With the closing ceremonies only a few days away, the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea is drawing to a end. Unfortunately, for those who don’t run in specific snow-shooting-sports circles, the Winter Games that come around every four years is our only chance to watch the Biathlon – a cross country skiing event featuring rimfire rifle target shooting on special closed courses.

Having compensators on pistols is not exactly new. Competitors have been porting pistols for a very long time. Go look at any open division pistol in USPSA or IPSC. However, since the Roland Special came out, we have seen an increasing trend in compensators for Glocks. This has led to companies like Archon Mfg to make compensators. As a fan of compensated pistols, I got the opportunity to check out their Glock compensator.

Earlier today, news began to trickle through online forums and social media platforms that retail giant Optics Planet had stopped selling magazines with a capacity over 10 rounds. With the internet being, well, the internet, we decided to have a look for ourselves. A cursory search of Optics Planet’s site revealed a couple of noteworthy concerns:

After posting up the article about the Unique AR’s self-adjusting grip, Unique AR reached out and asked if I wanted to review their Unique Grip. I was intrigued by this grip and wanted to see what it could do.

Peltor Sport, a 3M brand, has some new electronic hearing protection out on the market meant to be higher quality and more conscientious of the shooter’s needs. Their Tactical 300 and Tactical 500 Electronic Hearing Protectors punch in at a higher price point than most electronic earmuffs, $149.99 and $199.99 MSRP respectively, but there are a lot of strong attributes behind those retail prices.

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.

American Range Systems makes bullet traps for shooting ranges. But their bullet traps are not just for ranges. They are used by manufacturers, importers and anyone who tests firearms. Their latest weapon testing system is this large Coffin sized container which is humorously named The Coffin.

While walking down the aisles of the Great American Outdoor Show, I have to admit I was suckered into Future Forged’s tag line “Lightest AR Grip In The World”.It drew me in and when I picked up their Vektor grip, it truly was the lightest weight grip I have ever felt.

PUF GUN, based in Chelyabinsk Russia, have released new 60-round 5.45×39 mm magazines for the AK platform.

Do you like customized AKs? Look no further, just scroll down and enjoy the pictures and YouTube video below.As the company Raid Gear in Russia shot their promotion video they used some interesting firearms and gear.

Crimson Trace has expanded their Laserguard range of integrated pistol laser sights to include several Heckler & Koch Models. In addition to Laserguards for a number of other popular pistol brands, Crimson Trace now offer sights for the popular VP series.

Guncrafter Industries are the people behind the .50GI, a .50 cal pistol round that can be used in .45acp pistol hosts. They caliber convert a 1911 and even a Glock.

For those of you who are out in the dating scene, I applaud you. In the midst of all that is the internet – Snapchat, Tinder, MySpace, etc – the casual-scene pitfalls would surely be too much for me to endure. Instead, TFB is reaching out to those willing to make a commitment with five quick Valentine’s Day gift ideas for that very special man or woman. For everyone else, your mother, father or best friend would gladly accept a nice present from the list below.

We previously covered Bad Company Tactical on TFB in SHOT shows past and looked closely at the companies R2S quick detachment system. Initially Bad Company Tactical was focusing their efforts on handgun holster systems, attaching their R2S to the Picatinny rail of a handgun and placing that into an open holster that could fit numerous designs. Although it appears to have been a solid design, the market hasn’t really taken to the handgun option. Instead, the company is following customer demand and moving towards more mounts designed for grenade launchers, rifles, and really any tool that the R2S male hook can be attached to securely. To that end, Bad Company Tactical has expanded their Picatinny mounted line, and even into the world of MOLE and PALS webbing to mount their female base attachments.

Shooting for Women Alliance had me at the tagline, “It’s not about pink. It’s about you”!

Originally known for their AR15 magazines with floor plate retainer in the shape of a bright red “2”, the Idaho based company Amend2 has introduced an entire line of Glock magazines as a part of SHOT 2018. The magazines use a glass fiber filled nylon magazine frame (no internal metal body), and have a very gracious baseplate that shares some contour lines from H&K USP magazines at a distance (with the exception of the Glock 42,43, and 31 compatible magazines). Followers are bright red and the floor plate retainer is the same “2” shape as the earlier AR15 magazines that company was founded on. The back of the magazines have round count indexing holes as well.

What do you do when you’re a hard working nurse practitioner mother and wife, your husband is in law enforcement? Imagine, you’ve got 6 kids, and just don’t have the time to find a holster that will work with the scrubs you have to wear every day or any other outfit? With no business background, Mike and Tessa Renaud created Lethal Lace to solve that issue!

Meet my new friend, Kristen. She’s the brains behind Packin’ Neat.

Boasting the tagline “designed to keep you beautifully concealed”, the ladies at Miss Concealed brought the heat this year at SHOT Show 2018 with their line of “Hidden Heat” concealed carry holsters.

The Unimag from Ross & Zheng Engineering was created with the intent of having one magazine that was capable of working with the majority of popu lar cartridges that are chambered in an AR15, STANAG magazine configuration (or with similar dimensions). This means that the Unimag is designed and tested with the following cartridges in mind-5.56x45mm, .300BLK, .204 Ruger, 5.45X39mm, 6.8mm SPC, 7.62×39, 6.5mm Grendel, and .458 SOCOM. Too new at this point, but testing will probably be eventually done, but to add to that list is the .224 Valkyrie.

High Threat Concealment (HTC) specializes in providing concealed tactical gear for armed professionals demanding a low profile signature as well as the civilian wanting to utilize the best gear. The HTC line is modular allowing for scalability based on threat and need.

Beretta’s Intelligent Rail emerged out of a previous U.S. Military solicitation for a “Powered Rail” on rifles and carbines several years ago. One specific contract was the Precision Sniper Rifle competition that SOCOM held, requiring competitors to submit a “Powered Rai” with their designs. The push for a powered rail within the U.S. Military appears to have stagnated, but the fruits of that competition appear to be popping up throughout the industry in the public, in this case with Beretta USA on the companies ARX160. Beretta didn’t work on the project alone however, it worked closely with TWorx Ventures, a developer of the Intelligent Rail for the AR platform, but in this case working with Beretta.

Many women say that most of the EDC pocketbooks look outdated and are impractical. Gun Tote’N Mama’s founder Claudie Chisholm is changing the EDC accessory marketplace for women.

Many new and improved products have been brought to market by Trijicon in the months leading up to SHOT 2018. Fans of the Trijicon HD iron sights will be happy to hear of the Trijicon HD XR night sights. The HD XR sights boast an expanded field of view and more precise targeting with the reduced size of the front sight (.122”) to nearly a third of the size of the original HD’s.

USA1SHOT  makes these injection-molded platforms that allow a shooter to non-permanently attach a brace to the grip of a handgun, while also attaching a Shockwave brace to the end of the brace itself. The majority of these buffer braces are permanently attached to the handgun stabilizer, lacking any ability to uninstall the buffer tube itself. Some of them even have Hera Arms Adaptors, giving useres the ability to collapse into two along the right side of the handgun.

The theme for this year’s SHOT Show 2018 (for this writer, at least) was the focus on the female shooter. Not surprisingly, there were more female-centered booths this year than any other year in SHOT Show history. One such booth was the Girls With Guns (GWG) booth.

It warms my heart to see so many silencer-ready firearms coming to market. Just in to TFB from Newport, New Hampshire are two of the newest rifles from Ruger: the Ruger Precision Rimfire (RPR) and the Ruger PC Carbine (PCC). While both feature threaded barrels in a standard 1/2“ x 28 thread pitch, a similar release of new rifles ten years ago might have ignored suppressor compatibility. You really have to hand it to Ruger: for a company who’s typical customer used to be strictly a bolt gun/White Tail type of shooter, they are making it easier to be the Quiet Man or Woman. Side note, if you haven’t seen the John Wayne classic, it’s worth your time.

Primary Weapon Systems (PWS) is known for making a long stroke piston AR rifles. What sets them apart from other AR manufacturers is their ability to run internals modeled after the AK platform; while still maintaining the ergonomics and last round bolt hold open benefits of an AR. The long stroke piston system reduces the amount of metal on metal impact, thus reducing reliability issues and parts breakage.

Cadex Defense had two recently introduced products specifically for the .50 BMG M2 Heavy Machine Gun on display at their booth at SHOT 2018. The first one was their KOLOS sight mount, meant as a lighter and less obtrusive alternative to the earlier SOLO sight mount. Second for this year is the M2 Cradle Mount.

If you are a precision rifle shooter, there should be very few reasons that shooters should have to pay over several dollars for a single piece of unfired brass. Unless you are a reloader that is. One of the really neat niches that I came across at SHOT 2018 was a company called RCC Brass based in Amarillo, Texas. RCC Brass machines cartridges from brass, instead of the traditional annealing process that shapes typical brass cartridges used throughout the entire world. They do this by taking a cold hammer forged 12-foot brass rod, cutting it to spec, and then machining the pieces of brass into the contours and specifications of whatever cartridge is required. One of the advantages is that there is no annealing that takes place throughout this entire process or is needed during the course of reloading the fired cartridges.