GunsAmerica Blog Product Reviews – Accessories and Gun Related items

This is an official heads up from us and SureFire to all the readers of GunsAmerica Magazine & Blog. We had planned to get this review out next Monday but because of the impending election tomorrow, it is prudent that it goes out today. No matter who you are voting for and who is elected, there may be a run on high capacity magazines. There are plenty of 30 round AR-15 magazines around, but if you have been considering one of the new 60 round SureFire mags, they will most likely dry up pretty quick if there is a nationwide run on them. There is no magazine like the SureFire for the AR-15, and it comes in both 60 and 100 round varieties, but the 100 round has been sold out and backordered for months. As of today there are plenty of 60 round mags available, and though they are pricey, $129 each, compared to a 100 round Beta-C mag they are competitively affordable. After the nightmare of Hurricane Sandy, which is still going on in New York and New Jersey, every American should understand that they are not exempt from disaster and having to defend life and property. Sixty rounds of .223/5.56 with no mag change is a heck of a defense. If you can afford one and have been putting it off, now would be a good time to order the 60 round SureFire mag.

Building a high end sniper rifle requires a whole list of choices, and few of those choices are inexpensive. Off the rack, there are a good number of sub-MOA rifles out there these days, but seldom do they come with a stock that can be customized with tactical accessories. We found this “G5 TMAG” aluminum rifle chassis that is made by McRees Precision at US Tactical Supply, who you may remember was the source for the M1A chassis called the “Juggernaut Rogue.” This chassis is for bolt guns and it offers, out of the box, with no gunsmith required, an improvement in baseline accuracy as well as a customizable sniper platform for either tactical work or long range competition. The price at US Tactical is $551-$883, depending on your configuration, and it takes a NATO spec , Badger Ordnance manufactured magazine that cost an additional $89. Our test stock is for a long action Remington 700 in .300 Win. Mag. that we ordered special for this project. The McRees chassis mounted in about two minutes and delivered MOA accuracy. Our model is a folder, and it is solid as a rock, and though the McRees will be a little heavy for some tastes, it is top notch performer at this price, Made in the USA.

You may never have even heard of the biggest innovation in terminal ballistics since the hollow point. It has been around for more than five years, and the bullets are made from compressed powder, wrapped in a standard copper jacket. Loaded ammunition is available in most common rifle calibers, as well as the usual handgun suspects and even some exotic hunting calibers. The bullets alone are also available in bulk for the handloader. The company is called DRT, or Dynamic Research Technologies. If you hit a living being with a DRT bullet, it will become our definition of DRT, “(D)ead (R)ight (T)here.”

Sometimes a silly idea turns into something really useful. You probably remember back at SHOT Show we ran across “bleeding zombie targets” at Media Day at the Range. Even back then the company making them knew that the zombie craze would eventually die out, but that they had stumbled onto something significant in the area of firearms training. Their marketing and product development company, Maddox Defense, has from the start envisioned these nifty targets, made by ZMB Industries, as a three dimensional training tool.

Sans the blood and zombie graphics these genuinely three dimensional training targets give you a unique perspective at the training range, and show you just how hard it can be to get the shot when the shot is what is required. This example you see here is the basic “Jacob” model. It is currently being used currently by the Navy SEALS and the US Border Patrol. The basic foam core torso with 4 extra skins carries an MSRP of $249.95, and the legs unit is $99.95. They aren’t cheap, but they are completely unique as a training tool, and when you compare them to the cost of finding something else 3D, that gives you this unique perspective, the price isn’t that high for five targets.

We don’t usually have a lot of negative reviews here at GunsAmerica Magazine. There is no point in them generally. The old adage “any publicity is good publicity” rings true
for gun products like anything else, so if we get a product in that stinks, we usually just decline to review it. The exception is when a product is something you will stumble on most likely,
and it is really bad. This is just a heads up about the swinging targets currently in the gun isle at the Wal-Marts that sell guns and have a big gun section.
We bought the targets you see here in Okeechobee, Florida Wal-Mart, but none of the south Florida stores even have them.

You can only buy so many guns (well, not really), so lately we’ve been looking into things that make the guns you already own more effective, and also look much cooler. I ran into this rail system from Black Aces Tactical while researching another article, and I have to say, the Black Aces Tactical shotgun rail is the best in its class that I have found for this application. If you own a tactical shotgun and have always wanted to have the ability to install lights, lasers, red dots, real sights, whatever, at a mere 16 ounces and currently on sale for $179, the Black Aces shotgun rail system is something you should look into. It is available for the Remington 870/1100, Mossberg 500/590, Benelli M1/2/4, and even the Saiga.

I have been at war with pocket holsters since my first concealed carry permit back in New Hampshire in the 80s. Back then the only pocket holsters were leather pouches. They were simple and kept the gun upright in your pocket at first, but eventually even the best of them would slump and buckle, providing little benefit to carrying the gun alone in your pocket. For many years I even carried an AMT Backup 45 with no holster at all in my front pocket, because there was no holster that fit it well and gave me access to the gun. Now, almost 30 years later, due in part to the explosion of micro-pistols in .380, 9mm, and now .45ACP, there are a lot more options to carry a gun in your pocket. Many of them are made from new materials, and a lot more thinking went into making them than back in the day. The pocket holster of today has arrived.

If you can handle the FAL, and it is heavy and awkward, the history of the gun has shown it to be a reliable and formidable battle rifle. Tricking it out with accessory rails is extremely easy and affordable. UTG (Leapers) seems to be the only company actually making a quad rail for the FAL. It isn’t expensive, MSRP $79.95, and, except for its own 6 bolts, the whole system installs with one screw. This is the same screw that holds on the regular hand guards. The rear Picatinny top rail shown here in the pictures, MSRP $69.95, slides into the slots for the bolt cover. Both parts are what is now called “fourth generation” from Leapers. The concept of tricking out a traditional battle rifle with rails and accessories isn’t new. The rear slide in scope mount rail for the FAL has been available for many years. The quad-rail is fairly new, though it did have its predecessors, but none of the old FAL stuff was all that stable. It worked, and as an initial idea, that was good enough, but in today’s mature accessory market consumers want failsafe reliable platforms that hold zero, and that is what these were made to do.

Half price bullets for an AR-15 is a dream come true for many shooters. But is cheaper inferior? That is exactly our question as we take a look at the half priced bulk purchase .223 “Varmint Nightmare” bullets from Midsouth Shooters Supply. In the interest of full disclosure, Midsouth is an advertiser here on GunsAmerica, but most of the gun industry advertises here over the course of the year, and we try to be objective as possible when it comes to products that our people plan to go out and buy. If these bullets weren’t every bit as good as bullets twice their cost, we simply wouldn’t have written about them.