Innehållsförteckning för Jan/Feb 2020 #46 från Recoil

In this issue, we address one of the frequent criticisms leveled at us — that of only featuring high-end kit. In case you missed it, our cover gun is perhaps the lowest of the low, without resorting to brands such as Jennings, Lorcin, and Hi-Point, which also manage to turn out products that occasionally make loud noises. Our Wish.com AR-15 is just the kind of thing to give pants-wetting politicians the heebie-jeebies — a $250 “assault weapon,” available to just about anyone who can legally own a firearm. In case you think I’m throwing shade on anyone whose budget doesn’t stretch to Noveske and Hodge Defense, nothing could be further from the truth. While we all like nice stuff, there’s a Ford in my driveway, not a Ferrari. Recently, we’ve…

It’s easy to wander around automotive events like SEMA seeing products that are really nothing more than booth bling and will probably never actually get much practical application. But like marrying a Playboy Bunny and getting separate beds, you can’t really resist asking yourself what the point is if it’s solely for appearances. When we saw the Hellwig Operator for the first time, we couldn’t help but be impressed. It looked like an overlanding version of a 747 with the space shuttle mounted on top. From stem to stern, to say it’s meant for off-roading wouldn’t do it justice. After all, how many other trucks can you think of that successfully piggybacked a 1,200-pound Textron Wildcat onto the back? First, a little bit about Hellwig Products. The company’s heritage actually…

Over the years, we’ve seen all sorts of crazy cheap deals on parts and pieces; some of them with questionable origins. The perfect place to put them all together was right here in our budget issue. Who needs Black Friday when you can build yourself a working rifle from the cheesiest of Chinesium from Wish.com — or at least try to. We did our best to avoid products that were simply stolen intellectual property from American companies. Despite our best efforts, the iron sights we purchased ended up being garbage knockoffs of Magpul MBUS sights — what was pictured in the listing was totally different. Still, they ended up being absolutely worthless due to two reasons: The apertures freely rotated, and the handguard was total trash. “YOU’D BE BETTER OFF…

Another day, another threat to the Second Amendment. Welcome to the post-Sandy Hook political cycle where left-leaning candidates for office play a perpetual game of gun control oneupmanship. America’s favorite rifle, the AR-15, is back in the spotlight as a million-rounds-per-minute ghost gun that gives ER doctors PTSD. While we don’t give points in our reviews for marketing prowess, we have to point out that Sig Sauer’s naming its lowest-priced AR “Tread.” A reference to the Gadsden flag is a fine way to embrace the idea that the AR is both a symbol of freedom and a tool of self-defense. The M400 Tread is Sig’s entry-level AR, and while it’s not the cheapest AR-pattern rifle on the market, its design, materials, features, and quality of its components set a value…

In a world of custom, John Wick-inspired, lightened, and Cerakoted rifles and pistols, price tags can exceed a few mortgage payments. For those who work for a living or live with a spouse’s watchful eye, we decided to make budget-friendly upgrades to an affordably priced DPMS AR-15 carbine and a second-hand Glock pistol. Rather than making Gucci guns, we worked to enhance the performance of both platforms without breaking the bank. The AR in AR-15 originally meant Armalite Rifle; some would say it now stands for America’s Rifle due to the millions of AR-15 based rifles now in circulation. The proliferation of the AR-15 design has resulted in rifles ranging from inexpensive to several grand. We chose a brand-new, value-priced DPMS to upgrade. And if the AR-15 is America’s Rifle,…

Sitting in the dimly lit lobby museum at Sig Sauer Headquarters in Pease, New Hampshire, is John Hollister — one of the best-known faces in the world of suppressors, the unofficial godfather of .300 Blackout, and known to many as the Yoda of silencers. His current home at Sig Sauer affords him the opportunity to travel the country as an educator and product manager, spreading the gospel of a quieter gun world, one suppressor at a time. With a gentle ease and self-confidence that only comes with a lifetime of experience, Hollister sits patiently, absently stroking his long, wizard-like, white beard. His high-pitched voice has a hint of Southern affect that mixes equal parts self-deprecation and encyclopedic understanding of firearms. There’s a certain sparkle in his light brown eyes as…

1 The Ti Arto EDC can accept more than 750 different types of refills. (Yes, 750.) How’s that possible? The butt-end can be unscrewed to lengthen the body and make more room for almost any ink refill. This innovative design also gets rid of that annoying tip wiggle, which can happen when you insert a refill that kinda fits but wasn’t designed specifically for your pen. It comes with a screw-on cap, anti-slip grip design, Schneider 0.4mm black gel ink refill, and a sturdy titanium pocket clip. Oh, and while the Ti Arto EDC isn’t meant to be a tactical pen, it could certainly help you serve up an improvised ass whooping if called upon, because it’s machined from solid titanium. MAKE: Big Idea Design LLC MODEL: Ti Arto EDC…

Mash-ups are popular these days. Facebook and YouTube are littered with songs and videos that blend two or more different songs into one new combined creation. Done poorly, the result is a gnarled, incomprehensible mess. Done well, the mash-up can be glorious. We often play this game in many different arenas, wishing for cars, TV shows, smartphones, and even spouses that are mash-ups of several others. When it comes to handguns, it’s hard to deny the elegance and simplicity of Glock’s design. It’s robust, easy to service and modify, reasonably priced, comprised of a surprisingly low number of parts, and battle-proven. The ergonomics, however, are another story. While many appreciate it, Gaston’s idea of perfection also rubs many end users the wrong way, pun intended. The HK VP9 is a…

Over just the last dozen years, ammunition prices have been as wild as a bucking bronco. They’ve ranged from dirt cheap (pre-Obama era) to paying a-dollar-a-shot for military surplus rifle rounds after Sandy Hook. Lately, prices have come down and appear to continue declining even as availability is on the upswing. In light of the changing price and availability dynamic, now’s a good time to look at the value proposition of rolling your own ammo. There are more reasons to reload than saving money alone, so we’ll look at three common scenarios that bring shooters to the reloading bench: economy, performance, and necessity. We’ll cover the benefits of making your own 9mm FMJ rounds, 6.5 Creedmoor match ammo, and then something more obscure, 300 Ultra Mag hunting ammo. Before we…

Black Aces Tactical is best known for their unconventional so-called “firearms,” such as shotguns that for various reasons aren’t legally classified as such and don’t fit into any other categories. But instead of reviewing something that accepts 12-gauge shells, this article is about a pair of silencers that both cost less than the tax stamp required to legally own them. Since 1934, in order to legally acquire a silencer as a regular ol’ civilian, you have to pay a $200 King’s Ransom and wait for a lengthy background check to be completed. The times for acceptance vary — at the time of this writing, transfer forms are kicking the door down at over a year. You shouldn’t forget that extra $200 fee as an additional requisite cost whenever you’re considering…

Many inventions throughout history have seen multiple lives. A Model 1883 Gatling Gun, made in 1886, was fixed with belts and a motor in 1946 to become a test gun in what would become the Vulcan Project. A G30 semi-automatic rifle served as the basis for a prototype of the Winchester automatic rifle. Often the idea for an invention can have application in future technologies, either successful like the Gatling or unsuccessful like the G30. Regardless, their resurgence always makes a unique fusion of the past and the present. And the Cody Firearms Museum’s .30-caliber Thompson is no exception. THE STORY OF THIS GUN COLLIDES TWO WORLD WARS AND A FEEBLE ATTEMPT AT TEACHING AN OLD GUN NEW TRICKS. Yes, I typed that correctly — a Thompson submachine gun chambered…

Any buyer’s guide, if you actually test the items (which we do) can be a fairly large endeavor. While other magazines will simply list factory features in their magalogs, we actually went through the process of testing multiple optics available with street prices below $1K. While there are scopes with higher MSRPs, we decided to go with a purchase price of under $1K as a metric. There are numerous optical testing rigs used by camera lens companies to get into the minutia of each lens — however, even the most basic of computer testing rigs costs more than $100K each. While some testing rigs of this type are undoubtedly used by companies that specifically produce rifle scopes, unfortunately $100K wasn’t in the budget for this one. Even photographing though each…

What makes a good carry pistol? The answer varies for everyone, but there are some things we think are safe to call constants. It should be easy to conceal and easy to draw from concealment. The sights and trigger should both be fast to use and consistent. It should fire a cartridge suitable to the task of defending life and limb. Reliability should be beyond question, even under adverse conditions — being wet, dirty, and well-worn shouldn’t cause any concern. Nowadays, we’re blessed to have a handgun market rife with choices that make most of these requirements all but guaranteed. But that wasn’t always the case. A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, an ideal carry pistol had to be hand-built by artisan gunsmiths with exacting craftsmanship…

Big guns are sexy, but little guns are useful. For those who spend a great deal of time in the outdoors, particularly in rural areas, rimfires are often the daily workhorse. Whether it’s taking care of problem animals, keeping your skills sharp, or teaching new shooters the ropes, rimfire rifles are very useful tools that often see everyday use. In my area, I’ve noticed a shift among farmers and ranchers away from larger cartridges and toward the tiniest of bores, the .17. For decades, factory .17-caliber cartridges have been available, but only recently have they been for rimfires. The newest on the block is the 17 Mach 2, and it’s a serious contender as an all-around small game round. 17 MACH 2 The 17 Mach 2 cartridge was released in…

Need to work on transitions from cover? Yeah, we all do. This drill will place you under stress, get the heart pumping, and lets you identify any deficiencies in your gear on the square range, before you find out in the real world. Distance: 50m Target: Steel torso or B/C zone Weapon: Carbine PROCEDURE Set up your barricades at 40 and 45 meters from your target. Don’t get hung up on not having a perfectly painted, immaculate VTAC barricade — you aren’t Martha f*cking Stewart. Use whatever you can scrounge up; range tables stood on end, tires, chairs, you get the idea. Set up a cone or other marker at 50m. Set the par time on your timer to 25s. On the beep, place two hits on steel from 50m,…

Our subject of this issue’s Veteran Vices hardly needs an introduction. Black Rifle Coffee Company was oneof the first veteran-owned coffee companies to make a splash in a market that seems to be growing more crowded by the day. BRCC uses beans imported from Columbia and Brazil, which they roast-to-order daily. Their blend options cover the entire spectrum of coffee preference palates from the light Silencer Smooth and Gunship roasts to the extra-potent Murdered Out and Caffeinated As F*ck roasts. Their coffee can be had in 12-ounce or 5-pound bags, or in single-serve “coffee rounds” for those running cup-based coffee machines. For those coffee heathens who drink decaf or instant coffee, Black Rifle has you covered there, too. Founded by former Special Forces soldier Evan Hafer in 2015, BRCC was…