|
|
July 18th, 2010
Here’s a good value for you tactical shooters out there. MidwayUSA has its 50″-long black nylon tactical drag bag on sale for $64.99, marked down from $89.99. This is a very versatile bag that compares favorably with drag bags costing $120.00 or more. The bags feature heavy-duty zippers and tons of storage, including internal pouches for magazines. There is a removable divider allowing two-gun storage, and the drag bag has a shoulder-strap system so you can carry the bag in the vertical mode like a backpack. With two rifles inside, however, that’s a heavy load.
Reviews from drag bag owners have been very positive:
- Used this bag recently at a 3-Gun match. It held a full-length AR, Remington 1100, and all the ammo, mags and gear needed for a stage easily. With the backpack straps, it was easy to carry all that weight. Highly recommended. — Bob M., MO
- This is a real nice bag. It is just the right size for my 26″. .308 Rem 700. Plenty of padding, nice that it can hold two rifles, but it obviously gets real heavy. Side pockets are perfect size for a spotting scope, although the pockets aren’t padded enough for a scope. Bigger side pocket fits ear muffs and such. — T.M., WI
- I was looking for an inexpensive solution to get my rifles to the range, so I purchased one of these drag bags. What a shock, it’s outstanding! Quality materials, excellent design and workmanship. It’s padded, has pockets inside of pockets, supports to wear it as a pack, over the shoulder or like a case. It’s got everything! I also saw one at my local gunstore -EXACTLY- like it for over twice the price! (with a different name of course) Honestly, at twice the price… I’d still like it! If you need a bag, this is it. — J. Dawson, CA
- I have few other more expensive bags and I would trade them for this one. Its great. Holds my custom 300 Rem mag and my AR-15 with plenty of room. All kinds of pockets for wind meters, clips, et cetera. – J. Harrison, GA
Black Bags Coming Soon. Green Bags Will Cost More
This black $64.99 drag bag is currently back-ordered, but it is expected in stock on 7/26/2010, so you might as well place an order before the price goes up. Also, note that Midway is offering a special promo for our readers (see below). FYI, a nice-looking olive drab version of this bag will be available in the future for $89.99. If you strongly prefer green you’ll want to wait… but then the price will be higher.
Save an Extra $10 off Order of $50.00 or More
If the price reduction for the Tactical Drag Bag isn’t enough of an incentive, MidwayUSA is offering an exclusive promotion for AccurateShooter.com readers this July. To save an additional ten bucks on your order of $50 or more, use PROMO CODE 2437210 during check-out. This promo expires 7/31/2010. NOTE: If, for any reason, this Promo Code does not activate during the online purchase process, call MidwayUSA’s customer service department, at 1-800-243-3220.
July 12th, 2010
Pierce Engineering has just introduced its new Tactical Multi-flat action. This handsome design, crafted from chrome-moly steel, features a built-in 20-MOA rail and an integral recoil lug. The action was designed from the get-go to fit the Accuracy International chassis with no modification. With a 1/2″ flat on the bottom and 45° angled sides, the new Pierce Multi-flat short action drops right into the AI stock. Just bolt it in and shoot. The actions will cost $1295.00 and John Pierce is taking orders right now for delivery in two months.
 John Pierce reports: “Our new Tactical Multi-flat action features a low-profile, 20-minute integral Picatinny rail and integral recoil lug. We made the action to drop into the Accuracy International modular stock utilizing AI’s magazines as well. Though this is a short action for .308 Win and similar-sized cartridges, the loading port is much longer than usual for better access and ejection. The current price is $1295.00, and that price includes a 30° coned bolt and/or spiral fluting if the customer desires those options.” John noted that the coned bolt option works well in Tac Comps: “I have a coned bolt on my own tactical rifle that I used at ASC. I found it picks up the rounds more smoothly from the magazine. At ASC, quite a few guys had feeding issues, but my action ran perfectly. The coned bolt works slick.” Actions will come finished with NIC CeraKote in customer’s choice of colors including: Matte Black, Titanium, OD, Sand, Brown, Gray, and Forest Green. (CLICK HERE for CeraKote color options).
Short Actions Will Be Followed By Long Actions Later This Year
Currently the new action will be available only in a short-action design. OAL is 8.050″, about the same as a Rem 700 short action if you include the thickness of the Rem’s recoil lug. The new actions will be made to order with a two-month lead time. After placing your order, you should get your new multi-flat action within about eight (8) weeks. Later this year, Pierce plans to release a larger Tactical Multi-flat action. This long action will work for cartridges such as the .30-06, .300 Win Mag, and 7mm Magnums.
For more information, or to place an order, call Pierce Engineering at (517) 321-5051, or visit www.PierceEngineeringltd.com.
June 29th, 2010
 We recently had a chance to test the new Chimera Titanium Rings from TacticalRifles.net. The Chimera Rings are “ultra-premium” items designed to compete with the very best tactical rings on the market. As you’d expect, they’re expensive. The 30mm Chimera Rings retail for $224.00 per matched set, including Torx driver. Though these fat boys are beefy in size, offering 7.5 square inches of clamping area per set (way more than most rings), they are very light weight. A medium-height, 30mm Chimera ring weighs just 84 grams (2.96 ounces).
The Chimera rings are precision-machined to exacting tolerances. We had our Mark, our in-house machinist, check them out and he was very impressed: “These rings exhibit beautiful fit and finish and are extremely tough. The fit of the ring bases on a Picatinny rail is perfect. I liked the radius shapes given to most of the surfaces. The front and back faces of each ring are standard flat planes, and the ring caps have a flat disc in their centers, but the remainder of the cap and the sides of the bodies are gently curved. This design requires sophisticated machining processes to pull off, but it looks good. The larger-than-standard heads on the cap hardware, 8-32 X #25 Torx, are another departure that looks well thought out. One danger this increased head size would present if the fasteners were threading into typical 6061 aluminum bodies would be the potential to over-torque and strip the threads with the larger #25 Torx wrench. However, since the titanium bodies have approximately double the tensile strength of 6061 aluminum this is not a problem.”
 Assymetrical Tensioning by Design
The Chimera Titanium Rings employ an assymetrical clamping design. This should allow the rings to provide stronger clamping force with less chance of ring distortion. Here’s how they work. After placing the scope in the lower halves of the rings, you screw down the top halves on one side only (opposite the bolt head that clamps to the Picatinny rail). After the three Torx screws are tightened fully on one side, so that the top Ring half butts firmly on the bottom half, there will still be a small gap on the opposite side of the ring (see photo). Don’t worry — that is by design. Final torque is applied to the side with the gap. With the final tensioning done on one side only, the scope is less prone to twist. Furthermore, the manufacturer claims this design puts less stress on the scope tube during mounting.
We did fit the Chimera rings to a Leupold LRT 8-25x50mm scope with 30mm tube. Fit was excellent with no high or low points. With the rings installed as instructed, with one side first clamped flush and the opposite side then torqued to spec, the scope was very secure. On removal the Chimera rings left no visible marks on the tube. I can’t say that it would be a waste of time to lap these rings, but on our Leupold scope the fit was perfect, and the “grip” was uniform over the entire clamping surface.
Tactical Precision System TSR™ Rings
TSR™ rings made by Tactical Precision Systems (TPS) have a clamping design very similar to the Chimera Titanium Rings. After placing the scope in the TSR ring set, you clamp down one side (of the ring tops) until metal meets metal. This then leaves a gap of 0.020″ on the other side. The TSR Picatinny 30mm 7075 Aluminum Medium Rings cost $82 in aluminum or $94.00 in alloy steel. The TSR rings are narrower than the Chimeras, and have two Torx bolts per side, rather than the three on the Chimeras.
M3 Hinged Scope Rings from American Rifle Company
An even more radical clamping system is employed by the new, patent-pending M3 Scope Rings from The American Rifle Company. The top section of the M3 rings is attached with a hinge on one side. After placing the scope in the bottom section of the M3 rings, you swing the upper ring half into place over the scope tube. Then the clamping is done with two inverted (head-down) machine screws that actually pull the hinged ring section downwards. This is designed to put less stress on the scope than conventional rings. The axis of the screws is tangential to the scope tube. Sophisticated finite element analysis (FEA) was used to develop the “over the top”, tangential-clamping ring design. According to the manufacturer, this design evenly distributes clamping forces over the tube and “eliminates the damaging effects of [scope] bending”. The manufacturer claims that, with its rings, “no significant stress concentrations are present on the scope tube”. American Rifle Co. backs up these claims with a series of 3D stress analyses published on its website.
Credit The Firearm Blog for reporting on the M3 ring design.
Disclosure: TacticalRifles.net loaned a pair of Chimera Titanium Rings for testing and evaluation.
June 23rd, 2010
 One of the best hike-and-shoot, field-style long-range rifle challenges is the Steel Safari match — a 3-day event conducted in New Mexico’s high desert. The Steel Safari is a contest that examines “practical hunting skills, including target recognition, range estimation, wind doping, trail skills, and marksmanship”, according to the match entry form. Competitors locate small and medium-sized steel targets, range them, and engage with one shot only, under a challenging time limit. Some movement on the clock is required, and shoot positions are always improvised. Shooters may have to go prone on a rock slab, shoot a steep angle down a gully, or lean out the side of a truck. Both the North course and the South course are approximately 3.3 miles in length starting and ending at the “front range”, and looping around the rim of different parts of elevated terrain features.
 The 2010 Steel Safari, held June 4-6, can be characterized by one word: HOT. Temperatures started ramping up on Friday for the Long-Range Side Match, reaching about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and peaked on Saturday with a high of 109. The shooting was hot too, with winning scores higher than ever before. Among the 36 competitors, Steve Mann finished first with an impressive 95 score. Close behind, with a 93, was B.J. Bailey. Jimmy Holdsworth and Tom Freeman, both scored 88s, but Holdsworth prevailed on the tie-breaker for third place. In the Long-Range Side Match, Jon Beanland took first with a 111 score, followed by Jim Jensen (109) and Brian Whalen (99).
Equipment List — Two-Thirds of Competitors Use 6.5s or 6mms
The most popular rifle/action make was Surgeon (28%), followed by Remington (22%), then Accuracy International and Stiller (11% each), then Savage (8%), Big Horn Arms (6%), and one each of Barrett, Borden, DTA, GAP Templar, and Howa. The 6.5mm caliber totally dominated with 39% of all rifles; 6mm was next with 28%, then .30 (22%), and then 7mm (11%). Chamberings of choice were: .260 Remington (25%), .308 Winchester (17%), 6.5×47 Lapua (11%), 6% for each of 6XC, 7mm WSM, 7mm RSAUM, .260AI, and then 3% each for .300 WM, 6mm-250, .30-06, 6.5-284, 6 Dasher, .243 Winchester, and 6CM/243.
Scopes: Nightforce (28%), U.S. Optics (25%), Schmidt & Bender (17%), followed by Leupold (14%), Vortex (6%), and 3% each for Hensoldt, Burris, Pentax, and Premier. Laser range-finders were dominated by Leica (50%), followed by Swarovski (19%), Zeiss (17%), Vector (8%), and 3% each Leupold and Newcon. Bipods were mostly Harris (78%), followed by Atlas, AI, Caldwell, and Sinclair.
Propellants: Hodgdon powders totally dominated (80%) with Alliant second (20%). Of the Hodgdon powders, H4350, H4831SC, and Varget were the most popular, while RL17 was the most popular Alliant powder by far. The most notable trend in powder choice is that RL17 has replaced H4350 and H4831SC for many shooters.
Bullets, Brass, Ammo: Sierra (31%), Berger (25%), Lapua (25%), and DTAC 6mm (11%). Winchester and Lapua cases dominated with 33% each, followed by Remington (16%), and then Black Hills, Norma, and Lake City (3%). Only 2 shooters used factory ammo: one was Federal GMM (.308) and the other was M118LR (7.62×51 NATO).
CLICK HERE for full, 6-page report on 2010 Steel Safari
May 27th, 2010
Looking to expand its share of the burgeoning market for tactical rifles, Remington has released a new Hogue-stocked Rem 700 variant with a 20″ barrel threaded for sound moderators (suppressors). Remington calls the new rifle the Model 700™ SPS™ Tactical AAC®-SD. (Somebody at Remington got carried away with the acronyms.) There’s nothing new or remarkable to be found in the gun’s internals. It’s pretty much a standard short-action Rem 700 with a 1:10″-twist heavy barrel chambered in .308 Winchester. The rifle does feature a Hogue® Overmolded Ghillie Green™ pillar-bedded stock, an upgrade over the inexpensive synthetic stocks on entry-level Rem 700s.
We generally like the build quality of the Hogue stocks, but some of our tactical testers have complained that the over-molded design is a bit flexy compared to a McMillan or Manners tactical stock. If you’re planning to use the rifle for mostly prone work, you’ll also want to add some sort of buttpad spacer system to allow length-of-pull adjustment. MSRP for the SPS Tactical AAC-SD is $757.00.
May 24th, 2010
MidwayUSA has released a new 3-10x40mm MIL/MIL Tactical Grand Slam scope, made exclusively for MidwayUSA by Weaver. The scope features 1/10 mil radian (MIL) clicks, with a claimed 56 MOA (16.5 MIL) of BOTH windage and elevation adjustment. On sale through May 31, 2010 for just $299.00, the scope is regularly priced at $399.00. Even at the $400.00 mark, the scope is one of the most affordable optics combining a mildot reticle with mil-based clicks — a smarter system than what you find on so-called “tactical” scopes combining mildot reticles with 1/4-MOA clicks.
With the MIL/MIL arrangement you can directly translate what you see in the scope to click values. For example, with a MIL/MIL scope, a shot 1.5 mils low would require an elevation turret adjustment of 1.5 mils (15 clicks). This eliminates MOA conversions and allows the shooter to make adjustments quickly without having to do any math.
This tactical scope features Weaver’s Micro-trac® adjustment system, resettable 1/10 mil radian (MIL) windage and elevation turrets and a Mil-dot reticle. The scope has a one-piece tube and is claimed to be waterproof, fogproof and shockproof. The new Grand Slam 3-10X boasts a fast-focus eyepiece adjustment, and Weaver claims the multi-coated, Japanese-made lenses afford 94% light transmission. That’s a pretty tall claim regarding light transmission; if it’s true, then this scope should have very good low-light performance. We suspect the true average light transmission (across all visible wavelengths) is quite a bit lower. 94% transmission would put the new scope on a par with premium optics costing $1200.00 or more — which is unlikely. As noted above, the new 3-10x40mm scope is on sale for $299.00 for the rest of May, 2010. The scope is covered by Weaver’s Lifetime Warranty.
May 22nd, 2010
 For hunters and Tactical operators with big thirsts, here is the ultimate “Après-shoot” accessory. The new Tactical 6-pack beer holster from Dillyeo will hold enough suds for a SWAT entry team, or one really serious boozer. Made from rugged nylon in Woodland Camo pattern, this utility beverage belt allows operators to keep both hands free for mission-critical gear, such as TV remote controls or bean dip.
And for Tactical tee-totalers, the 6-pack holster can also handle non-alcoholic beverages (any 12-ounce can will fit). Priced at just $7.99, the 6-pack holster is a bargain compared to most tactical gear on the market today. And, in all seriousness, it’s actually a clever product that could be great on hikes, picnics, or on a river-rafting trip (but stick to soft drinks at the shooting range). The belt fits waist sizes from 30-54. If the $7.99 Dillyeo belt is sold out, Amazon.com retails a similar 6-Pack Beer Belt for $9.98. Shown below, this Beer Belt holds both cans and bottles. Bottoms up!
CAUTION: While this product is real, it is featured here for satirical purposes. Alcohol and firearms are a dangerous combination. NEVER consume alcoholic beverages before you go shooting, or while you are handling firearms. Don’t even consider drinking until: 1) your guns and ammo are unloaded and safely stowed away; and 2) you have left the firing area, and you have stopped shooting for the day. Wise shooters NEVER bring booze to a shooting range, period.
May 8th, 2010
 The Cawthon Cartridge Club (Millican, TX) hosts the 2010 LaRue Tactical Multi-Gun Match this weekend, May 8-9. More than 220 shooters will compete in eight (8) stages of fire using pistol, rifle, and shotgun. This is action shooting, with lots of movement. Shooters negotiate obstacles, run to firing positions, and engage targets from multiple positions, often firing through ports or around barricades. Targets are placed at distances from a few yards (pistol) to 500 yards (rifle).
With stage names such as “House of Pain,” “Jungle Run,” and “Tunnel Rat,” this match will challenge the competitors’ shooting skills and physical abilities. With temperatures predicted to reach the 90s, competitors must battle the heat and the sometimes high winds as they run through stages and take long shots with their rifles. Pre-match favorites include Taran Butler, Kelly Neal, and Bennie Cooley, but there are many lesser-known shooters who could end up on the podium.
The video below shows Stage 8 from the 2009 LaRue 3-Gun Match, held at the Tiger Valley Tactical Institute range near Waco, TX.
May 2nd, 2010
 Texas retailer CDNN Investments often acquires large inventories of overstocked firearms and then offers them at close-to-wholesale prices. When CDNN comes out with a new catalog you know there will be some amazing deals that won’t last long. The latest 2010-2 CDNN catalog was recently released. CLICK HERE to download CDNN 2010-2 Catalog.
Listed below are some of the best long-gun deals we found in the new spring Catalog. There are also some amazing deals on HK, Sig Sauer, and Springfield Armory handguns with prices “too low to print”. You’ll need to call CDNN at (800) 588-9500 for details.
- Ruger 10/22 Stainless Package, $239.99 (Reg. $357.00)
- Ruger No.1 in .204 Ruger, 22″ or 26″ Barrel. $649.99 (MSRP $1147.00)
- Winchester m70 Super Grade, .30-06 (24″ bbl) or 300 WM (26″ bbl), Fancy Walnut Stock, Engraved Receiver, $849.99.
- FNH SLP Mark I Tactical Shotgun with 9-shot mag, scope rail, and fiber optic front sight. A great choice for 3-Gun competition, the FNH SLP was the 2009 NRA Shotgun of the Year. Call for Price.
April 20th, 2010
We thought we’d seen “all things tactical” — tactical trousers, hats, gloves, boots, duffle bags, even tactical beer mugs. But here’s something new: a tactical energy drink from THOR Global Defense Group.
 So, when you “operators” need go-juice after fast-roping down from a Blackhawk in an Afghan firefight, now you can get the liquid energy blast you need to save the planet. An 8.4-oz can of THOR tactical energy drink contains 27 grams of sugar and 75 mg of caffeine (twice as much as an ordinary cola drink). A can of THOR also contains a whopping 1000 mg of Taurine, an amino sulfonic acid thought to improve athletic performance and lessen the effect of hangovers. So, if you partied too hard the night before your big mission, THOR’s tactical energy drink might be just the ticket.
Downsides of Energy Drinks
In all seriousness, we’ve found that energy drinks of this kind (Monster, Red Bull, Rock Star), can improve alertness when driving or working late — even if you end up feeling more drained afterward. However, we question the effect of all that sugar, caffeine, and stimulants on your trigger finger control. Maybe real shooters should avoid this kind of beverage until AFTER the shooting match. These caffeine-laced energy drinks can be potent diurectics — causing you to dehydrate faster. REAL Tactical operators would probably be better off consuming plain water before most missions. Credit Steve of The Firearms Blog for telling us about THOR Tactical Energy Drink. Steve asks: “Who will be the first to develop tactical beer?”
|
