The guys at AR15.com are at the SHOT Show are highlighting some interesting AR and tactical stuff. I am highlighting the ones that caught my eye.
From LaRue Tactical:
From Samson Manufacturing, new rails and new back up iron sights:
Mission First Tactical, shows their very lightweight buttstocks. Depending on the price, I’d be very interested in this one.
Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned just posted on a potential new technology being tested in New York City that would detect a weapon on a person at a distance. It is a scanner that can be mounted on a police car or in a stationary location which measures energy radiating from a person. They are looking for anything that would block it.
The NY Civil Liberties Union is not so sure it isn’t an invasion of your rights with which I agree. However, bear in mind that this is Mayor Bloomberg’s New York. As Sebastian notes, “Bloomberg has never been remarkably concerned about American liberties, however, so it doesn’t surprise me this is coming out of New York.”
The video below from CBS New York concludes with a comment from a guy who says, “Who cares?” Maybe he’ll start to care when he gets flung up against a wall by a cop just because he is carrying an aluminum wallet (as Seen on TV!)
UPDATE: The New York Daily News has a report on this as well. I can foresee gangs sending out decoys with a piece of metal in the shape of a gun to lure the cops away from the scene of a crime.
John Snow, Shooting Editor of Outdoor Life magazine, really likes the Ruger American rifle. He says the design and handling of the rifle show it was designed by hunters for hunters.
What is most interesting to me about this video is that it was the first time I really got to see the bedding system used by Ruger. It looks like it does a good job of mating the action to the stock.
From what I understand, Magpul Mag-Pod USA released the Magpod floor plate at the SHOT Show. It is a floorplate for their PMags that fills in the curved void between the bottom of the magazine and a flat surface. The Magpod serves, as the name would imply, as a pod to steady your AR.
It looks like a nice little invention that was just waiting to be discovered. The only thing I wonder about is whether resting the rifle on its magazine could cause some misfeeds. This may be a non-issue and one that Magpul examined and then discarded as irrelevant.
UPDATE: According to Rob Curtis at MilitaryTime’s GearScout blog, he was concerned about the same thing.
I was surprised that shooting from the mag had no effect on feeding/cycling on either AR used during the evaluation. The first rifle was a Smith & Wesson M&P15 VTAC and the second, a Mega Arms lower with a Daniel Defense 16” upper. Both cycled flawlessly with the MagPod. I was so determined to cause a malf, that I sat on the range dumping rounds ‘till my right thumb was sore from loading and my left hand was sweating from the smoking barrels.
I guess that answers my question – it doesn’t cause misfeeds. Read his full review of it at the link above.
I thought this floorplate was from Magpul itself as it was designed to work with their PMag. That is incorrect. It is from the same company that makes Multitasker Tools. They are out of Marietta, Georgia according to their Facebook page.
I really like Kenn Blanchard but sometimes it is tough when I see him out in beautiful sunny Nevada at the SHOT Show Media Day playing with all the “new toys” while I’m stuck here in gray, overcast North Carolina working. Grumble, grumble.
I’m actually looking forward to more reports from Kenn and the other gun bloggers from SHOT Show. If I can’t be there, it is good to know that friends are and are working hard on getting the word out.
Jeff Quinn of Gunblast.com is one of those people whose opinion you just trust.
Here is his review of the 2012 SHOT Show Media Day. Make sure to click on the link about as he has posted a number of still pictures of new guns on his website.
From Down Range Firearms Training as they try the Caracal.
From Firearms Guide on the new Gen 4 Glock 21 in .45 ACP.
From GunWebsites on the new Springfield XDs45 Compact which is a single stack .45 ACP.
And another on the same XDs45 from Two Brothers Adventures which gives some more info on the pistol.
And finally, Colt’s Bulldog Gatling Gun courtesy of NRA News.
UDPATE: One more to add. Caleb of Gun Nuts Media trys out the Springfield XDs45. I think this may be one of the hits of this year’s SHOT Show.
Ruger posted this video of the action in their booth during the 2012 SHOT Show Media Day. You can see that they were putting emphasis on some of their new firearms such as the SR22, the LCR-22, and the American Rifle.
NSSF just posted this short overview of the 2012 SHOT Show Media Day.
I attended the 1996 SHOT Show in Dallas. While I found it fantastic at the time, it was just a fraction of the current SHOT Show. One of these years, I’m going to do like JayG and get out to SHOT. One of these years…
And then I can do like Jay and post a picture like this on Facebook.
There were a lot of great blog posts over the weekend in the gun blogosphere. However, there are two that I really want to point as worthy of a careful read.
The first is by Barron Barnett at The Minuteman. It is an open letter to Joan Peterson, gun prohibitionist and Brady Campaign board member, who took great exception to the video that he and Joe Huffman produced. Barron points out the hypocrisy of her views, the attacks made on gun rights activists by the prohibitionists, and how we care about all victims of violence – not the select few.
The second post is an examination of Mitt Romney’s record in Massachusetts by Bitter at Shall Not Be Questioned. During the time that Romney was Governor of Massachusetts, Bitter was a resident of the commonwealth and was active with the Gun Owners Action League. She points out she is not a fan of Romney – nor am I for that matter – but felt the need to clarify his record on firearms from that time because we would be doing “our constituency a disservice if we aren’t honest about Mitt’s record on gun rights.” It turns out he did a number of things that actually helped gun owners.
As I said in the intro, both of these posts are worthy of your time and should be read. The former because it points out where the other side is coming from and the latter because we don’t always get the candidate and probably nominee for President we might wish to have.
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