Gander Mountain is continuing down the same path that we have seen other industry giants take lately.  The destination is not a desirable one either. Gander Mountain is preparing to file for bankruptcy likely by the end of this month. Sports Authority and Sports Chalet have both filed for bankruptcy this past year as well.

One of the things missing in the industry are guns built for women. Most rifles and shotguns have long pulls, and uncomfortable angles, or are too heavy.

Caldwell Shooting Supplies is releasing a universal handgun magazine loader that can take both double and single stack designs. It works via inserting a magazine into the holder, tightening a knob down, then inserting a round at a time into an opening, and squeezing a sort of trigger that presses the round into place while at the same time pushing down on the follower, allowing the round to seat in place, while making room for the next round. While the charger material is polymer, the handle is aluminum, allowing an easier loading experience. MSRP is $34.99, $10 less than the stated MSRP of $45. Scott F. covered this product at SHOT 2017 on Industry Day, but this is the first time the MSRP will be published along with the official press release with more detail on the product.

Strike Industries has released a sneak peak of a product on the companies social media page, detailing the unveiling of the companies latest product, a picatinny mounted weapon retention system. Essentially the system mounts to the picatinny rail of a carbine, rifle, or ever submachine gun, and is ‘fed’ into a sort of “V”-shaped wedge. Here it can be locked into position so it doesn’t come out, or it can be left to rest at the bottom of the “V”, without being locked but also very accessible. For now the system is MOLLE compatible, but I’m sure if it is met with success, it could be expanded to other mounting systems, such as on a belt, or even an interior vehicle mounting surface somehow. Strike didn’t have the product on hand during SHOT, as I assume the company probably didn’t have production versions ready to go yet and thus didn’t want to show a product that they weren’t going to fully introduce yet.

Like many CZ-75 fans I have been eagerly awaiting the release of the Sphinx SDP Standard, that was announced at SHOT 2016. Sadly it appears that Sphinx is not going to be releasing the Standard. All is not lost though! They announced at SHOT that they will be re-releasing the Sphinx 3000 series of pistols.

Widener’s Reloading and Shooting Supply is a Johnson City, TN based online ammunition company that has pushed a press release out citing a number of alarming panic/bulk buy figures from customers in California. According to the company overall ammunition sales are up 50% from California alone, whereas national sales from other states have remained relatively normal. The sale of 9x19mm and .308 Win cartridges is especially alarming from California, showing an increase of up to 60-80%, with .223 Rem cartridges higher than either of them. Just reading some of the statistics on this panic buy is enough to give one flashbacks to the Sandy Hook induced panic buy. From Widener’s-

In before the jokes about “Comiefornia” and whatever else clever jokes you have about the overly regulated state. I feel for our shooting brethren that have to deal with the laws that were recently put in place. As much as I want to scream and yell about the insanity of the whole thing we don’t do politics here.

As is evidenced by this year’s SHOT Show, pistol caliber carbines are all the rage among the cool kids. Enough so that I may have to see what it is all about, especially now that KE Arms is manufacturing a Glock magazine compatible lower…

Texas declared February 2nd as Chris Kyle Day (lookout Punxsutawney Phil). Like him or not, Chris Kyle is definitely one of the influential people in the military community, and his legacy has created a lasting benefit in the form of family support for military and first responders. So it somewhat fitting that a set of limited custom tribute rifles have been created to both honor him and provide for support to the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation.

ZEV Technologies, a company known for their custom, high-end GLOCKs, GLOCK parts, and accessories and Mega Arms, a manufacturer known for their AR-15 rifles, parts, and accessories today announced a merger of the two firearm companies.

The Sig Sauer P250 lent a lot of design and innovation to help create the increasingly popular P320, but its time has come. With the growing market for striker-fire pistols versus hammer-fire compounded with the newly won U.S. Army contract for its new Modular Handgun System (MHS), the P320 has cemented its place in the Sig Sauer line-up. The P250, on the other hand, is on its way out the door.

Olympic Arms sent out a notice to dealers and distributors today stating that after many years they will be closing their doors. The letter that was sent out does not go into detail as to why. The end of February will be the last day of operation for the business (February 28th, 2017). Effective immediately today, January 25th, no refunds, returns, or new warranty service work will be accepted. By the wording of the rest of the letter it sounds like operations or production of product has already ceased. Only in inventory product will be available for purchase. The only way to now get a rifle made before March is if Olympic Arms already has all the necessary pieces in house.

In a move that will define Army small arm procurement for decades, the Department of Defense has just announced that they have selected Sig Sauer to produce a “Modular Handgun System” for Army warfighters. The new handgun will replace the current M9 sidearm and is the culmination of over five years of testing and trials between several manufacturers.

COLUMBUS, GA – Heckler & Koch, a manufacturer of firearms and accessories, will invest $28.5 million to expand its existing operations in Columbus, Georgia. The new 50,000 square-foot facility in the Corporate Ridge Business Park will be ready in the summer of 2017 at which time HK will consolidate its New Hampshire operations into Columbus.

Early this morning I woke to a brand new press release detailing the latest factory produced wildcat-style cartridge offered by our friends over at Nosler. They claim that the new cartridge will boast velocities that rival the 22-250 cartridge while fitting into an AR-15 platform.

Umarex announced new ammunition for airguns and muzzleloading. Utilizing PolyCase ARX technology the Umarex  ARX SpeedBand and SpeedBelt bullets are to bring a new era of terminal performance to the air rifle and black powder hunter according to Umarex.

Nordic Components has joined the legion of manufacturers of AR-15-based pistol caliber carbines but with a neat little twist. The Nordic Pistol Caliber Carbine will feature a removable, interchangeable, modular magazine well system that will allow for the use of different makes and models of pistol magazines.

Yet another new product being launched, this time by US Optics. They are going to be introducing the brand new B-Series of scopes at this year’s SHOT Show. With prices starting at $1699 it looks like they are gong to be competitively priced against other high-end scopes like you might expect.

So I am always enthused to hear about new guns coming to market, after all, more guns on the market means more variety and more things for me to shoot. I like excuses to go shoot. In a rather long press release, the Performance Center released their plans for 2017, among them was the new Performance Center Shield .45 that we leaked a while back. What we didn’t know was coming was the slide kits.

With SHOT getting closer and closer the amount of excitement grows as well as the size of my e-mail inbox. Press releases are plentiful, I assure you. That is OK though because this particular press release caught my attention. It appears that good ol’ Jerry is going to be attempting a new world record with a Smith & Wesson M&P 15T. The drill he is shooting is his very own “STL” or Share The Love drill.

Faxon Firearms are more than the ARAK platform. This time they have teamed up with Lancer Systems to produce handguards in one of my absolute favorite materials: Carbon Fiber.

I recently received an email from Adam of PSA.

A new firearm introduction that took the industry by surprise at SHOT Show 2016 was Kimber making a revolver. No one questioned Kimber’s capability to make a good revolver. It was just not a firearm type that you would consider to be in their wheelhouse. Nonetheless, the K6s has impressed a lot of people even with the high price tag.

Following on the heels of the Ruger American Pistol Compact in 9mm Luger comes the Ruger American Pistol Compact in John Moses Browning’s own caliber, .45 ACP. It only makes sense if you consider when Ruger announced the Ruger American Pistol the initial calibers were, and continue to be, 9mm Luger and .45 Automatic Colt Pistol.

This may not come as a surprise to many. Kimber ushered in the Micro 9 in 2016 to growing popularity, and in 2017 they will discontinue the Solo.

You read that correctly. Ruger is now chambering their extremely popular Precision rifle in not only 6.5mm Creedmoor, but also 6mm Creedmoor. They discontinued the .243 Winchester offering and opted for a different 6mm caliber. Depending on what grain weight and powder charge you run, both calibers perform well. The biggest determining factor could be whether you want to punch paper or varmints. Even in that scenario, it is still a close toss-up. Introducing the 6mm Creedmoor begins to cement the Ruger Precision as a true long range rifle. Less people will see this as a tactical rifle for only the Tacti-COOL crowd.

While Yankee Hill Machine has been around as long as I have been building AR-15s, they are not known for their silencers. That is a shame, as the 30 caliber suppressors they make are some of the best cans for the money available on the market today.

DDupleks, is a Latvian company that is the manufacturer of what I will call unique shotgun shell ammunition. DDupleks is the maker of such types of ammo as the Monolit 32S, Hexolit 32S and Kaviar Black and now DDupleks has announced the launch of a subsidiary right here in the United States to handle the distribution, sales and marketing of the DDupleks lines of shotgun shell ammo. In the past DDupleks has been imported by Century Arms International out of Florida, but now the end users will rely on D Dupleks-USA for the sole importation of the fancy shotgun shells for all of the North American market.

We are officially less than a month away from SHOT Show now and the new models for 2017 continue to roll in. Ruger recently announced two new caliber offerings in their GP100 and Redhawk line of revolvers. Although it is not uncommon to see revolvers chambered in .44 Special or .357 Magnum nowadays, it is less common in these specific models. The beefier frame of the GP100 plays host to the new .44 Special while the Redhawk downgrades from its typical .44 Magnum caliber to .357 Magnum.

Remington Arms Company has a new addition to their staple Model 700. They now have the Remington 700 AWR – American Wilderness Rifle. For people who treat their firearms like tools and not display pieces, this rifle is built to take a beating.