Innehållsförteckning för January/February 2024 #70 från Recoil

There’s no doubt that the American Civil War remains a “hot-button” issue after more than 160 years. The war truly pitted brother against brother and tore the nation apart. Some of the wounds haven’t healed to this day, while others have been freshly reopened — so much so that many Confederate memorials have been removed across the country, while U.S. Army installations and even U.S. Navy vessels have been renamed. Critics contend that those efforts are meant to wash away our nation’s history, and rather than bridging the divide some argue that it’s making things worse. At the same time, our great nation has sadly never been more divided politically, and some have even suggested we may be on the verge of yet another American Civil War. That irony may…

Imagine a world where the M14/M1A never came to be. While we’ve given the M14 a lot of guff about being the shortest-lived mass-issue rifle in American military history — and therefore a failure — it still served an oft-overlooked role: as a transitory rifle. Not transitory like it was ideal for use in trucks or tanks, or even well suited for humping around on the ground. Transitory in that it was full of features foreign to the M1 Garand but that would become standard for common infantry thereafter. Detachable magazines. Composite materials. And on some models, select fire. Going from the Garand directly to the M16/AR-15 with no steps in between would’ve arguably been a bridge too far for the whitehaired old guard. But today in this buildsheet, we’re…

Standard Manufacturing makes some neat and rather atypical firearms. Their main lines are reproductions of 1911s, single-action revolvers, and a clone of the Colt Woodsman — and each is better than the originals upon which they were based. However, their unusual offerings are always favorites. Not just because they’re different than the status quo, but also because they usually actually work. Standard Manufacturing are also purveyors of some of the world’s finest shotguns under their parent company Connecticut Shotgun. Standard has a huge factory and multiple talented gunsmiths who get virtually free reign to produce what they want. When company president Lou Frutuosa says he has something new, it usually pays dividends to perk up and see what’s coming. When a shotgun manufacturer uses the word “jackhammer,” it can spur…

It was December 1996. I was a 12-year-old kid with a bowl cut living in Appalachia who loved reading about war and guns. My personal Library of Alexandria and window to the world of firearms was an ancient gas station down the street run by a Vietnam vet who sold nudie magazines and cigarettes without carding and, more importantly, gun rags. Bundled in my brother’s old Starter jacket, I saw an issue of Soldier of Fortune with the French Foreign Legion in full parade regalia on the cover. It also had a small blurb about something called an SVDS. Intrigued, I quickly flipped through the pages, trying not to earn the ire of the salty vet behind the counter for loitering (which would earn me a parade-polished Mickey Mouse boot…

Coffee and cigars go together like peanut butter and jelly. So, it’s no surprise that a veteran-owned coffee company would also branch out into cigars. This is exactly the path taken by First Responder Coffee Company, founded by retired Delta Force Operator Brent Tucker. Tucker joined after September 11, 2001, with the goal of completing a single enlistment to “do his part” before returning to his family’s business in Florida. Lo and behold, fate had other plans. Instead, he spent eight years as a Green Beret before being selected for the Army’s premier Special Mission Unit, where he spent the rest of his career. After leaving the military, Tucker began training domestic SWAT teams and law enforcement units. This is where he first got the idea for FRCC. In his…

As of press time, the firearms community is experiencing one of its periodic attacks of the vapors, with ammo prices spiking on news coming out of the Middle East. Apparently, all it takes is some third-rate terrorist asshole to bump his gums about a “day of rage” and American gun owners clear out the shelves like soccer moms loading up on toilet paper. What the panic buyers hope to achieve by this behavior is never quite articulated, but 5.56 pricing has climbed back to 2021 levels, and for a couple of weeks the supply chain was pretty much cleared out. Two months ago, in Issue 69, we noted that ammo prices were returning to pre-pandemic norms, and that stocking up was a good idea. Hopefully, everyone took advantage of the…

If the city comes crumbling down around you and you have no choice but to bug out, what kind of vehicle would you choose to get out of town in? It sounds like a simple question, but reality makes it a lot tougher to answer than we’d like it to be. Ask 10 people this question, and you’re bound to get at least 10 different answers. Some might say an old carbureted truck, others swear by diesel power, yet others still would ride off on a motorcycle. Then there are those who would reach for their paddles instead. Because everyone’s situation and needs are different, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. What type of area you live in and the number of people in your household are just two in a long…

While it’s a truism that you’ll never outgrow a .22, you can always trade up to a better model. This is what Springfield hopes the legions of 10/22 and Marlin 60 owners do when they get handsy with their new Model 2020s. These two variants of 2020 rimfires should cover 90 percent of tasks a good bolt-action .22LR can handle, while offering a level of style and performance that’s a decent step up from the norm. As with their polymer-framed handguns, these are produced by a third party to Springfield’s specifications — in this case by the well-regarded Turkish firm of Retay, known more for their Benelli-pattern shotguns. Both the sporter and target versions are built on the same action, a rear-locking design with a lot of similarities with other…

Zooming in to take a better look at a potential target is intuitive when you’re dealing with day optics. When it comes to thermal sights however, it’s different. The user usually has to step through various levels of digital magnification, each more grainy and pixelated than the last, until the image looks more like an 8-bit video game than the crisp black and white picture you started out with. Enter the RH50 from iRayUSA. The main feature that differentiates this thermal optic from its peers is the ability to zoom from 1.5 to 3x, through optical rather than digital means. Just twist the objective lens and you can go from a wide field of view for target detection, to a narrow, more magnified FOV to take the shot — without…

There’s no denying the sex appeal of a grenade launcher. Whether you’re a war historian, video gamer, or movie buff, your likelihood of encountering some kind of pop-culture grenade launcher reference is pretty high. But the government doesn’t like the idea of a nearpeer conflict on home soil. So real grenade launchers and ammunition — of the 40mm high-explosive variety — fall under the ATF category of “Destructive Devices” that adds layers (plural) of bureaucracy between you and the prospect of your owning a grenade launcher capable of lobbing HE ammunition. While 40mm grenades are too destructive for the hands of mere mortals, 37mm grenades are just destructive enough to purchase direct without so much as a 4473 in the way. Some may remember the 37mm subculture of the 1990s,…

01 KOPIS DESIGNS L-VIA FIELD KNIFE (RAMPED AND BLACKWASHED) MSRP: Starts at $109 URL: kopisdesigns.com This little bad boy is a collaboration between Kopis Designs and Ed Calderon of Ed’s Manifesto, a personal security expert and former law enforcement officer. Based on Calderon’s Elvia, this slick compact tool is designed to be a discreet everyday-carry (EDC) defensive blade, thanks to its size and weight — 6.5 inches long just 1.2 ounces. The handle is made of ergonomic glass-filled nylon while the business end features a 2.5-inch blade, made from premium 154CM stainless steel and designed to be held in reverse grip with the cutting edge pointing toward its user. While we’re not fans of this blade orientation, folks who prefer this way will find the L-Via to be excelente. Kydex…

The clip point is one of the more common knife blade shapes used as an EDC or hunting knife. These blades look like the forward third of the blade is “clipped” off—it can be straight or concave. Variants include the California clip, with a clip greatly extended in length, and the Turkish clip point with its extreme recurve. On a clip-point knife, the spine of the blade begins at the hilt and continues to a point between one third to one fourth of the blade length. The blade’s spine then tapers in thickness in either a straight line or a curve to the knife’s point, which may be located above, below, or in line with the central axis of the blade. The thinned false edge of the clip may be…

TRIJICON RMR HD TRIJICON.COM Price: $849 Trijicon is often credited with leading the charge for durable, duty-ready optics up to the task. But they fell behind on things like top-load batteries, reticle options, and an enclosed-emitter variant. We’re happy to announce that those options have finally arrived, in the form of the RMR HD and RCR. The RMR HD will be very familiar to legacy RMR users. The form factor is nearly identical, including the famous “owl ear” body shape. The HD’s window is somewhat larger than the original, but smaller than the SRO. The HD does carry over the latter’s forward-set body design. There is a reference line integrated into the top of the frame for those who are used to drawing a line with paint pen, as well…

When you’re a legacy company, one that others have been chasing for decades, you can’t just release a new product on a whim. There are expectations and anticipations to manage, because they’re held to a higher standard. SureFire is one such company. When Dr. John Matthews (see RECOIL Issue 35) made the first viable weapon-mounted light, he had to start with a blank sheet of paper. Everyone else? They sat a SureFire in front of them. While SureFire certainly didn’t invent the modern silencer (their suppressor division wasn’t founded until 2002), when it comes to hard-use, bomb-proof, duty-rated regulators they set the standard back in 2015 with the RC2. And before we get too far ahead in this piece about the latest, it needs to be said that the SOCOM556-RC2,…

The Pre 27 Smith & Wesson, or arguably more appropriately Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum is a cornerstone gun for many revolver collectors. In production for less than two decades before Smith & Wesson released the Model 27, it was the gun that launched .357 Magnum as a caliber that’s now a staple ammunition to be found on virtually every ammo shelf of every gun store in the country. Before the advent of .40 S&W, not to mention the much older 9mm Parabellum that has only recently caught on for truly widespread police issue in the United States, the .357 Magnum was the standard, replacing the older cartridge from which it evolved, the .38 Special. The Pre 27 was the pistol that brought the .357 Magnum to the American public.…