All posts by Soda_Pop

Eotech Sights still have an edge

Eotech SightsI personally can’t trash Eotech sights or Trijicon or Aimpoint.  There are a few other optics that I have personally worked with that are moving  up to that category, and that’s just my personl opinion about worthiness.   I haven’t spent time in the Canadian Military, Russian Military or Royal Forces to talk about what they are using, but durability means its going to last.   When I look at all of the internal technological changes that many of these optics have had, even a good design, when fielded, will have its weak points.   Just think about how much of an improvement the M14 was over the M1 Garand, but as soon as the M14 was fielded in Vietnam, the M14 stocks swelled and just didn’t hold up in that climate that changes needed to be made.   There are plenty of arguments about how bad the M16 did in Artic testing so don’t think desert warfare is the same as Artic.  Even snow speeders had trouble adapting to cold.

Remember that trying to have a perfect cheekweld in real world conditions isn’t always possible, cutting corners, climbing stairs and running full speed is something you might want to do, movement is important to survival and the Eotech Sights have a very unique holographic gun sight.   It’s not a dot that you can easily loose track of depending on it’s brightness and this was copied after the F16 fighter gun sight because they knew that with all of the ducking and weaving that a fighter pilot would be engaging in that it’s impossible to have  your head completely still.  Just moving a half inch back and forth with iron sights means not having a sight picture or losing your target.   The batteries don’t run as long as a Trijicon SRS sight or the Aimpoint Patrol Rifle Optic, but it might be the best and fastest sighting system for you.

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A good utility knife is a good knife

It doesn’t matter what you spend on a knife, if it works for you you’re fine.   There are plenty of reasons to not have to spend $180 on a knife, even if it’s really sharp and holds and edge.   If you loose that knife I guarantee you’re going to cry.   Besides being able to have a good edge on it, get a good knife sharpening kit or whatever knife sharpening system you think works for your price range and use it correctly.  I’ve seen many times how people just eat up a knife and don’t sharpen them properly, and it’s basically useless once you get away from cutting through tape on boxes you got shipped in.  A butter knife can usually get the job done just because it’s hard and and blunt.  One thing I have found that people should seriously consider is a good sheath or make sure you loctite any and every screw even if it means taking it out and putting it back in.

I don’t really have a favorite knife because I use so many of them for different things, on second thought, I think my steak knife is my favorite.   We  have a large selection of tactical knivesTactical Knives, rescue knives and even SOG and Leatherman multi-tools.   Sometimes  multi-tool might be a better idea but make sure it’s something you are actually going to carry and not get something that is an over kill.   There are always elaborate ways of carrying these from neck knives, boot knives, clip on pocket or carrying in a sheath.   Different blade metals can make a huge different in durability but a knife that looses it’s edge isn’t going to be of much use for cutting.

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Handguns and Rifles and technology to improve safety, gunvault gun safes might be worth a look

Gunvault SafesThere are plenty of stories in the news right now of Law Enforcement gun accidents and a Child discovering a handgun and shooting themselves.   Handguns are inherently more dangerous than rifles because it’s much easier to be cumbersome with them.   Just look at the number of accidents with holstering and un-holstering of firearms.    The Blackhawk Serpa has  reputation of not being suitable for many people because it is possible to release the firearm with index finger, and depending on how you draw the gun up, your finger, while depressing the release button can curl into the trigger guard and hit the trigger while drawing the gun.   If the proper training is taking, it’s less likely to happen but if people just did more training all of this would dramatically be reduced, but they don’t and you have to expect that many people just won’t.

In firearm instructor training we learned that I am responsible for ever bullet I send, and there is a lawyer attached to everyone of them.   If you read the stats on firearm accidents it’s mostly handguns, then alcohol related hunting accidents or hunters not identify people from animals.   That’s one reason I don’t go out for Deer rifle season unless it’s private land,  Turkey season has a much higher accident rate because people violate hunter rules and instead of calling in Turkey’s they pursue them and find out the other person calling Turkey’s is another hunter, and you better  hope he’s got good eyesight and knows you aren’t a Turkey.  There are rules, but you cant make people follow them.   If you care about your life and other’s around you’ll do some research and improve any safety measures you can where every you can.  To me guns should be locked up or in a holster or a gun safe.   You can lock your CCW gun up in hidden gunvault safes in the kitchen  or living  room instead and keep your bedroom gun locked up in drawer safe or a wall safe.   If you can do anything that can prevent the wrong person from accessing it, put up all the firewalls  you can to slow them down, don’t make it easier for them.   We have this on internet security, password protection, and we put dead bolts on front and back doors.

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Streamlight Flashlights from the Protac 2L to the rechargeable Strion and Survivor

Streamlight LED FlashlightsStreamlight is one of those “staples” in this industry and even though Surefire is pretty much the comparison to Streamlight, there is always a niche that one does better than the other.    There have been some price drops for some of the Surefire G2 models and it’s basically due to the improvement of technology and manufacturing ease.    I went through that xenom flashlight faze and all of the LED upgrade but now that LED has been around so long, there are newer generations with much larger output.   Even though flashlights are considered bullet magnets, if the flashlight is damn bright you aren’t going to see anything if you are close to it.  Sure at distances you are drawing attention to yourself and if somebody sees that they might fire on you, but we’re not talking about SWAT tactical or Military operations.  For close situations something like the Streamlight Protac 2L which I highly recommend with the CR123 battery type is a 260 Lumen flashlight.   The strobe features are nice if you train with it but can also be very annoying for non-tactical or defense purposes.

The size of the flashlight, the make up of the body and the output and run time are making flashlights, lighter, stronger and better.     What usually throws a monkey wrench into the reputation of some flashlights are when you are putting mounts on them or running pressure switches.   I have had a higher failure rate with some click on and off flashlights compared to the screw on cap lights, but no where near what pressure switches have.   Pressure switches need better mounting to avoid breakage and excessive wear and so many people don’t pay attention to that.  Get a cord that gets the job done and don’t allow it to be able to bent back and forth.   There are some interesting ways of running them through handguards so read up on it.    The HL or High Lumen flashlights like the Strion HL have the perfect size Streamlight LED Flashlights for most Law Enforcement, the Streamlight Survivor is heavily used in Fire and Rescue.

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Open Carry, Retention, Night Sights and Flashlights, things you need to think about

I’m all for looking for ways to improve whichever firearm you choose to carry, even if you shoot it well on a firing range and it fits your hand, how well will you shoot it in low light? How well do you shoot it in 95F temperatures on a bright sunny day?   Sight pictures with black on black in dark hazy days can mean not having a sight picture and there will be no contrast.   Even the designers of the Trijicon TA01NSN knew to put a front night sight on the backup irons.   Technology is changing and and there are reasons why you should consider updating whatever iron sights you have and even consider putting a light or laser or your firearm.   Sure there is always a balance between lightweight and bulk but even for a home defense firearm, pulling a full size semi-auto having a TLR1 flashlight is a none issue.   There are plenty of really bad stories in the news about people accidentally shooting girlfriends or wives and lighting up your presumed threat might mean not shooting.

Shooting a firearm with a light is very different than shooting without a light, you will have to practice so you don’t pull the firearm off target when you activate the light and under stress, you have to really practice to unlearn this.   I can’t say enough that people need to spend more time with firearm safety training and scenario training because there are just so many bad examples in the news right now of Cops shooting unarmed individuals and these recent South Carolina shooting is just gas on the fire.   I don’t care how decorated you are, we’re talking about defending lives and taking them, whether you are Law Enforcement or non-Law Enforcement.    If you are open carrying, there should always be consideration about levels of retention so you aren’t one of those people that discharges a firearm while sitting on the toilet.   Sounds funny but that bullet is going somewhere and can end of life.    Recently Blackhawk has released the Black Hawk Epoch holster and although it looks like they are still working on broadening which firearms they are manufacturing them for,   Safariland Holsters ALS Holsters that can also give you a Level II holster and can be used as a paddle or belt holster are excellent choices.

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Yes, the Glock 42 has already changed and so have the Glock Factory magazines

Glock Factory MagazinesWithout having to steal anyone imagery, I’ll just defer you to Google to see what some of the other bloggers have mentioned and that there have already been changes to the Glock 42 .380 caliber pistol.   It’s not a surprise to us because we see stuff like this all the time, if you’re the first person to buy the gun, you might end up with basically the commercial prototype and the guy that buys the same same gun a year later will have some type of extractor, recoil spring, slide stop change, hammer spring change, take down pin, trigger pin change that your gun was found be fault with.   I learned this less about 15yrs ago when a friend had a Kahr pistol that he had to send back because the trigger pins we’re falling out of them.   Well, Kahr firearms has a pretty well established name in the industry but it doesn’t mean they haven’t made engineering mistakes.   For all of the things that NASA has accomplished in existence, it’s has some  pretty catastrophic mistakes.  Things always seem like they’ll work on the drawing board but when it comes to fielding, there are too many variables that absolute testing is an impossibility.

I’ve seen too many patterns and trends go awry that the advice is to always go slow.   Don’t be one of those guys that goes out and picks up a gun at a gun show and then finds  out there aren’t any holsters for it.   Is you picked up a pile of Magpul Gen 3 PMAGS in the last year and a half, you better go back and check them in your firearms because there were some pretty big batches that are out of spec and they are out there.   You’ll usually always better to stick with Factory Magazines because they tend to get it right or improve on it rather than an aftermarket magazine that won’t know about firearm tweaks and modifications.   Since we have found out there are already changes to Glock 42 Glock Factory Magazines we’ve had to make sure we didn’t have the first run mags here because we know that somebody is going to call  us out on it because of the changes.  We always listen to our customers and learn from them because that’s just the only way you can really stay in the know.   Obviously Glock Inc. got some negative feedback and had to make changes.

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Trijicon Accupoint Rifle Scopes, you pay for clarity and engineering, but you also reap the rewards for being to apply it!

Trijicon Accupoint ScopesFor the number of hours i’ve spent on the firing line and the list of brand names and mishaps I see with equipment, I’ve pretty much learned that if you buy the less expensive stuff, and  you shoot a lot, it’s not going to last.  It might get the job done for 3000 rounds before the scope looses zero, or the mount screws will sheer or crack or you’ll discover all of the failing points.  I won’t give a blank statement saying that one brand is always better than another because the one thing we notices in this industry is there are plenty of manufacturers that are putting out decent optics for less month than some of the more well known companies and that’s simply due to the fact that engineering is improving.   I will always suggest you check out warranties on products and also check online about reviews, but make sure you have good bull shit meter when you read them because plenty of people complain about things that were their faults, or it’s all second hand knowledge.

Sometimes the people that cut the most corners with optics are people that are hunting and the truth of the matter is that hunting rifles tend to not have as many rounds through them as something like an AR15 or SKS rifle.   With Trijicon Accupoint Scopes you are getting a little bit more into a hunting optic that wasn’t previously around, a pole reticle so you are getting literally pin point accuracy if you sighted the gun in properly, illumination what rarely existed before and the option of a durable 1-4×24 Compact optic with a wide ocular lense (the back of the scope) and helps find your sight picture quickly.   The reticle illumination is adjustable by adjusting a rear closure and this is extremely important for sunny days when you gotta cut back on the illumination and in low light allow more illumination.

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Otis Gun Cleaning kits and the options that are available

Otis Gun Cleaning KitsI’ve had an Otis kit that pretty much covers all of my semi-auto rifle gun cleaning, but I think the best thing about these kits are that they are so easy to store.   Dealing with private security and military contractors that are traveling around the Country, this is a very coming thing is to pickup an Otis AR15 gun cleaning kit.   Some of the kits can be stowed in the storage  in your buttstock or in the grip storage if you have a grip that will take it.   From my experience I didn’t have any rattling which I thought it might at first but wasn’t much of an issue.   Things are very different when you are outside and dealing with climate changes and wind and dust.  Just recently we had a State Trooper in our store that told us that someone on his motorcycle actually had a gun rust shut because all of the weather got to it over the course of several months and they had to take a hammer to it.  Things like dust covers on an AR15 don’t  mean so much if you are going to the range and coming home and putting it back in a gun safe but out in the field, it’s the difference between a clean bolt carrier group and a non-functioning one.

There are other things to consider with the Otis kits and there are some kits that come  with lense cleaners which do a good job of getting dirt out of the hard to get to spots, like parts between the objective tube and the lense.   Even though I use boresnakes a lot the AR15 cleaning kit is in my range backpack all the time.    We see a lot of Otis Gun Cleaning Kits in Border Protection and Private Security personnel as well as Hunters going on Safari.   There are multi caliber cleaning kit options and one of the other major selling points is you don’t need to carry a cleaning rod with you because the wire, if used properly should accommodate your cleaning needs, Handgun cleaning kits, rifle cleaning kits and shotgun cleaning kits.

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Inexpensive solution before you break or damage something, gun racks can make a difference

Versatile Gun RacksI hope everyone reading this owns a gun safe.   I understand that some people don’t have kids in the house and do leave firearms by the bedside or hidden in their home for self defense but there are plenty of reasons you really should be locking  your guns up.   What I do notice is that many of the larger rifle gun safes really aren’t very accurate when it comes to telling you how many firearms you can fit in it because optics, slings and stocks can bulk up space and make that 18 gun safe turn into a 12 or 14 gun safe real fast.   Some gun safes have shelves that you can use that will hold handguns in them and there are replacement inner panels that you can also use for mounting handguns.   One other consideration is to just put a flat shelf in and buy one of these Gun Racks which really do make a difference in keeping your stuff organized and not bouncing off of one another.   It also makes retrieving and putting guns away much easier.

Many of my associates  have progressed toward building hidden rooms with re-enforced doors and turning a room in their house into a closet/safe.   Many times you can easily build your own gun racks but for the cost of these Versatile gun racks and Vesatile Gun Shelves you have solve the problem real fast.  I have seen plenty of times where some of the gun safes with the cutouts for handguns will actually allow the firearm to fall through the shelving and possible hit one of your rifles that has an optic on it and a Colt 1911 falling 18 inches down onto a Zeiss Conquest Rifle Scope isn’t going to be pretty.   Just something to think about.

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Lots of options to consider for upgrading sights, Trijicon Night Sights

Trijicon Night SightsThe first thing you need to do when learning to hit your target is paying attention to your front sight.   It’s funny how, after time, its very easy to adapt to different scopes, iron sights ect quickly when you’ve had some range time.   Someone with experience just moves their head around until they find the sight picture while an inexperienced person might have trouble even finding a reticle.  Eye relief can vary from optic to optic and there are big differences between something like the Trijicon TA11H-G and the Ta31F-G.   There are plenty of reasons to move away from just having black on black front and rear sights but you don’t have to put something that also announces a bright neon color on your firearm.   I’ll never forget the time I was changing a target at 500yds, during a cease fire, and could see the glimmer of various objective lenses and neon strands across the tables.    There are reasons people wrap rags around their scopes to limit the fiber optic exposure and there are reasons for kill flashes on objective lenses.

Even though handguns aren’t usually decked out with too many optics,  I’ve seen some very hi-visibility sights that are too visible on the other side of the barrel.   For the same reasons flashlights can be a target indicator, so can your sighting system on a rifle or a handgun.   I have several of the older Trijicon Night Sights on various pistols and once they get to about 10yrs, I have to replace them.   I lean heavily toward the Trijicon High Definition Night Sights since they have very good application in low light as well as extreme clarity in day light.   They are available for Glock Firearm, Sig Handguns and Springfield XD.   Definitely consider looking them over because they are one of our hottest selling replacement sights.

 

 

 

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