All posts in Tactical Gear

Less lethal devices aren’t talked about enough

Kimber Pepper BlasterThere is a lot going on in  the news about the Knock Out game and various self defense shootings and race.   There is a problem in our society where the truth can’t be told but the media and Politicians use it for their way of stirring people up for their own political gain.    It really is sad how the real picture, is Americans are turning on each other.    The 2nd Amendment is there, but the life altering impact on using lethal force is something that is not discussed enough.    Florida is the focus much of this conversation but those that carry firearms for self defense should seriously look at what the cost of using a firearm vs using some of the modern less lethal options.

Some of our hottest selling pepper sprays, both stream, gels and fog are still the keychain devices, I guess it’s just a comfort but it’s really  not the best option.   We aren’t all going to be able to carry a 4oz bottle on a duty belt like many law enforcement do, less lethal force devices like the Kimber Pepper Blaster have a very long shelf life and if you can get over the price, this is an extremely practical devices that is about the size of your average .380 pistol.   With all the issues going on in society, I’d much rather hear a defendant say they attempted to use less lethal force but had to use a firearm, thinking ahead and being prepared is never an old idea.

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Shooting in undesirable environments

Elite Survival Systems Epsilon shooting matSure we know the positions, squatting, shooting prone, but not only will you become uncomfortable after a period of time, stress builds up and it will have an impact on your ability to stay focused.    I’ve seen a lot of shooting mats in the past and they can be made out of a rug, foam sleeping mat or anything you want to make out of it, but weight and portability can be an issue.   I have an older Elite Survival Systems Ultimate Snip drag bag that works well with my DSArms STG58 and also is large enough to open up and give me some ground support if need be, but I decided to add the Epsilon shooting mat to my personal inventory after I got to hold on in my hands last  year.

The 2 things that sold me  on this item are that being 6’3″  I need a large shooting mat that I could use that my legs weren’t hanging off it and second, the fact that this folded up like a briefcase and didn’t curl up when It was deployed on the ground.   The Elite Survival Systems Epsilon shooting mat goes for $159.99 with free shipping and also has enough molle attachments and support that makes this also capable of holding a lot of gear.   I store Binoculars, spare magazines for my AR15 as well as handgun magazines and a mosquito net.   If you’ve shot off the ground you know how knees and elbows get torn up when you’re down in the dirt, but that doesn’t happen to me anymore because I bring this to the range with me and use it when desired.

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Your rifle barrel length doesn’t tell us anything

Elite Survival Systems gun casesWe deal with a higher class clientele than most gun shops deal with.  The higher quality optics like Aimpoint, Trijicon and Eotech with the bring in a different crowd and we specifically target “Made in the USA” products.   It’s hard to get away from imported products, but if you actually monitor the manufacturing process, a great many of the products that say “Made in China” may only have been assembled there even those American Made parts are in  it.  We’ve found that people are willing to spend a bucks more because walking around in a Police Department with Made in China back packs or gun cases is somewhat disturbing.

The AR15 is the most common firearm in the Country right now and everyone from 18yrs old to 75yrs old are getting their first firearm.     When it comes to shopping for gun cases, it’s hard to justify putting a $1200 or $3500 firearm in a gun case that costs $35 and expect it to protect in transport.  Our chosen tactical nylon product line and gun cases are the Elite Survival Systems gun cases.   One needs to measure the entire overall length of the firearm when it is collapsed to be able to shop for a gun case.   Flash suppressors and buttstock extensions can add several inches to the factory OAL and it’ll be easier if you know this before you shop/

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Co-witness, flip up front, and rear sights

Magpul sightsIn this business there is always going to be a considerable amount of research to do unless you are buying based on experience.   It’s always a good idea to ask people that are using the equipment or call a manufacturer to get suggestions.   We sell a lot of sighting systems from Red dots, crosshair, donut and chevrons.   There are different ways to use lines and dots to gather information about range estimations and about different lighting situations.   Iron sights have been around a long time and there are, even with iron sights, different sight pictures for different reasons.  About 20yrs ago I started seeing more and more optics on AR15s and seeing “glass” on military weapons was just starting to become common.

After about a decade of optics being used, I started to see more and more people putting backup iron sights on their ARs and the optics started trending to zero magnification.    All those heavy barreled AR15s with ACOGS were nice, but that platform had it’s disadvantages at close ranges.   Magpul has been around for a little over a decade and the Magpul sights are being sold “with” a great many AR15 manufacturers.  Its seems their product line, and ingenuity, has been widely accepted.   Using red dots or Eotech sights gives you speed but anything with electronics built into it can fail, and having a flip up rear sight  isn’t going to add much weight or get in the way of your optic usage.   Front sights seem to be somewhat of annoyance to some people when using optics which is why, depending on you AR15 configuration, you can get one “without” the traditional front post sight.  Personally, I am not bothered by this and would rather have a fixed front sight rather than have to flip up two sights if an electronic optic goes down.

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Contrast is a good thing when aiming

Trijicon night sightsRecently a local Police Department told their Officers to not wear white t-shirts because it would be considered a target indicator for a bad guy and everything has to be black.    While some might laugh at this, it’s can be true depending on your risk factor.   There was much debate years ago with the Eotac vs Woolrich Elite lightweight operator pants because the Woolrich Elite pants, no matter what color pant you choose, had a strap by the lower ankle pocket that had a black strap on it.   If yo had Khaki pants, there was a black strap, if you had OD pants there was a black strap and many customers that were deployed in Iraq complained about this and went with the Eotac brand.   Think it’s stupid?  If you don’t understand, the point of camouflage isn’t always to hide the entire body, it’s also to help breakup what part of your body to aim at.  If you tell them where your center mass is, that’s where they are going to aim.

In regards to getting a good sight picture with handguns and rifles, moving away from black iron sights on a handgun is going to be beneficial.   Most self defense shootings occur in low light and lots of people are switching to Meprolite sights and the Trijicon night sights for their sidearms.   Several Police Departments are ordering their Glocks with Meprolite green front and rear, but the Trijicon High Definition sights have out sold them 10 to 1.    Glock sights are probable the easiest sights to change and locally we have a gunsmith that can do the change for about $35.   The Trijicon HD or High Definition sights are going to get picked up by your eyes in bright light and low light far better than relying on your factory sights that might only give you a white outline.

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Heroin it’s all over the place, and our sales for frisk gloves are up

turtleskin glovesThis is one of those things that really bothers us when we get phone calls from Police and our sales for certain products go up, it’s good for us from a sales point of view, but it’s incredible disturbing when we hear from Police that “heroin is everywhere”.    I  had a friend that was in our store last year that told me he’s never seen it like this before and aside from the Celebrity overdose stories (that happen every year) everyone in the medical industry from ambulance drivers to hospitals, all know when the bad batch of heroin is in the area.   I have some harsh opinions about people that are willing to risk in-taking someone elses chemistry skills.  Sure it’s somebody’s son or somebody’s daughter, but it’s also somebody’s son or daughter that has to risk getting stuck with a needle every time they frisk someone or have to look through a bag.

There are big differences between all of the protective gloves and we always know that people want dexterity because now that I-Pads, I-Phones and keyboards are an everyday thing, you need to be able to function with your gear.   We deal with a lot of glove manufacturers from Hatch to Damascus to Warwick Mills, and the Turtleskin gloves seem to be the product line that has gained the most in the last 3 years.   Corrections departments have been calling  us all the time because every other dealer seems to  be out of stock of these and the production never seems to keep up.   It’s rare to have  a product take off like this but has recently been very well deserving of a top seller.

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Choosing Iron Sights and the often made mistakes

Troy SightsIron sights are one of  those rare accessories where we hear about problems with durability.   It seems that it is pretty hard to mess up iron sights at the factory, most of the mistakes made with iron sights are when people that are mounting them on gas blocks.   We are always being asked general questions on holsters, accessories and optics but from a liability standpoint, we have to ask our customers a lot of questions so we don’t sell them the wrong thing.   If they walk in looking for iron sights for their AR15 but don’t volunteer any information about what gun they are putting them on, whether they are trying co-witness the sights with an optic or if they have a magnifier,  we don’t know for sure they are buying the correct item.

We highly recommend people think about what they might be doing with there customer built or accessorizing down the road even if they aren’t going to do it immediately.   I have several sets of Troy Sights that I have sitting in my tool room that had to be pulled off of my LWRC M6A2 after I found out that my Eotech Magnifier would not perfectly clear the rear Troy sight when it was locked into place.   I need to spend another $100 for a lower profile sight just to get better alignment with my setup.   If you mount the less expensive Magpul Sights on a gas block  you are going to get a point of impact that is off as well as possible melt the sight.   Avoid having a $35-$100 mistake and make sure you are buying the sights you are going to get the most out and not have to all out replace because they don’t cut it.   Magpul Flip up sights will work for most people with a front and rear sight combo usually being under $90 and the next step are probable the Troy Iron Sights.

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New Tru-Spec jackets from SHOT show

Tru-Spec jacketsWe were not fortunate enough to attend SHOT Show this year but we’ve been going through all of our top selling product brands and checking out what is coming out in 2014 in their Facebook pages.   Tru-Spec has been our chosen product line for outfitting our local Law Enforcement, primarily because they have really backed us and we have seen tremendous growth compared to many other tactical clothing and CCW product lines.  While many companies just didn’t get their foothold in the industry, Tru-Spec has increased their manufacturing and has really show some aggressive competition against the giants like 5.11 Tactical.

Tru-Spec’s combat shirts have been around for a long time but many are transitioning over to the new 1/4 Zip combat shirts and even though the new Winter Combat Shirt is just being launched, we have been selling them to County Tactical Teams for the last 8 weeks.   There are more Tru-Spec Jackets coming out, from the Tru-Spec Element jacket with a liner, which gives it more usefulness than just a heavy winter jacket, that in some parts of the Country might only be used for a few weeks or even days out of the year.   The new higher cut tactical softshell was designed so Law Enforcement would have easier access to duty gear on the belt line.   New hooded sweatshirts with built in holsters and more are in store for 2014.

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Beware of buying tactical gear at gun stores

Surefire flashlightsUnless you are lucky to have a really good gun shop that moves a lot of tactical clothing, flashlights and modern gun accessories,  you might end up with products that are out dated and not up to modern standards.   We pay attention to the recalls on firearms every year and on why certain accessories fail.    We’ve seen several Generations of Magpul magazines and accessories and not all of them have been launched with initial success.   We have cleared out lots of Magpul Gen 3 magazines in recent months and put a hold on some of their magazines until we are confident they  have the manufacturing in order.   Some of our distributors have had floods of Pmags coming in but didn’t weed out the faulty production that nobody seems to want to admit to.

In the past 3 months we had to do our own inventory monitoring on Pelican, Streamlight , Surefire and many more products.   We’ve seen product flaws with Trijicon optics that were sent back as well as some completely out dated Surefire flashlights as well as Streamlight flashlights.  Flashlight technology has grown from 85%-90% with some brands and if you buy a flashlight that has been collecting dust in a gun store that doesn’t move inventory, you might be getting a flashlight that is 2 or 3 generations out dated without knowing it.  Not all product codes change from manufacturers when they do the updates to it’s really a good idea to keep an eye on all of the modern specs and get the most out of your money.

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The whole Prepper movement, balanced? Or responsible?

tactical stores in the philadelphia areaI got in on the emergency food thing several years ago after Hurricane Sandy hit the New Jersey Shore and even though that is not the State we live in, our area outside of Philadelphia had plenty of  havoc placed on it from the storm.  It’s amazing at what hi-winds and heavy rains can do and it’s not always from a major storm that you had a week or more to plan for.  Many of the worst storms I have lived through were considered Thunderstorms, but those freakish high winds would knock out electricity in certain areas for weeks sometimes.  Most of our society has lost the  whole Boy Scout “Be Prepared” thing and many in the Northeast have politics that make them wide up for problems because they think the Government is going to help them in a crisis.

There is no reason to not have at least 30 days of emergency food in  your how where you can just use water to cook it.  Stores like ours get runs on because we are the only really one of the only Tactical Stores in the Philadelphia area that caters to Law Enforcement and Civilians for medical supplies like QuikClot or National American Rescue.   There are many things like self defense,preventing infections, blood loss, and starvation that are personal responsibilities and all of those area easy to prepare for.   The shows you see on cable TV may be extreme, but sometimes its a good thing to think about extreme circumstances so you have the knowledge to survival.

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