Gear Reviews

If you have ever tried to film your hunts, it can really give you fits. The cameras never behave, and you can’t ever get the right angle. You can of course try to take along another person, but they generally want to get paid. And even if you have an extra pair of hands, there is no guarantee that the camera guy is going to be at the right angle when the game shows up. The answer is a weapon mounted camera, and our friends at Daniel Defense sent us a new camera called a Contour that is meant to be just that. We have tried Flip cams, hand cams, and even full sized HD tape cams, to the tune of over ten thousand bucks, but nothing has worked as well as these little cameras from Contour. We got two of the Contour ROAM cameras, and we have only begun to figure out all the cool stuff you can do with them. Check out the videos here in the article to see some of our exploits so far. We have shot a few hogs and a couple gators so far with the Contour, and one of the gators was even with a muzzleloader. Contour has a dedicated weapon mount that mounts right to your Picatinny rail, and we have also had great success with rubber bands around the cameras on a regular old Remington 870 slug gun. These are extremely versatile and waterproof cameras that should bring a whole new generation of hunting and shooting videos to Youtube and Facebook. If you are making your list for Santa already this year, make sure you have got a Contour camera on there.

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.

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.

AR-15s are everywhere. With a couple mods, we even have them in the civilian market in California. There are all kinds of things I can do with this 50-year old platform, from different barrels, mounts, or stocks I can find with the click of a mouse. I can make it look like a Christmas tree with all the gizmos and gadgets I’ve found. But really, the trick is to pick the things you really need on your AR. For me the most import thing is an optic. I can make do with iron sights fine, but as I get older, an optic makes it much easier to actually see my sight picture and hit my target. My problem is that scopes are just plain pricey these days. If you want a name brand, many of which are battle tested by our military, you’re looking at the $600+ range new, which is almost like buying another rifle. Going into SHOT Show this year, I was curious about the optics that are under $200, and that seem to be reliable for the AR-15 platform.

Blowing the shot can be caused by a lot of things. You may not have zeroed your rifle properly. You may not have been able to get a steady rest in time, or more often than not, you may have figured out the wrong holdover. Even the best shooter, given the pressure of a shot that needs to be shot right now, can blow a big shot, without even having to do quick math and calculate a holdover. Anyone can blow a shot, all factors considered, so any advantage you can pick up from your gear, the better.

We have covered several “rangefinding” scopes in the past. Some require math and some don’t, but by far the most advanced range estimating scope out there is the Burris Eliminator Laserscope. It has a built in rangefinder, and after you set it up for the ballistics of your rifle and cartridge, it gives you a .33 MOA dot for exact holdover. Sounds too good to be true right? At a pricetag of $949 MSRP, this is not an inexpensive toy mind you, but it does work. We got a chance to put the Burris Eliminator through its paces, and it works pretty good actually

Carlos Hathcock is probably the most famous sniper of all time. He had 93 confirmed kills in Vietnam, and until recently held the world record for a sniper shot at over 2500 yards, using a Browning M2 .50 cal. machinegun. During his entire career as a sniper, Carlos Hathcock used a U. S. Marines version of a Unertl precision riflescope. This was standard issue on his Winchester Model 70 sniper rifle, and he even used the same scope on the .50 cal. for his record shot. It is an odd scope by today’s standards. There are no internal adjustments to zero these old style Unertls. The scopes adjusts with turrets integral to the rear scope mount, and the tube of the scope floats inside adjustment pins. To buy an original of this USMC scope today would cost you thousands, but Hi-Lux/Leatherwood this past year released an exact replica, called the 8X Malcolm USMC, and the scope really great, but hard to mount. It has an MSRP of $549 and the internet and street price is slightly below that. Hi-Lux sent us one, with the mounting hardware, and we were able to have it mounted for a full range test. Our friends at the American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) agreed to help us and you by making an instruction video on the difficult mounting process, included here, in the style of their monthly magazine and DVD subscription called GunTech that is available to their Gun Club of America gunsmith student members. If you have any interest in mounting this scope, the video will save you or your gunsmith a lot of headaches.

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.