Maxim Defense is coming out with a tiny little PDW dubbed the PDX. At Range Day, The Firearm Blog had a shooting bay all to ourselves. This allowed for vendors to book an appointment and bring their latest and greatest to us for a more intimate look at their products. Maxim’s appointment was later in the afternoon and they were running low on 7.62×39 so they brought along a 5.56x45mm variant of the PDX.

At Range Day, Magpul had some CZ Scorpions with their latest upgrades. They also had their new D50 .308 drum magazine feeding some AR-10 style rifles. Unfortunately the Magpul MP5 was just a prototype so it was only on display on the show floor.

The CP-33 is Kel-Tec’s newest pistol. CP stands for “competition pistol” and 33 is the number of .22 LR rounds in its interesting double stacked-double stacked magazine. With a threaded 5.5 inch barrel, light weight, and picatinny rail, it’s ready for your next match or just plinking in the backyard. Based on Kel-Tec’s PMR-30 and CMR-30 the CP-33 is sure to be popular for those looking for a .22 LR pistol with a high capacity, ambidextrous safety and the ability for out of the box customization.

In this episode of TFBTV, James visits with Marc of DSA to discuss the modernized or “Improved” series of modern FALs being produced by DSA. In addition to several improvements and modifications, DSA plans to launch a new FAL in 6.5 Creedmoor with a stainless match barrel.

VLTOR Weapon Systems brought a ton of new products to SHOT Show 2019. In this article, I’ll briefly tell about the most significant ones. According to the company officials, most of these new products will be available for purchase by Q3 2019. Let’s take a look.

“Necessity is the mother of invention”  This was certainly the case for Daniel Gyurec.  At the show, he told me about the instigating event for the creation of the bipodeXT.  He was out shooting with a friend, and as it often does, it turned into a friendly competition, which he lost.  He said losing wasn’t so bad but it was the fact he just couldn’t get his rifle as stable as he wanted that bugged him.  The epiphany hit a few days later when he was watching an action movie.  The main character was using the edge of a building as a front rest, but with most of the rifle hanging over the edge creating a teeter-totter effect.  Gyurec though to himself how much more stable this position would be if the rifle were rested more towards the muzzle.  Days later he had a “rough”(read pipe and duct tape) proof of concept affixed to his rifle and was seeing improved stability.  A few years later his design has been refined and expanded into the products pictured here.

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.

Thunder Beast has long been a go-to silencer for precision long-range shooters. This is in large part because the engineering that goes into their cans is as focused on things like repeatability and minimal point of impact shift as it is on noise reduction. (I have shot sub-half minute 5 shot groups while removing and replacing the unit after every shot.) This makes even more sense when you get to know the engineers, they are all long-range shooters themselves.  In fact, Zak Smith (the owner) has been in the precision rifle competition field since 2005.  So, when I heard they had a new bipod out I knew it was going to be worth taking a look at.

Over the past few years a bunch of companies have been releasing parts to build Roland Special Glocks, what’s that? It’s what all the gun fighters are building these days. RMR cut slides, threaded barrels and flared magwells. Well that trend has moved onto other pistols, even the 1911 is getting in on the action. Ed Brown and ZEV Technologies teamed up to produce something similar with their new line of premium custom 1911s.

Even though TFB was entrusted with the task of officially breaking the news on PTR’s newest roller– delayed firearms just a week before SHOT, it was nice to finally see them in person on the show floor. The 9KT is obviously a roller-delayed pistol formed in the likeness of the original HK MP5K, and the PTR 9R is the spitting image of

Stance, grip, sight alignment, sight picture, breath control, trigger squeeze and follow through, all important elements for good marksmanship.  Of these, for a precise pistol shot, I prioritize sights and trigger.  I demonstrate this to my students by standing like a flamingo (poor stance) griping too low on the frame (poor grip) and holding my breath (poor breath control) while still making a precise shot because of my emphasis on sights and trigger.  If your sights are on target and you can pull the trigger without moving them off target you are going to make the shot.  Simple Sights has devised a system that is intuitive and precise.  They call it the Whoosh sights.

This year Century Arms had two big ticket items on the SHOT 2019 list. The first was the company’s custom line of AK-patterned rifles and Canik handguns that were worked on by a custom shop outside of Century. Century Arms gave them carte-blanche to complete different modifications to the AK rifles and with different finishes applied too. The Canik’s were done by a separate shop but still have that same individual flair to them.

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.

A few months back I started planning a custom finish for my Sig Sauer Rattler PDW. Having my fair share of Cerakote coated guns, I wanted to try something new; eventually stumbling across a treatment called Tanodizing. The process involves Type II anodizing – a room temperature charged solution that can include a number of different colored dyes, including Tan or FDE (hence tanodizing). Asking around the industry, Outlaw Anodizing in Houston, Texas, came highly recommended from more than one industry professional.

Norma Ammunition has come out with two new lines of ammunition this year for SHOT 2019. A hunting load that uses a match grade boattail round with a polymer bonded tip. This is designed for long range hunting applications where accuracy is necessary to hit animals out to 800 meters, but the terminal ballistics on them needs to be effective as well. This particular load was in .30-06, however there will be more chamberings added to the lineup in the future as it expands.

Ah Swiss precision, there’s almost nothing sexier in the firearms world. B&T does an excellent job at making practical and useful guns into a sort of industrial art. For example, many pistol caliber carbines that utilize GLOCK magazines end up looking a horrendous bicycle-meets-train road accident. However, the APC9 PRO with a GLOCK lower is, in my opinion, as about as good as it gets it terms of overall aesthetics. And making a clamp-on style chassis for a GLOCK pistol has the potential for a scarred up horror flick villain look that even Tapco wouldn’t love. But, set a Swiss engineer on the case, and suddenly you quickly have a winning design. The practicality and functionality of a larger framed GLOCK chassis still remains to be seen, however.

Marching through the Sands Expo Center for a week can be a seemingly never-ending grind. From an outsider’s point of view, SHOT is an sea of new guns and gear, but the reality is that it is also a maze of wheeled luggage and cheap knives, lubricants and ballistic nylon. But one of the many reasons I love the silencer industry so much Is that by legal definition, NFA items must be manufactured in the United States. And the the team at Innovative Arms is a prime example of a U.S. company making quality products and providing excellent customer service. I was lucky enough to spend time with IA talking about the new Deception X, a prototype MPX integral silencer and the sneaky M&P15-22.

Good afternoon my hush-happy friends and welcome back to another episode of TFB’s Silencer Saturday, where the quietest day of the week is the one where you spin on a suppressor. Today we have a rundown on most of the 2019 SHOT Show suppressors seen on the show floor, industry range day, Sig’s range day, and in the middle of the desert at a remote location. Unfortunately today’s recap is not all inclusive: our 20+ writers are still busy cranking out posts from their hard-earned week in Las Vegas, NV. Whatever we miss today, will show up in next week’s Silencer Saturday report.

In this episode of TFBTV’s SHOT Show Industry Day on the Range coverage, James visits Glock and Shane Coley, Glock’s competitive shooting team captain, to discuss how the Glock 43X and 48 have been doing in the hands of range day attendees and Glock professionals.

Franklin Armory had their Reformation RS7 at Range Day this year, in addition to expanding their binary trigger pack system to the CZ EVO line of pistol caliber carbines. Introduced last year at SHOT 2018, the Reformation falls in an interesting legal category wherein it isn’t a rifle because it has straight lands and grooves, but also isn’t a shotgun. Thus it cannot be classified as an SBR with its short barrel length, but is still legal to own as a firearm under the Gun Control Act.

When we first wrote about the ANVL UKON for the Trijicon RMR with backup iron sights (BUIS), the comments section had its share of critics, many revolving around a short sight radius. But here’s the thing about judging a book solely by its cover: you may not get the full story. The good folks at ANR Design sent me an original version of the UKON for review and over the past six months I’ve run the sight/optic combination on everything from to pistols, carbines and rifles.

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.

Beginning in March this year, Full Conceal will be shipping their very own complete Glock aluminum lower. This will be an in-house product and afford shooters to take the Gen3, Gen4, or Gen5 Upper Slide Assemblies they already own and create a Full Conceal folding Glock pistol of their own.  This New complete aluminum Glock lower from Full Conceal is called the M3D AL.

SOG Knives & Tools was in attendance at SHOT Show 2019, and they had quite the assortment of blades to show off for the 1st time! Everything from fixed blades to frame locks to multi-tools were on display for fondling and future purchasing. We’ll try to give you a short and concise rundown of everything new they had on display.

I was browsing the company directory ahead of SHOT 2019 when this caught my eye:

Browning representatives were able to show TFB TV some of the latest rifles and ammunition from Browning and Browning Ammunition. The Max Long Range rifle is built on the previous X-Bolt operating system with a few changes. Barrel length is 26 inches and it has a threaded muzzle for the mounting of suppressors. The stock is adjustable for length of pull through the use of spacers, in addition to an adjustable cheek rest. MSRP is between $1100-$1200.

In this episode of TFBTV’s #SHOTShow 2019 coverage, James visits big Paul of Zenith to talk about what they have coming from the MKE plant for 2019. Fortunately for you .308/7.62NATO enthusiasts, Zenith is introducing a G3/HK91 model in this year’s lineup. Check out the video to see the details.

Looking at CZ-USA’s new product spreadsheet is eye-watering.  There are roughly 75 new CZ firearms for 2019.  Let’s have a look at some of the more prominent selections:

Our partnership with Strike Industries was an amazing experience from the very beginning of SHOT Show 2019. We hosted them at our range day booth and they brought one of those high-speed low drag Phantom cameras. Anyone at the range could walk into our booth, shoot a gun, have it filmed in slow motion and then receive his video at Strike Industries booth at the exhibition. This author didn’t miss that chance, too.

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″.