Innehållsförteckning för July/August 2020 #49 från Recoil

Aston Martin was nearing bankruptcy before an increasingly popular movie franchise put a certain MI6 agent behind the wheel of a tricked-out DB5. Although it was a fairly new concept at the time, it showed the power of product placement. Nowadays, cinema and corporate marketing go together like lawyers and tasseled loafers. If you’re a fan of the Bond movies, you’ve probably felt the urge to go buy something its star was wearing, drinking, or driving. Now’s your chance. Recently there’s been a rise in boutique companies taking older platforms and giving them modern enhancements. Whether it’s Singer’s pulse-pounding take on vintage 911 Porsches or our recent look at Mil-Spec Automotive’s revamped Hummers in Issue 44, the level of artistry and upgraded engineering are enough to make discerning car buffs…

This is my work gun. There’s nothing outwardly fancy about it. No custom Cerakote, no go-fast lightening cuts, and its grimy, carbon-crusted, battered exterior won’t gain many likes on the ’Gram, but it’s been through numerous training courses, visited the Tactical Games, survived InRange TV’s Desert Brutality match, and is the go-to carbine for anything that needs a hole putting in it. In short: It just f@cking works. All its components have been selected based on personal experience, which is to say, your mileage may vary, and you probably have just as strong preferences. But there’s something to be said for having access to just about any high-speed parts from the vast panoply available for this 60-year-old design, which has been through more revisions than a Kardashian’s face. At its…

The AR-18 was developed by Armalite not long after the AR-15 in the early 1960s. The goal was to create a 5.56mm rifle that wouldn’t infringe on the licensing agreement Armalite made with Colt for the AR-15, and a key component of this was the modified direct-impingement system. The AR-18 was designed with a short stroke piston system for this reason. The AR-18 and its semi-auto sibling, the AR-180, were never a commercial success. No military ever adopted it, and less than 21,000 units and variants were produced, with production ceasing in 1985. While a casual observer might think it ignominiously sank without trace, the operating system of the AR-18 would go on to heavily influence the designs of the SA-80, Howa Type 89, Bushmaster M17, HK G36, and the…

The year is 1951. The jubilation of worldwide Allied victories is fading with the ominous realization that global totalitarianism hasn’t died, but merely shifted shape. The dread of the thousand-year Reich is replaced by the ever-extending tentacles of a global Soviet. If Nazism was the plague of the free world, Communism would prove to be its cancer. But large-scale clashes of armies, like those seen a decade prior, are no longer. Instead, a new model of warfare emerged, with large groups of powerful nations collecting up smaller, less sophisticated lands like so much loose change on the world floor. Admirals and generals accustomed to laying down force like brick-and-mortar are now reduced to playing checkers with peasant guerrillas and insurgent commandos who don’t even speak their language. The beginning of…

Shorter, lighter, louder. That’s how Tom Bowers describes his latest silencer, the Wardog. Coming in at 1.7 inches in diameter by 4.3 inches in length, it tips the scales at a mere 7.8 ounces. Bowers claims it’s rated for heavy use in full-auto fire with both 9mm and 300 Blackout, subsonic and supersonic. One of the ways they were able to keep it so svelte was by using aluminum for most of the construction with steel inserts, which will absolutely be a turn-off for some. But read on and remember: Short silencers are the definition of compromise. DEVELOPMENT The Wardog K9 has its roots in the Bowers Group’s Vers 9, which is a full-sized, high-volume 9mm subgun silencer rated for full-auto fire. Because it’s in 9mm, it can perform double…

The word “whiskey” comes from an Irish Gaelic phrase, Uisce Beatha, translated into English as “water of life.” This has its origins in a medieval Latin term with the same meaning for distilled spirits: aqua vitae. For the Gaelic-challenged, “Slainte” is how you say “Cheers!” in Ireland. Being a first-generation American, having both parents hailing from the south of Ireland, Irish whiskey has long been a huge part of my life. As infants, our mother would rub Jameson on the gums of my brothers and sisters and me while we were teething. The jury is out on whether it eased the pain or just put us to sleep. Ask a doctor. As a child, when we caught those bad colds that lasted for days, a hot toddy was often the…

As much as we love alcohol and caffeine, the “Veteran Vices” column was missing a critical element — tobacco. Fortunately, we were able to reach the kind folks at Southern Draw Cigars, based out of Austin, Texas. Southern Draw was founded by Robert and Sharon Holt. Robert spent 18 years in the Army in both the Signal Corps and the 101st Airborne. But the business quickly grew into a family business that now includes six other members of the Holt family — a father, an uncle, siblings, and in-laws — every single one of whom is a retired U.S. Army NCO from one unit or another. But their veteran representation doesn’t stop with the Army. Also integral to the Southern Draw team are Phil Hogan, a retired Navy Petty Officer,…

1 Whether you’re a female shooter or you’re trying to get the lady of your life to get into the 2A lifestyle, it’s best to steer clear of kit that follows the “shrink it and pink it” strategy. Taking men’s gear and slapping it with cute camouflage is just not gonna fly. That’s why 5.11 Tactical developed a line of women’s apparel that doesn’t just look good, it also performs well — whether you’re on the range, the trail, or a casual night out. The Women’s Apex Pant offers a comfortable fit for the fairer sex, but with the same versatile features as the men’s version: articulated knees, plenty of pockets (including back magazine slots), and mechanical stretch canvas with stain-resistant Teflon finish, among many more. MAKE: 5.11 Tactical MODEL:…

If there was ever a knife design that has captivated the minds of knife aficionados and casual knife users, alike, it’s the OTF (Out the Front) Automatic. Alternately and somewhat incorrectly referred to as stilettos or even push-knives, OTFs have been hyped a lot by their use in fiction from pulp novels and spy films of the 1960s to modern day video games and TV shows like 24. OTF knives represent a relatively small section of the automatic knife market. Most of this has to do with the poorly made imports that were popular at gun shows, flea markets, and gas stations for over three decades. That all changed when a talented young machinist for a major firearm manufacturer began producing high-end OTF knives of his own with quality materials…

The KRISS Vector has been around for more than a decade, offered in pistol calibers from 9mm to 10mm. The Vector elicits polarized opinions from gun enthusiasts, but there’s no questioning its impact in popular culture. The firearms-entertainment website IMFDB.com enumerates over 60 appearances of the Vector in films, television shows, video games, and anime — and from a review of their list, it’s clearly incomplete. With its iconic appearance, the Vector is often used in science fiction productions as the basis for a fictional, futuristic weapon system, such as a number of rifles used in the Divergent series of feature films. The key reason for this is the Vector’s very unique operating system, which results in a look unlike any other traditional firearm, even after all these years. Originally…

I’m trying to move my right foot onto a small step, but it keeps getting buffeted by the wind. When I do finally manage to make contact, the step proves to be a bit wobblier than anticipated — I make a mental note to be careful of it, otherwise I might fall off and plummet 12,000 feet to the desert below. Which is ironic, because that’s exactly what I’m committed to do next. For years, I’d managed to avoid ever having to exit a functioning aircraft in flight. That was all about to change, as I signed up for the American Parachute Association’s Accelerated Freefall course, in anticipation of having to jump into the northern Rockies, later this year. While the motivation for undertaking this particular adventure might’ve been unusual,…

American ingenuity knows no bounds. In 1861, during the Civil War and against a backdrop of muskets and the odd breech-loader or repeating rifle, physician and serial inventor Richard Gatling developed a multibarrel, rapid-fire, gravity-fed weapon. The Gatling gun spewed rounds downrange via a cluster of barrels that were loaded from a hopper or magazine and fired in sequence as they rotated around a central shaft, actuated by an operator working a hand crank. While not a true machine gun, it was the closest anyone had come to date — and anyone on the wrong side of the Gatling gun would probably beg to differ. As the story goes, while living in Indianapolis, Indiana, Gatling was horrified by the losses and suffering of troops during the Civil War. He sought…

This issue, we’ve been playing with alternate history in a few articles, and this one continues that theme. We sat down and thought about a world where autoloading firearms simply never existed. What would warfare look like? This is an extension of that thought experiment, which also benefits those in ban states or nations. A strong contender for our long-gun in this fantasy world would be a leveraction carbine in one of the Magnum revolver cartridges. We found just that in the Henry Big Boy X-Model, chambered in the hard-hitting 44 Mag, with the added bonus of being threaded for a silencer. LEVER TIME This matte-blued rifle has black synthetic furniture with an excellent stock-to-metal fit, two sling swivel studs for mounting a traditional two-point sling, a solid rubber recoil…

In the 1980s, John Linebaugh’s life changed. With a new Chevy truck that he bought off the lot, Linebaugh — thanks to a series of articles about his inventions, including a Guns & Ammo cover in 1986 — would finally be able to transition from working odd jobs around the small town of Cody, Wyoming, to turn his passion for ammunition and firearms design into a full-time career. Despite his lack of professional training, he gave many legacy firearms and ammunition companies a run for their money, when he came out with his first big-bore cartridge, the .500 Linebaugh, chambered for not in a rifle, but a cowboy-style revolver. This cartridge, and its smaller sibling the .475 Linebaugh, would both change and inspire the sport of handgun hunting forever. Linebaugh’s…

Among armor enthusiasts and professionals alike, it’s commonly acknowledged that The Tank Museum in Bovington, UK, and the German Tank Museum in Munster, Germany, are world-renowned for the diversity and breadth of their collections and displays of armored vehicles. Joining the ranks of these two world-class museums is the Royal Jordanian Tank Museum. Located in southern Amman, the museum is a breathtakingly massive display of the chronology of the tank throughout military history beginning with World War I. Where the museum truly provides the most value to any student of military history is in its displays of Middle Eastern conflicts, especially in the past several decades, where armored warfare played prominently in the outcome of the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, and the Gulf War. The Royal Tank…

“Nobody needs a Weapon of War!” is the oftenheard, plaintive cry of the anti-gun crusader. They want them off our streets. Generally, they point to firearms like the AR-15 and its many clones, due to their use by the military as well as civilians. Wouldn’t those same people be surprised if they knew that many military weapons had humble beginnings as firearms designed for the consumer market? To demonstrate use by the military doesn’t alone define a firearm as a weapon of war, we’ll take a look at three origin stories for weapons systems that ended up in the military arsenal. SIG SAUER P320 The most recent example of a civilian firearm’s adoption for use as a military weapon is the SIG Sauer P320. Introduced to the market in 2014,…

If your childhood didn’t include watching colonial marines vying to nuke xenomorphs from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure) or mobile infantry going on a bug hunt and taking coed showers, then this piece might not entirely be for you. Those feature films certainly inspired the imagination at a primal age, but the official announcement of the formation of the United States Space Force on December 20, 2019, started ringing some bells. No, the USSF won’t be fighting in orbit anytime soon. And no, even if we’re involved in orbital combat, it definitely won’t look like either of the movies we mentioned. In the guise of outfitting the TS12 for a hard (realistic) near-future science fiction, we found some DoD and NASA employees who wanted to nerd out…

If there’s one thing we love more than cans on guns, it’s integrally suppressed guns. When we heard about Leone Development’s R2 suppressed barrel for the Ruger 10/22, we were intrigued. Instead of a traditional baffled core welded to the end of a shortened barrel and covered with a tube, the R2 has a set of 26 small holes at the chamber end of the barrel to port gas into an expansion chamber that surrounds and runs the length of the barrel. The expansion chamber is made by covering a ported pencil barrel with an outer 0.920 diameter tube that’s compatible with any stock that accepts a 10/22 bull barrel. Russ Leone, the R2’s inventor, says he starts out with high-quality, rifled barrel blanks, profiles the barrel, pilot drills the…

We first got handsy with a scope equipped with a Plumb reticle back in 2017 at our Summit in the Sand event. We describe it as a Dragunov PSO-type arrangement, but one that actually makes sense and works. RETICLE For a complete breakdown on the design itself, see RECOIL Issue 35. Initially designed for a 7.62x51mm DMR rifle, the Plumb reticle allows rapid engagement at unknown distances due to the dual-funnel design. Simply place shoulders inside the larger funnel, a head or sideways body inside the smaller funnel, and pull the trigger. Other designs with stadia or BDC lines require the shooter know the target distance before, not on the fly. There have been some upgrades and changes through the years. First and most importantly, this model is calibrated for…

Throughout history, firearms have been used by countless people for many different reasons. They were initially developed as a way to evolve warfare beyond confrontations of melee, but the technology quickly outpaced military strategy and opened the door to a growing market for sport. By the 1500s, firearms weren’t just cumbersome hand cannons or arquebuses that used a burning rope to operate, they could be rifled, shrunken down to handgun size, and operate with an ignition system that didn’t require a slow burning match. With those developments, the uses of firearms expanded even further. This expansion, however, instilled a concern by royalty for misuse and, more specifically, for assassination. Prior to the introduction of the concealable firearm and the invention of rifling, an assassin armed with a firearm needed to…