Glock 42 courtesy of SHTF Gear
SHTF Gear does everything quickly. They turn around holster orders in days and, in the case of the Glock 42, they roll out a new holster at nearly the exact moment a new gun hits the market. SHTF Gear has a Glock 42 on hand and their holsters will be shipping on Monday (January 20th)! The G42 and a SHTF Gear holster should make for one mighty comfortable carry package.
Check out SHTF Gear.
I am about to let you in on what could be the best kept secret in AR-15 barrels. Sionics Weapon Systems is making what just might be the ideal general purpose barrel for the AR-15 and selling them at a price you won’t believe.
Sionics only sells one barrel right now but it is has two features that make it very attractive to me: 1 in 8″ twist and a medium contour. It has always boggled my mind that more AR-15 manufacturers weren’t using 1 in 8″ twists and medium contour barrels.
1 in 8″ twists are incredibly versatile. They will stabilize any bullet length that will feed out of a magazine and yet, because they are slightly slower than a 1 in 7″, they will handle much of the shorter (lighter) bullets as well. It is a very versatile twist rate and yet it is nearly impossible to find in chrome lined barrels.
Medium contour barrels also very functional yet inexplicably rare. A good medium contour barrel will weigh within a few ounces of a gov’t contour barrel yet offer improved performance in rapid fire strings due to the additional “meat” under the hand guards. It is also a more rigid and thus theoretically more accurate profile than the gov’t profile.
The mid-length gas barrels are made from 11595E CMV 4150 Steel and have a very clean manganese phosphate finish. The bore and chamber are chrome lined. They have true 5.56 chambers and M4 feed ramps. These barrels are x-rayed and MP inspected. All of their stripped barrels are dimpled for a low profile gas block. They weigh in at about 29 ounces (3 ounces more than a gov’t profile barrel).
Best of all, the stripped barrel costs only $159.95. They are also available with a number of different gas block options including a pre-installed low profile gas block which is a fairly hard to find option on stripped barrels.
I purchased one of these barrels for a build and if it shoots as well as they are reputed, it might just be the best deal going in AR-15 barrels.
V7 Weapon Systems continues to churn out AR-15 accessories made from interesting materials. Their latest offering is the V7 Titanium Gas Block (.750″). This lightweight gas block is made from heat treated titanium. V7 Weapon Systems states that titanium’s thermal coefficient is half that of steel, meaning that it will not expand until it reaches a higher temperature than steel. This, theoretically, leads to a tighter gas seal as the barrel heats. This two screw design uses knurled tip screws, is only 1″ long, and weighs just 22.1 grams.
V7 Weapon Systems has also released their Extreme Environment Gas Tubes in mid-length (previously only available in for carbine length gas systems). These gas tubes are made from inconel which makes them nearly impervious to heat and very corrosion resistant.
It was kind of hard to take the paracord out of my EDC bag and set it aside. I have been carrying it for years and it has come in handy numerous times. I suppose that, like most guys who like to be at least a little prepared, I was used to having paracord with me and it was going to take something pretty exceptional to displace it. In my case, that something exceptional was Compact Survival Cord from Gearward.
Compact Survival Cord comes in 3 different configurations each wound on a special spool that is part of the success of this cordage. They are listed below from largest to smallest:
The cord comes pre-wound on a plastic spool that has one hard plastic side and one flexible plastic side. The flexible part can be folded to open or close the spool. I’ll expand on this later in the review.
All three sizes are FAR more compact than a comparable amount of paracord. This alone could have bumped paracord out of my EDC bag but there are even more advantages to explore.
The spool that this cordage comes on is part of the magic of this package. It makes it so easy to carry and work with this cord. As I mentioned above, it can be opened and closed via its flexible plastic side. This ensures that you have full access to the cord when you need it and that it doesn’t unravel in your bag when you aren’t using it. It can also be used to keep the working end accessible by closing the flexible side on the end of the cord. I really appreciate that when my hands are cold.
The “Small” size, which is the largest of the bunch, has the highest break strength of any of the cords that Gearward sells. The Technora line is half the diameter of paracord but stronger, more resistant to heat and other environmental factors, and lighter in weight. In spite of all that, it was the least useful to me in part due to its larger size. I don’t use the cord for many applications that really push its break strength so more cord in a smaller package is probably more useful to me. I would love to see Gearward offer a Kevlar cord option on this large spool size.
The Mini and Micro sizes are most useful to me. They are both extremely compact and both packed with 200lb break strength Kevlar cord. The Kevlar cord is extremely versatile. It can be unraveled readily into three separate strands, each with a break strength of around 60lb. These single strands are more than strong enough to serve as lashings in a survival shelter and well suited to be used in gear repairs if you also have a sewing needle in your kit. The Micro in particular is small enough to fit an Altoids tin style survival kit with plenty of room to spare for other items.
This is a fine example of something that is greater than the sum of its parts. The spools are good. The cordage is good. Together, they are great. These are lightweight, compact, and extremely functional. It may be sacrilege to the cult of EDC but these might just stand a chance of bumping paracord from your bag.
Check out all 3 sizes of Compact Survival Cord at Gearward. Now available at Edge/Equipped.
Long before the current trend toward more vertically oriented pistol grips on the AR-15 started, Stark Equipment was offering their SE-1 grip. It was derided by some for it’s looks but many shooters who knew their backside from a hole in the ground appreciated the grip angle and saw it as an improvement.
Stark Equipment helped blaze the trail toward more vertically oriented grips on the AR-15 so it makes good sense that they would do the same on the AK. They just introduced the SE-1 AK Grip. It brings the same great grip angle and comfortable grip that you like from the SE-1 AR grip to the AK. My wrists feel better already.
Check out Stark Equipment.
