#Handguns

Republic Forge, a Perryton, Texas-based manufacturer of 1911s in various configurations has recently announced that the company has transferred ownership to an undisclosed private equity group. Along with the transfer of ownership, Republic Forge is also moving to the great state of New Mexico, specifically to the city of Los Ranchos. The company’s Master Gunsmith, Jeff Meister, is moving with the company along with all of the assets, and manufacturing equipment.

Since 2007, Iran has attempted numerous indigenous polymer framed, striker fired handgun designs such as a Walter P99 copy known as the M9-02, in addition to a simple attempt at a Glock copy known as the “Raa’d”. However, recent photographs have come to our attention that shows an increased Iranian interest in the Glock platform of handguns. IPAS 2016 had numerous Glock handguns on display, specifically the 17 and 19 models.

This “Female Gun Owner” series has focused on various aspects of concealed carry and firearms in general which I didn’t expect or hadn’t planned for. (View article 1, article 2, and article 3 here.)
Each article delves deeper into things that never crossed my mind as a woman feeding my ever-growing firearms addiction.

Two important decisions by the Army have stood out among the recent news of the M17 handgun starting to replace M9s throughout armories service-wide. First, is the news that within the Army Infantry, the handguns will be issued down to team leaders. Second, is the choice of a holster with the Safariland 7TS. Both of these decisions could be crucial to how the new handgun is perceived by soldiers, and more importantly, affect how it is utilized.

The US Army’s new sidearm, the SIG Sauer M17 Modular Handgun System, will soon be available for purchase on the civilian market. SIG’s Chief Marketing Officer Tom Taylor told Military.com about the decision, saying that about 5,000 of the full size M17 variant will be released to the civilian market sometime in early 2018:

The first holster to be issued with the US Army’s new Modular Handgun System, including both the M17 and M18 pistols, will be a variant of the Safariland 7TS holster, featuring both ALS and SLS locking systems. The holster is the first of at least three holsters to be procured as part of the MHS program, to be followed by a variant that accommodates an aiming laser/light module, as well as a concealed holster for the M18 compact variant. The holster was procured through the tailored logistics program, and the vendor selected for its ability to meet MHS’s timeline, according to a Military.com article written by Matthew Cox.

The US Army has announced a decision to field the M17 MHS as a sidearm to more soldiers than were previously issued M9 handguns. Where previously only senior leadership were authorized to carry handguns, with the new M17 and M18 Modular Handgun System squad and team leaders will be authorized. The move is intended to give those leaders greater flexibility in close quarters battle. Military.com reports:

Among the various Glock and Springfield Armory models on the market, Smith & Wesson’s Military & Police line has certainly become a close contender for one of the most popular semi-automatic handguns in the United States, both among civilian and Law Enforcement markets. It didn’t used to always be this way though. Smith & Wesson went through a long process of trial and error when it comes to introducing a reliable and likable polymer framed, striker-fired handgun to the market. Models such as the Sigma and Bodyguard come to mind in this regard. However, today we have the modern M&P line, and most recently the 2.0 revision. This review will focus on the M&P Compact 2.0 that was recently released this year. For readers that want a much better visual or video view of the handgun, James has an excellent overview of the Compact 2.0 on TFB’s Youtube channel.

We previously covered some personal opinions on such concealed carry topics as holster requirements, self-defense options, among some others. In this second article, we will continue to cover some concealed carry techniques and attitudes that have worked well for me, and I hope will be useful to our readers. Please chime in at the bottom if you have anything not mentioned that has been of particular use to you.

We’ve covered a number of products and some techniques when it comes to concealed carry at TFB, but something that I think is important are certain methods and practices that make carrying a concealed firearm safer and more efficient. The following are several points that I’ve come up with in my personal experience that I know for certain have helped me, and I hope they can help readers in their quest to be a more well rounded and responsible armed citizen. By no means is this list exhaustive, definite, or might not even work for certain folks. I myself am constantly changing techniques, strategies, products, etc… And by all means, if you have found things that work for you, please share it in the comments section, or critique what I have here.

Our last episode with Col. Dillon, the infantry officer discusses U.S. small arms and some of their finer points of employment within the Vietnam War while on his two tours there as a battalion field grade officer. The Colt 1911? Great for shooting off locks. The M16A1? Dillon actually credits that rifle with getting through the Battle of Ia Drang due to the ability to carry more ammunition over the M14. M60s? Issues with barrel changing in the middle of a firefight due to the barrel mounted bipods. Blooper carriers/grenadiers never used their mechanical sights when employing their M79 grenade launchers.

Col. Greg Dillon sat down and talked with us about the small arms that himself and the men he was commanding were faced with during the course of his two tours in Vietnam during the conflict in the 1960s. Everything from AKs, B52s, and RPGs are lightly discussed in this informative episode. Although we don’t get into specifics, Dillion still has an excellent memory of his service days, and provides us with fascinating anecdotes from these wartime experiences.

Smart gun technology in the United States usually refers to various measures being taken by a manufacturer in which they aim to make firearms harder to access by non-owners, or those without special permissions for that particular firearm. Korean S&T Motiv is going in another direction when it comes to this “Smart” technology and is optimizing a 9x19mm revolver for police work, allowing a firearm to be tracked on a live feed and give precise information about when a handgun was fired, how many rounds were used, and then when it was reloaded. A feature of this technology is that police departments have the ability to see exactly in what direction the firearm was used. This kind of information is crucial when it comes to reconstructing a crime scene investigation due to the extreme adrenaline that officers can be under during a police shooting.

It is easy to forget, what with all the hubbub about SIG’s selection for M17, Glock’s protest, and SIG’s subsequent recall, that the M17 program was intended to procure a “total system package”, not just a handgun. This meant, besides the handgun, ammunition, magazines, spares, accessories, holsters, and eventually optics and suppressors as well. While much ink has been spilt, and many glam photos taken of the XM17 and M17 MHS handguns themselves, we have not yet seen or heard very much about the ammunition it is intended to fire. From second-place finisher Glock, we have already seen the Federal-engineered Enhanced Barrier Ammunition. Partnered with SIG for the competition was ammunition heavyweight Winchester/Olin, and so it was reasonable to expect their entry to be something based on Winchester’s existing product line. At the 2017 Association of the United States Army annual meeting, that expectation was confirmed:

This guest post has been submitted to TFB on behalf of Marawan​ M, an Egyptian firearms designer currently working in Turkey for a civilian Turkish firearms company. Recently he visited the Istanbul Military Museum and wrote up a summary of his visit along with accompanying photographs. This is Marawan​ M’s first guest post for TFB.