#S&W

With all the police trade-in Smith & Wesson M&P 45 handguns floating around on the market, I have been pretty tempted to pick one up as a suppressor host. With the used guns on the market at around $350, adding a threaded barrel from Silencerco or another vendor is easy and keeps the whole package under the $600 mark.

Bryan Haaker and Jake Wyman are both software developers turned firearm parts designers, manufacturers and entrepreneurs. And while the the parallels between the two worlds aren’t apparent on the surface, the two partners who started TANDEMKROSS in 2012 are expert problem solvers. Both men and the rest of the team believe in listening to shooters concerns and finding genuine solutions.

Smith & Wesson announced its Q1 2017 results on Thursday, showing more than a 40% increase in net sales – to $207 million – when compared to Q1 2016. Not bad considering the quarter is typically a down one compared to the hunting and holiday seasons.

In late July we reported on Smith & Wesson working on a deal to buy Crimson Trace for $95 million dollars. On August 29th Smith & Wesson announced that the deal has gone through, Crimson Trace is now theirs. The cash deal gives Smith & Wesson a new platform to develop a line of electro-optics with instant brand recognition bypassing hurdles in proving a product to the industry.

Typically, the larger companies do not file intellectual lawsuits with one another for a myriad of reasons.  Both, typically with competent and expensive attorneys, find it prohibitively expensive to defend intellectual property against a similarly sized opponent. This, of course ignores the marketing side of it which is typically never positive.

In a second surprise move from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the force has selected Glock USA’s entrant to the competition to select a new pistol for the bureau. In October of 2015, the FBI released a new request for proposal (RFP) soliciting from the industry handguns that would conform to its desired specifications; those specs seemed to favor SIG Sauer’s entrant, the P320, as they disallowed the finger grooves characteristic of 3rd gen and later Glock pistols. While many figured that this meant Glock was out of the running, this win suggests the Austrian handgun giant was more than willing (as they should be) to accommodate the FBI’s requests by changing the molds used to create their pistol frames.

Previously, we looked at the most common type of locking mechanism for rifles, but what about handguns? Well, today we’ll be looking at tilting-barrel locking, a method used in virtually every modern locked-breech handgun today.

News of the latest addition to Smith and Wesson’s lineup spread fast during the recent NRA Annual Meeting (NRAAM). Smith and Wesson’s newest gun is an M&P Shield chambered in .45 ACP, and it’s an announcement that’s been met with more than a little interest. The company’s booth was filled to overflowing during the NRAAM. Now, close on the heels of the new .45 ACP are announcements regarding accessories for the pistol. Comp-Tac Holsters has expanded their line to include holsters made specifically for the newest Smith and Wesson handgun.

At the 2016 National Rifle Association Annual Meeting, gunmaker Smith & Wesson announced a new single stack carry handgun for the civilian market: A .45 ACP variant of their popular Military & Police Shield, previously available in .40 S&W and 9mm only.

Expos like the 2016 NRA Annual Meeting or the SHOT Show are usually places to find the latest and greatest in the firearms world. Sometimes, however, exhibitors bring along relics of the past, forgotten firearms that haven’t seen the public spotlight in decades or even centuries. For Rock Island Auction, these kinds of items are their business, and in reflection of that, the auction company brought some extremely rare and unusual rifles to the NRA 2016 showroom floor.

Smith & Wesson announced an expansion of its popular M&P 15-22 Sport line with the addition of the MOE SL rifles. The new models follow on the heels of the company’s revamping of the M&P 15-22 line at the beginning of the year.

I must be grouchy or something, but another product caught my eye as one that I do not understand the existence of. While the Apex Glock Magazine Plates were and are, in my opinion, utterly stupid, a larger name in the firearms industry put out a product that seems to be an answer searching for a problem.

General Dynamics and Smith & Wesson are deepening their partnership past the impending Modular Handgun System solicitation. Per a Press Release, Smith & Wesson has “awarded” General Dynamic’s Ordnance and Tactical Systems division a multi-year contract “to produce hammer forged, military grade gun barrels.” The release goes further to state that these barrels will be issued in the M&P pistol, which the two companies have submitted for the XM17 Modular Handgun System (MHS) competition.

Smith & Wesson’s big announcement at the show was something concealed carriers have been asking after for years now: An M&P Bodyguard 380 with no manual thumb safety. This would perhaps have been a much bigger announcement than it was, had the company released the product in 2012, rather than 2016. The fact is that those looking for a pocket .380 handgun – those who just can’t live with a nigh-useless manual safety, that is – have so many options to choose from at this point that the safety-less Bodyguard won’t be terribly exciting news for most.

Over a week ago Alex and I made a special trip to the Dallas Safari Club Show in the hopes of being the first media outlet to get our hands on the new S&W SW22 Victory. It was not to be. They did not bring it along and we were told to try again at SHOT Show. Today, at Industry Day At The Range, we succeeded, and as far as I know we are the first media outlet to handle and shoot this pistol. Expect a full review in the near future, but for now let me touch on its main features, how it feels and how it looks.