Accessories

I had a conversation with several other gun writers yesterday about carrying a gun on your belt. The consensus was that if I am going to belt carry a pistol, it ain’t gonna be no pocket 380. My experience over the years is that belt carry is seldom practical unless you want your whole life to revolve around carrying your gun. For that reason, I pocket carry, and as a fairly big guy, I can easily get away with the Springfield XD-S .45 in my pocket. Once before in these pages I shared my “secret” $25 source for pocket holsters, and I will do so again, but this time I want to share some of the other products from this ingenious company. If you carry in a purse, pocket or other “pouch” type of concealment, or if you want to hang a Kel-Tec P32 from your neck, you should check them out. I call these deep concealment holsters.

When it comes to shooting gadgets it is very seldom that I want to jump up and down on my roof and yell “look at this look at this look at this!” But this is the way I feel about the Leatherwood M-1000 scope. I almost wish it was a $2,000 thing, because people would take it more seriously, but though it is based on technology going all the way back to 1970, and the MSRP is $459, with a generalstreet price under $400, it is one of the most excitingly nerdy thingamajigs I have ever encountered in the shooting world. It may be a little ugly compared to the more elegant scopes of today, but this largish awkward looking scope can give you the ability to “frame, aim and shoot, ” point of aim, point of impact between 100 and 1000 meters without ever having to lift your eye from the eyepiece. And you can change from one load to the next, or even one rifle to the next with two minor adjustments. Does that totally rock or does that totally rock?

Parallax Tactical is gaining momentum with the black rifle crowd. I found them the old fashioned way, by discovering I needed something, and then searching out the solution. Regular readers may have heard me bitch about my simian build. I’m tall. Not freakishly so, but 6’4″. Those of you who can sympathize will know what a pain in the ass it can be. I don’t fit in foreign cars. Flying is a grotesque comedy, and carbine length AR-15s too often feel like toys. I have long monkey arms, and need a long length of pull. While Parallax hasn’t solved the LOP issue, they do make a great forend that is changing the way I think about the AR.

Hand guards are typically the first thing I want to swap out on a stock AR. How a gun feels in my hands makes a serious first impression, even before I’ve pulled the trigger. A*B Arms, a veteran owned company who manufactures here in the states, has made a deceptively simple hand guard that improves the ergonomics and heat dispersion of the carbine length rifle.

Don’t stand beside someone shooting an AR. It is loud. Even with ear protection. And if you’re the one shooting, watch where you put that support hand. Don’t reach too far forward. Or, better yet, pick up a Kineti-Tech muzzle brake and sound redirecting sleeve. This combo solves both problems. And it is an easy DIY.

The TG-H3 looks a bit out of place on this beastly shotgun. If I were more vain, it wouldn’t be my first choice for a lever action anything. But I wasn’t concerned about the look. The Truglo TG-H3 is a bad-ass sight. It is long, and wide. It installs on a 12 gauge barrel fairly easily, and it combines Tritium and fiber optic technologies for one radiant sight.

I just checked on-line. A Savage Model 111 Long Range Hunter Rifle chambered in .300 Win Mag with a 26″ Barrel and equipped with an AccuTrigger, an AccuStock, and an adjustable comb, sells for $863. A Lucid L5 6x-24 50MM Rifle Scope can be found for $327. Yours Truly is no super sniper, military or law enforcement high-speed, low-drag, kind of guy, but I can consistently hit targets out to one mile with this set-up. This means you can too! And if you are a really disciplined shooter, your results should be phenomenal.

If you shoot a lot most likely you buy your .223/5.56 ammo in bulk, as military surplus or overruns. Often this ammo comes on stripper clips, and in the metal box with the ammo is usually a couple magazine guides for those stripper clips. Theoretically you can slip the guide onto your magazine and simply slip the clip of ammunition into the top, then slide them in.

The Nikon P223 4-12×40 is a purpose built scope meant to handle the specific needs of long range AR shooter. The scope is designed around 55 grain, polymer tipped, .223 bullets. It is the longest of the Nikon AR scopes, and sets up some ambitious goals for the modern sporting rifle platform. But the price is right.