The Truth About Guns

A guy walks into a crowded bar, waving his 1911. “Who in here has been screwing my wife?” he demands. A voice from the back of the bar yells back. “You need more ammo.” [h/t Chris V]

Please mail gun jokes to guntruth@me with GUN JOKE (all caps) in subject bar.

And this isn’t it. Switchview already makes extended throw levers for variable-magnification scopes. Variable scopes like my Leupold VX-R Patrol are awesome tools for shooting anywhere from CQB to 500 yards, but their magnification adjustment rings are often stiff and slow to turn. Switchview’s throw levers fit their designated scopes like machined aluminum gloves, but the wide variety of rung styles and sizes out there means that each lever has to be individually designed for each make and model of scope. Smaller volume combines with higher design costs, and aluminum throw levers like these run about $60 . . .

Switchview is about to change all of that with their Eagle Eye universal speedlever. It will be made of polymer instead of aluminum, with an adjustable length strap similar t

It doesn’t actually mounted to a gun, but Eotech’s new X320 handheld thermal imager is beyond cool. It’s the size of a pair of roof-prism binoculars and gives you the almost magic ability to see through camouflage and foliage, or to track warm footprints over cold, hard ground. It’s not really priced for recreational use yet, but the cost of this technology is dropping faster than you might think. Make the jump for some creepy, skull-eyed infrared video . . .

I filmed this through the lens with a small camera, and I’m amazed it worked at all. The actual thermal image is of course much larger and m

Rimfire AR-15 rifles are nothing new, but they all use a blowback based operating system. This puts tons of stress on the cases, and for some of the more powerful rimfire cartridges it can rupture the cases as they’re being extracted from the gun. Franklin Armory wanted to make a semi-automatic rifle in .17 Winchester Super Magnum, and so they completely redesigned the internal components of an AR-15 to function with the cartridge. Now cases extract under lower pressure, the gun cycles reliably, and you can use all standard AR-15 components for stocks and triggers. Naturally, we’ll test one out and get back to you.

Tactical Innovations has brought back the dual 10/22 ‘Gatling Gun’ that used to sell through the Cabela’s catalog. It’s completely impractical, but back in the days of inexpensive and plentiful .22 ammo it was about the cheapest fun you could have with your clothes on . . .

Wholesale for the all in-house machined kit is $345, not including the pair of ancient beater 10/.22s that you bolt into it.

I got my hands on an old Cabelas version a few years ago, and ballistic hilarity ensued. Yes these things are silly. But they’re a lot of fun, for a little while

I thought white gun furniture looked pretty awesome when I saw it on the cover of the Rogue Spear video game years and years ago. But then I realized what a slob I am, and discovered how quickly my favorite shooting quarries can make a white gun not look so white any more. For those of you in cleaner or snowier climes, Tapco is introducing full sets of AR and AK furniture (not shown) in the dazzling ‘Arctic White’ color . . .

The crappy lighting of the SHOW Show side exhibition rooms doesn’t quite do it justice, but these stocks and vertigrips are whiter than virgin copier paper. Why Tapco didn’t stick these on an actual AR demo gun, or at least a full-metal airsoft gun, I’ll never understand. They’re awfully nice-looking, but keeping them sparkling white could be nearly impossible.

MSRP: $150-ish

Besides meeting Colion Noir and the Gunny, one of the other highlights of Media Range Day for me was getting the opportunity to get some trigger time on the Beretta ARX 100. I’ve been pining to add this plump little ball of Italian goodness to my collection ever since I first laid eyes on its full-auto cousin at NDIA 2012. Features include: Quick change barrel capability (no tools required, takes seconds); chrome-lined hammer-forged barrels; ambidextrous and redundant controls (safety / selector switches, bolt hold open latches, barrel release latches, magazine releases, etc., multiple ambidextrous sling attachment points; SCAR-like” 4 position collapsible folding stock, AR ergonomics and the ability to use standard AR-15 magazines . . .

My boss at the day job is going to be heartbroken. He thought that he was the first person to think of doing an AR-10 based 12-gauge shotgun, but apparently Rhino Arms has beaten him to the punch. Their new AR-10 based shotgun is a “hot swappable” upper receiver, meaning all you need to do is change the upper and slap in a new magazine and you’re running 12 gauge roounds. No fiddling with recoil springs, no messing with internal parts — nothing.

They’re planning on selling the gun in a package, with a drag bag containing one AR-

Guns make terrific art. Just ask artists Jeff Coons, who raked in $1.4m from CNN’s Anderson Cooper for an as-yet-nonexistent sculpture made from Sean Pean’s gun collection. (No, I did not make that up.) A reader emailed us a promo for the above object d’art by JD Cabrera, who’s slightly more familiar with guns than Balloon Dog boy. “JD’s extensive experience with firearms ranges from building single actions for Col

Look closely at the receiver which that FLEX buttstock is (mostly) attached to. That’s not your grandfather’s Mossberg 500: it’s an MVP bolt-action rifle in .308 Winchester. It also takes M-14 mags (which is awesome BTW) but it’s not the only Mossberg model that’s getting the FLEX treatment . . .

Mossberg floated their FLEX modular hardware system about two years ago, and I have to confess that I was initially skeptical. I didn’t think any quick-detach stock mounting system would ever stand up to 12-gauge shotgun recoil without wobbling and creaking and, well, flexing until it drove me mad. After several hundred rounds of testing, I had to conclude that I was I wrong.

John Filippidis thought he was prepared for his Christmas roadtrip. He knew he’d be passing through some states in the northeast that didn’t value his Second Amendment rights as much as his home state of Florida—that is to say, “at all”—so he left his EDC, a Kel-Tec .380, at home in the safe. But he was mistaken. Traveling down I-95 on New Year’s Eve eve with his wife and three teenage daughters (God help him), he had an encounter with law enforcement that he never could have imagined. . .

Now, first let me say that we received more than a dozen emails about this story (Dave was first, go Dave!), but I was holding off because there is only one source and one story (as told to The Tampa Trib)

As Nick mentioned, Greg Jordan was the big winner in last night’s FNH USA 3-Gun Nation Rumble on the Range, AKA the annual 3-gun championship finals. This morning, in the Leupold booth, Sales VP Kevin Trepa presented Greg with the spoils of victory. Word among the assembled press and onlookers was that Greg already has all that newfound cash earmarked for two cases of .22LR and a venti decaf mochachino, but he was so mobbed with well-wishers we were unable to confirm that at press time.

The standard breaching shotgun is the Master Key, a tiny Remington 870 shotgun modified by Knight’s Armament Company to fit on the front end of an AR-15 or M-16 rifle. It works, but it’s heavy and racking the action requires you to take your hand off the shotgun. Crye Precision think they have a solution that would let the door kicker fire multiple rounds into a door while still having a finger on the trigger of the rifle . . .

The shotgun has a rota

IWI’s Tavor SAR rifle won our Reader’s Choice award for Best Rifle of 2013, and they’ll be receiving the award later today. But for now, enjoy this cutaway model that shows all of the operating parts.

Yesterday, we reported that Ruger had decided to let all of its semi-automatic handguns slip off the California Department of Justice Approved Handgun List. Dan the Man finally caught up with a Ruger rep, who confirmed the story and provided a more complete explanation. “California law requires micro-stamping technology that does not exist,” Mark Gurney said. “We cannot meet the new requirement. Even though our handguns haven’t changed in any other way, they will fall off the Approved list.” Which is currently being challenged in court. Watch this space. Meanwhile, make the jump for a

TTAG Managing Editor Dan Zimmerman is shown here presenting Mossberg’s Linda Powell with TTAG’s Reader’s Choice Award for Best Shotgun Of 2013. Their new FLEX system lets you swap out just about everything on a Mossberg 500 shotgun (save the magazine tube) instantly, without tools. In a year where not much else changed in the world of shotguns, the FLEX system is gathering steam to change just about everything. Well done, Mossberg; keep it up.

Last night, Greg Jordan won the $50,000 top prize from the 3-Gun Nation shoot off. It’s the event that the 3-Gun Nation shooters have been working towards all year, and we were on the scene to watch the night unfold. And man, were there some interesting moments . . .

Early in the night, Dianna Liedorff (formerly of Team FNH USA and now shooting for Hornady) was competing against Lena Miculek for the $25,000 women’s division championship spot. She had beaten out Lena’s mother Kay

“A New York mom vacationing in South Florida was expecting a healthy dose of sun, surf and fun,” sun-sentinel.com reports. “Imagine her surprise when her daughter unzipped a bag in their rental Nissan Rogue and found a rifle — a big rifle. Looking just like the ones real soldiers use.” What’s worse than surprised? “Horrified, she immediately called E-Z Rent-A-Car and then drove to the nearest police station. And there would be one more surprise: Th

How’s that “compromise” thing working out for New York gun owners? Press release:

Today, on the first anniversary of enactment of the historic NY Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act (NY SAFE Act), Leah Gunn Barrett, Executive Director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence (NYAGV), Assemblymembers Michelle Schimel and Brian Kavanagh, Co-Chairs of State Legislators Against Illegal Guns-NY (SLAIGNY), and other legislators (below) released a comprehensive state legislative agenda for 2014. The legislation proposed for the new session that began on January 8th is designed to build upon the NY SAFE Act, which was sponsored by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Co-Leader Jeffrey Klein and signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo, and to maintain New York’s role as a national leader on sensible gun safety laws . . .

The N

“I would rather go to the Seahawks game compared to watching this thing sit in my gun cabinet.” – Seahawks fan Josh Blodgett referring to a lightly used Benelli shotgun he owns, Seahawks fans willing to barter guns, pot, pinball for tickets [at komonews.com]