We were expecting the Bullpup Shoot to be a great chance to check out a lot of new items but we were surprised to see that the IWI Tavor was going to be one of them. Michael Kassnar of IWI and the Tavor probably stole the show.
Rumors of the Tavor’s arrival into the US market have been swirling for some time with various stops and starts along the way. I am happy to report that we put hands on a working Tavor prototype and that bodes very, very well for the possibility of these finding their way onto gun store shelves soon.
The Tavor weighs in at just over 7 pounds and has very compact dimensions. Bullpups are known for their compact form factor and the Tavor somehow seems more trim and light than most. In spite of it’s small size, it was very controllable and ran like a sewing machine the entire time that I watched it.
The magazine release is very interesting. It is a trigger-like lever behind the pistol grip that seems like a potential snag hazard, but we were told it was a non-issue. Eric, a friend of the blog who was there helping me, noticed that the bolt release was ingeniously placed such that you could press it nearly automatically after inserting a magazine. He also noted that the trigger was quite good. The front hand guard is removable and replaceable with rails for mounting accessories like lights or lasers.
Overall, this was an extremely impressive package. I especially appreciated the fact that it was built to work with AR-15 magazines (it was being fed from CAA and Magpul mags on the range). Look for the Tavor to hit the market around May of 2013.
Sven from Manticore Arms checks out the Tavor.
Military Arms Channel on YouTube has a nice short video demonstrating some things with the Tavor for anyone interested.