Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2024 i Firearms News

By Mark Chesnut | News Field Editor RECENT NEWS FOR THE FIREARMS COMMUNITY BY MARK CHESNUT Freelance writer and editor Mark Chesnut is the owner/editorial director at Red Setter Communications LLC. An avid hunter, shooter and political observer, he has been covering Second Amendment issues and politics on a near-daily basis for the past 25 years. A federal judge over the weekend ruled the law prohibiting firearms inside post offices to be unconstitutional. In the case United States v. Ayala, Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle on Saturday dismissed charges of a postal employee arrested for carrying a firearm in a post office, saying the ban violated his Second Amendment rights. Citing the 2022 Supreme Court ruling in Bruen, Judge Mizelle said the post office gun ban, which took…

Fresh off of winning a narrow majority in last year’s elections, Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates have passed a measure that would ban sale and ownership of many common semi-automatic rifles. HB 1174 would ban the vast majority of semi-auto rifles currently lawfully owned by thousands of Virginians. According to the text, it would ban any “semi-automatic centerfire rifle that expels single or multiple projectiles by action of an explosion of a combustible material that has the ability to accept a detachable magazine and has one of the following characteristics: (i) a folding, telescoping or collapsible stock; (ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the rifle; (iii) a second handgrip or a protruding grip that can be held by the non-trigger hand; (iv) a…

Over the last 16 years, American shooters have dealt with a number of ammunition shortages. These drive up prices and make ammunition hard to find. Often, if you did find what you were looking for the price was prohibitively expensive. During the “Great .22 LR Shortage” cheap bulk pack rimfire ammunition was being sold at sky-high scalper’s prices. Prices jumped during COVID, and today, rifle ammunition is still substantially more expensive than it was just a few years ago. Checking my notes, I noticed 1,000 rounds of Wolf 7.62x39mm only cost $200 in 2018. Wolf .223 Rem was about the same. Now, they are over double that. In the not so distant past, a shooter could choose from not only new domestic production ammunition but also economical Russian steel case…

I was thinking that the FPC (Folding Pistol Carbine), introduced in 2023 and reviewed in Firearms News, was Smith & Wesson’s first pistol caliber carbine (PCC), but a bit of research gave me a surprise. S&W’s first PCC was the Model 1940 Light Rifle. That was a semi-auto rifle, chambered in 9mm and fed by 20-round magazines, made by S&W for Great Britain as they prepared for World War II. It was the opposite of a success, which is why you’ve probably never heard of it. But pistol caliber carbines are currently as popular as they’ve ever been in America, and S&W’s funky FPC was a success, so I was interested to test their newest PCC, the Response. Unlike the FPC, the Response is an AR-15-based design, albeit with some…

It is now impossible to see everything at SHOT, unless your idea of “seeing” is simply eyeballing gear as you walk by without stopping. It is just too big. So, the boss told us to just report on what caught our attention while seeing what we could see, and not try to cover it all. SDS Imports MP5 (SDSImports.com) Lust after an MP5? Of course, you have. But the price? My goodness. Well, SDS Imports now offers an MP5 semi auto pistol that is everything you’d want, including a low price Built on licensed HK machinery in Turkey, by the Mertzav company, it is coming directly from Mertzav through SDS Imports, and without the multiple layers of import-export-distribution of other MP5s, SDS can offer their MAC-5 pistol with an MSRP…

Hi-Lux Optics is an interesting optical manufacturer which marches to their own drum. Serious riflemen respect them for their Vintage scope line of high quality reproductions of historic Target and Sniper scopes as well as their XTC14x34 Service Rifle scope. These have performed well in Vintage Sniper matches and “Across the Course” competition at the national level. Hi-Lux Optics offers much more than just vintage and competition scopes though. They have a diverse line of red dots, rifle scopes, binoculars and a spotting scope. A number of years ago, Hi-Lux Optics endeared themselves to American riflemen with their 1-4x24mm CMR rifle scope. This is a tough LPVO with a number of nice features which offered a lot of performance at an economical price. Recently, they introduced a new addition to…

Most truly bad people are bad a lot. That predictable character trait often makes such folk readily recognizable to law enforcement. When my deputy sheriff buddy spotted this one guy while out on patrol, he immediately recognized that our hero had an active felony warrant. In rural Mississippi, belligerent rednecks can be a handful. Quite literally everybody has guns, and these rugged individualists operating on the far side of the law often dislike being told what to do. For the small town lawman, backup can often be either well distant or nonexistent. Such was the case this particular afternoon as my buddy pulled his squad car over and hit the lights. The bad guy stopped to talk, so my pal made his way over with caution, his strong hand hovering…

Walking around the 2024 SHOT Show in Las Vegas, I took note of the number of lever-action rifles and 1911 handguns on display. Currently, there’s a great deal of interest in lever-action rifles, both traditional and modern flavors, as well as single and double-stack 1911 pistols. It was while perusing the latest offerings of 1911 handguns that I noted Springfield Armory had brought out a number of new models in their TRP, or Tactical Response Pistol line. The TRP line consists of semi-custom pistols inspired by Springfield Armory’s Professional model, which had been developed to meet the needs of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team. A number of years ago, the FBI selected Springfield Armory to supply 1911 pistols to their vaunted Hostage Rescue Team. The FBI HRT is an extremely…

New from Hammerli Arms is the Forge H1, a dedicated .22 Long Rifle 1911-pattern pistol. Currently, it is available in two models, both with full-size frames, one with a 4.25-inch barrel, one with a five-inch barrel. I secured a sample of the second for testing. Hammerli is originally a Swiss company founded in 1863. It is known for precision, Olympic-grade air guns and .22s, rifles and pistols, and still makes those. So, if you see the “Made in Germany by Umarex” on the side of the Forge H1’s frame, you might be a bit confused. But Umarex, Walther, and Hammerli are sister companies, sharing resources. The Forge H1 is a pistol seemingly built for general-purpose fun, and priced to match, and offered through the non-Olympic side of the house, Hammerli…

Pennsylvania gun owners are under an all-out assault by anti-gun lawmakers in Harrisburg, with four restrictive firearms measures — including a sweeping ban on many common semi-auto rifles — recently being approved in a key House committee. On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee advanced House Bill 336, HB 483, HB 777 and HB 1190. The measures are now eligible to be voted on by the full House of Representatives should a vote be called on the House floor. HB 336 is the so-called “assault weapon” ban, and it takes in a lot of territory. According to the bill’s language, it bans ownership or transfer of a gun if “the firearm is a semiautomatic rifle that has the ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least two of the…

Not everyone is happy about the cost of a full-auto-rated suppressor. Oh, not the financial cost, but there is that. No, the weight is a big thing to some shooters. The SilencerCo Scythe-Ti tips the scales, with its direct-thread rear cap, at a smidge over seven ounces. Is that light? A reasonable comparison would be Silencerco’s own Chimera, which weighs more than twice as much. If you are looking for a hunting suppressor and have no need whatsoever on your 6.5 Creemoor/.308 bolt gun for a full-auto-rated silencer then the extra 8.4 ounces would just suck, even though the Chimera is a superb silencer. Save the Chimera for your AR-10 and the future zombie hordes. How’d Silencerco do that? Simple, the Scythe-Ti is an all-titanium suppressor, and an all-welded one…

In no particular order, here are a few of the noteworthy things I spotted at the 2024 SHOT Show (ShotShow.org) in Las Vegas: Silencer Central Banish Speed K (SilencerCentral.com) Just before SHOT Show, Silencer Central announced their Banish Speed K suppressor and I had a chance at the range day before the show to put some rounds downrange through a sample. The Speed K was developed at the request of some law enforcement customers and developed with the help of Federal Ammunition. The Speed K is a 5.56 suppressor meant to shine on short-barreled rifles, and compared to traditional cans it is short and fat—it is just four inches long and two inches in diameter. While in development, before they had a final name for it, this suppressor was called…

Some people think that because the 1911 was designed more than a century ago, it is some arcane task to put one together. They’ll happily dive into putting an AR-15, or a Glock, or even an AK together, but a 1911? Oh, the horror. Really? Well, TISAS is here to put that idea to rest. They offer the Duty Builders Kit, .45 ACP, for your assembly pleasure. In the box is everything you need, parts-wise. You may need a few tools, and you may not, but you won’t need anything that you probably don’t already have. And if not, then Brownells is a few mouse-clicks away. The base gun is a blued-slide one, with the frame stainless and the various small parts black oxide or Cerakote finished. Me, I opted…