Innehållsförteckning för September/October 2024 #74 från Recoil

There’s a unique sense of fulfillment that comes from taking something worn out and giving it a new life. Maybe it’s a piece of antique furniture, an old car rotting away in a field, or some vintage appliance pushed aside by progress. Many feel those inanimate objects have a soul and a story of their own to tell. It’s kind of like that ’50s cartoon, “Susie the Little Blue Coupe,” where an anthropomorphic car went from brand-spanking new to broken down, changing hands, and ending up sad, alone, and forgotten in a junkyard. Then, one day, a wide-eyed kid saw its potential and turned that abandoned little jalopy into a happy, tire-melting hot rod. Guardian Garage is not only doing those kinds of transformations with the items that come through…

Shoot, move, communicate — these three skills are critical to your success in any gunfight. Unfortunately, many modern firearms training programs only address shooting, encouraging students to build technical proficiency by standing on a flat range and punching holes in paper targets, month after month and year after year. Retired U.S. Navy SEAL Rich Graham set out to build a more well-rounded and realistic curriculum through his training company Full Spectrum Warrior. Rather than only three skills, the FSW program is based on 12 pillars, which include health (diet, physical, and mental), movement and strength, communication and teamwork, situational awareness, work ethic and attitude, integrity, and, of course, being dangerous enough to “be a victor, not a victim.” Recently, Safariland invited me to attend an intense two-day training event at…

We’ve often referred to the AR platform as LEGOs for adults, because you can build and configure them to your heart’s content. However, there’s a limit to that analogy. You don’t need tools to tear down and rebuild your LEGOs. As flexible as it is, a standard AR lower can’t accommodate longer cartridges like 7.62 or 6.5CM; you’ll need to switch to a large frame AR for that. And it takes tools and some effort to swap out barrels. To be fair, Eugene Stoner invented the thing in the 1950s. Idaho-based Primary Weapons Systems is well-known for its piston-driven ARs, components, and muzzle devices. The word “evolve” was a key element of their branding, with a line of products over the years that refined and improved existing platforms. But this…

In summer 2013, I had decided to make a career change: from line cook to game warden with the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife. Three years prior, upon moving to Spokane, I had first learned to hunt at the ripe old age of 27. During the next few years, I became significantly invested in the sport, the region — its land and its critters — and conservation as a whole. I wanted to contribute, to be an agent of good for wildlife. Except I didn’t fully read the physical requirements until a week before the Washington state Public Safety Test. At the time, the state required 30 sit-ups within 60 seconds, along with a 1½-mile run with a time under 13:35 for a max score. (They’ve since relaxed these…

01 SPARROWS THE ESCORT MSRP: $95 URL: sparrowlockpicks.com The ability to pick locks is a very practical skill to have — not to mention it’s fun. As usual, having the right tool for the job makes things so much easier. For picking the ubiquitous pin tumbler lock, this typically consists of picks of ous profiles to manipulate pins and vari-tension wrenches to apply torque on the lock. To make it easy to EDC a handy lock pick set, Sparrows has released The Escort. It’s a folding jackknife-style pick set featuring six pick profiles of hooks and rakes, plus a tension wrench. The picks fold out like a pocketknife and lock solidly into place. The turning tool is cleverly stored in the housing and leased from a trapdoor in the locking…

Much of Afghanistan’s geography is mountainous. The topography fades slowly from the steep, tightly packed peaks of the north and east to the tall, rolling piles that line the miles-wide southern valleys. No matter where the battle is in Afghanistan, it’s likely going to involve big elevation and long ranges, a tactical combination that calls for lightweight and far-reaching small arms. Few people know this better than Staff Sgt. Rudy Gonsor. Gonsor, a 22-year Special Forces weapons sergeant with six GWOT tours behind him who also works as an instructor with Ridgeline Defense, recalls a mission he had during the summer of 2010 in Uruzgan, Afghanistan. The terrain is a wide, high altitude, hard pan desert valley with 2,000-meter mountains on either side. Operating in this area is challenging because…

With dozens of manufacturers, hundreds of suppressed firearms, and tens of thousands of rounds, CANCON Arizona kicked off last April at the Ben Avery Shooting Center. From live suppressor demonstrations and nighttime shotgun shooting to silenced belt-fed machine guns and competitive shooting events, CANCON had more than enough to keep anyone busy. And if someone wanted to buy after giving it a try? They filled out the paperwork on the spot. There were some new products, like Aero Precision’s Solus competition rifle paired Lahar-30 suppressor and Dead Air’s new 6mm Lazarus 6. And of course, silencer demonstrations, the meat and potatoes. B&T presented their breaching shotgun suppressors, and another head-turner was the Wren Metal Works integral lever guns; the look was unconventional but there was no denying the effectiveness —…

Anechoic means free from echoes or non-reflective. You record music inside an anechoic chamber, and you cover a stealth fighter with an anechoic coating. It’s something that absorbs and deadens sound, and thus is a great name for a silencer company — provided the cans can deliver. Originally named Alpha Silencers until early 2024, Anechoic hails from one of the states that’s a superspreader of silencers: Utah. Anechoic’s new centerfire suppressor line, AnechoX, premiered at our CANCON event in Arizona earlier this year. More than that, each VIP attendee at CANCON got an Anechoic of their choice. These user-serviceable suppressors are available in standard (6.6 inches) and “L”/long (8.2 inches) sizes with bores designed for .223, .300, .350, and .450 projectiles. At the time of this writing, there are a…

The Mosin Nagant series might well be the most prolific military bolt-action rifle in existence, with production well north of 30 million units and possibly higher. Like the Lee-Enfield, Krag, Lebel, and the 88 and 98 Mauser, the Mosin-Nagant in its various forms served from well before World War I through to — almost unbelievably — the present day. It can be found in virtually every corner of the earth, along with its staple diet of 7.62x54R. The story properly begins with the M91 Mosin-Nagant, the rifle pictured in this article. It was standardized in 1891 for service in Imperial Russia, during the same decade or so that witnessed the inception and adoption of other smokeless, nitro-proofed military bolt-action rifles. Extremely competitive with its peers ballistically, and inferior only to…

The Pennsylvania borough of Gettysburg is home to just over 7,100 people, and today it likely would be just another sleepy village in the Keystone State, were it not for being the site of the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War, which was fought over three days in Gettysburg between July 1 and July 3, 1863. Instead, Gettysburg has become a must-see destination for military history enthusiasts and armchair generals. The battlefields of Gettysburg have been well preserved, which has limited commercial development and allowed the small community to remain very much as it was. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF GETTYSBURG Before the famous battle that occurred in and around the town in July 1863, Gettysburg really wasn’t all that different from other rural communities in the region. It was noted…

Caramel Frappuccinos are the down-fall of modern civilization. This drink proves how far we have gone down the wrong path; is this even coffee anymore? The addition of so many options that it takes 20 minutes just to figure out what kind of milk you want is not what coffee is supposed to be. There was a time when black and scalding hot was the only choice of brew. People received fourth degree burns from the coffee of my childhood; today’s coffee wouldn’t hurt a fly. All of the extra froth on top has degraded the cup o’joe to a drink safe for all ages. This used to be strictly business, a harsh drink for harsh times. Today’s coffee is more dessert than jitter juice — 57 different milks and…

The Smart DryFireMag, combined with the Laser Ammo offering, is designed to allow shooters to both practice their dry-fire technique — without manually cycling the slide manually — while also projecting a visible laser on their target. Both companies have been producing training aids for years, but in 2023, they combined their patented technologies to create something unique. The DryFireMag (DFM) is a specially designed magazine that when inserted into a handgun will provide a springloaded lever that sits against the trigger bar. When the trigger bar travels backward, the DFM interprets the reset and allows a shooter to continually pull the trigger without racking the slide. Please note: The experience is not a 1:1 feel compared to the actual pull and rest of the trigger itself. However, DFM does…

We first covered PTR’s carbine way back in Issue 25, and since then the micro environment around it has changed — some good, some bad. There’s more in the way of aftermarket support, but cheap Russian 7.62x39 has gone away, subjected to sanctions in the wake of their invasion of Ukraine — which begs the question of whether the rifle makes sense anymore. With garbage-tier AKs now fetching the best part of a grand, we thought it was time to blow the dust off of PTR’s baby and see what we could do with it. Following the end of the Cold War, HK surveyed the landscape and concluded that impoverished countries shaking off the chains of communism might like a Western rifle chambered in the Soviet round, as a wholesale…

The ScopeSwitch from Antimatter Industries allows users to forgo the throw levers and cattails of variable optics and make magnification modifications from the forend. They accomplish this with a dedicated optic mount paired with an ambidextrous slider system that rides on the top rail of a rifle. There’s some clear benefit to removing the requirement of a hand traveling to the rear of the scope to grab and twist in order to change magnification. Three-gunners, already used to running custom-everything, will definitely like this one. We especially like this new ability when shooting from a prone position. No lifting your head and moving hands to push the magnification, but instead staying totally in place. In some ways, the ScopeSwitch is like moving the AR-15 charging handle from the top/rear to…

For this installment of Veteran Vices, we found a product that may actually be the opposite of a vice, but it was so unique that we felt it deserved coverage. Aimcise is a company dedicated to producing nutritional supplements specifically for the shooting community. Cofounder Greg Potapenko spent 22 years in the Canadian Army, retiring as a warrant officer. About his military service, he says: “This period of my life was not just about serving my country but also about nurturing a profound passion for shooting. I had the privilege of competing in several provincial, national, and international marksmanship competitions in service rifle and pistol. These experiences laid a solid foundation for my entrepreneurial journey, especially in creating Aimcise.” It’s no secret that, even at its highest levels, the amount…