GunsAmerica Blog Product Reviews – Accessories and Gun Related items

When you think of Hornady, the first thing that comes to mind is cutting-edge ammunition and reloading supplies. What you don’t think of is gun safes. However, Hornady’s newest product happens to be just that, although not any run-of-the-mill gun safe. Hornady has developed a single firearm safe for a dresser drawer, table, truck or wherever you want to secure your gun but get to it in a hurry. There are a lot of similar safes out there with one big distinction: You don’t have to touch this safe to open it. Using RFID, or radio frequency identification technology, Hornady has brought to market a safe that opens instantly as you’re reaching for your gun. Rapid Safe, as they call it, uses three forms of RFID devices to open the safe.

Crossbreed specializes in concealment, whether it’s on your person, in your car, or on a bicycle. The company is best known for its line of in-the-waistband holsters and for a modular system that utilizes the versatility of Velcro to attach holsters to duty belts, RAM mounts, flat surfaces, even handlebars. The newest product, however, is targeted to the special needs of women. The most common types of holsters simply don’t work well for women. However, just about every woman carries a pocketbook, which would be a good place to conceal a firearm. The problem is that if you drop a gun into a purse, it sinks to the bottom, making it difficult to draw quickly and consistently. Crossbreed has addressed that with yet another variation of their modular holster system. It consists of an L-shaped Velcro-lined panel to which the holster attaches. You can place your gun in whatever position you want for a quick, controlled presentation. Take look at it in action in the accompanying video.

Range Systems, like the name says, specializes in shooting-range systems like shoot houses for room clearing/hostage rescue types of training, as well as live fire ranges for civilian and military customers. The company’s latest product is a series of targets designed for the night vision crowd. The amazing thing about the targets is that they radiate in the infrared range of the spectrum where night vision and thermal imaging devices see, and they do it without any external power supplies. The targets reflect radiation from the night sky to make the targets more visible than heated targets. They’re also easier to set up and more resilient to damage than heated targets. Range Systems has targets for personnel, animals and even vehicles, catering to the law enforcement/personal defense folks as well as hunters and the military.

Hodgdon Powder, a leader in the reloading market, is a family-owned business in Kansas. It’s been at the forefront of producing top quality products for the reloader for the past 67 years. Innovation is part of the company philosophy, which brings us to their newest powder, CFE Pistol. CFE Pistol is an offshoot of CFE 223, introduced last year for rifle cartridges. They are both spherical powders, which means easier metering, especially when using a progressive press. The powder contains an additive Hodgdon calls “Copper Fouling Eraser” that does just what it says, reduces copper fouling.

Fiocchi was just as frustrated as the rest of us when it came to the company’s inability to keep up with the rising demand for ammunition last year. The bad news is that 2014 is expected to play out much the same. Maybe by the end of the year the increased production investment from Fiocchi and the other major ammunition manufacturers will catch up with demand. In the meantime, Fiocchi did have some good news to report. It is a new line of ammo called “Canned Heat” in reference to the nifty sealed cans, complete with desiccant, that the ammo comes in. These cans have a plastic top a la Tupperware, or clamp-on lids that you can use to reseal them. It’s not only more convenient than cardboard boxes, but also keeps your ammo clean and dry.

I stopped at Medford Knife and Tool (MKT) at the end of SHOT Show, when many exhibitors were already tearing down their booths. The Medford booth, however, was surrounded by fit young men with short haircuts, talking about and ordering knives. There are two things I have to say about Medford knives: (1) they’re expensive – in the $400 to $1,200 range, and (2) they’re worth it! How can a knife be worth that much? That’s what I asked the owner and designer, Greg Medford. Greg is a prior US Marine, airshow pilot, airplane builder and master level Martial Arts and CQB instructor. Medford Knife is the culmination of all this experience.

Otis’s Ripcord has been out for a few months. If you’ve pulled one of these things through a gun barrel, then I may be preaching to the choir. They’re fantastic. The Ripcord does in one pass what a lot of brushes and mops together only wish they could do. The fit is tight. The pull itself takes a bit of muscle. But the results are really astounding.

After four days drooling over the smorgasbord of guns at SHOT Show, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to look at some bigger gun safes! I found just what the doctor ordered at the Liberty Safe booth. I’m telling you, if it has to do with shooting, chances are it’s here. Wish you could walk around the show with us to take it all in, and that’s why we do these videos – to share as much as we can with you. For the sake of full disclosure, you should know that I already have a smaller Liberty safe at home. It probably makes me biased, but at least it’s based on years of personal experience. Liberty makes great safes at a fair price, and the customer service is excellent. The safe we videoed is the Liberty Fatboy 64, the number one selling safe in America. In addition to the great paint job, this safe is set up to hold 64 guns. The tops of the middle shelves can be lifted to store more long guns or left in place to store handguns, valuables, important documents and so forth. You won’t have to worry about thieves walking out the door with it either. It weighs 915 pounds. Liberty has an optional Safe Alert security device which monitors your safe when you’re away. It will send an alert directly to you if anyone tampers with it. And get this – the monitoring service is free! Liberty sells 25,000 Fatboys a year because it’s not only a great safe, it’s a great value. Check it out.

Steel targets are usually not all that exciting. You lug them to the range, set them up and make them ring, but that is about it. Enter Action Targets. They have a number of targets that bring more action to your range time. From their flip-around Dueling Tree to the Rimfire Spinning Jack, Action Targets provide for more interactive reactive targets. But they have upped the game with what might be the coolest Action Target to date.