The only secret that I’ve ever found to shooting over the years has been consistent practice of the fundamentals. Just like most folks, though, I don’t have a range in my backyard, so not every day involves trigger time. This makes it important to maximize the usefulness of all the range time when it does happen, which is the idea behind the MantisX firearms training aide.
Valley Food Storage is one of the newer companies to start making pouch meals designed for emergency use and long term storage. Anyone who has ever tried freeze dried or dehydrated food, such as some of the more heavily advertised companies that we covered in our last pouched meal review, knows that there is a good bit of variation out there. VFS was started with the idea of using better ingredients with no “added preservatives,...
Trigger upgrades for the AR15 is almost an industry unto itself. There are enough options to fill a range bag, but without a doubt the easiest type to work with is the drop-in style, such as the KE Arms DMR trigger. One nice thing about this design is that the outer shell holds the hammer, trigger and disconnector together as a single unit. This design offers multiple advantages, including ease of installation and parts that...
We’ve been doing a fair amount of research and testing with various cleaners and lubricants recently. We were pretty impressed with Breakthrough Clean for weapons, even though it started life as a jet engine cleaning solvent. But, it is quite common for existing industrial chemicals to be re-marketed to the shooting/emergency preparedness/outdoor sports folks. With that in mind, we started looking for the best lubricant available for outdoor gear use, beyond what is commonly available...
Since the ability to start a fire is recognized as a key survival skill, it is common practice to keep more than one fire starting tool handy. Matches, lighters and ferro rods are common choices, but the Solo Scientific Tinder Hot Box Solar Fire Starter is an interesting addition to this list. In our testing, it was able to get a piece of char cloth smoldering in about the time it would take to pull...
At the 2016 SHOT Show, there were lots of nice scopes on hand from US Optics, Nightforce, Vortex and all the usual players. But, one excellent scope that was surprisingly overlooked by many was the Lucid L7. Lucid, a Riverton, Wyoming based company, has been around since 2009. They design their products in the US and manufacturing is done overseas to stay competitive. The new L7 is a true 1-6×24 scope with their impressive P7...
The Inova X1B-01-R7 is a handy little flashlight, which fits in the middle ground between keychain lights and standard size models. It is a dual mode light that is small enough to stick in your pocket and forget that its there. The main compromise is that the Inova X1 has a shorter battery life and lower output than some of it’s larger brothers. Comparing the X1’s stats to other lights is pretty straightforward, since Nite...
The evolution of mounting accessories on weapon systems could be charted as duct tape to rails then KeyMod and now MLOK. All the other options still exist, but MLOK is growing in popularity quite quickly. Now, Kinetic Development Group has come up with the latest advancement in this system with their Kinect QD mounts.
One of the more interesting things that I picked up this year at SHOT Show 2016 was a product sample from the Breakthrough Clean booth. The Breakthrough people were handing out trial sizes of their solvent, oil and grease to folks who stopped by to check out their product line. I had a chance to chat with a few guys from their company, who explained that they figured out that a jet engine cleaning solvent...
This year’s SHOT Show was one of the biggest tradeshows to ever hit Las Vegas. There were multiple vendors for everything imaginable and tons of prototypes and new products. But, for all of you who couldn’t make it this year, we’ve put together our “Best of the Show” list, so you can see some of the most interesting finds and attend in spirit. These top ten-ish are our picks due to their having a great...