For Rifles

If you have already attempted to buy “high capacity” magazines at a gun show, you already know that all magazines are not created alike. If you haven’t, let us save you the trouble. If you don’t see big, reputable, American companies selling magazines other than standard capacity, for example, 7 rounds in a 1911, 30 rounds in an AR-15, or 20 rounds in an M1A, FAL or AR-10, STAY AWAY. Standard capacity mags are standard capacity for a reason. It is difficult to get more bullets of that caliber to reliably function in a magazine meant for that weapon. It isn’t like anyone ever said, “eh, I think 30 rounds is enough for an AR-15. It was simply the closest round number to get the mags to work as expected, and in the case of the AR-15, even those mags didn’t originally work so good.

In the aftermarket high capacity magazine market there are very few companies that have gotten it right, and that are sold by mainstream firearm retailers next to the guns themselves. X-Products, according to the website was “Formed by four gun loving Hillbilly’s with college educations.” They make a 50 round drum magazine in the USA for not only the AR-15, but also nearly every major battle rifle in the Western world. For the AR-15 you may say big deal. The 60 round Surefire mag is Made in USA, as is the original double drum 100 round Beta C-Mag, but the X-Products mag is an entirely different animal, and if you happen to own an M1A, FAL, HK91/CETME, or an Armalite AR-10, or other .308 AR-15, you have probably never used an actual working magazine that held more than 20 rounds. We were able to test both the AR-15 and M1A versions of the X-Products mags and they work great. There is nothing like them in the market. At $239-$280, the X-Products mags aren’t cheap, but as a one time investment, you couldn’t ask for a better mag to take into battle.

“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” is the way the majority of shooters treat their guns. But there are those of us who like to trick certain guns out because they fit a specific purpose better with cool stuff on them. The Springfield Armory M1A is one of those guns that can go either way. The M1A was designed as a military rifle, known as the M-14, so out of the box, in both its short and long versions, it’s good to go for close quarters combat, and the peep sights built in are good enough to shoot at a man sized target out to 600 yards. But tricked out, the M1A is even better, and the military even uses it today in a modern chassis system that can take rails and optics. The problem with consumer M1A chassis, like the bullpup Juggernaut Rogue that we reviewed last year, is that they are both expensive and heavy. Unless you have money to burn and the muscles of a special forces dude, most M1A chassis just aren’t worth the trouble, until maybe now. Pro-Mag makes a copy of a very expensive professional chassis that they call the Archangel. We found that it installs fairly easy, ads some genuine versatility to the gun, and probably improves the accuracy quite a bit. It retails for under $250, and besides being reasonably priced, isn’t a behemoth. At only 10 pounds for the complete finished rifle, the Archangel isn’t significantly heavier than even the fairly svelte M1A SOCOM I stock. If you have an M1A that you want to make that much better, this is an official heads up that the Archangel seems like a great buy.

All other things being equal, the AK-47 nearly always wins on price. Therefore most of us end up with at least one AK in our gun accumulation. The problem is, all things are not equal with the AK. They are known for reliability that exceeds ridiculous, but they are also known to be horribly inaccurate. If you follow our exploits here at GunsAmerica, you probably read our recent underwater, in the mud test of a high end AK from Century Arms called the PAP, but most of us out here have the inexpensive, garden variety Romanian AK-47 that generally retails for well under $500. These guns are the poster children for no matter what reliability, but they also are known as “spray and pray” guns, though the parameters of spray and pray would vary depending upon who you ask. We have tried to scope the AK-47 with one of many not ready for primetime scope mounting systems over the years, and they are always a disaster. But times have changed. You aren’t going to get anything like good accuracy out of an AK-4, but with the right mount and the right scope you can get accuracy good enough for just about any self defense situation, and even 3-Gun and other tactical rifle competitions, provided the targets aren’t too far away. For this article we review the highly rated rail/scope mounting system from Texas Weapons Systems, $139.99, and the Hi-Lux CMR scope with a new AK762 reticle, $436, which is special made for the ballistics of the 7.62×39 AK-47 cartridge. This combination delivered acceptable accuracy for an AK-47, and is a platform that is as hardcore as the AK-47 itself.

Finding the perfect tactical rifle isn’t so simple for some folks. We have to complicate matters, because we just don’t want what everyone else has. Trust me on this one guys and gals. Nobody you know has the Juggernaut Tactical Rogue M1A Bullpup stock from US Tactical Supply. It is an aluminum bullpup masterpiece that will not only add just over 2 pounds to your M1A/M14, it will also be kind enough to set you back a righteous $899. Who can resist that?

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.

It has been just over a year since we first posted an article about the bump stock from SlideFire Solutions called the SSAR-15. At the time, nobody knew if this cool new toy would still be legal a year later, but here we are. Not only is the SlideFire still legal, it has gone from an obscure product we had to stumble across to nearly a household word for those of us who think of gunshops as our second homes.