Over a year into the transfer process of my TPM Outfitters MP5SD, I have yet to start stock piling magazines. For one, H&K magazines aren’t the most affordable on the market and two there are a couple of polymer options in the works that I am hoping to review before committing to a ‘German vs U.S. made’ plan. X Products just has added yet another mag option for the MP5 platform: the X-5 50 round drum magazine.

The S&S Precision Holster Extender Gear Retention Track (GRT) is a three position adjustable belt adapter for a duty holster.

Pete M had the opportunity to see the AT-One at SHOT 2017. If you aren’t familiar, Boyds makes laminate and hardwood stocks for pretty much any platform you could ever want. The At-One stock features an adjustable comb and butt pad, along with rubberized areas, allowing the shooter to really customize the stock to their liking and comfort. Due to the mechanism, it is really easy to your gun to fit other shooters, or for other shooting positions, without tools or hardware, using their “Bring-It” push-button adjustment technology.

We saw how well the MagPump loader worked at SHOT Range Day but didn’t really get the chance to show you guys how it worked. Thankfully Patrick ran across their booth at NRA 2017 so you can have a closer look.

I must admit, I never really saw the value in the Laserlyte training system prior to me having a chance to really spend some time with several components of the system. First I got the Laserlyte Quick Tyme target and full-size pistol and found it hard to work it into anything useful, it quickly got relegated to an office toy and wasn’t used for any meaningful training. It wasn’t until I received more components of the training system that I fully realized the potential of the laser targets and training pistols.

While at NRA Annual Meetings we ran into a couple of fans that had some of the nicest products in their respective areas of the industry. Blue Alpha Gear makes some of the nicest web gun belts in the industry for much less than the “cool guy approved” companies sell theirs for. They happened to be sharing a space with Cole-Tac who also sews stuff for a living. Cole-Tac makes suppressor covers, rear bags, and even multitasker tool pouches.

Tactical Hearing has committed their self to producing some of the best possible ear protection for both sport shooters and hunters alike. There are several different models of this high-end ear pro starting at about $1200 to above $5000 depending on options. Sure that seems excessive, but when you are adding 10 to 15 dB reduction to what you can get with the best ear pro on the market (that might still damage your hearing slightly) that price sure is a lot cheaper than a hearing aid or a new set of ears.

Accura Outdoors makes plated bullets but it was their folding USPSA style cardboard target that caught my attention. Their design does not require staples. So far they have not experienced one blowing off the stand due to wind.

Mossberg’s Shockwave is immensely popular. There are waiting lists to buy one. Well Adaptive Tactical will be making a Sidewider kit for the Shockwave.

Allstar Tactical is based out of Rochester, NY and its owner, Mike Centola, designs and makes everything he sells.

At the NRA Annual Meeting, Beretta is showing off its latest APX handgun, but just to the side is a corner of Beretta 92s that look like a lot of fun.

In an odd coincidence, Lancer has added two new colors to their L5 AWM magazines. They are now available in Robin’s Egg Blue and Purple. I just posted about the Jagemann color molded Glock magazines that also come in Robin’s Egg Blue. So now you can have Robin Blue glock mags and AR mags for your 3Gun setup.

One of the lesser known companies at the NRA Annual Meeting is Jagemann. Their brightly colored mags is what caught my attention. Upon talking to the representative I learned that Jagemann are OEM manufacturers of brass casings for a lot of companies. Hornady is one of their customers.

Mean Arms is the genius behind the clever workaround of fixed magazine for California compliance. In California you have two options to stay legal with your AR-15 and not register. Either have a featureless rifle which maintains the removable magazine but no pistol grip. Or you have a fixed magazine that requires tools to be removed. Well now that the Bullet Button is banned, clever people like Mean Arms have come up with ways to make a fixed mag not be so bad.

This is something I saw while walking down the aisles of the NRA Annual Meeting. MegaBoom target by Do All Outdoors.

Working on a principle similar to sight radius, BipodeXt is releasing a series of products designed to place a bipod farther forward on a rifle to maximize accuracy. The device operates on a telescopic system that attaches to a rail on the rifle’s stock or forend. The bipod is then attached to a rail on the other end of the BipodeXt which can be extended, in some cases, past the muzzle of the rifle.

The spring of a magazine is pretty much the hear and soul of the mag. It is what makes it work. Without it, it is just an empty box.

Cleaning the barrel of a rifle is perhaps the most tedious of operations, at least if trying to completely clean out the entirely of fouling carbon and copper. Fortunately, most shooters recognize that this level of cleaning is typically only needed by bench rest shooters (and annoying for me early in life – military armorers) which has led to a plethora of easy-clean solutions.

DSG Holsters has revealed one of the first commercial FN 509 holsters to hit the market. DSG Arms in Fort Worth, Texas are a group of wonderful folks that have dedicated themselves to providing the best possible product for both the consumer and the professional shooter. In that quest to offer the best product they possibly can, they saw a place for a high-quality holster option that was priced at a much more attainable level than the other offerings on the market.

I, personally, am surprised at the slow integration of electronics and firearms. While understanding that many firearms enthusiasts are untrusting of electronics in guns, their proliferation across all daily life still seems a bit counter to the hesitations. So, whenever a company puts a product that starts putting electronics anywhere near guns, I cheer a little.

So here is the letter written by Marvin G. Richardson, Assistant Director of the Enforcement Programs and Services, to Mark Barnes, Esq and SB Tactical.

Surefire has been slowly releasing more new products even after the excitement of SHOT Show has settled. This includes 3 new flashlights with their MaxVision beam and high output LED. All 3 new models sell anywhere from roughly $120 – $300. While these may not be entirely affordable for the general consumer, this is the price-point you would expect to see Surefire lights running at.

Seventeen years after we narrowly missed the Y2K technological disaster (snicker), both business and government still rely heavily on printed paper documents. Put those two organizations together and you have regulated chaos of tax records, purchase data, and in the case of Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL), transfer records of every firearm ever bought or sold. And while current regulations still require dealers to have a physical bound log book, companies like FFL Boss are helping to lessen the record keeping burden for firearm sellers by providing them with an easy to use software solution.

Corey likes his bolt guns set up like a sniper rifle. His GA Precision .308 is a prime example of that. Here is his CZ 455 Vamint trainer that he had threaded to run his SilencerCo Sparrow. It comes with that camouflaged Manners stock made for the CZ 455. He mounted a Viper PST 6-24x scope and a BT Industries Atlas Bipod. Quite the setup for just shooting some .22LR rimfire rounds.

Turkish defense technological company Aselsan will demonstrate a product originally introduced in January of this year (not covered on TFB yet) at IDEF 2017 in Turkey (late May). The Van Kedisi dual thermal/IR sight is similar in size to products that FLIR usually puts out. What is interesting about this optic is that it has that duality of both thermal heat imaging and infared capabilities by utilizing two objective lenses and a single ocular lens. There appear to be two versions, a handheld variant, and a dedicated picatinny mounted version. As of yet it looks like Aselsan hasn’t received a contract for it but certainly will be pushing for one. A division of the company that produces scopes in Kazakhstan was previously released and was adopted by the Turkish Armed Forces in the Python. It might have been mentioned in the Turkish accounts of the sight but I can’t fully translate it, that the sight might be made in Kazakhstan as well. If this is the case then that could drive the price of the sight down, much more than if it had been made in Turkey. It looks like it also has a connection port to it that can be connected to a heads up display or this might just be a data download link.

Every now and then something cool and interesting flys under the radar. In this instance, it is a dry fire training tool with a rather self-explanatory name, DryFireMag.

I truly enjoy level 1 holsters. When properly designed and manufactured like much of the high-end Kydex offerings today, the friction-only retention offers fantastic performance in concealable packages. These holsters and their Q/D systems are equally good in my other carry locations including personally owned vehicle, nightstand, etc. They work well for the guy running a single system for all his carry options.

Necessity is the mother of invention, but I will contend that the common-sense with necessity is the father of innovation. Examples are replete across the industry with various non-firearms materials being pressed into service. Perhaps the most common is the usage of paracord across handguards, grips, stocks, etc. etc.

Honestly, I’m a little tired of seeing the cult of the AR-15 preach its superiority as an “ergonomic” platform. While the AR-15 is an excellent weapon, and lord knows I own many of them, it’s not the superior choice for a weapon platform in a sea of continuously expanding alternatives. A weapon designed mid last century for right-handed operation only cannot hold a candle to other later generation platforms.

Winchester Safes announced a new line of tactical safes called the Defender. There are four sizes of safe in this line: the Defender 17, Defender 25, Defender 34 and Defender 44. The numbers do not correspond to the number of gun placements inside the lock box, rather to the rounded internal size of the safe as measured in cubic feet. On the small end, the internal space is 16.7 cubic feet. The top end size is almost 44 cubic feet.