupold Tactical Milling Reticle At A Glance
The Tactical Milling Reticle is the spiritual successor to the Leupold mil-dot reticles that saw military use in the United States through the mid-2010s. This reticle retains many of the former’s functionality but executes it in a cleaner, streamlined, and more precise manner.
Obstructing mil-dots along stadia lines are replaced with flat hash marks that don’t clog the sight picture visually. Otherwise, the reticle still maintains a fairly standard square crosshair configuration consisting of two main stadia lines, one vertical and the other horizontal. Both stadia lines have three different levels of thickness that taper in segments from coarse, medium and fine.
When a TMR-equipped scope is fully magnified, the overview of the reticle looks like it resembles a duplex with its coarse to thinner line transitions. The most useful hash marks begin subtending in 0.5 mil increments through the finest portion of either stadia line.
The central aiming reticle is voided negative space so as not to obstruct targets at longer distances. The medium and coarser spans of stadia lines are divided into sections of 2.5 mils, 5 mils, and 10 mils to aid with ranging and general-purpose measurements. These can be especially useful when paired with a first focal plane riflescope.
Diagram sourced from Leupold. This graphic does an excellent job at breaking down all of the TMR’s subtensions and shows its dimensions. The golden/yellow portion in the center of the image is what a shooter with a first focal plane optic would see at full magnification. On the 2-10×30 Mk5 HD scope I shoot with, the 17.5 mil mark on the coarsest stadia lines can be seen.
The TMR According to Leupold
Leupold’s TMR uses a mil dot style framework that incorporates a milliradian based subtension scale for ranging known targets. In addition, the intersection of the crosshair is left open, creating a small, clear aperture for increased precision at longer ranges. Recent findings have determined that existing reticle designs obscure the target at longer distances. The TMR reticle eliminates that problem.
–Leupold HANDbook
Ranging Targets With The TMR
In addition to aiding with precise shots, a big function in the TMR’s design is to give rifle shooters the ability to use the milliradian-based (MRAD) calibrated markings to determine the distance in yards or meters of any target of a known size. It’s called ranging, and it’s an old-school analog method of determining the distance of shots. It is straightforward and involves a tiny bit of math.
The math is very easy. It’s merely calculator math that anyone can do. Nowadays, sophisticated shooters have access to all manner of laser rangefinders and other gear. So, maybe using the reticle itself to “mill” targets comes off more like a party trick than a practical measuring technique. But it’s still useful to remember.
Ranging is done by lining up an object in between the reticle’s hash marks and counting how many hash marks it takes up. Then, multiply the object’s height in yards/meters by 1000. That product is then divided by the number of “mils tall” the object measured in the reticle and the quotient is the distance. Then, one would dial or hold over accordingly.
For example, a sniper on overwatch is concealed in some rocky hills, looking down at a landing strip and hangars below, where drug dealers are expected to show up for an exchange. The sniper doesn’t know the distance from his position to this landing strip, but there happens to be a 53-foot semi-truck trailer on the tarmac.
Our sniper knows that a standard truck trailer is 13.5 feet tall, which is 4.5 yards. He brackets the height of the trailer using his TMR and determines it is 3.5 mils tall. He can multiply (4.5 yards x 1000) ÷ 3.5 mils and get the distance to the tarmac, which is 1,286 yards from his position.
Ranging Full-Size IPSC Targets
Here’s a more mundane example that doesn’t sound like an episode of the Terminal List. A shooter is shooting at full-size IPSC targets (76.2 cm tall) on an unknown distance rifle course. After bracketing one of these targets and determining it’s 1.5 mils tall, she uses the same formula (0.762 meters x 1000) ÷ 1.5 mils and determines this target sits 508 meters away.
According to her rifle’s ballistic chart, to hit that target, she’d either need to dial 3.67 mils into the elevation turret or count the vertical hashes on the TMR to hold over 3.67 mils.
The downside of ranging targets in this manner is that the formula only works with an accurate guess of the target or object’s height. Without that measurement or something close to it, the number for the distance would be extremely unreliable. More importantly, without having any ballistics data for a rifle and its load, the ranging information from milling with the TMR isn’t as useful.
Continued in Part 2
Image Credits for every graphic and picture used in this article belong to Leupold.
When Walther created the PP series of pistols, they didn’t do anything superbly revolutionary. They just combined a number of well-known and appreciated features into one platform. The PP, PPK, and later PPK/S are quite famous and widely cloned. Typically, the clones are seen as inferior. For example, guns like the Makarov are seen as cruder examples of the same technology. However, some are arguably superior, and the Astra Constable falls into the superior part of the clone game.
The Astra Constable – A Spanish Walther
Astra’s Constable uses the same basic layout as a Walther PP/PPK. It’s a direct blowback-operated firearm with a fixed barrel that doubles as the gun’s guide rod. The gun has a DA/SA trigger system and manual safety, doubling as a decocker. The Constable came in .380 ACP, .32 ACP, and .22LR. My example is a .380 ACP.
You might even mistake the Constable for a Walther with its sleek appearance and design. It’s upon closer inspection that you begin to see the difference. The barrel length is 3.5 inches, which is shorter than the Walther PP and longer than the PPK. In .380 ACP, the gun holds seven rounds.
One of the big departures the Constable makes from the Walther is the addition of a manual slide release. This helps you quickly reload and modernizes a design that traces its origins to 1929.
Unlike the German-made Walther, Spanish-made Constables can be very affordable firearms. If you want a Walther for its design and function, the Astra Constable can be a very affordable alternative. Constable pistols can be found for less than $300, and that’s a helluva bargain.
Upon Closer Inspection
Spanish-made firearms don’t get the credit they deserve. Their arms industry has cooled these days, but they have produced some very robust and innovative pistols in the past. Companies like Astra and Star produced and imported a variety of well-made handguns up until the 1990s. Eventually, the two companies merged and became ASTAR, but they didn’t seem to do a whole lot as ASTAR.
The Astra Constable keeps the reputation of Spanish pistols. It’s very well made. Everything about the gun comes off as well-made. The finish is evenly applied and looks fantastic. The controls are well-placed and easy to use. Everything clicks and pops as you’d expect. The gun’s slide moves smoothly and locks back solidly.
The magazines don’t just drop out of the bottom—they eject, and they get thrown out the bottom of the gun with some real force. Things like the trigger come off very nicely. The double action rolls rearward nicely and smoothly, and the single action trigger is light with a very short reset. The Constable is not just a cheap clone of the Walther pistol but a weapon made to be a very high-quality firearm.
The Astra Constable At the Range
The Astra Constable’s biggest downside is the blowback-operated system. Straight blowback guns have excessive recoil, and in little, all metal guns, it results in some snappy recoil. That’s apparent here with the Constable. The little gun doesn’t recoil as harshly as a Walther PPK, but it still slaps you in the web of the hand, and we get a good dose of slide bite if we ride the gun too high.
Modern shooting techniques involve a nice high grip on the gun, but you’ll have to resist the urge. It’s tough, I know, but unless you want to lose a chunk of skin by the end of a magazine, you’ll figure it out. While recoil and slide bite can be harsh, the gun is flat shooting. It doesn’t have a ton of muzzle rise, so if you can take the recoil, you can put your rounds in a fast, tight group.
The Constable is a fairly accurate gun. The sights are small, but if you take the time to find them, you can put those pesky little .380 rounds wherever you want them. The guns’ small sights aren’t great for speed, but at the classic seven to ten-yard self-defense range, you’ll be well-armed and capable of putting rounds in the vital spot of a threat.
At longer ranges, the gun suffers from the small sights. So, it’s not a 25-yard pistol by any means. You can hit a man-sized target, but where it’s going is up to fate! Not really, but it’s not going to impress you. However, you might shoot a bit better than me and can make it work.
A Bargain Bin Gun
The Astra Constable offers you a lot of gun for not much money. Sadly, they aren’t that common. People who have them likely don’t see a reason to sell them since they won’t get a whole lot for one. If you can find one, it’s one of the best budget options for concealed carry. It’s well made, accurate enough, super reliable, and small enough to carry without a problem.
A few evenings ago, I attended one of PHLster’s Enigma Tune-Up Webinars. It was hosted by PHLster employees Dakota Adelphia and Tessah Booth—who also designed this course. Their level of knowledge and aptitude towards helping others was quite impressive, even for someone like myself who has “been around the block” in the gun-space, so to speak.
Before going over my experience during the webinar, I’d like to share some background and context about the PHLster Enigma concealment system. It has been on the market for nearly four years now and has been validated and approved by the community at large.
The PHLster Enigma System
When I first started writing, the PHLster Enigma system was one of the very few gun-related accessories, if not the first one I ever reviewed. The gist of this concealment system is that it allows virtually anyone, man or woman, regardless of body type, to conceal most types of defensive carry pistols or revolvers on their person independently of wearing pants and a traditional gun belt.
The system works by tethering AIWB-style holsters to a bracket and a low-profile minimalistic belt that cinches down directly to the body. Because the system does not rely on the external belt, belt loops, pants or any of the other traditional garments needed to successfully support a concealed handgun, wearers are free to carry their gun independently from their wardrobe choices.
This allows both men and women to dress and conceal in ways that weren’t as feasible in the past due to the limitations of clothing needed to support handguns.
For example, a man wearing professional business attire wearing an Enigma system can keep a concealed pistol in his waistband while also tucking in his shirt. This is something that would be impossible with a standard IWB (inside the waistband) or AIWB (appendix inside the waistband).
In the past, a man wanting to conceal in business attire would have been constrained to wearing a sports coat or some other cover garment. That isn’t always practical or necessary—especially in warmer climes.
Likewise, with the PHLster Enigma Concealment system, a woman can wear a dress, tunic, skirt, or any other free-flowing form-fitting garment that doesn’t involve belt loops and a belt. Historically, it has been especially challenging for women to maintain some semblance of fashion while trying to successfully carry on their persons.
The Enigma Learning Curve
I loathe to use the term “catch” here, but there is somewhat of a catch to successfully concealing with the Enigma system. Since the system is designed to provide a unique concealment solution for literally “every” “body,” the catch is that successful execution does require a little effort and some level of understanding behind the principles of concealment to properly use.
There’s a bit of a learning curve, but rest assured, this is far from a true drawback. Successfully understanding the Enigma isn’t so complex that it requires an advanced engineering degree to understand. Furthermore, as a company, PHLster goes above and beyond to educate the public on the basics of concealment.
The company has spent a good amount of time and treasure on tutorials, guides, and how-to videos while also actively curating an educational page on Facebook. Best of all, all of this information is freely available to anyone.
A slide from the lecture portion of the PHLster Enigma Tune-Up Webinar
The Live Tune-Up Webinars
Going one step beyond their educational resources and support group on social media, PHLster escalates its educational efforts with the Enigma Tune-Up webinar. Tune-Ups are hosted bi-monthly by Dakota and Tessah and hosted through Zoom.
Attendees can view Tune-Ups either as audience members (with access to a live chat for any questions) or live participants. With a few caveats, live participants need to register ahead of time and wait for the green light to sit in on the Zoom session directly. They also have the opportunity to receive in-depth attention in real-time from both Tessah and Dakota regarding concealment tweaks or tips.
For live participants, the Tune-Up turns into both a lecture and a real-time consultation, free of charge. The added benefit is that other live-participants and the rest of the members of the audience are free to follow along and glean relevant information from each spotlight.
The start of the webinar begins with a presentation and lecture on some key basics for the Enigma system to help. At the end of the day, PHLster invests the time and effort it does into its educational and informational material because one of its core missions is to make the knowledge of proper concealment as widely understood as the topic of gun safety itself.
The Takeaway
Personally, I don’t use the Enigma system too often due to my typical dress and routine. However, whenever it’s time to don a button-down collared shirt and slacks, my Enigma Express with a Glock 48 is indispensable.
I’m quite comfortable with my Enigma Express, along with carrying concealed handguns in general. However, I wouldn’t consider myself an expert-level user either, and I was able to pick up some bits of knowledge during this webinar. Aside from the few pages of notes I took, Tessah properly showed me the correct application of the system’s “leg-leash” in real-time with a concise explanation about it, for example. I also loved the real-time demo with concealment wedges, because that’s actually something I’m not up to speed on (Enigma or not).
Even though the Enigma system can appear daunting at first, the fundamental issue is that users need to understand how to attune it to their specific body and manner of dress. Ultimately, this is why Dakota and Tessah are there to help.
Red dots on handguns are about as standard as Picatinny rails on handguns. Maybe even more standard these days since even micro-sized guns are now optics-ready. If you release a handgun that isn’t optics-ready, then the entire industry will question you. Since red dots are everywhere and offer you so many benefits, are long-slide handguns relevant anymore? Let’s dig into the benefits of a long-slide handgun and discuss their usefulness in 2024.
The Basic Benefits of a Long Slide Handgun
Long-slide handguns have been popular with shooters looking to improve their overall accuracy. They’ve been immensely popular with competition shooters and somewhat popular with police users. The longer slide offers a long sight radius.
A sight radius won’t make a gun more accurate, but it will make it easier to shoot accurately. Long-slide handguns and their extended sight radius make shooting easier with greater precision and at greater ranges.
Longer slides also tend to make it easier to track the sights. If you can track your sights, you can shoot faster and straighter.
Long-slide handguns contribute to less recoil purely by adding more weight to the gun. Larger guns tend to be easier to control, and long-slide handguns tend to reduce recoil slightly. We also get a little velocity boost. It’s not necessarily a groundbreaking amount of velocity, but it’s worth mentioning.
The Red Dot Revolution
How do red dots fall into this conversation? Red dots do a lot of great things for handguns. One of the biggest benefits of running a red dot is that the sight radius no longer matters. You only have one focal plane with a red dot, so the distance between sights doesn’t even enter the conversation.
Additionally, the red glowing reticle can easily be tracked throughout the entire recoil impulse. You can watch it move as a small blur that follows your recoil pattern. It’s easy to track, and once you get used to it, you’ll only see that blur because you’ll shoot so fast that it stays a blur.
Red dots can’t do anything to reduce recoil or increase velocity, but they do remove the two biggest advantages of long-slide handguns.
The Last Benefit Standing
What about lower recoil? That’s beneficial, but it’s not that big of a deal. A good grip and stance can also reduce recoil significantly. Is the minimal recoil reduction felt by long-slide pistols worth the additional cost? Is it potentially worth a slower draw, less concealability, and a generally front-heavy pistol when red dots remove the two major performance advantages?
What about velocity? For self-defense purposes, we need enough velocity to ensure the projectile penetrates deep enough, allowing a jacketed hollow point to expand. The velocity benefit will be largely caliber-dependent.
We know that with common calibers like 9mm, it works pretty well with barrel lengths between 3 and 4 inches. 10mm tends to be a little better from longer barrels if you want actual 10mm performance. Calibers like 5.7x28mm needs a five-inch barrel to be worth a spit.
For most users, compact 9mm handguns with a red dot sight are pretty solid. Anything larger has the benefit of greater capacity and a little less recoil, but it’s also just big and inconvenient to carry. Long-slide handguns can still be relevant if you’re stuck with iron sights, but if you have red dots at your disposal, they don’t offer a lot of juice for the squeeze.
Let’s be honest. We carry guns because we recognize that there is a risk of criminal predation that we want to defend ourselves against. But being the target of violence isn’t the only risk that can have a major impact on our lives. Not only that, but not all risks carry the same consequence. So, how do you prioritize them and their respective mitigation strategies? This focus on risk management will provide a guideline for doing just that.
I think that one thing the firearm community does poorly is hyper-focus on some of the lowest probability events.
Why? Because the shooting performance is measurable and provides immediate feedback, and that sense of accomplishment is the dopamine hit.
The flip side of that coin is that doing an effective Risk Assessment requires you to be objective, critical, and vulnerable with yourself, and you have to envision yourself LOSING. That’s uncomfortable.
It’s critical that you don’t gloss over all the more probable, but somewhat lower consequence risks to ONLY focus on the worst-case scenarios that happen to be fun to practice.
Have you ever mixed exercising and shooting? Or maybe you’ve heard it advocated as a good way to train. It’s supposed to induce stress and make life harder on the range. Training on a square range can be a relatively calm affair that can even be a bit boring if you’re an old hand at marksmanship. Adding a little bit of exercise helps simulate a gunfight, right? Well, the answer is a bit more complicated than yes or no.
The main idea is that by inducing physical stress into your shooting, you can simulate the adrenal effects of a gunfight. It’s tough to simulate such a thing safely, so we use physical stress to try to induce mental stress into our shooting. Doing a bunch of burpees, sprints, or other cardiovascular activity certainly makes it harder to shoot, but does it simulate the effects of a gunfight?
Exercise and Gunfights
The short answer is no, not entirely. Physical stress brought about by exercise isn’t going to help simulate the stress created by an adrenaline dump in a fight for your life. We are looking at two different stress factors to contend with. Physical and mental stress. The two can be tied together, but they aren’t double-knotted.
The mental effects of stress can include a total shutdown where you have no idea what to do, so you freeze and do nothing. You can’t simulate that through physical exercise. You can probably still make a shoot/no-shoot decision even if you exhaust yourself. Exercise can’t simulate the rushed increase in heart rate and blood pressure.
Sgt. Michael Poindexter, a Paratrooper assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division (Advise and Assist Brigade), closes in on the finish line of a two-mile run during an Army Physical Fitness Test April 18. The run was conducted early in the morning to avoid the heat of the Iraqi afternoon.
It can’t simulate pupil dilation when your adrenaline skyrockets. Exercise cannot simulate the sympathetic nervous system response that gives your body a great burst of energy to react to danger. Your mental response to violence isn’t negative; it can be extremely beneficial, and you can’t simulate that through a bunch of burpees at the range.
Exercise also can’t simulate the cognitive load associated with a gunfight. Stress-induced cognitive load occurs when your body and brain fight for resources to accomplish tasks under pressure. You’ll be forced to focus on tasking demands while coping with environmental demands.
What Exercise Helps
Who says the gunfight won’t be physical? Sure, it might be a draw to first-round fired, but it could also start with a physical attack. You could be fighting for your literal life and exhausting your body as you throw punches and wrestle.
Maybe you tried to escape? Or maybe you sprinted toward danger? There are lots of situations I can believe that happen in or around a gunfight that could benefit from implementing physical fitness into your firearms training.
Soldiers from 1-125 Field Artillery, participate in the sprint-drag-carry event of the Army Combat Fitness Test during a diagnostic on Aug. 20, 2021, Camp Ripley, Minnesota. The ACFT is a combat oriented fitness test designed to test a soldier’s combat readiness. (Minnesota National Guard photo by Sgt. Mahsima Alkamooneh)
Being used to and prepared to shoot with your heart beating rapidly, sweaty hands, and gasping for air can be beneficial. It can show you what it’s like. While it can be beneficial to train with some exercise thrown in, the best thing you can do is be physically fit. The effects of physical stress can be lessened if you exercise regularly.
How To Induce Stress
Inducing the same amount of stress you’d get in a gunfight can be difficult. It might be impossible. You can implement different forms of stress that provide a cognitive load while shooting. Competition is a great way to trigger that mental stress load.
It won’t meet the fight for your life stress, but it can get you closer. If you can perform at a high level in competition, you’ll be better prepared to deal with a real gunfight.
Another great way to induce stress is to attend force-on-force training. Having the potential of losing a simulated gunfight and getting hit by simmunitions can induce stress. This is especially true if you train in shoot and no-shoot situations where decision-making is required.
Training Hard
The best thing you can do is train regularly and train hard. When the crap hits the fan, you’ll revert back to your lowest level of training. If you’ve trained extensively and taught your body and mind how to draw, shoot, and fight, you’ll be prepared for a fight. It should be a near-unconscious level of skill.
The other best thing you can do is be physically fit because heart disease kills more people than muggers. Physical fitness can help you fight. So exercise, train, and find ways to induce stress.
The J-Frame came into my collection back when I worked at the gun shop and routinely carried a backup gun (which, of course, had to be a revolver since they never jam).
When my lifestyle changed to the point that two guns wasn’t practical, it languished in the safe for years. Then recently, after some exchanges with folks like Caleb Giddings, Lee @ The Obscene Sailor, Darryl Bolke, and others, I’ve started appreciating the j-frame’s practicality as a “Regular Guy’s Gun.”
While we’d all like to be able to carry an optimal fighting handgun 100% of the time, we’re all familiar with the Italian proverb “Le meglio è l’inimico del bene” (Perfect is the enemy of good).
Since Rule 1 of Gunfighting is “Have a Gun,” it would stand to reason that having different tools for different applications would make good sense.
Not only does the J-Frame carry more discreetly than my G19—in the social circumstances that would call for that discretion—the texture on my Gen 5 Glock can actually be detrimental to the lifespan of my clothing.
The more time I’m spending with this little revolver, the more I’m finding use for it.
I won’t stop carrying my Glock, but I also don’t feel compelled to compromise to accommodate it either.
You might not know this, but the ATF has no purview over muzzleloading black powder firearms. They are not regulated under the typical gun laws. You can have one shipped to your door; there are no waiting periods, and they don’t fall under the NFA. Yep, no NFA rules apply to muzzleloading black powder firearms. With that in mind, let’s look at some of the best NFA hacks you get through black powder firearms.
One of my favorite creations comes from SilencerCo, and it’s called the Maxim 50. The Maxim 50 is a fairly traditional single-shot muzzleloading rifle with a lot of modern touches. The most modern touch is the big, hefty suppressor tossed at the gun’s end. It’s an NFA-free suppressor on a perfectly suitable hunting muzzleloader.
The suppressor is a part of the barrel and can’t be removed or put on other weapons without significant effort. If you can make a Maxim 50 suppressor work on a standard rifle, you can build your own suppressor anyway. The Maxim 50 is well suited for the modern hunter and a great way to get into muzzleloading. Plus, it angers the right people, the people who claim the Second Amendment only relates to black powder single-shot rifles.
Short Barreled Rifles
While most muzzleloaders have fairly long barrels to ensure good velocity from a black powder-propelled round, they aren’t locked into a barrel length. Any muzzleloading black powder gun could have a barrel shorter than 16 inches. An SBRed muzzleloader doesn’t sound great, but you can also toss a stock onto various black powder pistols—namely cap and ball revolver replicas from Cimarron, Uberti, and the like.
Not only can you attach a stock, but stocks are widely available for these platforms. This includes historically accurate options with wood and metal, as well as modern options that allow you to use your favorite AR stock with your favorite revolver. It’s odd, but normally, such a contraption would run afoul of the NFA. Cap and ball revolvers maintain an NFA-free status.
Short Barreled Shotguns
If you’re into firearms, you have more than likely seen the ads for the Diablo series of shotguns. These guns are touted as legal, sawn-off shotguns that are pistol-sized but feature 12 gauge bores. They look straight up like something El Mariachi would carry. These guns are perfectly legal because they are muzzleloading shotguns.
They can be short, pistol-sized, and now qualify as short-barreled shotguns or any other weapon. If you’ve ever wanted to play El Mariachi without having to pay for a stamp, then the Diablo shotguns are for you. They aren’t the only option, and the old blunderbuss guns are still available with short barrels.
Cannons!
If destructive devices are on your radar, then you might be pleased to know nothing is stopping you from owning a cannon! Yep, as the founding fathers’ intended cannons are available and can be owned without a lick of paperwork. Admittedly, finding a gun range to accommodate a cannon might be tough, but if you can afford a cannon, you can probably afford the range to fire it.
(Cannons Direct)
These aren’t cheap, lightweight, or convenient, but I almost guarantee your HAO has no rules against it…yet. Cannon kits cost anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000 dollars without shipping attached. You can also buy mini cannon kits from muzzleloading companies like Traditions. These are .50 cal muzzleloaders and a fair bit cheaper, but also much smaller.
Muzzleloaders, Blackpowder, and The Law
While Federal law might give you carte blanche on muzzleloading black powder weapons, state laws may vary. I’d assume California and New York hate them as much as they hate ARs and common sense. Check your state laws before you get your hopes up. If you live in a free state, then please enjoy your way around the NFA and have some black powder and muzzleloading fun.
Benchmade makes lots of fancy knives. Fighting knives, automatic knives, and more. Sometimes, knives like the Redoubt slip through the cracks. The Redoubt isn’t necessarily fancy or doesn’t appear to be fancy. It’s a simple folding pocket knife at first glance, but after spending some quality time with the Redoubt, I uncovered a sleeper hit that shouldn’t be ignored. The Redoubt is a very competent knife and a potentially awesome EDC option.
The Benchmade Redoubt – Simple and Robust
The Benchmade Redoubt is a manual folding knife that utilizes an Axis lock. The Axis lock locks the blade open at the rear and is a strong lock type favored by Benchmade for many of its knives. The handle is made from what Benchmade calls Grivory. Grivory is a proprietary thermoplastic composite used in a variety of applications, and thanks to Benchmade, it now includes knives.
The blade is made from CPM-D2. CPM-D2 is a refinement of the classic D2 steel. It’s a tough steel that resists chipping and breaking. This can make it a little tougher to sharpen, but it has excellent edge retention. The CPM-D2 steel isn’t stainless steel, but it does give you decent corrosion resistance. In a place like the Gulf Coast of Florida this is quite handy.
It doesn’t resist corrosion as well as stainless steel, but Benchmade follows the steel up with Cobalt Cerakote to help keep rust at bay. The Benchmade Redoubt is simple but robust and made to be durable and useful as a whole.
The Redoubt In Your Hand
Grivory is odd branding, but I can’t complain about how it feels in my hand. The material weighs very little, and the knife weighs 3.7 ounces. The Grivory material has a multicolor design. The majority of it is green, but there is a heavily textured darker green portion. The texturing wraps around the sides and over the top of the grip. Up front, there are two sections with additional texture.
This creates an aggressive grip texture for a true nonslip grip. It’s currently summer, and it’s 98 degrees outside. I’m covered in sweat after about a minute of doing anything outside. This includes my hands, which will be dripping sweat if I do anything related to tools—including knives. The Redoubt sticks to your hand and won’t slip or slide when dealing with sweat.
The Redoubt allows you to slice and dice in the heat of the day without worrying about your hand slipping. However, its aggressive texture, with its rough and rugged appearance, makes my hand itch. They cover everything with texture, and it’s tough to find smooth surfaces.
The texture at the rear of the grip allows for excellent control over the blade. Up front, there is a small finger guard that keeps your finger from slipping upward when working. The grip itself fills my hand, and I can comfortably use a hammer grip, a thumb forward grip, or even a reverse grip.
Benchmade took some effort to create a comfortable, functioning grip. The thick, rounded handle makes it easy to handle and easy to commit to hard work.
The Blade In Action
The Redoubt comes with a 3.53-inch blade and several options for blade tip design. Mine has the tanto tip, but a drop point is also available. The tanto allows for deep penetration and a strong tip for stabbing deep and resisting tip breakage. The downside is that you have to deal with two edges to sharpen, which makes sharpening a bit of a hassle.
The corner between the tip and main blade allows for deep cuts against harder materials. If I have to deal with clamshell packaging and expensive electronics, I can use the corner to nick the clamshell packaging open. The little corner can cut deep.
The blade lacks a traditional curved belly. It’s more like a straight razor edge. This makes deep cuts against soft materials a little challenging. However, it does allow for forceful cuts and press cuts that move smoothly and cleanly. I’ve diced tomatoes and onions for taco night, and the Redoubt does a great job of cutting things into very small pieces and portions.
The Redoubt glides through most material really easily. Drag it over paper, and you’ll have two cut pieces of paper. You won’t waste effort working through apples, oranges, or canvas-like materials. It’s a tough cutter that does a good job chewing through most materials.
The Redoubt’s blade works extremely well for carving and cutting straight. The Redoubt could do it if I wanted to whittle a stick or sharpen a spear. The blade comes incredibly sharp, and Benchmade offers to keep it sharpened for life. They can certainly sharpen it better than I could.
Having Redoubt
The Redoubt is a moderately sized pocket knife. It might be large for some, but if you carry a gun daily, it doesn’t matter much. It’s 4.75 inches closed, so it’s smaller than a spare magazine. The Redoubt offers a tough and durable knife. It’s a bit like a meaty upgrade to the Bug Out. It’s a working knife that’s perfectly suited for military, police, or EDC use.
Continued from Part 2. Primary Arms PLxC LPVO shown on a different carbine mounted on a Primary Arms GLx 30mm 1.5″ mount.
My Critiques Of the Primary Arms PLxC LPVO
Overall, I have a good impression of the Primary Arms PLxC, and I really like its build quality and attention to detail. The scope’s field of view at low power is quite generous, and the fact that Primary Arms Optics was able to compress the functionality of a larger full-size 34mm LPVO into a shorter and thinner 30mm body is quite impressive in of itself.
I like the quality of its optical glass and the way it transmits light. Chromatic aberration was minimal and not out of line with what I’ve seen with other—even more expensive—scopes. I also suspect that its “tight” eyebox and having to adjust the focus differently for shots with full magnification, as opposed to none, are part of the compromise of fitting all that glass into such a small package.
Twisting a focus ring and working on indexing the rifle and stock relative to the face more efficiently are not the end of the world. On top of that, the spinning magnification adjustment has a solid, quality feel to it.
In summary, the PLxC LPVO gets a solid thumbs up with regard to its physical qualities.
The Chevron
I really appreciate the effort and thought behind the ACSS Griffin Mil M8 reticle, which does its best to take advantage of the best attributes an LPVO brings to the table. However, I’m personally not crazy about the floating chevron used as the central aiming point. After trying out the chevron with an open mind, I found it wasn’t for me.
The central aiming chevron is approximately 1 mil tall and 2 mils wide while its body is roughly ½ mil thick. This doesn’t matter much when shooting at large targets at shorter distances with the magnification on its lowest settings. But I find that the chevron is a compromise for finer precision aiming, especially with its ½ mil thickness.
At ½ mil thick, 1 mil tall and 2 mils tall, I think the ACSS Griffin’s chevron is too chunky and obstructs the target more than I’d like it to. For example, using my carbine with a 100-yard zero and M193 ammunition, I took it to the Cornerstone LPVO class. I know that my come-up for 200 yards is around 0.31. Yet, while shooting off a barricade with a bag during that course, I routinely missed more shots at the 200-yard 8-inch steel gongs than I care to admit.
I kept “losing” the steel target within the ½ mil maw of the chevron without having a clear reference point. I’m of the opinion that the central aiming point on an optic like the PLxC should be no larger than 0.20 mil. Anything bigger runs the risk of obscuring specific points on a target in spite of the fact that LPVOs aren’t sniper scopes.
The Horseshoe Ring And Illumination
I think the horseshoe ring in the ACSS Griffin Mil M8 reticle is an element that shooters will either love or hate. Factors would depend on the shooter’s needs and style of shooting, along with whatever they’re trying to accomplish with the PLxC.
In a twist of irony, I thought I would end up disliking how thick the horseshoe ring is on 8x. However, after seeing for myself how handy it could be when shooting Steel Challenge targets quickly on 1x, and also taking some shots at steel targets placed further back, I wouldn’t hesitate to bring this optic to a 2-gun or 3-gun style match.
It is true that due to the first focal plane design of this PLxC variant, the horseshoe becomes quite prominent at full magnification. Measuring horizontally from outer edge to edge, the horseshoe ring is 10 mils wide. I estimated the thickness of its “line” to be approximately 0.75 mils wide.
There’s no doubt that some shooters will find the thicker line, along with its 10 mil wide span, to feel “busy” and with the potential to block or crowd out the field of view downrange. Ditto for the wind-shaped auto-ranging stadia.
The Horseshoe Ring is a Good Fit
After some internal deliberation, I finally decided on the horseshoe ring and its place in the ACSS Griffin Mil M8 reticle. It’s a good fit, especially in the context of this optic.
I’ll elaborate: the illumination on the highest setting is visible in daylight but it’s not daylight bright. And the lack of nuclear cherry-red brightness is probably the most common complaint I’ve seen about the Primary Arms PLxC.
Truthfully, the internal components necessary to illuminate a first focal plane reticle to those extremely bright levels are so much more expensive. My educated guess is that if Primary Arms had gone that route, chances are that the PLxC would actually be in a different and more expensive price bracket.
Michael Branson from Gideon Optics (whose resume includes Primary Arms, too) goes into some detail about this in the podcast he recorded with our friends at Big Tex Ordnance. Therefore, I think the placement of the horseshoe ring in such a manner that makes it clearly useful and visible at 1x helps bolster the daylight visible illumination while still remaining useful.
While the horseshoe’s 0.75 mil thick ring can potentially block the field of view downrange when fully magnified, in my experiences shooting past 275 yards, it wasn’t a concern for me.
With regards to the illumination issue, this could either make or break the optic, depending on the end-user and their specific needs. In my case, as a “regular guy” using the range during the weekends, the occasional carbine class, or at a match, the lack of daylight bright illumination isn’t a deal breaker.
I’m sure a patrol or SWAT officer employing an LPVO on his duty carbine might have different requirements and considerations as far as the brightness level and busy-ness of the optic’s reticle are concerned.
The Takeaway
Primary Arms Optics has staked its reputation on offering products that work quite well for the money—the “value proposition” as it goes. However, over the past few years, Primary Arms has also been ramping up its product development among its higher-end offerings, and this new crop of compact LPVOs is part of these efforts.
Even though one may not agree 100% with the execution of the PLxC LPVO, it’s evident that Primary Arms put a lot of thought into the design and development of the optic. Physically, it’s well-made and has a great size and weight, clear glass, and a fairly “strong” magnification level.
I think reticle design and implementation ought to be its own philosophical field or even art form. Again, I appreciate the ingenuity, thought, and effort put into the ACSS Griffin Mil M8 reticle. But perhaps the reticle is trying to be a “jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none.” I think paring down the chevron or using a different type of central aiming point would have gone a long way.
I’m not defending the lack of brightness on the first focal plane PLxC, but this most likely entailed keeping costs competitive, as I explained above. And keeping that in mind, I don’t think it takes away any of the other wonderful qualities exhibited by the PLxC.
It’s also worth mentioning that at the beginning of summer 2024, Primary Arms also launched a second focal plane version of the PLxC LPVO—one that uses the ACSS Nova Fiber Wire reticle and has that cherry-red daylight bright illumination.
