Nearly at the end of our 2018 SHOT Show TFB Coverage is the catchall category for anything without a serial number. Like the baubles in a Christmas stocking, sometimes the coolest gifts are small and inexpensive (some are just small). Check out some of the most popular ammo and accessories from this year’s show. And thank you to all our readers who submitted ideas and suggestions for our on-the-ground teams.

Even with all the advances in polymer materials and design over the last decade or so, half of my magazine stash is of the aluminum variety. While both types have their positives and negatives, most AR15 shooters sometimes to forget that magazines are disposable items. Of course longevity and reliability tests are an important part of the weapon’s ammunition feeding system, but at some point, worn our components should be replaced.

A key part of the capability brought to the table by the US Army’s new Squad Designated Marksman Rifle is its chambering for the 7.62mm round. Specifically, this chambering allows the SDMR to fire the (also brand new) XM1158 Advanced Armor Piercing (ADVAP) round, designed to give the squad the capability to defeat advanced ceramic armors at combat ranges. There may be juuuuust one little problem, though: Cost. The US Army’s Ammunition Budget Justification for Fiscal Year 2019 was released this month; in it was procurement information on the XM1158 ADVAP, and a bit of a shocking sticker price to boot:

The US Army wants to give its soldiers more punch and reach: In the Fiscal Year 2019 Budget Estimate Justification Book for the United States Army, the service outlined its strategy for procuring M110A1 Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System (CSASS) rifles from Heckler & Koch to outfit its squads with a 7.62mm precision semiautomatic rifle, called the Squad Designated Marksman Rifle (SDMR). The primary justification for this move was confirmed in recent Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) hearings to be the ability to launch the Army’s new XM1158 Advanced Armor Piercing (ADVAP) round, which is based on the projectile design introduced with the M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round (EPR), but with a core made of tungsten alloy, rather than steel.