Gear Reviews

The tactical flashlight market is fiercely competitive, and although I haven’t inquired as to why the Xiphos NT Night-Ops is no longer listed on its website, I do know Blackhawk has a policy of producing the very best, or the SKU goes away. I surmise with the huge number of companies now offering chip-driven tactical flashlights, this may have been a strategic withdrawal.

In the midst of the gun grabber legislative chaos, ATI Gunstocks had some pretty neat stuff for this year’s SHOT Show 2103. Their big new product is set to ship in April and they are taking pre-orders now. It is a complete replacement stock system for the Benelli M4 called the Raven. Like all ATI stocks, it is modular and you can buy one piece or the whole system. All ATI stocks are what is known as “992R” compliant as well. On foreign made high capacity weapons, you must have at least 5 parts that are made in the USA if you want to use a pistol grip, and they have to be one of a core list of parts on the gun. For the Benelli, there are 14 parts, and ATI makes the five that you need for compliance. The kit retails for $374 on their website (again, currently in pre-order). The extra part you see here in the pictures is that front rail system, which they call the “magazine tube shroud,” and that isn’t available yet on the website.

Scope alignment is something that most of us take for granted. If you don’t plan to shoot a rifle at more than 100 yards or so, it’s not such a big deal, but at long distances it can make a big difference to make sure that your scope reticle is perfectly aligned with gravity. Gravity pulls straight down for the most part (Coriolis effect is far outside our purview of this article), and your drop calculations are only going to work straight down from the bore axis if your scope reticle is perfectly straight up and down and perpendicular to your bore axis. At 300 plus yards, if your reticle isn’t perfectly aligned, your shots are going to hook somewhat, like a golfball, from where you think they are going to go. That is the purpose of this “Professional Reticle Leveling System” from Wheeler Engineering. It gives you two levels that reference each other to your bore axis and gravity, so you can make sure that your scope is aligned to the exact same shooting plane as your bore. If you have invested a lot into an extremely precision made and accurate rifle, this MSRP $54.99 kit is a cheap insurance policy to make sure that your scope is lined up properly for long range and extreme long range shooting.

Case trimming isn’t as complicated as most people make it out to be. The problem is that simple, beginner trimmers are difficult to use, and they give trimming a bad name. If you reload necked rifle cases or plan to reload necked rifle cases, the Hornady Lock-N-Load Case Prep Center, MSRP $531, street price considerably less, makes trimming your cases a lot easier. The Case Prep Center addresses all of the issues that you find when trying to produce ammo in bulk while using a bench mounted, hand crank trimmer. It also includes everything you really need for case prep all in one motorized package, in addition to the actual trimmer. If you aren’t yet a handloader/reloader, check out our introduction to handloading by Scott Meyer. It explains the basics of handloading/reloading, including the dynamics of why you have to trim your cases. If you load only straight wall pistol cases you don’t have to worry about trimming, but if you load, or plan to load, necked rifle cases, trimming is almost always required at some point.

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.