A court in Kiel, Germany has come to a preliminary agreement with the legal counsel for three SIG Sauer executives which, in return for a guilty plea, will see the Sig Sauer employees avoid prison sentences.

Social media exploded in a flurry of virtual pitchforks and torches last night after the Oregon City Police Department posted three images and a simple statement on Facebook: “Thank you Benchmade Knife Company for assisting us today by cutting up guns that are ready to be destroyed.” Those words, along with the imagery of a pump action shotgun and an SKS being sliced to pieces, enraged both gun and knife owners nationwide. Many supporters of the Oregon-based knife company felt betrayed; after all, guns and knives go together like apple pie and vanilla ice cream.

This is Snigel Design‘s first appearance here at TFB ( well almost).

Lewis Machine & Tool, currently based in Milan, Illinois, will be moving to a new purpose built factory and headquarters in Eldridge, Iowa. The move comes as Lewis Machine & Tool embark on fulfilling a new large scale order for the Estonian Defence Forces.

Here at Shot Show, I made it a point to drop in on our friends at Lyman. They have long been a big supporter of TFB so, I had to go see what they had brought out. I found some pretty cool stuff being introduced this year. Let’s take a look:

SHOT Show 2019 has had exhibits from just about every company even tangentially related to firearms, except one. Hudson Manufacturing, makers of the popular H9, did not show up to their booth at SHOT. In fact, they’ve been a no-show on social media recently as well.

If you browse the list of companies that will be exhibiting at SHOT Show 2019, you’ll notice a new company with a very familiar name – Zastava Arms USA. Apparently, the famous Serbian arms manufacturer now has a new US distributor.

CMMG has announced that for 2019 they are launching a new system of product model and configuration designations. This new system makes it easier to understand the model line of the company by giving their products simple names and categorizing them by type of the weapon and by the grade of the build.

Elbit Systems has completed a deal to buy its rival IMI Systems Ltd (formerly Israeli Military Industries) in a deal worth nearly half a billion dollars. Elbit Systems’s acquisition of the government owned defence contractor marks the end of the protracted privatisation of IMI.

Steel Core Designs had on display one of their latest additions to their precision rifle product line, the Hurricane SF, based off of their Hurricane Hunter/Varmint rifles. The rifle is intended to be their short action variant, while the Thunderbolt rifle is their long action chambered in .338 Lapua, and the Cyclone being the anti-materiel rifle variant chambered in .50 BMG. All of their rifles are minimalist and simplistic in nature, constructed out of a solid metal chassis with Picatinny rail segments for the attachment of optics and laser designators. Their rifles use a 4-lug bolt that is simply scaled up or down for use in the different calibers offered for the Hurricane, Thunderbolt, and Cyclone rifles. One design feature of the bolt is that the ejector does not incorporate a spring in it, being actuated by a pin in the receiver as the bolt completes its rearward travel. This allows a shooter to slowly work the bolt, allowing the empty shell to drop out of the rifle’s ejection port, or if the bolt is rapidly racked, the ejector will kick the shell out quickly.

What captivated many visitors to Indo Defense 2018 this year from Pindad was the defense companies Harimau Modern Medium Weight tank that was a product of a joint venture with a Turkish defense company. However when it comes to small arms, Pindad had some new offerings as well, some that we should be seeing within Indonesian military service soon enough.

Introduced in March of this year, we were able to get our hands on Rheinmetall Air Defense AG’s ILEE® TwinBeam Mk2 visible/IR laser designator. The TwinBeam Mk2 is actually just one such designator out of a large product line of similar designators that fill different capabilities and needs. Many of the small arms laser designators are capable of being mounted on an M1913 Picatinny rail and are very similar in controls and materials used in construction.

According to a source close to the situation, Remington CEO Anthony Acitelli has resigned from his position as head of the Madison, North Carolina based firearms company. Acitelli was elected as CEO in October of 2017 as the firearms manufacturer traversed the different stages of bankruptcy after several years of financial uncertainty. In May of this year, Remington emerged from bankruptcy that transitioned $775M of debt into equity allowing the company to resume a “normal course of business”. In June, Acitelli was named chairman of the board for Remington Outdoor Company.

Following our story this morning regarding German media outlets reporting on charges filed against Sig Sauer USA executives, TFB was able to catch up with a company representative for an exclusive look into the news. Because of the ongoing legal case, the brief statement posted below is carefully worded. But some unofficial analysis points to possible sensational journalism in the German media.

According to German media outlets, Sig Sauer USA CEO Ron Cohen was allegedly arrested in Frankfurt, Germany last month. Reports are attributing the arrest to a contract that supplied Colombian police with Sig SP 2022 pistols without an export license. At the time of the sales and deliveries, Colombia was experiencing a civil war. German authorities are alleging that Cohen and others falsified information to export the pistols in violation of the Foreign Trade Act.

Last week I posted part one of EOTech’s factory tour. In part two we will take a look behind the curtain at how EOTech’s Holographic Weapon Sights (HWS) are manufactured. After the factory tour we were taken out to a local range to test some of their products.

Once we enter into the year 2019 Hornady will have been in business for 70 years. Over that period of time they have experienced a lot of growth, change, new products and expansion. In fact, they are looking at even more expansion with the opening of their new  Hornady West facility. Hornady released this Press Release regarding the announcement:

For the first time ever, EOTech opened its factory doors in Ann Arbor Michigan to the media. We were invited to attend this unprecedented event and got to learn what made EOTech one of the top optic companies used by US Military and see how they make their flag ship Holographic Weapon Sight (HWS) as well as what changes they made since the Thermal Drift issue.

The New Zealand Herald has reported that the 9,040 LMT 5.56x45mm MARS-L rifles purchased by the New Zealand Defense Force have suffered critical parts breakage in certain components of the rifles, specifically the firing pins, bolt carriers and inside the trigger mechanism (the specific part is not mentioned in the article). According to the article, issues came about with a number of rifles that were seeing constant use in training. After an initial assessment and following warranty agreements, LMT has replaced the parts in question on every rifle that was bought by the NZDF in addition to updating the inspection protocols under which the rifles have been adopted.

Most of the articles and news I write come out of a personal interest and a curiosity to learn more, and hopefully share the same to our readers.

Tyler Kemp of MK Machining and his partner introduced their Remington 700 bullpup chassis at the 2017 Shot Show and got a lot of attention. Here’s a link to that TFB article.  Now MKM is making 3D printed firearms accessories that are saving consumers a lot of money over machined metal parts.  MKM offers both options and is currently working towards a brand new version of their bullpup chassis for the 2019 Shot Show.

Up until yesterday, if you visited the social media pages of US PALM you would find out that the latest post was made in August 2017 and it was announcing that the company is going out of the business ( read the TFB article covering that news). To a great surprise of the firearms industry, the company is probably making a comeback. This statement is an assumption based on the post made by the company yesterday on their Facebook page. That post consists of a single image depicting a zombie rising from its grave that has a tombstone with the company’s logo and the years of its operation.

I recently stopped in to check out Top Guns in Terre Haute, Indiana. Top Guns boasts the largest showroom and indoor shooting range in the Midwest. Steve Ellis, the owner of Top Guns, was kind enough to give us the full tour and show what all Top Guns had to offer.

In this article, we’ll talk about a German YouTube channel called Low Ready Media. This channel is one of the few non-US gun media sources that create a high-quality video content. It is also a good example to start a discussion about the gun culture outside of the US in general, the challenges people meet and the obstacles they have to overcome.

Crosman Corporation, one of the leading companies in the  air guns and accessories market, has published a press release announcing the change of the company’s name. The new name is Velocity Outdoor. According to the company, the name change is done to better describe the diversity of outdoor products currently offered by the company as well as reflect its future growth plans.

For the 2nd year in a row Donald Trump has hosted a “Made in America” day at the White House. At this now yearly event, he hosts one company from all 50 states to represent and embody American manufacturing. Last year, Leupold was highlighted as one of the 50 companies while representing Oregon. This year another shooting industry company made the list with Liberty Safe representing Utah last Monday, July 23rd.

After a drawn out battle, Defense Distributed was set to release blueprints tomorrow that could used to manufacture 3D Printed Guns. That is until a Federal Judge just issued a restraining order to block the release of the gun blueprints, according to the Associated Press.

Silencer and National Firearms Act (NFA) weapons distributor Allen Arms Tactical has partnered with Discreet Ballistics to sell the New Hampshire based company’s line of subsonic ammunition. The move gives Allen Arms’ national network of dealers access to high quality suppressor food – a fact I can personally confirm. “I don’t buy ammo often, but when I do, it’s Discreet Ballistics.”

One of my favorite perks of working here at The Firearm Blog is not the guns or ammunition – it’s the access to industry leaders who are intelligent, dedicated and passionate about making quality gear. So, when I’m given the chance to talk to people who have literally changed the course of the firearms industry, you bet I’ll take it. A couple of weeks ago Kevin Brittingham and Ethan Lessard of Q were nice enough to take a few hours out of their schedule to talk about the history of 300 Blackout on The Podcast By Q.

Recent imagery of the Latin American-based special operations competition organized by U.S. South Command has shown that some members of the Panamanian contingent were using 5.56x45mm IWI X95 select-fire carbines during the small arms live fire portion of the course. In particular, there were only two Commandos of the Panamanian team that were pictured with the X95s with a tan FDE finish. The other team members ran through the carbine portions with 5.56x45mm NATO M4 carbines as they had been doing every year. However for the competitors running the X95s, it appears they actually came from a different branch of service than the M4 wielding teammates, due to the uniforms (Multicam versus digital) and gear they were donning.