The US Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiments (AEWE) facebook page has shared some interesting photos from a range session at their annual technologies event. The photos, posted on 11 February, show a new prototype suppressed Personal Defense Weapon from SIG Sauer.

The US Army has released some photographs taken at Fort Bliss, Texas, during testing of the Army’s new Squad Designated Marksman Rifle (SDM-R). The new 7.62x51mm rifle from Heckler & Koch has not yet officially been fielded and testing and tweaking continues.

In this episode of TFBTv’s coverage of SHOT Show 2019, at Range Day, Brannon LeBouef talks with Brett from Dark Storm Industries about their new .458 SOCOM AR pattern guns. Big bore performance in an AR-15 pattern rifle. they also have a full line of AR pistols as well.

In this episode of TFBTV’s SHOT Show 2019 coverage, Brannon LeBouef talks with Maxim Defense about their new PDX SBR and AR-Pistols which will also be chambered in 7.62×39. A nice sweet little package for personal defense or just plain fun.

AR-18 is probably one of the most underappreciated firearms designs in history. The rifle itself was not very popular, but the basic design of its bolt and bolt carrier was used by at least 9 different countries: Germany in the G36, Belgium in the SCAR, the Czech Republic in Bren 805 and 807, the US in Bushmaster ACR, UK in L85, Israel in Tavor, South Korea in K1A1, Singapore in SAR-80 and Japan in their Type 89. Now, another country and another company joined that list – Canada with WK180-C designed by Kodiak Defence.

Barrett has taken the 5.56x45mm REC7 rifle and upgraded it to a 7.62x51mm package which is now the REC10. The REC10 was a product development of a foreign military solicitation program in which Barrett was successful in acquiring and winning. We don’t know what exact country this was, but we should have more information on the blog side of TFB in the future, or at least when we see them being used in the wild.

In this episode of TFBTV’s SHOT Show 2019 coverage, Brannon LeBouef talks with Roy from Brownells about their new BRN-180 which is their classic take on the Original AR-180 and the new “sexual chocolate” that they call the BRN-Proto to mimic the prototype serial number 0001 AR-15.

Griffin Armament quietly announced a line of tubeless silencers at last week’s SHOT Show. Named the EXPLORR, the lightweight cans come in 300RUM, 6.5CM and .224, feature Griffins QD mounting system and sports a smaller footprint than other options. The Watertown, WI based company also released the 30-SDK as a ‘5.56mm-sized silencer with 30 caliber performance’. And even though they were introduced later last year, I finally got to lay hands on their new GLOCK barrels with the Minimalist Carry Compensator. The thread on device is like a thread protector with benefits.

In this episode of TFBTV’s SHOT Show Industry Day at the Range coverage, James talks to Quarter Circle 10 about their pistol caliber carbine AR15s, including the builder kits for them, and new comatibility with MP5 and SIG P226 mags.

On the Sunday before this year’s SHOT Show, TFB and TFBTV were invited to attend the Sig Sauer Range Day at the Clark County Shooting Complex about 30 minutes outside of Las Vegas. The complex itself was incredible, with bays that catered to every type of shooter imaginable. Sig had arranged for a type of ‘Opening Ceremony’ that was an awesome display of former special operations guys dropping in via parachute and assaulting a group of autonomous motorized targets. The MCX-outfitted unit was backed up by a team of former soldiers and law enforcement officer from the Sig Sauer academy. The sweet display of force lasted about 20 minutes followed by an analysis of the the guns, gear and tactics used by each of the operators.

Last summer, TFB’s Ray I. brought us news of the Double FoldAR.   This is an AR Pistol that becomes ultra compact when folded into 3rds.  Equipped with Dead Foot Arms’ Modified Cycle System, one can fire the gun after swinging the barrel assembly back into place.  At SHOT Show 2019, I got to finally handle one of these and look it over in person, courtesy of Dead Foot Arms.

There have been a LOT of new 9mm carbines at SHOT however, Stag is doing something a little bit different with the 10mm Glock fed AR15 PCC that they are introducing in the very near future.

It was only a couple days ago that Winchester announced the introduction of an entirely new caliber for hunters and shooters with the .350 Legend cartridge. We were right on the ball catching this news, but there is something we missed (or Winchester told a white lie). At the time of the release of the .350 Legend on January 21st, Winchester stated that they were the only manufacturer to have a firearm chambered in this round with their XPR bolt-action rifle. Well, it turns out that CMMG has been working in conjunction with Winchester for some time. They have their Resolute AR-15 in a Burnt Bronze chambered in .350 Legend which hails from their 300-Series.

Condition Red Ordnance Manufacturing (CROM) has this “riddle of steel”: how to create a highly portable platform that can fire .50 BMG bullets quietly.  The answer is the .500 Blackout chambered Zero Dark Fifty.  CROM already manufactures a .338LM chambered AR with their CR-7 platform, and were wanting to expand that platform to other possibilities.  After some experimentation, they came up with the .500 Blackout.  The 911gr bullet they have as their primary load produces 2385 ft/lbs at roughly 1085 ft/s, roughly 5x the energy of subsonic .300blk.  CROM claims a max effective range of 1000m, and a velocity loss of only 9% at 400m.  COAL is 3.8″.

Don’t you step on POF’s blue suede rifle.  Well, it’s not really suede, but their new “Wonder” rifle has a lot of neat features, not least of which is a “Blue Titanium” colored upper and lower receiver.  The Wonder’s standout features are the new “Strike Eagle charging handle, named for the eagle head semblance of the ambidextrous latches, the 3.5lb flat single stage trigger, and the new Micro B single port muzzle brake.  According to POF, the new brake, though very compact, is nearly as effective in recoil reduction as their triple port brake.  The Wonder is 6.18lbs, and comes in at $1599.  The wonder also has a 14.5” rail covering its match grade nitrided and heat treated barrel.  The gas system is carbine length.

Head Down Arms was present at SHOT Show showing off all of their Cerakote capabilities as well as their newest rifle in “The Solutionary.” For those of you familiar with Maj Toure of the “ Black Guns Matter” inner city, firearm educational movement he has teamed up with Head Down Arms and gotten his own black gun made. The rifle is aptly named “The Solutionary” because Maj Toure motivates people to think critically to arrive at their own solutions. The people who follow him on social media are also affectionately dubbed Solutionarys.

It’s a strange coincidence that as I was browsing the Internet to find a new handguard for my Ruger Precision Rifle Gen 1 I was thinking why on Earth are there no products with a dovetail ARCA interface?

What happens when companies like Strike Industries, Primary Weapons Systems, Holosun and The Firearm Blog collaborate? Cool things like the Build of The Year giveaway! Today, we announced the winner at a live social media stream from the Strike Industries booth at SHOT Show 2019. And the winner is – Jim R with his Higgins Shotgun (45% of your votes). He will get an AR-15 rifle built with components manufactured by the mentioned companies.

CMMG has revamped and streamlined their AR15 product line in order to allow customers to see what the company has at a glance. There are three initial tiers of what they offer. The Banshee is their pistol or SBR setup, the Endeavor is their long distance line, and the Resolutes are 16.5-inch carbines. Within these classifications, there are 100, 200, and 300 series of classes as well. The difference between 100-300 comes down to how many bells and whistles come with each system, 300 being the higher end option. Previously CMMG had a number of different acronyms for their product line which might have confused folks looking at the rifles that were on sale.

One of the benefits of the AR15 rifle is how easy it is to operate. Of course, I know this firearm better than any so it’s easy to say.

Battle Arms Development’s already crazy light OIP rifle keeps losing weight!  The OIP Gen 2 drops a few ounces due to BAD’s new carbon fibre grip, available with either an “OIP” or chevrons cut into the grip.  The new weight of the rifle is 3.8lbs.   That’s nearly in the territory of the ENYO. I was fortunate enough to get some trigger time with the OIP, and I was impressed.  The titanium Thumper brake helps make this light rifle controllable.  In fact, I found it almost as controllable as my competition rifle, a JP Enterprises SCR-11.

Dark Storm Industries (DSI) attended SHOT Show’s “Industry Day at the Range,” and they brought along some new goodies for the shooting world to see! They unveiled 3 new AR patterned rifles and pistols in total covering a pretty wide gamut of the caliber spectrum. Let’s take a quick look at each new offering they have for all of us.

Noveske Rifleworks continue to evolve their rifles, and the Fourth Generation is available now just before SHOT Show 2019.

Springfield Armory has announced a NEW iteration of their SAINT AR-15 leading into SHOT Show 2019! The unveiling of the SAINT Victor is a new tier within the SAINT family of rifles and pistols that is meant to be a cut above. There are 5 different configurations: 5.56 SBR (Short-Barreled Rifle), 5.56 AR-15 Pistol, 300 BLK AR-15 Pistol, 5.56 Rifle, and a 5.56 California-compliant rifle as well.

Back in December 2017 we reported that Barrett would be launching their new 7.62x51mm REC10 rifle, now in 2019 it’s finally here. Barrett have confirmed that the REC10 will be introduced at SHOT Show 2019.

Well it’s not technically a musket, it isn’t a smooth bore, it has straight rifling rather than spiralled. You may remember the hype which surrounded Franklin Armory’s mysterious Reformation in the run up to SHOT Show 2018. Well almost exactly a year later the Reformation is now available.

Did you know that the The Norwegian Armed Forces were the first customer to adopt the HK416 in the year of 2007?

Cobalt Kinetics has taken their Edge rifle and bathed it in some wintery goodness. With extra embellishments on the rifle and a new finish, they are releasing a “ Winter Limited Edition” run for 2019 that is limited to just 50 firearms. This rifle is extremely similar to their traditional Edge rifle, but with that frosty curb appeal for the winter shooter. Some of the specifications for this rifle, as presented by Cobalt Kinetics, can be read below:

Last August the German Ministry of Defence brought the Bundeswehr’s newest rifle to the US Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona for testing. The G95K was put through gruelling environmental testing which simulated real-world conditions similar to those found in Afghanistan.

The US Army’s Contracting Command has awarded Knight’s Armament Company a contract for more 7.62x51mm M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper Systems (SASS). Over 10 years on since it was first adopted and nearly five years since the Army began its programme to replace it with a lighter, more compact rifle the Army has placed further orders for an undisclosed number of M110 SASS.