The Self-Defense Photo Of The Day. Above you have it, an Austrian Glock pointed at an attacker armed with a knife – way too close for comfort and bound to leave a mark or two somewhere, somehow, at least on someone. Luckily this is only melee training for the soldiers in the Austrian Bundesheer, and you can see the participants and the location below.

Photo Of The Day – And here comes the flash! We’re looking at Combat Engineers from Beast Troop, Regimental Engineer Squadron, 2d Cavalry Regiment (USA) as they train on door breaching and cratering charges in Lithuania. All you need is to set the charge and run for cover. In my own safe opinion, it looks like they’re standing a little too close for comfort.

A lot of us are pretty tight on cash. This year has not been kind to those of us with an expensive passion. Whether you celebrate any of the upcoming holidays or not, these companies keep putting on deals that can tempt even the most frugal among us. So, what if you grabbed a scratcher, won a few bills, and decided to treat yourself? What would you get? With ammunition availability and the limits thrust upon us due to the pandemic, I would buy the Mantis X3 – Shooting Performance System.

Hello and welcome back to another edition of  The Rimfire Report In this weekly series we discuss and explore the various firearms, ammunition, trends, and concepts surrounding the rimfire firearm world. This week we’ll be diving into a topic I think gets very little attention but perhaps is gaining some traction due to recent times. The fact of the matter is that we are currently in the midst of one of the greatest ammunition shortages this country has ever seen. All but the most obscure of ammunition is absent from the shelves and even some wildcat calibers are taking on new popularity simply due to their availability. This week on The Rimfire Report we will discuss the value of the humble .22LR round has become for keeping your shooting life alive.

TFB’s Photo Of The Day is the place where you can discover the world of firearms through the lens of a camera. Every day we run a new theme, a bunch of selected pictures and a short story. Today we have some fantastic examples of photography from Norway. We have Operators from Forsvarets SpesialKommando (FSK) (Norwegian Special Operation Commando) during an exercise with the 352nd Special Operations Wing and their Bell-Boeing CV-22 Osprey at Rygge Air Base in Norway.

Photo Of The Day, and the winter has come to Europe. Today we have pictures from the exercise Winter Shield 20 – a Latvian led exercise integrating U.S. conventional & Special Operations Forces.

In this episode of TFBTV, James Reeves trains with ex-Navy SEAL Bill Rapier of AmTac Shooting. Bill walks us through the fundamentals of carrying and shooting a pistol, including grip, trigger press, proper workspace, and the circle of awareness. This was all taken at Surefire’s “Back to the Bills” 2020, the sequel to the 2019 “Battle of the Bills” Surefire training event.

The Ministry of Defense of Georgia and the US Embassy in Georgia have published news articles telling about a US-funded program of equipping the Georgian Defense Forces with 600 M249 SAW light machine guns. The program includes a two-week weapon familiarization course for the Georgian military personnel conducted by US advisors. Half of the course was dedicated to field training held in the Krtsanisi training center and included various drills and target engagements at 100 to 600-meter distances.

Photo Of The Day and a look at Cobra Gold 19 where Thai and US Navy SEALs work together to seize a ship using special tactics. That boat looks quite interesting.

Photo Of The Day is in honor of the vz. 58 and the CZ 858 and if you haven’t tried one you missed something. My own CZ 858 is a “back to basics” rifle, to remind me that shooting is difficult and that you have to watch the iron sights and the recoil and “do it right” or you’ll miss. It’s also fun to have a rifle where you can buy ammunition in strange cans.

SIG SAUER has been doing a lot of big things recently, and their momentum doesn’t appear to be slowing. Their Custom Works division looks to be singing along nicely, with new offerings like the Nightmare and Equinox series’ recent releases along with the all-metal P320 AXG Scorpion, hot on the heels of the P320 FCU Collective program announced earlier this year. SIG has also won another new major defense contract for one of their optics, termed the Direct View Optic (DVO), which is intended to replace the aging ACOG currently employed by many US Soldiers and Marines on their M4s. These successes should make it no surprise that SIG has also recently announced an expansion, with growth requiring new facilities in Rochester, New Hampshire.

Photo Of The Day: We return to Hochfilzen, Austria, with more pictures from the International Specialty Training Center High Angle Sniper Course. There’s also a much longer video attached and I suggest you watch it first.

Rite in the Rain has a century-long history that stretches back to the Pacific Northwest’s early 20th century lumber trade. The basic question was posed, “Isn’t there a better way to record the scaling of logs and the tallying of lumber in the inclement Pacific Northwest weather?”. From that early niche application, they have grown into the broader scope of outdoors activities, and have been serving the military and other shooters/outdoorsmen for decades. Myriad warfighters have relied on Rite in the Rain products to take down important notes in the field, where information is regularly a life-or-death matter and the fragility of normal paper can be a liability. Now the company is adding a new product to their catalogue, a 100-meter sniper target, once again catering to the many shooters in their customer base.

Photo Of The Day: Today’s pictures are from Hochfilzen, Austria, and as you can see it was quite a steep walk for the snipers as well as the photographer. Above you see Belgian Special Forces sniper teams as they engage long-range targets, from an elevated shooting range as part of the High Angle Sniper Course. Below are an Italian Special Forces Sniper and International Special Training Center Sniper instructor as they climb to the shooting range.

Shotguns are the most violent firearm in most people’s arsenal, but they can also be used in less-lethal situations. Shotguns have many uses, as you can load them with slugs, buckshot, birdshot and various other loads. In our Photo Of The Day, we take a look at Canadian Light Infantry Pioneers as they use the shotgun to get past various obstacles.

In this episode of TFBTV, James Reeves is at Thunder Ranch talking to two senior instructors, Chris and Tom, about the 5 best things new gun owners can do before or right after purchasing a gun for personal protection. Chris and Tom have extensive military and law enforcement experience prior to becoming trainers. They have seen first hand the mistakes made by innumerable new gun purchasers and trainees. In this video, these pro trainers discuss the guns, belts, holsters, training, and etc. that new gun owners should look at before they purchase their first gun.

One of my favorite things in this world is trap shooting. When I had requested to review a trap thrower out of Champion Target’s thrower line up, I was not sure if anything would come of it. Happy and excited to tell you that I had a great opportunity to get to know one of those throwers in their line up. The  EasyBird Auto-Feed Doubles Trap thrower is the one in question today. I look forward to talking about how this mechanical chunk of fun works and how fun it was to use. Let us dive right into the  EasyBird Auto-Feed Doubles Trap!

A new dimension for the Hécate II Sniper Rifle – this is our topic for today’s Photo Of The Day, but there’s room for other sniper rifles as well.

If you’re looking to hone in your accuracy for this year’s fall hunting season, you might want to look into this new offering from Grizzly Targets. Grizzly Targets is now offering what they call the Double Vital Hunting Target. The steel target is made of 3/8″ thick AR500 steel and provides shooters with two “vital” reactive target areas to shoot at.

The French Army uses the HK416F rifle. Eric B recently posted about their bayonets for said rifles. Well according to Retex, a French magazine, the French Army is getting airsoft rifles for training purposes. It is called the HK416F-S.

If you’re looking to add a little bit of colorful fun to your next range trip you might consider the new colorful non-explosive reactive targets from Spüt Targets LLC. This Kickstarter funded company is producing targets that contain a powder-based visual indicator of where you hit the target. Some more information can be found in their full press release below.

The B8 target sizing is important to understand in order to draw a good correlation. The B8 target gets its name from being 8″ in diameter. The 9 ring is 5.54″, 10 ring is 3.36″ and the X ring is 1.695″ in diameter.

Photo Of The Day and we take a look at Special Operational practice between Hungarian and Slovak soldiers during the Jackal Cave 2020 exercise. My knowledge of the Hungarian language is a bit weak, but the place seems to be called “Újdörögdön”. I’ll leave the pronunciation up to you, but I hope you give it a few tries.

In this episode of TFBTV, James Reeves brings you to the Battle of the Bills, an invitation-only Surefire training event, where a 25-year S.W.A.T. professional, Bill Blowers of Tap Rack Tactical, showed trainees the ropes on how to become a better, more skilled AR-15 shooter. Grab your AR, a half-case of ammo, a bunch of mags, and in an afternoon of running through these 4 steps and 2 drills, you will become a better tactical AR-15 operator.

“Every Marine is, first and foremost, a rifleman. All other conditions are secondary.” When General Alfred M. Gray Jr. first spoke these words many years ago, he probably didn’t anticipate just how ubiquitous they would become for the Marines who were to follow. Prior to becoming the 29th Commandant of the Marine Corps in 1987, Gray used the experience and lessons learned from his time in Korea and Vietnam to oversee significant updates to USMC training, including the emphasis on marksmanship from whence his famous quote came. Although some infantry Marines scoff at the idea that their non-combat counterparts could be their equals when it comes to the art and science of the gun, in general, the “ every Marine a rifleman” idea has taken root over the last half-century or so.

Photo Of The Day – The muzzle blast of the machine gun lights up the dark and dense forest as the Brigade Franco-Allemande ( French-German Brigade) does a surprise attack. The machine gun is MG3, made by Rheinmetall and chambered in 7.62x51mm NATO. We’re looking at the 3rd Company of the Jägerbataillon 292 as they practice fighting in the forest.

During the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest this year, there has been a nationwide rush on firearms and ammunition. We all can feel the struggles every time we go to the gun store or online dealer for ammo. Part of this is the fact there are more first-time gun owners in society now. These new owners are typically people who want to get better with their firearm for concealed carry but don’t know where to start.

Taking place throughout the month of September 2021 is the massive Assassin’s Way competition that covers a broad section of the United States with its various tasks and locations. The Assassin’s Way competition has a wallet shrinking $25,000 entry fee but with an equally large cash payback of $500,000 for the sole victor of the competition.

Our Photo Of The Day, today comes from Finland. We are looking at a few shots sent to TFB by a team that took part in the Finnish Brutality 2 Gun competition, organized by the Finnish military store Varusteleka.

SIG Sauer is a worldwide leader in the design and production of firearms, and has been for many years. This is common knowledge. What is a bit less well-known is that SIG is also heavily involved in the training aspect of firearms, not just in manufacturing. They well understand that it isn’t good enough just to have quality guns, we must also be experienced, trained, and proficient in their use. To this end, they maintain the SIG Sauer Academy in Epping, New Hampshire. They describe this facility as: