Maybe it’s because I’m a Florida man, and maybe it’s because I love Miami Vice, but I love shoulder holsters. I go back a long way with them. As a teenager, I was known to rip and tear through the family property with an ATV, and an Uncle Mike’s nylon shoulder rig secured the water mocassin killing machine that was my Heritage Manufacturing Rough Rider. I still occasionally carry with a shoulder holster, which forces me to occasionally practice my shoulder holster draw.
Recently my kids had spring break, and we headed over to St Augustine, Florida, to see how the Eastern Florida folk live. It was several hours’ drive, and I put on my Galco Miami Classic 2 and my SIG P365 for the road trip. Say what you will, but driving with a shoulder holster is 1000% more comfortable than driving with an appendix rig. As a big guy in a small car, it’s also much easier to draw.
As I practiced my dry fire draws with my chosen rig and gun, it occurred to me that most people might not know the skinny on shoulder holsters and a safe draw. Shoulder holsters aren’t popular these days and are quite niche. Most education and information around seems to come from movies and TV, and trust me when I say they get it wrong. Let’s dissect the shoulder holster draw.
The Shoulder Holster Draw – Safety First
Let’s break down what it takes to wear a shoulder holster as a concealed carrier. You need one that fits properly and is easily hidden under your arm. A cover garment is always necessary, and then we seemed to spring back into winter this year. It wasn’t an issue. A light shirt does it. To effectively draw the gun, you need to defeat the garment.
That’s nothing new in concealed carry, but the method you do so can be tricky. For waist carry, you can typically grab the top of the shirt and yank upward. With the shoulder holster draw, it’s wise to reach higher on the cover garment. I reach right below above the gun sits. I’m reaching just above my red dot sight to draw the gun.
If you watch movies and tv, the shoulder holster draw is just as easy as reaching into your coat. That doesn’t work well, so clear the garment and grab the gun. When you clear the garment, you want to pull it upward. How high? Well, higher than ever. Have you ever seen one of those Jersey Shore dues show his abs? Pull your arm up that high.
Up To the Neck
Literally, pull it up nice and high toward the neck. It might not quite be neck high, but close. You want the elbow in line with the wrist. The idea is that when you draw your gun, you aren’t flagging yourself as you turn the gun and point it at the threat. This is where most people get the draw wrong. They seem to forget they are flagging themselves on the draw.
The same goes for when it comes to reholstering the gun. Although, you don’t have to reholster it quickly, so you can take your time, get the gun out of your way, and holster the gun. When you practice the draw, I suggest exaggerating the elbow going up and getting it higher than necessary. I always think of it as a chicken wing, and I’m in a fight-or-flight situation.
The thing is, a chicken is a flightless bird, so I’m flapping one wing while the other moves to fight.
Washington becomes the 10th state to restrict semiautomatic possession through a stupid feature list.
The House concurred with a floor amendment to House Bill 1240 that was added in the Senate, voting 56-42 to approve it on April 19. The amendment will allow gun manufacturers to sell inventory already in stock prior to Jan. 1, 2023, and only to out-of-state clientele for 90 days after the bill goes into effect. So vendors aren’t totally hosed, just mostly.
The bill does not ban the possession of assault weapons and allows for ownership by law enforcement and military service members, with an exception in cases of inheritance. So the guns already there can apparently stay, meaning the risk profile in the state doesn’t change at all.
In state and national organizations like the NSSF have vowed to challenge the bill in court, arguing the ban violates the second amendment. The Second Amendment Foundation filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the ban, asking for preliminary and permanent injunctions. Assault weapon bans are still under federal scrutiny in the courts and with federal court momentum who knows how long this will remain enacted. Illinois is currently facing several suits and its fate is unknown too, the Chicago led state passed theirs in January.
“The state has enacted a flat prohibition on the manufacture, sale, import and distribution of many types of firearms, inaccurately labeled as ‘assault weapons,’ which are owned by millions of ordinary citizens across the country,” Second Amendment Foundation founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb said in a prepared statement. “In the process, the state has criminalized a common and important means of self-defense, the modern semiautomatic rifle. The state has put politics ahead of constitutional rights, and is penalizing law-abiding citizens while this legislation does nothing to arrest and prosecute criminals who misuse firearms in defiance of all existing gun control laws. It is absurd.”
LINCOLN, NE (April 25, 2023) — Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen signed the FPC-supported LB 77 into law, enacting permitless carry in the Cornhusker State. Nebraska is now the twenty-seventh state to enact such legislation.
Under the new law, which will take effect 3 months after the legislative session ends, Nebraskans and non-residents 21 and older will no longer need a license to carry concealed, though individuals must still be legally eligible to possess handguns. Carry licenses will still be available to eligible individuals who wish to acquire one for various purposes, such as compliance with federal law prohibiting firearm possession in school zones (18 U.S.C. § 922(q)(2)) and reciprocity with other states.
“After years of effort, Nebraska is now the latest state to restore the fundamental right to carry a firearm without needing a government-issued permission slip,” said Richard Thomson, FPC’s Vice President of Programs. “We look forward to restoring this right in the minority of states that still require a permit to carry. Additionally, we look forward to restoring the right for ALL adults in states that still ban 18-20 year olds from carrying.”
Individuals who would like to Join the FPC Grassroots Army and support important pro-rights lawsuits and programs can sign up atJoinFPC.org. Individuals and organizations wanting to support charitable efforts in support of the restoration of Second Amendment and other natural rights can also make a tax-deductible donation to theFPC Action Foundation. For more on FPC’s lawsuits and other pro-Second Amendment initiatives, visitFPCLegal.org and follow FPC onInstagram,Twitter,Facebook,YouTube.
Firearms Policy Coalition (firearmspolicy.org), a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization, exists to create a world of maximal human liberty, defend constitutional rights, advance individual liberty, and restore freedom. FPC’s efforts are focused on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and adjacent issues including freedom of speech, due process, unlawful searches and seizures, separation of powers, asset forfeitures, privacy, encryption, and limited government. The FPC team are next-generation advocates working to achieve the Organization’s strategic objectives through litigation, research, scholarly publications, amicus briefing, legislative and regulatory action, grassroots activism, education, outreach, and other programs.
FPC Law (FPCLaw.org) is the nation’s first and largest public interest legal team focused on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the leader in the Second Amendment litigation and research space.
Permitless Carry
Constitutional Carry, or permitless carry, is the current best legal acknowledgment of the right to bear arms. If you are permitted to own them, you are permitted to carry them. You can own a pistol, you can carry a pistol. Are there ‘restrictions still?’ yes.
This does not undercut and should rather further encourage carriers to seek out good training to carry properly, but it removes a tedious legal barrier which is ultimately what a permitting scheme is.
David French over at The New York Times delivers us a classic piece of ‘Pro-2A But-ism’ in the form of a gun owner against other gun owners. Why? Simple, he does not like their behaviors. On that point, I can agree with David. I think the behaviors he is pointing out are clownish. But the case for guns is not being destroyed by these behaviors as the majority, the behavior set he describes in the beginning of his piece, are fundamental and foundational reasons.
Now, there is more nuance and I honestly think French gets very close to a couple of good points in his piece. But in his ninth paragraph, after eight establishing his bonofieds as a responsible gun owner and pro-2A-ish, he makes his error. It’s a common error.
But the gun rights movement is changing. In many quarters of America, respect for firearms has turned into a form of reverence. As I wrote in 2022, there is now widespread gun idolatry. “Guns” have joined “God” and “Trump” in the hierarchy of right-wing values. At the edges, gun owners have gone from defending the rights of people to own semiautomatic rifles like AR-15s to openly brandishing them in protests, even to the point of, for example, staging an armed occupation of parts of the Michigan Capitol during anti-lockdown protests.
David. Mr. French. You’re missing the why for the hollow shell of the what. I’m from Michigan, I was here when that happened. While that was annoying, and in another incident several luke-warm IQ types were plotting (with government agency encouragement as it would turn out) to kidnap the very same Governor Whitmer and smuggle her to the foreign shores of… Wisconsin… to hold a trial for her crimes against the people of Michigan. Very dramatic, highly stupid. Only two of that crew actually got any prison time and you can delve into all the reasons that case got weird on your own. Let’s merely say they don’t let criminal masterminds out of prison time and criminal convictions for entrapment.
You are correct though. The gun rights move is changing, but if you look at how you’ll see that the two most dramatic segments the have changed and become more pro-ownership are minorities and women, the two examples you cite vehemently in your opening as legitimate pro-2A reasoning. You’re looking at the meme grade farcicle response and seeing seriousness where it is largely parody. The ‘reverence’, as you say for gun ownership, is a response to a stimulus.
That stimulus was, is, and continues to be the absolutely unhinged actions of the anti-gun crowd and their shameless use of exaggeration and hyperbole to demonize anyone, including you Mr. French, who own firearms. The firearms community has been under attack for decades, they’ve been told the mere possession of a firearm makes them the problem, makes them evil or criminally negligent, and they are tired of it. So they’re clowning the left. They’re becoming the parody characters and pointing out the glaring holes in anti-gun rhetoric.
The Virginia Jan 20th, 2020 armed protest is an excellent example of protests done peacefully, even though they were absurdly well armed. We’ve seen other examples of protests that didn’t go as well. NFAC seems to make negligently discharging a weapon within their group at events a regular occurence. We’ve seen other examples of antagonistic and reckless open carry with less than stellar results.
But again, Mr. French, you went from pointing out valid reasonable and personally relevant reasons for gun ownership, that you support, to painting with the broadest brush possible while missing the point that these behaviors are often reactionary. These gun owners aren’t just acting out to act out, it is a response to unreasoned proposals by ignorant anti-gun agitators. They are the result of the clownish antics of anti-gunners being clowned and the side effect of that is an emboldened fringe. The “left” experiences the same thing when they see clownish behaviors associated with the right. They in their turn clown on the expressed attitudes as ignorant and their fringe act out wildly too.
But we’re now facing something worse than gun idolatry. Too many armed citizens are jittery at best, spoiling for a fight at worst.]
One is too many. But this is the life we live, not the one we would like to live. Using
I admire the point you are looking at, that over reactions are problematic, however what is being missed is an effect similar to when it looked like we were having so many train derailments after Palestine Ohio. Attention brings out the actual rates. There are, on average, three or four train derailments a day and many trains haul chemicals and substances that would be less than ideal to spill. But train derailment became hot after the Ohio incident, for obvious reasons, so any derailment became news as opposed to something that happens once somewhere in the country every six hours. They were always happening, they just weren’t in the news until they were. The same goes for suboptimal firearm misuses where someone somewhere shoots when they shouldn’t.
These ‘gEt oFf MY LaWn!’ type incidents, where the 16 year old was shot by the elderly homeowner or the six year old and her father were shot by the felon who somehow had a gun, are the unfortunate super minority of firearm possession where the firearm is in the hands of someone who probably should exist unsupervised in any capacity anyway, but they do.
All of these episodes occurred over the course of just six days.
Yep. These episodes exist among the current aggravated assault rate in the nation.
Some of these aggressive acts are more serious or inexplicable than others, people are a weird bunch and not all sunshine and good vibes just because we’d like them to be that way. Even with that many aggravated assaults in total, not just with firearms, that still leaves a roughly 2% chance that any given American would be assaulted in any given year. That estimate accounts for none of the other socioeconomic factors involved in violent crime and is therefore flawed, the number is lower for many and much higher for a few based on risk metrics, but in general that is how the math works out.
Top 5 methods of injury according to FBI UCR, 2021
But apparently this variant of aggravated assault with barely understood motivations isn’t egregious enough is it, Mr. French?
Yet even worse than such shootings, which occurred because of fear or sudden rage is the phenomenon that begins with a person who seems to want to fight, who deliberately places himself in harm’s way, uses deadly force and then is celebrated for his bloody recklessness. Take Kyle Rittenhouse. At age 17, Rittenhouse took an AR-15-style weapon to a riot in Kenosha, Wis., to, he said, “protect” a Kenosha business.
Pause.
Mr. French, you are misplacing a great deal of context. I happen to agree with you that what Rittenhouse did was reckless and naive. But it is absolutely in line with the sort of value set we use to recruit police, military personnel, and most other first responder professions, the defense of the community. Rittenhouse was a participant in junior programs that lead to those fields. We also had already experienced several highly destructive riotous events where people were severely injured or killed and property was destroyed. Politicians and left leaning media seemed indifferent to these acts. In fact, the perception bordered on encouragement in many instances. This resulted in more clowning from those who, rightfully, mocked the concept of a “mostly” peaceful protest while the city burned behind the reporter.
Are there a segment of the population that have a sort of doomtopia fantasy, where society collapses in some fashion and they get to go use their ‘skiilz’ to survive? Their ‘skil’z usually consisting of gun ownership, not proficiency, and a partial and substantially lacking understanding of what someone like Mike Jones said one time.
The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Washington, and several other similar incidents around the nation, set the stage for a response where citizens took protection into their hands as the government had been seen failing to step up and put a hard stop on violent protests while protecting the peaceful ones. Kyle Rittenhouse was not some basement dweller waiting for the opportunity to hunt people in a lawless zone, he was the product of the perception of inaction and indifference from people who are supposed to handle violent crime and they didn’t.
Like the open carry marchers, and other bombastic acts, Rittenhouse is a responsive symptom from a perception. That perception was that the government would not stop rioters from hurting, looting, and killing people because of evidence from previous riots in other cities. The actual on the ground events from police didn’t matter as much as the perception that they were standing back and letting the city burn. Urban spaces were seen to be at the whim of an angry mob when one was to inevitably form.
Into that, Rittenhouse went to ‘do something’ and to suppose his motive for doing so was a dark desire to hunt people and get away with it is as childish as his belief that going to Kenosha armed was a good idea. But enthusiastic untempered idealism is a trait of the young, older and cooler heads see it is a bad idea but there would be little convincing a motivated young person. For a different look at untempered youthful enthusiasm outweighing experience and understanding, look at Greta Thunberg.
When you travel, armed, to a riot, you’re courting violent conflict, and he found it.]
To be fair, when you travel unarmed to a riot you are courting and finding violent content, that is the nature of a riot.
[ He used his semiautomatic weapon to kill two people who attacked him at the protest,and a jury acquitted him on grounds of self-defense.]
What else would you wish it to be classified as when a convicted pedophile twice your age, who was threatening to kill and maim anyone who he caught alone from an opposing faction in Kenosha, chased you, cornered you in a parking lot in the dark, and attempted to take the firearm on your person? A.) You don’t get to answer, “He shouldn’t have been there.” He was there and that is the situation. Poor judgement is not illegal.
[ But the jury’s narrow inquiry into the moment of the shooting doesn’t excuse the young man’s eagerness to deliberately place himself in a situation where he might have cause to use lethal violence.
Are you certain about your assertion that Rittenhouse wanted to get into a fight? That seems like a projection to me, a response to a circumstance that was avoidable but that the use of force in full context was legal and likely saved his life. The two additional people who attacked him were also valid threats to his safety and he did well given the situation he was in. The hindsight, the making of the situation can upset us but it wasn’t and shouldn’t be made illegal as it undermines self defense.
We can level the same criticism at the people who attacked Rittenhouse. Why were they there? What were their actions at this riot? Why did they attack someone who was overtly armed and not shooting at them even as they chased him? Why did the angry unhinged pedophile threaten everyone he came across all day and then chase someone armed with an AR into a corner? There is plenty of criticism to go around. Don’t reserve your ire for Rittenhouse alone.
And what has been the right’s response? Rittenhouse has gone from defendant to folk hero, a minor celebrity in populist America.
Yes. He isn’t the only one. He won’t be the last one of questionable origin. His defense was well documented and if it hadn’t gone the way it did, self defense as a concept would again be undermined severely. We cannot judge the legality of a defensive incident based upon whether we like what was going on tagentally around the incident or not. Should we bring up George Floyd, who almost certainly should have been handled differently than he was during his arrest but who suddenly became a saintlike folk figure when he had a well documented violent past and was committing an additional crime when he was arrested?
I think the better example out of recent events is certainly Elijah Dicken, who stopped the Greenwood mall mass shooter in Indiana at a tremendous distance and with clear discipline. But we can also still respect what the Rittenhouse trial meant, the clear trauma that trial brought to him as a young person, and that the situation was avoidable and that ideally should have been the course taken.
Or take Daniel Perry, the Army sergeant who was just convicted of murdering an armed Black Lives Matter protester named Garrett Foster. Shortly after the conviction, Tucker Carlson effectively demanded a pardon.]
So? Carlson’s just another media talking chucklefuck like you and I, David. His opinion is broadcast widely, but its just his opinion like this is yours.
[ Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas responded the next day, tweeting that “Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney.”
The situation is as politically charged as many involving the protests and riots, what will be interesting in that particular case is whether or not the board recommends him for a pardon.
Yet Abbott ignored — or did not care — about the facts exposed at trial. Perry had run a red light and driven straight into the protest, nearly striking Foster’s wife with his car. Witnesses said Foster never pointed his gun at Perry. Even Perry initially told the police he opened fire before Foster pointed his gun at him, saying, “I didn’t want to give him a chance to aim at me.”
Why are we not treating Foster with the same contempt as Rittenhouse? There are plenty of people who wanted exactly what happened to Foster to happen to Rittenhouse, why is Foster exempt from courting violence by bringing his rifle to the protest. I, for the record, don’t believe either of them did something wrong by being armed, unwise perhaps but not wrong. I believe there were absolutely things both of them did that was unwise, and people ended up dead in both situations.
But the story gets worse. In social media messages before the shooting, it was plain that Perry was spoiling for an opportunity to shoot someone. His messages included, “I might have to kill a few people on my way to work they are rioting outside my apartment complex” and “I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.”
That, in this day and age, is probably a stretch. Now, courts and lawyers call this ‘discoverable’ and will thank you to NOT post these things, even if you are irritated with the current local circumstances.
That is not a man you want anywhere near a gun. Kyle Rittenhouse is not a man you want anywhere near a gun.
What about Foster? He’s on video essentially saying fuck around and find out too. Should expressing your distaste for an unruly situation invalidate your firearm rights? Have you, Mr. French, ever publicly made statements that would be suspect if something violent were to have occurred? Do you have any tweets, posts, etc. that would make you look like you were spoiling for a fight? You and your wife bought and trained with guns after merely being sent photos, photos aren’t dangerous in and of themselves right? Were you hoping someone would break into your home so you could shoot them?
I am, of course, using exaggeration and hyperbole to as is tradition in these discussions. The point being that you cannot tell someone their actions are “wrong” merely based on the fact you find them distasteful. Saying Perry or Rittenhouse is not a man you want anywhere near a gun when Perry is a serving member of the military and Rittenhouse is highly disingenuous when you can find concurrent attitudes among a vast swath of our serving police and military members, they tend not to like riotous and chaotic groups who are trying to be just violent enough and anonymous enough to not end up dead or arrested for a severe charge.
Our nation’s gun debate is understandably dominated by discussions of gun rights. But it needs to feature more accountability for gun culture.]
If and when accountability is also featured in anti-gun culture, but so long as the hyperbolic caricatures and outright falsehoods are allowed to pass for meaningful discussion from them it is unlikely to stop from the pro-2A side.
[ Every single feasible and constitutional gun control proposal]
There aren’t any constitutional gun control proposals, but that’s like my opinion as a comment on your opinion.
[ — including the red flag laws that I’ve long advocated (which allow law enforcement to remove weapons from people who broadcast deadly intent or profound instability)]
That, is the crux. To enforce something you must define it. How do you put a solid definition on ‘broadcast deadly intent’ or ‘profound instability’? What is the liability on the police if they don’t enforce it and something happens? What is the liability if they do enforce it against someone who it shouldn’t apply to and it severely negatively impacts their life, or even ends up with them killed unable to protect themselves? The least liable answer is for the police to stay out of it unless there is enough actionable evidence for actually putting someone into custody. That is a more easily definable standard, doesn’t deprive them of a constitutional right while not charging them with a crime, and avoids a bunch of other legal issues about freedom, representation, and property. They’ve been arrested for a crime or taken into protective custody for mental instability, that isn’t a vague ‘we will just take your guns just in case’.
[ — will still leave hundreds of millions of American guns in tens of millions of American hands.
So the constitution is satisfied if enough people still have access to a right. Should we do this for voting, maybe with a literacy or poll test or something? Enough people will still be able to vote right, tens of millions of them.
I shared the account at the beginning of this piece to help explain to opponents of gun rights that there are times when a firearm can be the only thing that stands between profound evil and the people you love. I also share it to tell my gun-owning friends that I get it. I understand. I’ve faced more threats in the last few years than they might experience in 10 lifetimes.
Mr. French, you get some of it. You do not have the whole perspective, agree or disagree with said perspectives.
But this I also know: Gun rights carry with them grave responsibilities. They do not liberate you to intimidate.]
Brandishing or intimating you will use a firearm on someone is illegal and not a part of gun rights.
[ They must not empower your hate.]
Their lack certainly doesn’t disabuse anyone of hate either, that is an independent emotion.
[ They are certainly not objects of love or reverence.]
No, they are tools. They are fun too, they can be recreational. You might also rail against the love of cars or the love of alcoholic drinks and claim the deaths attributed to those are due to our over reverence of them.
[ Every hair-trigger use, every angry or fearful or foolish decision, is likely to spill innocent blood.
This, again, can be applied to the foolish use of anything. We continue to treat guns differently than we should because we have this weird bridge we cannot mentally cross.
That bridge is that a weapon, something designed to cause harm, is a valid societal tool and always has been. That there are and will always be legitimate times and reasons to harm another person. The fact those times are all responses to threats on your life or the lives of others does nothing to change the fact that weapons are valid societal tools. That is the concept that cannot be agreed upon by the anti-gunners, they cannot accept the fact that weapons are valid tools. It goes against their worldview. They are convinced they can somehow, some way, invalidate the bad use of weapons without negatively impacting their legitimate use instead of accepting the reality that the legitimate and necessary existence of weapons in society will always risk their misuse and constitute the unwilling acceptance of a misuse amount.
This is not tantamount to accepting misuse, it is an acknowledgment of the fact that misuses and questionable uses will happen. The best we can do is the best we can do, we can encourage proper use the same way we encourage proper driving, drinking habits, safe work practices, and so on, but we cannot remove the human choice to do the wrong things without removing human choice.
We need to stop clinging to the illusion that we can.
Moreover, every one of these acts increases public revulsion of gun ownership generally. The cry for legal and moral reform will sweep the land. America will change and gun rights will diminish. And the gun owners and advocates who fail to grasp the moral weight of their responsibility will be to blame.
That… doesn’t seem to be the direction things are going. For as loudly as gun controllers are crying and as many rules as have been recently passed, the gun rights movement has more momentum than the gun control movement. They have that moment in the legal places that matter, the courts, and they have effective paralysis in the legislatures that are not extremely stacked left leaning. Sure, Washington State just passed an AWB and Michigan passed UBC and ERPO legislation, that doesn’t change the fact that AWB and Magazine bans are on life support in the courts and that when those judgements come down, just as with shall issue concealed carry in Bruen, these rules will be null and void. Taken out like the trash antics they are to pretend to do something about violence.
Mr. French, I believe you and I would agree on many things. I genuinely do. I believe we could have productive and meaningful discussions. But your piece here fails to take into account the reactionary perspective that gun rights proponents are coming from. They are not acting in a vacuum free of stimulus, they are reacting to overreactions from the people who believe that you and I should be barred from owning firearms based on their worldview and not reality.
As the ATF’s supposed pistol brace/SBR amnesty deadline draws near, the gun industry has continued to fight this ruling. SB Tactical, FRAC, Firearms Policy Coalition, Guns Owners of America, and the NRA have stepped up to fight the ATF and Federal government in court over the process. While rulings, motions, and filing are being passed back and forth, I think it’s time to remember this is nothing new for the ATF. They often overstep their own authority and have essentially a fiefdom of unelected bureaucrats who make laws on a whim. This overstepping is done often enough to warrant an entire article on their previous efforts to circumvent the 2nd Amendment.
Let’s remember the other five times the ATF has overstepped its authority.
The 80% Rule
80% frames and receivers have become a popular building block to making your own firearm. When you get bored of assembling ARs, you can try your hand at finishing at 80% receiver. The ATF attempted to stop gun builders by seeking to unilaterally reclassify frames and receivers. They wanted to change the definition entirely and force 80% of receivers and frames to abide by the same regulations as normal receivers and frames.
Luckily, a Federal judge in Texas put the kibosh on this overstepping and has currently blocked the rule. Although the ATF can and most certainly will appeal the receiver rule. For now, 80% receivers are safe, and we don’t have to create an entirely new system for dealing with a massively expansive definition of what a receiver or frame can be. Grab your chosen P80 lower parts kit and AR-15 lower and let it go.
Bump Stocks
The bump stock ban saw the ATF exercise its power to legally expand the definition of a machine gun to include bump stocks. This completely rewrites the definition of what a machine gun is to something unrecognizable. Overnight the ATF ban bump stocks and required their destruction or surrender without any compensation, violating another part of the Constitution.
Sadly plenty of supposedly pro-gun politicians jumped on this train, including Rick Scott and Donald Trump. The bump stock ban is being fought in the courts, but there have only been Circuit rulings and nothing Federal at this time.
The Akins Accelerator
The Akins Accelerator was a quasi-bump stock-like device that was designed for the Ruger 10/22. It was more than just your normal buttstock. It replaced the entire stock of the 10/22 with a specialized stock that contained a linear motion device. The rifle recoiled inside the stock and worked on the bump fire principle.
(Courtesy Small Arms Review)
It did not meet the definition of a machine gun because it didn’t allow the weapon to fire more than one round per trigger pull. The ATF initially approved the design, but before the Akin Accelerator made a major launch, they promptly pulled their approval. Just like bump stocks and stabilizing braces, the overstepping occurred long after permission was given.
The AutoKey Card
Imagine taking a piece of metal, drawing on it, and being arrested by the ATF. That was the issue Kristopher Irvin faced when he was arrested by the ATF. His AutoKey was a laser-engraved outline of a lightning link on a metal card. It was designed to be a novelty, a bottle opener, and a piece of art. The website very clearly states you should not try to cut the card into a lightning link.
(Courtesy Small Arms Review)
The ATF didn’t care and arrested him, seized his websites, and then declared that the AutoKey Card was a machine gun by itself. If you have one, you effectively own a machine gun in their eyes. This isn’t even a 2nd Amendment issue. Its a 1st Amendment problem and serious overstepping on the part of the ATF.
The Shoe String Machine Gun
In 2004 some mad lad submitted a letter and photographs of a rifle with a shoe string featuring two metal keychain loops attached to the rifle. This guy attached a 14-inch piece of string to the reciprocating charging handle of an M1 Garand. He wrapped it around the trigger, with the second loop for the trigger finger.
When pulled, the gun would fire, creating an effect similar to full auto fire. How this isn’t just advanced bump stockery is beyond me. However, the ATF declared it a machine gun. Not the entire configuration, but the 14-inch piece of shoestring became a machine gun.
It took three years for the ATF to write a secondary letter confirming his shoestring was not a machine gun.
Overstepping and You
The ATF’s history of overstepping is long and well-documented. It’s also insane, but until now has only affected a small minority of gun owners. These gun owners represent an even smaller minority of the general population. The pistol brace debacle affects tens of millions of people, and I’m hoping to see a swift victory in the court system, and hopefully, something will come of their regulation without representation.
The zippy little 5.7x28mm round has gained a resurgence in popularity. With an AR upper, three pistols, a carbine from Ruger, a pistol carbine thing from CMMG, and who knows what else before the end of the year or at SHOT 2024 there is a renewed love for the ‘smol’ 5.56. Essentially the .30 carbine is to 30.06 is what 5.7×28 is to 5.56×45.
Anyway, the grand daddy of 5.7 carbines is the original 90’s bullpup PDW, FN’s P90. The P90 and PS90 are neat little blowback guns that hold a lot of rounds, are very compact, feed from top magazine with unique geometry, and all in all look very SciFi. The handguns tend to have a futuristic vibe too.
Anyway again to the first anyway, Brandon has a video on the OG 5.7x28mm carbine/SBR/SMG/PDW so enjoy!
Seating a primer. Seems simple and easy, but this task can still have some risk associated with it. Finding a good priming tool that doesn’t cost a fortune and is easy to use is very important to the reloading game as it saves time and won’t put you in a dangerous spot when seating primers. To do this many lean towards hand primers. However, hand primers can often tire out your hand. The Lee Auto Bench Priming tool fixes that issue with enabling primers to be seated with a simple press of one finger, and it’s under $50.
Before finding this tool I was using a Hornady Handheld Priming tool that I got out of the starter kit from Hornady. This priming tool works by loading your primers into the normal priming tray, and as you squeeze the tool with one hand, it seats the primer in your case. It works and is safe, no issue with that. However I found my hand getting very tired when seating primers. Especially because the lever to squeeze pushes out pretty far, needing larger hands to work it. Imagine squeezing those stress balls 200 times in a night and if you don’t give a good squeeze each time, the stress ball could explode. That’s this Hornady Priming Tool.
On the left is the Hornady hand primer that needs to be squeezed to seat the primer. On the right is the Lee Auto Priming tool. Mounting the primer in general allows for safer priming.
After finally getting sick of the soreness in my hands I knew I wanted a bit of an upgrade but still a hand priming tool, not an automatic one as I still wanted control of the primers and wanted to keep the price down. I found the Auto Bench Priming Tool from Lee Precision, a very reputable loading company.
The Lee Auto Bench Priming Tool and Specs
Hand soreness is gone due to not having to squeeze the tool to seat but instead just press down with finger pressure. Ensure that you only use finger strength to press down on the lever, no more is needed.
Price: $44-$46 Available on: Amazon, Lee Precision, Midway USA, Midsouth Shooters Supply, Brownells, etc etc.
The Auto Bench Priming Tool from Lee Precision comes with the tool, primer tray, a small and large primer insert, and two bolts for mounting to the bench or a piece of wood.
The tool works by instead of having to squeeze the lever and tool with one hand, the lever to seat the primer can be easily pressed down with one or two fingers. The instructions actually state to specifically use fingers not hands so as to not over press on the lever.
The Priming Tool Shell holder Set
You will need to purchase the Lee Precision Priming Tool Shell holder Set. These specific shell holders don’t have the fat nub on the bottom. That fat nub that other shell holders have such as the RCBS shellholders won’t fit into the tool. (Trust me, I tried). Everything is on Amazon, MidwayUsa, Brownells, etc and goes for about $25 for an entire set. Thus it’s not too much of a hassle to purchase.
I do recommend buying a whole set as each shellholder is $5 already and a set comes with 11 shellholders for popular cartridges.
In my hand is a RCBS shellholder. Notice the nub on the bottom. In the tool is the Lee Precision Priming Shellholders. The RCBS shell holder will not work in the Lee auto primer, the Lee primer shell holders will due to not having that nub on the bottom.
How to Install and Start Priming
First the tool needs to be mounted. Due to the small amount of effort it takes to actually press the lever down the tool doesn’t need to be mounted on anything really sturdy. Personally, I chose to mount it onto a small piece of wood so I could move it off the bench when I’m not using it. I haven’t had any issues with it moving when priming.
This is how the tool will come. Notice the two inserts for large or small primer loading. The bolts also come with the tool for bench or wood piece mounting.
Setting up the tool for priming is super easy. First, choose your insert based on if you are loading small or large primers. Then, take the tray, open it, ensure that the opening is on lock, and load your primers on one side of the tray to allow it to close. Shaking to ensure they are all upright. Install the tray onto the tool. Now insert the correct Lee Primer Shell Holder for your cartridge. There is a chart on the shell holder set. Turn the lever to On. You should now see primers flowing. You are ready to start priming.
Safety Tip:“Lee Precision has tested the tool by intentionally setting off a variety of brands and types of primers. Our testing has demonstrated that wearing safety glasses and hearing protection will prevent serious injury. However, all types of FEDERAL BRAND LARGE PRIMERS frequently caused the entire tray to explode with sufficient force to cause serious and painful injuries. These primers must be fed individually, see step 7 of product instructions, single priming option.” -Lee Precision
The positions on the primer tray are very important. It must be on lock when loading the primers into the tray to ensure that they don’t fall out. On is for normal feeding for priming. Open is for single feed priming such as for Large Federal Primers. Use both the bottom and top of the tray when moving the lever to ensure that it doesn’t break.
Pro Tip: When moving the lever on the primer tray from each position, grab both the top and bottom of the little latch. This will ensure it moves freely and that you don’t break it. It is just plastic after all.
Using this for the first time I was able to prime 200 rounds in less time than with the Hornady Hand Loader and had zero soreness in my hands after. I was loading CCI Small Rifle Primers into 6.5 Creedmoor Brass and didn’t have an issue. Just always ensure that you press all the way down when seating and ensure that the lever comes all the way back up after.
The Surefire XSC was a bit of a surprise as far as I was concerned. The little gun world is notoriously underserved, and companies producing crap-tier lights like Olight were sadly dominating it. Luckily Surefire and Streamlight both stepped in to provide little guns with big power. Surefire did it through the XSC. The XSC is certainly a new option and one that’s extremely compact.
Surefire builds several models of the XSC designed for the SIG P365, the Hellcat, and Glock 43X and 48 series. It’s tough not to compare it to other models on the market, and when we talk purely size, the XSC has an advantage. It’s small enough that it sits nearly flush with the end of a standard P365 and is certainly flush on a P365XL. The XSC is 1.94 inches long and weighs only 1.7 ounces.
The Power!
That little light packs a healthy dose of power. It’s no OWL or Modlite, but with 350 lumens back by 2,000 candela it’s good enough for most indoor’s usage. In urban environments, it will light up enough of the environment at close range to establish PID. Inside the home, it’s well suited for lighting up a dark room and making sure it’s a bad guy and not a noisy cat.
This level of power isn’t going to overcome other bright lights. Those Photonic barriers would have to be quite weak for the XSC to beat out. It’s also not a light you can use beyond 25 yards. At 25 yards, I feel like I have complete confidence in my ability to identify what I am aiming at. The beam itself is more spill than focus. This creates a beam that fills your vision and does excel for close-range use.
It really fills rooms with light and provides your little gun with the means to establish PID in most environments. It’s not a light you’d mistake for a duty light. For the average Joe, the Surefire XSC shines bright enough to cast a bright and vivid beam at any potential threats.
Ergonomics and Setup
The XSC uses a rechargeable battery. I imagine they had to create a battery to keep the light this small. The battery lasts 30 minutes at peak output. The battery comes with a cradle to recharge it, and the battery can be removed from the light without needing to remove the XSC from your weapon.
The charging mount has a slot for an extra battery, so you can have two charging at the same time, and spare batteries are about 40 bucks. The charger uses a USB design, so it can be charged anywhere without issue. Surefire even includes 3M tape to secure the charger where you want it.
An onboard battery gauge with blinking lights lets you know your charge status at the press of a button. The little flashing lights come in a set of three, and how many are flashing relates to how charged your light is.
The controls consist of a pair of paddles that are low profile and easy to use. Press them inward, and you have all the power in your hands. One quick press triggers the constant on mode, and a long press activates the momentary mode. It’s simple and very workable.
Tiny and Mighty
The Surefire XSC isn’t going to blow you away with its power. In an era where Modlite kind of rules, the XSC seems dinky. I’m personally impressed that a light this small can offer this much power. For close-range self-defense, use the XSC shines, and I intend my pun. The XSC offers micro-sized guns, a micro-sized light made by a company that produces quality products. It’s a tool for the box, and if you carry a little gun, the XSC gives you one more option.
The boys are back and they’re recapping NRAAM 2023, and the new products as well as the general vibe of the show. Also, Caleb tells the best joke of his entire life and should probably retire after this.
Jack is left to nod and smile as he wasn’t even at the show and I just wandered trying to find the three actual new things at the show. NRAAM was a fun show in general but there wasn’t a lot that happened… except for that one thing that did. Watch the episode to see! ‘Murican Youths!
From the SIG Days event, you'll read below why this is relevant.
Allow me to correct the truthout headline for clarity.
We Need to Talk About Cast the Blame on Gun Manufacturers
I had no concept of how curmudgeonly I could become in my mid-thirties, but op-eds like this just reinforce a post I saw this morning on Instagram. It just listed how older generations believe, correctly, that younger generations are stupid.
They are, they haven’t lived long enough yet to recognize that they were stupid when they were young because they are still young. I was stupid too. We all were. I firmly believe that the point you are self aware enough to recognize the massive pile of stupid things you believed and did as a naïve youngling is when you have reached your adult maturity arch. Some people never do.
That youthful activist naivety comes through full force here. You can catch the hint that it’s coming too, truthout uses the currently trending all lowercase text in its logo and has a lot of ‘activist’ language instead of journalist.
But allow me to limit my shallow aspersions on the aesthetic to that bit as it feels like it telegraphs their opinion to come.
The following piece of utopia fiction do betterism is worth far greater critique, but it is on brand for the aesthetic.
Here we go.
Americans cannot end gun violence without confronting the fact that the U.S. is the world’s primary supplier of weapons.
We honestly could just end it at the subheading if we wanted to keep this brief and blunt, but they don’t so neither am I obliged to.
Americans cannot end gun violence. Period. Full stop. It is impossible. We are actively promoting it, and participate in it professionally, anywhere we militarily intervene or support. I wonder how many contributors to this op-ed or readers who agree with it wholeheartedly have a Ukrainian flag in their social profiles, or have professed their unwavering support unironically for the Ukrainians fighting while decrying weapons here. Not the specific types of violence here, merely the existence of guns.
You don’t get to have it both ways.
Americans cannot end ‘gun’ violence because Americans cannot end violence. We cannot end violence because violence is force. Force is valuable, it is a currency, it has legitimacy. Force can be used in a moral, immoral, or amoral way and we cannot get rid of any of those. The ability to project force is and will always be valuable, especially to a social order. It is a fundamental component to social order. It exists in every social order.
We aren’t even to the article yet…
Truthout is an indispensable resource for activists, movement leaders, and workers everywhere. Please make this work possible with a quick donation.
Oh, they are proud of their work. Good for them. A more cynical person, wizened to the world, may read that quick donation line and see ‘Truthout is an indispensable tool for propagandists, people who need propaganda, and the idiots who will consume it without question everywhere.’
More cynical, yes, a more cynical reader might indeed infer that.
Onto the no doubt well reasoned and articulate reasoning that reasons gun makers are the baddies in a world that cannot exist as freely or as advanced as it does without the development of personal arms and their access to them.
There is a familiar pattern after the mass shootings that have become a well-known feature of American life.
Yes there is. Propagate the event everywhere and give the deranged lunatic(s) their anticipated attention, then cry about why it keeps happening. The Democrats reliably hem and haw about their pet gun control proposals, the Republicans bumble their way through a defense of the 2nd Amendment, and experts in this field shake their heads at both of them for being about as well read on the topic as a five year old.
The initial shock and grief gives way to demands for greater regulation of gun ownership by Democrats, while Republicans dismiss such measures and blame mental illness instead. But if we actually want to do something about it, we need to have new conversations.
I agree!
The conversations need to take on a maturity that would leech them of all their value as political bargaining chips and therefore that will never happen. If we can keep people emoting, we can keep them spending on their favorite emotive cause.
But what are you thinking?
We often talk about where and how weapons are purchased — but rarely where and how they are ‘manufactured’. These realities challenge the conventional way we talk about guns in terms of a “culture war” between red and blue states.
I talk about how they’re manufactured quite a bit. It is actually what I like most about this industry, the technology and function. I find it fascinating. But you don’t mean where and how, you mean that they are manufactured atall. Especially in “BLUE STATES”, because how dare a Democrat be so hypocritical as to suggest weapons have any legitimacy ever anywhere.
And what you are seeing is just how shallow Democrats are in their commitment to a world of reduced weapon access, when only their most rabid and naïve members will propose hampering the weapons manufacturers too much. Since that political line costs them very real jobs and very real tax revenue for their very real voters, Democrats merely shop the idea of reduced weapons access because the idea is valuable. The end result is not, it is costly. Guns are not so bad that crushing people’s ability to make a living, and their blue state reelection chances, is ever too far on the table. Democrats may be stupid in many regards, but rarely that one.
For example, the blue states of Massachusetts and Connecticut have some of the strictest regulations on firearms carrying and possession. But they are also major sites of gun facturing [sic] in this country. The weapons used in the 2018 Parkland shooting, for example, were manufactured by Smith and Wesson, a gun manufacturer based in Massachusetts.
Oh? Blue states like housing large profitable businesses with DoD, DoJ, and international contracts?
The defense industry is both crucial and a multi-billion dollar revenue source? Firearm rights are constitutionally protected and therefore the industry that makes them is vital to both public and individual defense?
Who’d have guessed that they like money and can reason that housing vital and profitable businesses for the commercial and professional spaces makes them money?
Keep up kids.
The deeper and bigger point is that the U.S. is the world’s principal supplier of weapons.
As the third most populous nation on the planet with the best developed industry for that supply… yes? To borrow a line from the 1911 crowd, “Two World Wars!” and several long conflicts since.
World’s exported arms? Like F35’s? Or are we talking small arms, like rifles and handguns? Be specific, truthout. Obfuscation is a nasty habit we should all do our best to avoid. The whole of NATO is pretty much using the F35 platform as their next gen multi-role fighter and those are super expensive, what percentage of exports does that single plane account for in that 40?
Blue states with strict gun laws often suffer gun violence when weapons are trafficked in from red states with looser gun laws. Similarly, many countries surrounding the U.S. with high rates of gun violence, like Mexico, obtain guns both legally and illegally from this country.
Pause. Most crime guns are locals, truthout. Per ATF.
When firearms are recovered, they tend to be recovered in the state in which they were stolen (92%; 271,916). –ATF
Almost one third of crime guns are recovered less than 10 miles from where they were originally purchased. They didn’t go far before becoming a crime gun. Over 50% are recovered less than 25 miles from their FFL purchase location.
If they did go far, it took time.
With no system to effectively control and track who ends up with those guns, these weapons are often obtained by military units or police that have committed human rights abuses or who work with criminal groups.
How is the US, to say nothing of a private country simply selling rifles or handguns, supposed to police the weapons they sell once the enter the hands of a legitimate agency? How is Smith & Wesson, IWI, or H&K supposed to make sure guns sold to Mexican, or any other .gov entity of a foreign nation, remain always on team good guys? Forever? They can’t be stolen, nobody corrupt can ever touch them, they cannot be misused in any way so sayeth the builder?
Look up a fairly recent ATF initiative called Fast & Furious, where the ATF trafficked weapons to Mexico onpurpose and failed utterly to control or track those. Those weapons were specifically meant to track weapon streams to the cartels and identify bad actors, they lost those. They couldn’t do it even when specifically paying attention to the guns and with the ATF, the US Agency specifically empowered to police guns, that agency failed to track, to intervene, and to make arrests. Numerous deaths in Mexico and Federal Agent Brian Terry of the CBP are dead at the hands of Fast & Furious guns. Now you want a private company to be responsible for ensuring that their weapons are only used by good folks forever?
So when at least some of the guns in Ukraine get swept up to worse places and uses in a few years, suddenly our supplying them will become a bad thing? It’s a good thing now, very necessary right? Ukraine flags all around. But then in the future it will be bad. Unintended consequences! Oh no! We can’t just mark guns as on ‘good team’ forever. It’s almost like they’re inanimate objects.
For example, in September 2014, local police in the state of Guerrero, Mexico were responsible for the disappearance and murder some 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College. The police were armed with rifles that were supplied legally from Colt, a prominent U.S. gun manufacturer headquartered in Connecticut.
Police? Government?? Doing bad things?!? That would never happen here!
Oh… yeah… Kent State. But surely that was just once and awhile…
Ah, yeah… Waco. The event, caused by US federal agencies, that motivated the Oklahoma City bombing. So yeah, maybe all government agencies shouldn’t be assumed to be good or in the right just because they are US based.
Usually with complete ignorance of how they work. Everyone likes ideas that sound good. Their opinions or only as valuable as their understanding of the ideas and the process goes. This is why things like the S.A.F.E Act and the Patriot Act get passed will all manner of suspect and dangerous nonsense within, they sound good. They have a nice title. Don’t look any deeper kids.
[But gun lobbies like the NRA, which are so influential in red states, don’t really represent gun owners — they represent gun manufacturers. In fact, of the NRA’s corporate partners, several are gun manufacturers based in blue states.
The NRA’s corporate partners are… corporations? Ones that exist wherever they are headquartered? Shocking.
As long as these corporations flood the U.S. and the world with guns, debate over who accesses these guns won’t get us very far.
Is this the part where we start singing “Imagine”, like those clueless celebs who pissed off their fan bases by being total clowns during COVID lockdowns? Who were sitting comfortably when people who live paycheck to paycheck instead of living seven to eight figure job to seven to eight figure job told them how to react to COVID? Is that where we are in the conversation now?
So our current conversation serves the status quo. It further divides people in this country according to a “culture war” narrative, where politicians clash in rhetoric, but everyone knows that the actual situation will not change.
Do they? Because most people in the conversation are under informed about the things they are discussing, often on all sides. Have you actually discussed what a background check is and involves with anyone who ‘supports background checks’? The conversations serve the ‘status quo’ but what is that? Define it for me please.
From the perspective of ending bloodshed, this isn’t working. We need to try something different, and it will mean some deeper interrogation about where these weapons come from.
There we go. Lofty motive. ‘Ending Bloodshed’ like if we just write it down on paper the right way the entirety of humanity’s history with the use of force will just be better.
So, completely ignoring motive. Got it. Just eliminate weapons, which have always existed in society and always will. Cool. Reality denial works so well as policy.
This could mean reviewing the practices and impacts of gun manufacturers,]
They make weapons. They are heavily regulated. But they make weapons. What are we going to review?
You want to know why these conversations seems circular? Because naive little utopian zealots never actually bother to follow through and understand what they are suggesting, ever. They just leave it at the pretty title and move on like they’ve actually improved the world.
[ demanding greater regulation,]
What? What regulation? What rule are we missing? We keep saying these things like we can regulate weapons into only being good weapons or regulate away the legitimate societal needs for weapons. We can’t.
[ and — as with any product that causes far reaching harm]
Like pharmaceuticals , alcohol, or vehicles?
[ — having a public conversation about whether companies should be allowed to make these weapons at all.
Okay so not those three other things.
I really want to hear what your alternative is to making these weapons, what would small arms would be replaced with, and if the US stops making guns what makes you think China, Russia, Turkey, or any other country would? Do we think sitting upon our moral and poorly thought through
[ — one that has dire consequences not only for U.S. communities, but for those all over the world.]
Like being able to defend yourself or your communities from bad actors who don’t care about your good intentions?
[ New ways of thinking will help us fulfill our responsibility to protect vulnerable people not just in the U.S., but people everywhere.
Ah, “new ways of thinking” will help. What new ways?
Here’s the big problem with stupid, altruistic, naïve, utopia fantasies. These are all ideas that have been thought, tried, schemed, altered, rethought, rehashed, and repeated, and they keep being repeated because new young people who are not at the place in their life to recognize that we’ve tried it already.. yes that way.. yes that way too.. no, here’s why that’s a terrible plan, etc., are saying, “Let’s try this thing that has never been tried before! I will not look into the accuracy of that claim in the slightest.”
The intentions are good, but there’s a saying about good intentions and a road being paved for a good reason.
Among the greatest hubris of the young is that hard to shake concept of ‘because something is well intentioned it is both a good thing and incapable of causing harm.’ Ironically that is central to the “culture wars” of today. The idea that a thing is both good and capable of causing harm is difficult to compute, and because of the naïve and inexperienced nature of youth they are quick to declare, “Well we just don’t need cars, guns, oil, etc.” without any grounded understanding of where any of those things touch their own lives or the lives of those around them. They are too young to consider second and third order effects. That problem, that blind spot in their thinking, extends to most altruistic utopian fantasies, they cannot be re-grounded in reality.
I recently started researching the PP-19 from Russia (with Love), and that triggered my curiosity about the Colt SMG. This child of the 1980s was the first AR9 on the market and saw some limited success with police and military forces. Not much, but enough to make it a staple of the 1980s. Colt is all in on the AR market and has continued to produce numerous variants of the famed rifle. I was curious if Colt was still producing the Colt SMG.
To be fair, I know they’ve produced a civilian rifle in 9mm for years on and off. While I don’t think they ever officially discontinued it, the Colt AR6951 tends to be one less common Colt design. While that might exist, are they still producing the Colt SMG? I knew a couple of years ago they made a Cotl M5 to continue the M4 series. The Colt website lists nothing, but some Google-fu led me to the Colt Defense website, where, lo and behold, the Colt SMG lives and breathes.
The Colt M5 SMG
Colt took the M5 designation and applied it to their new Colt SMG. It isn’t a lot different from the old gun on the inside. Both are simple direct blowback guns. They use the AR-15 layout that ditched the direct impingement design. Blowback makes sense for SMGs. It’s fine, not great, but it works, and it’s reliable. The downsides include extra recoil and a stiff buffer spring, and a heavy buffer design.
The upside is a cheaper, easier-to-produce gun with less likely to go wrong. The original Colt submachine guns used a four-position stock and a 10.5-inch barrel. In 1982 when it was created, it was quite short and capable. Using the AR-type design allowed it to translate easier over to soldiers and police forces that were familiar with the AR platform. Even if they weren’t familiar, a standard manual of arms existed that was easy to train cops and soldiers with.
The Colt M5 took the Colt submachine gun and drastically modernized it. They did stick to the classic Colt mags. Colt modified double stack, double feed Uzi mags, and they work. They offer shooters a last-round bolt-hold-open device and are quite sturdy.
They ditched the carry handle, the four-position stock, and the classic plastic handguards. In its palace sits a six-position Magpul stock and a free-floating M-LOK rail. The flash hider has been replaced by a tri-lug suppressor adapter as well. The gun gets the full M5 treatment.
This means we get fully ambidextrous controls. This is quite nice and rare to see on PCCs, especially PCCs that use Colt SMG mags. We still get the huge shell deflector and the internal magwell design of the classic SMG.
Who is Using it?
Good question. I can’t find any press releases or reports of the gun being used by any police force or military force. The problem with submachine guns is that pistol rounds kind of suck. If you are using a long gun, why not use a rifle round? Modern carbines like the Mk 18 style ruffles and 10.5 upper receivers aren’t much bigger than a Colt SMG M5 variant and are much more powerful and capable.
The M5 variant of the Colt SMG is neat, but for a modern Army or police force, it’s not the best option. However, Since CZ owns Colt, maybe they’ll release a civilian model. Maybe one that takes Scorpion mags? A man can dream.
Washington State will become the 10th state to pass some form of AWB (Assault Weapons Ban), pending Gov. Jay Inslee’s signature, which he has promised to provide. HB1240 makes illegal the manufacture, sale, and import of weapons covered by the bill, which includes a list of 62 specific weapons, and their variants, from expected choices like AK’s and AR’s to some more unexpected ones, including the SKS and SVD, and even stuff you’ll probably find only on Forgotten Weapons, like the Australian Automatic series of firearms. There is also the usual laundry list of AWB cosmetic features (which they explicitly announce are, in fact, NOT cosmetic, because scary) like detachable magazines, pistol grips, etc. Unlike the 1992 federal AWB though, there is only an allowance for one such feature, vs 3, and the features extend to handguns. Currently owned firearms are grandfathered, but if they think that’s going to mollify WA gun owners, or Pro-2A legal groups like FPC, then they haven’t been paying attention.
These banned guns are “weapons of war”, which according to HB1240’s AWB are only useful for “…kill(ing) humans quickly and efficiently” and “…are not suitable for self-defense”, which makes one wonder why police are specifically exempted from this ban. Those same police, you’ll remember, who Gov. Inslee doesn’t trust to properly employ a chokehold, are now the only civilians in WA State who can own these apparent mass-murder machines.
While it’s certainly within the WA legislature’s power to enact any legislation it desires –AWB or otherwise– it’s also within the power of the citizenry via the court system to challenge any such bill, and we expect to see FPC and others filing lawsuits to do exactly that very soon. Given the SCOTUS precedents set by Heller and especially Bruen, we don’t expect the law to last, but lawsuits take time, and a whole lot of wasted tax dollars. We will unfortunately just have to wait and see.
I’m a P320 fan. Specifically I like the aluminum AXG versions, I’m fairly ambivalent on the other models. But the internet is abuzz with a current lawsuit against the arms giant and there are a few photos of guns having fragged.
Here’s the thing. If the condition would frag any pistol, like an obstructed barrel or a double charged round, that isn’t an issue with the SIG specifically.
Ian over at Forgotten Weapons has a fairly objective 20 minutes of information on some of the current issues with the P320. The drop issue from the past, the current lawsuit against firing inadvertently (which happened to Glock too, they are the most popular pistol in the world), and the out of battery firing issue.
The P320 made it to over 1,000,000 units very quickly. It owns a massive share of the modern pistol market. There will likely be problems with any machine. There Beretta 92 and the Glock both receive their share of misplaced hate to this day.
The shotgun market has hit an interesting zone. It seems that we are finally coming to believe in the semi-auto shotgun. They’ve gotten to the point where they are reliable with a wide variety of loads and don’t tend to be ammo picky. That means they’ve seen a much higher level of adoption with tactical shooters. We’ve recently seen the rise of three new semi-auto shotguns that are defining the genre. We have the new Beretta Ultima Patrol, the Mossberg 940 Pro Tactical, and the Savage Renegauge Security.
I don’t want this to be a versus article where I try to declare one better than the other. I simply don’t have the range time with two of the three to have a real opinion there. However, I want to examine what these three guns offer the shotgun shooting world and maybe examine where the shotgun world seems to be going.
These three guns have a lot in common. They are all semi-auto, gas-operated 12 gauge shotguns aimed at the tactical market. They all feature a number of modern features that shotgun shooters have long desired.
Digging Into the New Generation Of Shotgun
I believe each of these shotguns offers you a specific advantage over the other. They also provide a few features shared between them that are really making them stand out. I want to break these three guns down and explain why you might choose one over the other. I do have a bit of a bias, and I am a fan of the Mossberg 940 Pro, although I do plan to eventually own all three of these shotguns for a very in-depth examination.
The Mossberg 940 Pro Tactical
Mossberg designed the 940 Pro Tactical by improving the 930 series by leaps and bounds to produce a very competent semi-auto shotgun. The 940 series really worked to improve the reliability of the 930 and offer a competent out-of-the-box fighting shotgun with the Pro Tactical. They improved the internals, as well as the externals.
On the outside, they equipped the gun with massive controls that are all easy to grip, hit, and engage with. Mossberg opened up the ejection port and loading port for easy loading. With the 940 Pro Tactical, they added a cut to facilitate the use of red dots with the Shield RMSc footprint. The stock offers insert-based LOP adjustments and an M-LOK barrel clamp for slings and accessories.
On top of all that, the 940 Pro Tactical is the cheapest of the bunch, often for sale for under 900 dollars if you shop around.
The Beretta Ultima Patrol
The Ultima Patrol premiered at SHOT this year and showed us that Beretta could make an affordable semi-auto shotgun. With the price of 1301s rising, the Ultima Patrol offers a semi-auto shotgun with the Beretta stamp for less than a thousand bucks. While we lose the BLINK system, we get an American-made Beretta fit the brim with features. This semi-auto shotgun is thoroughly modernized.
It features a series of enlarged, easy-to-use controls. It has ghost ring sights and an optic mount. The gun features a hook and loop patch to toss on side saddles with ease. The end of barrels feature M-LOK clamps, and the forend features a few M-LOK slots as well. Beretta is the king of semi-auto shotguns, with the 1301 and the Benelli series under their ownership.
Savage Renegauge Security
The Renegauge Security didn’t get the same attention as the Ultima or 940 series, and that’s a real sin. The Reneguage Security uses the DRIV system, which is the Dual Regulating Inline Valve system that vents gas before driving the bolt. The benefit is that this makes the gun low recoiling, likely the lowest recoiling of this group. It’s impressive how easy handling it is.
The Renegauge also features an adjustable M-LOK via a series of inserts. The stock itself is very Magpul SGA-like, with a sharp pistol grip but a traditional layout. The gun features larger-than-average controls but not larger than the 940 or Ultima. This gun also has the M-LOK clamp feature that makes accessorizing easy. We get ghost ring sights as well, with wings to keep them safe when things get abusive.
The Downsides To These Semi-Auto Shotguns
Each of these guns has a downside worth acknowledging, and let’s dive into these features.
Mossberg 940 Pro Tactical – The gun features a lack of proper sights and relies on a high-viz sight no better than a bead.
Ultima Patrol – Lacks any means to adjust the LOP and feels like a budget 1301.
RenegUge Security – Not only is it the highest-priced gun, but it lacks optic compatibility.
The Future of Semi-Auto Shotguns
I do think these three semi-auto shotguns are the future, or at least their features are. They have huge controls, which is nice to see. They also feature M-LOK barrel clamps, and I really want a company to make these for other guns. Two of the three feature LOP adjustments, and I think that’s a must-have. Another two of the three are red dot ready, and like all guns, shotguns benefit from optics.
Now all I want to see are reversible charging handles. If I could get any of these guns with that feature, I’d be an instant fanboy. The shotgun market is finally expanding a bit, and they seem to be finally modernizing, and it’s lovely to see.
Like a very few handguns the SIG P210A is a joy to fire.
There are few handguns I hold in the greatest esteem and have complete confidence in. A well-made 1911, the Hi-Power, Beretta 92, SIG P226 and CZ 75 are among these. For some time I have wished to own a SIG P210 pistol. Finances and opportunity have not met. Most modern new introductions are polymer frame, striker-fired handguns. There are plenty of inexpensive 1911 handguns. When someone introduces a top-quality pistol, it seems to be on the 1911 pattern.
The new SIG P210A is an exception. This is a steel frame, single-action 9mm with a single-column magazine. It isn’t similar to most handguns and defines excellence and accuracy.
A target version is also available.This is the standard P210.
The new SIG P210A isn’t an exact copy of the SIG P210. But mot will find it a better shooter. It is certainly worth its price. The new SIG is made in America. This is interesting, as the original SIG was made in Switzerland by Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft, while the majority of handguns marked SIG were manufactured by agreement with JP Sauer of Germany. The double-action system and frame-mounted decocker of the P220 were pioneered by the JP Sauer 38H, so JP Sauer had more than a little input into the design of the SIG Sauer P-series. The P210 is another matter. When SIG built their plant in New Hampshire, this marked the P-series manufacture in yet another nation. It might be said, the new pistol is Americanized. I don’t think anyone complained when SIG changed the P220’s magazine release from a heel to a push button and produced the American version, but I am certain some will complain concerning the P210A’s detail changes. The P210 replaced the .30 Luger and a short-lived SIG design as a Swiss service pistol and served from 1948 to 1975, when it was replaced by the SIG P220 9mm. The Swiss place a premium on accuracy, and the P210 delivered. The pistol was designed by noted designer Charles Petter. Petter was responsible for the French 1935 as well. While the French pistol is criticized as an odd and underpowered pistol, my experience with the 1935 is that it’s a miniature P210 in most regards. The pistol is very accurate. I once undertook a loading project with the 7.65 French Long the 1935 chambers. The result was a super-accurate pistol that fired a cartridge more powerful than most .32 H&R Magnum loads. But that is another story.
The P210 chambered the much more powerful 9mm Luger cartridge. After World War Two everyone had 9mm submachine guns so everyone in Europe adopted the 9mm handgun cartridge as well. Well, more to it than that but the change made a great deal of sense. The pistol was immensely popular in a nation of shooters and was widely used in target competition. The P 210 has been terribly expensive in this country. The new handgun is affordable and differs mechanically from the original P210. SIG pioneered a system in which the barrel hood butts into the ejection port for lockup. The P-series are famed for accuracy. The P210A uses this system rather than the P210’s locking lugs.
The SIG proved reliable with a wide range of loads.
The pivoting trigger is basically the same, while the pistol features an elongated grip tang for greater comfort. A great improvement is the new frame-mounted safety. The original P210 features a safety behind the trigger and just in front of the grips. This isn’t a fast or tactical system. The new safety is better suited to personal defense use. Unlike the Swiss and German P210 pistols, the new P210A, while not inexpensive, will be affordable for many of us. CNC machinery makes for real precision. The pistol is stainless steel, a big plus, with the stainless covered in black Nitride finish.
The P210 is a thinner and better-balanced handgun than the images portray. It is lively in the hand. It isn’t a lightweight however, at 37 ounces and 8.4 inches long. My pistol is a fixed-sight version. This suits my tastes well. The rear sight is adjustable for windage and the front post is dovetailed in place. They feature a white, three-dot setup.
The front strap is nicely checkered and the grips are nicely finished. The checkering adds up to excellent abrasion and adhesion. The combination of an ambidextrous safety and extended slide lock makes for greater speed in combat shooting, and the new beavertail grip tang makes for more comfortable shooting compared to the older design P210.
The grip design keeps the pistol centered and the sights come to the eye naturally as the pistol is grasped. The new lockup for the ramped barrel makes for excellent accuracy as the firing tests prove.
Since the P210 features reversed frame rails, with the slide riding inside the frame, racking the slide is more difficult than some pistols.
Properly designed cocking serrations riding on a raised boss in the slide make for excellent leverage. The slide is well-fitted, there is no lateral play at all.In common with the Petter designed French 35 and the Tokarev TT33, the P210 features a modular trigger design. The hammer, mainspring, sear and disconnect are in this unit. The trigger press is a smooth 3.8 pounds without any trace of creep, grit or backlash. The trigger is among the outstanding features of this handgun.
Firing tests- the SIG P210 comes on target quickly and offers excellent hit probability. The pistol simply hangs in the hand and stays on target. It wasn’t difficult to quickly empty the magazine into the X-ring. Speed loading is easier due to the funnel formed by the pistol’s grips. If you don’t think the P210A is a suitable combat pistol — shooting results are a counterpoint. This is a fast handling and capable handgun.
The pistol proved accurate with outstanding results with certain loads.The P210 is reliable with a wide range of loads.
Conclusion
The pistol is fast into action, mild in recoil and demonstrates excellent hit probability. But it is also a superb target handgun. As for absolute accuracy firing the pistol from a solid brace using the MTM Caseguard K Zone shooting rest I was able to five shot groups at 25 yards. Most ammunition groups five shots into 2.0 inches or less. An occasional 1.2 inch group shows what the pistol is capable of. I achieved this goal at times, but for the most part, the service grade loads printed five shots into 2 inches. The pistol is more accurate than I. The SIG P210A gets a clean bill of health in every category. If you need a red dot high capacity and a combat light- all desirable features- this pistol isn’t for you. If you want precision and pride of ownership over other considerations then take a look at this handgun.
