The Tac-Con trigger is way more than it appears. Yes, it allows you to blow through magazines full of 5.56. It doesn’t make your AR full-auto, but no one from the liberal media would be able to tell the difference. Once you’ve worked through a couple of thousand rounds and gotten the sheer joy of playing with the trigger out of your system, you’ll begin to see the 3MR’s real potential. It may be the most versatile AR trigger that exists.

When Tac-Con invited a passel of gun writers out to Phoenix to shoot the 3MR, I was dubious. I thought it was an attempt to control the message. I thought we’d get to shoot some and get a factory tour, but I assumed that everything would be closely monitored. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. They brought us in, fed us well, and turned us loose on the Ben Avery Gun Range with a truck full of ARs and 15,000 rounds of 5.56.

The appeal of the AR-15 is rooted in the rifle’s reliable performance. The timeless rifles are so dependable that many of us simply take that for granted. Instead, our focuses shift to how we can make that dependability fit each of us, exactly. Perfectly. Yet finding that balance of form and function can elevate the AR-15 to a work of art. If you’re thinking about customizing an AR, I’d suggest you take a look at ODIN Works.

Organization is not my strong suit. Every time I leave for the range, I pack up random bags and backpacks. I do my best to remember what I’m putting where, but it is futile. Thankfully, there are companies like Seahorse that have my best interests in mind. Seahorse makes its cases here in America; they’re built to withstand any punishment you can dish out, and the cases cost less than most range bags.

The CZ 527 Varmint is a tack-driving .17 Hornet that’s perfect rifle for eliminating some of the more pernicious biodiversity here on the farm.  One of the neat features of this gun it has a novel CZ single set trigger. You can shoot it as a fairly normal hunting trigger, or you can click it forward to break at about one pound. With a flat shooting cartridge like the 17 Hornet and ridiculous “call your shots” CZ accuracy, this can make a huge difference in stretching the capabilities of the gun out to its ballistic max, and to the top of your own game in precise shooting. Our test gun came in a Turkish Walnut stock and is absolutely gorgeous. The 527 is an heirloom quality gun at an an expected fairly pricey $725 MSRP, and this varmint version is available in .204 Ruger, .223 Remington, this .17 Hornet, and they plan to also make some .17 Remingtons this year. I’ve been having some issues with skunks lately.  But now that I have a rifle that can send a 20 grain bullet downrange at more than 3,500 fps, it is a bad time to be a skunk in this neck of the woods.

What happens when you shrink a 1911 down to 85% of its original size and optimize the new gun to fire .22LR? What once was a serious fighting tool becomes a stellar fun-gun. Not to take anything away from Browning’s new rimfire series. These are capable, accurate pistols. Yet there’s something novel about shooting a small 1911. It makes me smile. So how did they manage to produce such a spot-on homage, and how does the 1911-22 line stack up with the rest of the rimfires?

Signature models rifle don’t come along a lot in the gun industry, and it is a little strange that Rock River Arms would put famous bow hunter Fred Eichler’s name on one of their highly regarded LAR-15 guns. An AR-15 is an AR-15 right? Wrong! Fred of course does also hunt with modern sporting rifles, and specifically this one built to his specifications. The point of this Eichler gun is hunting, and primarily hunting varmints, or pest animals, as evidenced by the coyote prints on the special Fred Eichler floating handguard. Is it cute? Well, is it possible for an AR-15 that shoots under .75 MOA at 100 yards to be cute? Then yea, it’s cute. But after hog hunting this gun for a day, shooting it at the range with a group of friends, and driving tacks with it, this bad boy is a predator killing machine, a gun that is so reliable, dependable, accurate and intuitive to shoot that a missed shot is obviously user error.  The Fred Eichler Series LAR-15 is a gun that dominates the nightmares of coyotes, hogs, and prairie dogs. If you think the puppy prints are silly, move on. RR makes the same gun, with the .223 Wylde chamber, meant for both .223 and .556, without the extra Fred stuff. But if you think the gun is cool, pull the trigger.  I haven’t met anyone who has fired the Eichler who isn’t impressed.  And at a direct Rock River and store price of $1500, it is an impressive specialty hunting rifle that isn’t going to break the bank.

A couple of years ago, I decided I needed something larger than my bedside fast-access handgun safe. I inherited a couple of worthless pistols from my father’s estate, and I loved them more than anything else I owned. My bedside safe offered no real fire protection. Its size and relatively light weight made my little safe a convenient way for a crook to carry my valuables out of the house. So I went in to see my FFL. The refrigerator-sized safes that lined the floor of the shop were visually impressive. Yet the visual impressiveness was short lived. When I knocked on their sides, they rang like old tin garbage cans. They were bigger, but not much better than what I already had. I needed a real safe. So what actually makes a safe worth buying? Let’s take a look inside a Liberty.

“What is the best gun for hunting hogs?” I asked this question to everyone I knew for more than a month before my hunt. I Googled it at least 20 times. Everyone seems to have a different opinion. Some prefer the compact design and rapid-fire potential of the AR-15. Others leaned toward the power and range of the .30-06 and .308s. Those who’ve hunted with a good 6.8 spc were passionate about the caliber’s performance. No one mentioned 7.62×39, much less the venerable AK platform’s design. As one who prefers the Kalashnikov over the Stoner, I knew what I was going to take. And now, after the hunt, I’d put my Arsenal AK up against the biggest tooth hogs south Florida has to offer.

The Arsenal AK line in 7.62×39, with the right soft point ammo, can be an effective rifle for hunting. The Arsenal AK line in 7.62×39, with the right soft point ammo, can be an effective rifle for hunting.
When I was presented with the opportunity to hunt hogs with Dwayne “Hog Man” Powell and Kissimmee River Hunt and Fish, a guide service out of Okeechobee, Florida, I decided I’d set up some real-world reviews, too. We were going to hunt, and I knew Dwayne was going to put us on hogs. Dwayne is the Jim Cramer of hunting guides. If you can catch it or hunt it in Florida, Dwayne Powell will show you how. For those of us looking to test guns, Hog Man gives a veritable guarantee.

I had a variety of guns at my disposal. I could have taken any number of AR-15s into the bush. I had a .30-06, a couple of 6.8s. There were five of us hunting, so we each went out with something slightly different.