Innehållsförteckning för September/October 2025 #80 från Recoil

01 T-SHIRT Viktos Shotty Tee MSRP: $30 URL: viktos.com 02 BUCKSHOT Sellier & Bellot 9 Pellet MSRP: $17 URL: sellierbellot.us 03 JEANS Viktos Taculus MSRP: $120 URL: viktos.com 04 SHOES Viktos Core Containment MSRP: $130 URL: viktos.com 05 OPTIC C&H Precision Duty XL MSRP: $325 URL: chpws.com 06 SLUGS Hornady American Gunner 1-ounce MSRP: $12 URL: hornady.com 07 FANNY PACK Viktos Upscale Hip Pack MSRP: $75 URL: viktos.com 08 STOCK Samson Manufacturing SAS Folder MSRP: $315 URL: samson-mfg.com 09 OPTIC MOUNT KE Arms Optic mount MSRP: $95 URL: kearms.com 10 SHOTGUN Mossberg 990 MSRP: $1,120 URL: mossberg.com…

The most appealing aspect of shotguns is their versatility. No, you’re not going to connect at a mile with a shotgun, but inside 100 yards, they can do a creditable job of putting holes in stuff that requires ventilation; everything from humans (buckshot), deer (slugs), and small game (birdshot). Things that make small arms more versatile and useful include short barrels, folding stocks, and semi-auto functionality, and if you don’t believe that, try working from inside vehicles or clearing a room with a PRS rifle. So how about we combine the two? Mossberg apparently can’t keep up with demand for their recently introduced 990 Aftershock “firearm,” so if you happen to come across one, you may want to snag it. Chances are, if you wind up with buyer’s remorse, someone…

It’s often said that seismic levels of innovation in the firearms space are rare. Certainly, companies and individuals come up with great new ideas all the time. But sea changes that affect an entire segment of the industry don’t happen very often. The advent of using additive manufacturing — the fancy name for 3D printing — to produce suppressors is one of those key industry-wide developments. TYPES OF MANUFACTURING Suppressors are devices that are made of metal with specially designed geometry designed to trap, redirect, cool, and slow down the gases from a gunshot, thus reducing the sound signature of a firearm, among other things. The traditional method to manufacture devices like silencers is by machining them. Think of it like Michelangelo sculpting the statue of David — starting from…

Think of it as a variable-power ACOG. Taking up about as much space as a TA31, ZeroTech’s newest model gives users a true 1x bottom end, with just enough magnification to consistently hit torso-sized targets out to 600 yards in field conditions. Best of all, it does it at a very affordable price. Optics are one of the few areas of the gun space where we’ve seen steady, consistent improvements in the past couple of decades, to the point where if you showed someone from the mid aughties what they could have for their (Biden-flation adjusted) money, they’d shake their head in disbelief. LPVOs are prevalent on generalpurpose carbines, and for lots of good reasons — there’s a model for every budget, and with 10x magnification now available on Chinese-made…

France has a long history of producing excellent firearms. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, French muskets were renowned for their overall quality and accuracy compared to their foreign counterparts, especially those of Prussia and Russia. Later in the Industrial Revolution with scientific and engineering advances occurring almost daily, France gave the world smokeless powder and effective repeating arms and early machineguns. In addition, French arms have always had a certain attractiveness of design. If you can stare at a gun for hours like the pieces of art that many indeed are, you’ll notice many trends and concepts reflective of the age in which they were produced. Sometimes, you’ll see the crossover between film, literature, and art in a design. For instance, the MP43/44 series with its many appurtenant…

This issue, we’re continuing our theme of featuring NFA items, with a look at Mossberg’s 990 Aftershock that we converted to a legal shortbarreled shotgun. Dave Merrill goes behind the scenes at a startup suppressor company, and Steven Kuo casts a beady eye over the 3D printing process that’s becoming a staple when it comes to producing high-end cans, such as the B&T Print-XH Hybrid shown in our bolt gun build. If and when President Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill makes its way through Congress, we expect to see a significant uptick in suppressor sales, assuming its provisions to remove suppressors from the National Firearms Act survive the legislative process. If they do, cans will be treated like ordinary firearms, transferable on a 4473 at your local dealer, rather than the…

Who could possibly need an armored car? How pretentious, right? Not so fast. Let’s rewind the clock to 1989 in Bad Homburg, Germany. As chairman of Deutsche Bank, Alfred Herrhausen unfortunately attracted the attention of people who wanted to make an example of prominent capitalists. Because threats on his life were already known, he traveled in an armored Mercedes. An explosive placed in the basket of a bicycle left on the side of a road was detonated as his car passed by. It’s largely believed Red Army Faction was responsible for the assassination. That, however, is just one example. Vehicular attacks are nothing new. Dapper Dan Hogan met his demise via a bomb planted in his Graham-Paige back in the Depression era. And by now you’ve probably seen the viral…

The day is already hot, but up in the sky it’s all fast, fresh air. The rotors of the Robinson R44 helicopter ensure everything is air-cooled at any temperature. From the sky, the land is transformed. The straight horizontal lines and color stripes of a West Texas ranch break into micro terrains of sage, scrub, ponds, and arroyos. Like a magic trick, even the mundane muted greens and browns are revealed to be kaleidoscopes of color. “Big sounder right here,” the pilot’s voice cackles in the ear. Her name is Yvonne Abercrombie, and she’s a deft hand in the sky. She was practically raised flying helicopters, cutting her teeth tranquilizing, netting, and transporting exotic animals by air for wealthy clientele. High fence hunting in the Lone Star State is popular…

It was CANCON Arizona 2025 when Jaguar Silencers first caught our eye. In a world of silencers that look like a waterpipes hanging off pistols, here was one that, well, looked almost like a big vape or something. Silencers are typically shaped like tubes, because the bodies have traditionally been constructed from them. Manufacturers buy tubing or hollow round bar stock themselves, then the internal baffles that slow gases to quiet the gunshots are cut on a lathe and stuffed inside. Even when this process is done on an industrial scale by robots and everything is sealed together with lasers, it’s firmly 20th century technology. When some silencer manufacturers first began using 3D printing for manufacturing years ago, they essentially started by producing older legacy designs with these new machines.…

There’s a saying in the precision-shooting world that “a rifle will always outshoot the shooter,” meaning the equipment, innately, is its most accurate until a human operator is introduced into the equation. While this saying is truer for some rifles versus others, when it comes to rifles chambered in 22LR, one thing is for certain: The rifle will always out-shoot the ammunition. Even with 22LR ammunition labeled “match,” at upward of 40 cents a round, a five-shot group turns into a poker game of five-card draw. Deviations of upward of 100 fps transform a bughole into a bug plus a couple droppings. Still, with Ruger’s new 10/22 Carbon Fiber, over the course of hundreds of rounds — with zero malfunctions straight out of the box — we were determined to…

Glock has gotten so big, it isn’t “just Glock.” An entire cottage industry has spawned off of the brand. There are dozens of companies that make aftermarket custom parts and accessories, with new ones sprouting up all the time. At least a dozen companies manufacture custom Glocks for you to purchase, or you can send in yours, and armorers will work their custom “magic.” And then there’s the fast-growing segment of PCCs—Pistol Caliber Carbines—many of which are based off of Glock magazines. Some even incorporate your Glock pistol into the carbine. One trend that has become main-stream (and thus is not by definition a trend anymore) is non-Glock Glocks. Several companies that have been making Glock slides, barrels, and other parts used with the Glock frame have now started making…

01 ICON DEFENSE INTEGRAL GAS KEY BOLT CARRIER GROUP MSRP: $335 URL: icondefense.com The bolt carrier group is the heart of an AR-15, cycling with every shot as it routes gases, grabs and extracts rounds, and ignites primers. Icon Defense left no stone unturned when creating their Integral Gas Key BCG, especially designed to optimize performance with 300BLK and subsonic ammunition. The carrier is an AISI 8620 forging and the bolt made of AISI 9310; it’s MPI-tested and finished with a proprietary coating. There’s exhaustive internet lore about gas keys and the importance of staking — Icon eliminates this concern by machining an integral gas key. Furthermore, Icon enlarged the gas chamber, extended the bolt stroke, and refined the cam track, in order to enhance performance, operation, and reliability. Icon…

Automatic or switchblade knives refer to a class of knives as wrongly maligned as so-called assault weapons or dangerous dog breeds. They terrify the low-information types and have been banned or restricted to various degrees based on uninformed fear mongering. People in the know about these knives, however, find them useful (and downright fun). Surprising to many is the fact that these knives are legal in 46 states, although some of the nanny states in that mix impose restrictions on blade length, carry, or transfer. Originally, automatic knives were designed for housewives, so they could conveniently open the knife by the click of a button as opposed to breaking a fingernail on the ironically named “nail nick” common to many pocketknives in the early 20th century. The convenience and utility…

During the Cold War, everything the Soviets had was cool and mysterious. SU-47s, A91s, and even the common AKS-74u all held an allure that’s hard for modern shooters to comprehend. For younger shooters, Russian arms and equipment are old news, while Chinese stuff is effectively a complete unknown. That’s why I jumped at the opportunity a few years ago to get some trigger time behind a very rare variant of the PLA’s standard assault rifle — the QBZ-95. QBZ HERITAGE For the uninitiated, the QBZ-95 is a select-fire, short-stroke, pistondriven assault rifle chambered in 5.8x42mm. With its combination of odd angles and bullpup configuration, it resembles something from an ’80s sci-fi movie. But under the hood, like most modern assault rifles, it’s simply an AR-18 variant. While plenty of people…

EDITOR ’S NOTE In this column, we look back at iconic guns that have either stood the test of time or vanished without trace. Eleven years ago, we took notice of a new shotgun from Beretta, which had yet to make a mark on the U.S. gunbuying public. As is our style, rather than just accept what came out of the box, we wanted to see how it could be adapted to fill its intended role. So, we gave it to a seasoned 3-gunner to take it to the first major match of the season —because if something is going to fail, it’s going to do it on the clock with bragging rights on the line. Since its launch, the Beretta 1301 has become the darling of the lineup, displacing…

Now that the 6.5 Creedmoor has supplanted the venerable 308 in terms of sales, particularly with regards to new rifles, there’s been an uptick in interest in other calibers based on the parent design. Once it’s necked down, the otherwise mild-mannered Creed takes on a bit of a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality, changing from a ho-hum, jorts-and-New-Balance, reliable-butdull persona, into a fire-breathing nutter. Optimized for heavier bullet weights, the 22 Creedmoor had some teething problems due to operating at the outer limits of current bullet designs. Tales of 90-grain projectiles coming apart as they were spun at eye-watering rates were pretty common. Today, barrel manufacturers have switched to a slightly larger bore diameter, so as not to stress the bullet quite as badly, and as a result they can be counted on…

A self-proclaimed Southern boy with a Conservative Baptist upbringing, Clay Tippins had a set of sick lungs that would pile up school absences and nearly cause him to repeat the first grade. That was until his doctor said, “Put him in a pool.” Likely a case of undiagnosed ADD, instead of Adderall Tippins found relief through application — in the pool, staring at a black line upward of four hours a day until the sport itself got him into Stanford University. What followed were years as an elite operator in the United States Naval Special Warfare Command, a career in Silicon Valley, a run at Georgia governor, and going into business for himself as both a consulting firm and gun company owner, helping develop a modular rifle meant to disrupt the…