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Revisited in December 2017: If I could Have Only One, Alternate Scenario

Handguns, Random Stuff, Reflex Sights, Rifle Scopes, Rifles, Shotguns, Uncategorized Comments Off

Dec 112017

Written by ILya Koshkin

Revisited in December 2017: If I could Have Only One, Alternate Scenario

This is a follow up to the post I wrote earlier where I think my way through three weapons (handgun, rifle and shotgun) that are all supposed to do a bit of everything.

Now, I am going to change my boundary conditions a bit: this time around I am not looking to have everything do everything. I like having some crossover, but I am not going to mandate maximum versatility for every weapon system. Also, I am going to open the door to potential carry, concealed or otherwise, for the handgun.

When I was looking for maximum versatility for everything I settled on Remington 870 with ghost ring sights, AR-15 in 6.5 Grendel and long slide 10mm Glock.

I will leave my choice of a shotgun alone since I am not a shotgun guy and a pump gun with ghost ring sights covers defensive scenarios and hunting within a reasonably close range well enough for my needs.

The selections for handgun and rifle, however, change.

A handgun for me is primarily a defensive and plinking weapon. Hunting with a handgun, while interesting, is not much of a priority, so if I have a different weapon system for hunting I can compromise on that. Also, once you need to carry a handgun, a longslide Glock is less than ideal, and a 10mm cartridge in a smaller gun is a bit more pop than I am looking for. I have experimented with it a little and the after shot recovery is slower than I like.

With that in mind, the choice of a handgun changes to a different Glock. The ideal option would probably be Glock 19 with co-witnessed red dot and irons, but I do not own one of those (something I may rectify if I manage to get my hands onto a Gen 5 Glock). So, in the spirit of trying to work with the guns that I actually own, I will settle on my Glock 17. Mind you, it is a bit modified, which makes it very suitable for this. The grip is made a bit smaller and shorter, so it can accept both Glock 19 and 17 length magazines. It also prints quite a bit less when you carry (not that I can carry in public in California, but that does not prevent me from experimenting at my own house and where legal). The slide is the Atom from Unity Tactical, which makes it fairly easy to mount a red dot, co-witnessed with iron sights. At the moment, I have Insight MRDS on there, which is not an ideal choice. It is a nice red dot, but it is bulkier than I like, uses a battery that noone else uses, and mine has a 3.5 MOA dot. On a handgun, I use primarily for defensive purposes, I prefer a larger dot (7-8 MOA seems ideal). With handgun mounted red dot sights, out of all I have seen, the two I like the most are Doctersight III and Shield RMS. My Doctersight III also has a 3.5 MOA dot, but since it sits on a long slide 10mm that I built for hunting, I am OK with that. Shield RMS sits on a Glock 43, which was one of my contenders for this and if concealed carry was the primary purpose, it would be my choice. Hence, until such time as I get my hands onto another Doctersight or Shield, Insight MRDS it is. I just took a class with it at Frontsight and it worked well enough, but eventually it will end up on a carbine of some sort. I think it works better there.

The trigger is, again, Travis Haley’s excellent Skimmer design. It is about as good as non-competition Glock triggers get.

A natural question, of course, is why I am going with a 9mm vs a host of other cartridges people like. While cartridge discussions can go on forever, all data suggests that with modern bullets there is no practical difference between 9mm, 40S&W, 45ACP, etc for defensive use. I’ll leave it at that. I can shoot 9mm well, with rapid follow up shots and reasonable accuracy. It does not hurt that it does not jam. For basic defensive use, anything smaller than a 9mm seems to compromise effectiveness, while anything bigger compromises shot-to-shot speed. With hunting out of the picture, 9mm seems to be the sweetspot.

With rifles, I am probably going to make the most radical change of all. As much as I like my ARs, if I have a shotgun and a handgun aimed at home defense, my rifle becomes a bit more dedicated for hunting and precision shooting and that means “bolt action”. Also, since the shotgun covers closer distances quite nicely when hunting is concerned, I want the rifle to be able to reach way out there. If it was precision shooting only, the choice would be obvious: I have a DTA SRS bullpup precision gun that is freakishly accurate with both barrels I have (338LM and 6.5x47L). It is, however, kinda heavy.

My general purpose hunting rifle is an old Tikka M695 in 280Rem that sits in McMillan. It is more accurate than any gun this inexpensive has any right to be, but the barrel is on a thin side. While it is an absolutely superb hunting rifle (especially with the stunning Leica Magnus 1.8-12×50 scope on it), it is not the best fit for target shooting since the barrel heats up pretty quickly. It maintains accuracy well enough, but I do not want to overheat it.

Enter The Fix. It is a new bolt action rifle designed by a company called Q out of New Hampshire. It appears to be a very new take on boltguns and with their design I get a 7lbs rifle with a 20” 6.5 Creedmoor Bartlein barrel, AR-style ergonomics, compatibility with AR-10 magazines, fully adjustable folding stock and an excellent two stage trigger. With the Tangent Theta TT315M 3-15×50 scope in an Aadmount and a sling, it will weigh less than 10lbs. That is something I can use for both hunting and target shooting, with 6.5 Creedmoor taking me out to 1200 yards on targets and further than I need to on game.

The Fix has a very short lift bolt ( 45 degrees), so it remains to be seen how quickly I can manipulate it. Another nice feature is that the barrels are easily user replaceable, so I plan to take advantage of that and add a 300WSM barrel/bolt combination to it for hunting purposes (and a wider, softer recoil pad…). Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, The Fix is still sitting at my FFL, so I can not make any pronouncements on how well it really works.

Until I spend some time with it, my choice is the DTA SRS. It is a bit on a heavy side, but the bullpup configuration makes it surprisingly well balanced. Besides, I do a hell of a lot more target shooting than hunting anyway. I have two barrels for it: 338LM and 6.5x47L. While the 6.5x47L is a very pleasant cartridge to shoot, the 338LM is a bit of a handful, while still manageable. The reach, power and stability at distance with the 338LM though is something you simply do not get with smaller calibers. With a If I can see it, I can hit it. With a 250gr Bulldozer bullet from Badlands Precision moving out at close to 3000fps, if I can hit it, I can destroy it. Here is a picture of the DTA with the excellent VORTEX Razor HD AMG 6-24×50 on it:

While with a smaller caliber, I would default to the Tangent Theta TT315M 3-15×50, with the 338LM, I want a bit more magnification. On a rifle where weight did not matter, I would just step up to the Tangent Theta TT525T 5-25×56. This is where the AMG 6-24×50 comes in. It is barely an ounce heavier than the TT315M, while offering excellent optics and turrets. On a gun where I want more than 20x of magnification and that might be carried into the field, the AMG is an easy choice.

Firearms: If I could have only one, First Scenario

Handguns, Random Stuff, Reflex Sights, Rifle Scopes, Rifles, Shotguns Comments Off

Dec 102017

Written by ILya Koshkin

Revisited in December 2017: If I could Have Only One

I revisit this topic fairly regularly, usually inspired by a conversation with someone. Somewhere through the conversation, I get asked (usually by someone who thinks that he can buy one gun and not have the urge to buy any more) “what if you could only have one gun?” At that point, I ask for boundary conditions: are we talking handgun or rifle or shotgun? Are we talking home defense? or hunting? or armed resistance to an overbearing government? Do I have my own ammo supply or do I have to count on foraging for ammo? Etc.

Also, I update my choice of “Only One” when it comes to different optics categories once a year, which I did a few days ago. Now, it is time to think about guns.

First, I am going to set the boundary conditions (I am likely to go through a couple of different sets of these in follow-up posts, so bear with me).

Imagine that the government has really limited your 2nd Amendment rights. The whole country is subject to something akin to current California gun laws exacerbated by the fact that you are only allowed to have one item of each gun type: one handgun, one rifle and one shotgun. You have to be able to use them for anything and everything you may ever want to do. You have to be able to protect your home, hunt, etc. Since these are the only guns you have, they also serve to satisfy your hobbies (if firearms and shooting happen to be your hobby, as they are for me). You are not expected to forage for ammo. Assume that the legal changes have been happening slowly enough, so you had time to stockpile enough ammo to last you for the rest of your life. The only time you have to carry your ammo is when you decide to go hunting. The rest of the time you can safely assume you are operating near your house or car, so there are means of ammo re-supply. You do not get to pick multiple sighting devices you can swap around. You can have a secondary sighting system on your gun, if you so choose, but you can not have eight different scopes pre-sighted in and ready to be swapped out in QD mounts. Since we are talking about California style gun laws, concealed carry is not a concern. My chances of getting a concealed carry license in Los Angeles are about as good as my chances of becoming a professional salsa dancer (for the record: I am big, fat and tone deaf).

Shotguns are not my field of expertise, but since I just took a shotgun class with a Remington 870, I’ll stick with that. My 870 is a very simple weapon with an upgraded recoil pad and Trijicon Front And Ghost Ring Rear Sights I installed years ago (they are a little crooked, but they don’t seem to be falling off). If I had to do it all over again, I would probably come up with some sort of a co-witnessed red dot/irons set-up, and I still might. For the time being, I will simply say that my 870 as is, with ghost ring sights and a cylinder bore, is good enough for me. I spent some time shooting slugs, buckshot and birdshot through it to know at which distances I am comfortable with it. To my great surprise, slugs are accurate enough for me to take off-hand headshots on steel at 40-50 yards and center-of-mass shots at 75-100 yards. Birdshot patterns adequately out to 20 yards and buckshot seems alright out to 35-40 yards. I am not a clay shooter, so this is good enough for me. Since I am not really a shotgun guy, I basically treat my shotgun as a very powerful short range rifle and use rifle style ghost ring sights on it.

With rifles and handguns, I have a bit more mileage and a little bit more training, so I am fairly specific with what I like and what works for me. I re-iterate: for me. YMMV

Obviously, there are many different rifle/handgun combinations that would satisfy these conditions, and practical differences between them come down to personal preference and training. I am viewing this particular set of boundary conditions as requiring maximum versatility from each weapon system and caliber. Since I removed any ammo commonality requirement out of the equation, the two calibers I converge on are 6.5 Grendel for a rifle and 10mm for a handgun.

As an aside, I have discussions like this with my friends once in a while as a thought exercise. I recall that once a while back, we were having this discussion at my house with an American-born friend of mince. Rather than go into a lengthy explanation, I walked him over to my gunsafe and explained that, me being a somewhat paranoid Jew with great appreciation of history and vivid recollections of Soviet Union where I grew up, I have thought about this before and have such a situation covered. In triplicate. And then some. I do not think he took my concerns particularly seriously (my American-born friends often don’t), but then again, he did ask the question. I did not start that conversation.

Had I been forced to rely on external ammo sources, my choices would have been different: I would have a reflex sight capable 9mm handgun and a SPR-type AR chambered for 5.56×45. However, since I get to prepare my own ammo supply, I can diverge from that a little (besides, I am well covered with those firearms as well; naturally, in triplicate; and then some)

I am still going to go with a reflex sight capable semi-automatic handgun and a AR-type rifle. However, I am going to bump up the chamberings a bit.

Let’s start with the handgun. Fairly recently, I built myself a long slide 10mm Glock, ostensibly for hunting. I originally set it up to be able to accept a variety of red dot sights using a rear sight mount form www.sight-mount.com. After some experimentation, I decided that approach works well for testing different red dots, but for my personal use, I want a set up with co-witnessed red dot/iron sight arrangement. So I have a second slide for it, milled for DOCTER sight III, Dot size 3.5moa. In principle, if I lived in a civilized state, I would have simply bought a Glock 40 MOS and be done with it. However, Gen 4 Glocks are not for sale in California (for reasons sufficiently idiotic I’d rather not get into them). When I decided to build this gun, I headed over to the store, and bought Glock 21SF chambered for 45ACP. As un-American as it sounds, I no longer shoot 45 (I sold my last 45, a Sig P220 a while back), so I took the whole slide assembly off and sold it on Gunbroker. Then, I took most of the internal parts from the frame and removed them, since I wanted to build this gun exactly the way I like it. Then I headed off to Lone Wolf and GlockTriggers.com websites and did some shopping: 6” long solid top slide, 6” long barrel, and the rest of the parts I needed to build this thing. The milled slide was done exceedingly well by a friend of mine who specializes on custom slide mods like this. I highly recommend his work. The trigger is Haley Skimmer which, to me, remains the best Glock trigger on the market. The iron sights I am going to put on are from Suarez International and they are still on their way. WHat I am going for here is lower 1/3 co-witnessing.

Longslide 10mm Glock with Doctersight III. 6″ barrel and heavy slide do an excellent job of taming recoil

I am not a particularly good handgun shot, but I usually hit what I am aiming at. It also helps that I actually practice. With typical iron sights, longer shots become a bit of an issue due to the need for holdover. Even with a comparatively narrow front sight and a long sighting radius, proper holdover is hard for me. Well, that is where a reflex sight really makes a difference. Since everything around the aiming point is open, it is much easier for me to do simple trajectory compensation. Don’t get me wrong, I do not advocate taking unnecessary long distance shots with a handgun. However, it is nice to have that capability and it is a good idea to practice these shots even if you will never take them in the field. My 25 yard shooting seems to have gotten a fair bit better ever since I started practicing at 100 yards with my 10mm. In terms of terminal ballistics, a full power 200gr load out of a 6” barrel has about as much pop at 100 yards as 40S&W has at the muzzle. It is not the equal of a proper longarm, but it is nothing to scoff at either. I am also planning to experiment a little with ENDO Tactical TSA-G adapter and forearm brace. Perhaps that will give me more stability for longer shots.

I originally built the 10mm as a hunting semi-auto, but once I got it finished up, I realized that I can still draw it pretty quickly and the recoil of the full house 10mm rounds is nicely soaked up by the long and heavy slide. Another useful characteristic is that it shoots 40S&W just fine without any modifications: same magazines and everything. That adds versatility (and I also have a 357Sig barrel for it).

In practical terms, I am a bit faster with the 9mm, but since I am requiring maximum versatility with this set-up, 10mm it is. A revolver in a larger caliber would undoubtedly be a better hunting handgun, but with slower recovery and slower reloading it would be not be nearly as good for defensive use. 10mm is neatly capable of both uses and, keep in mind that with a 6” barrel I get pretty good velocities out of it. This is pretty much the best semi-auto compromise I could think of between hunting, plinking and defensive use.

Anyhow, with the handgun selection out of the way, let’s talk about the rifle. A couple of things were apparent from the start. Since this rifle has to cover home defense situations, this requirement can not be compromised a whole lot. For example, for long range target practice that I enjoy and for hunting I might want to pick a fairly peppy cartridge, but for home defense situations, I want to keep rifle weight and recoil down while maintaining the ability to make quick follow-up shots. That basically narrows the choice of the rifle and of the caliber down to intermediate cartridges: 7.62×39, 300AAC Blackout, 6.8SPC, 6.5 Grendel and a few others. All of them work equally well for home defense situations, with a suppressed Blackout likely taking the cake. However, in my post apocalyptic California nightmare suppressors are likely going to be illegal anyway. For hunting purposes, all of these work about equally well at distances at which I am likely to take a shot. However, for target shooting, the Grendel is an obvious choice (I happen to own rifles in all of these calibers aside from the 6.8SPC, so I’ve exercised them pretty well). Now, many people I know prefer a larger frame AR or similar gun chambered for 308Win or some other similarly sixed or bigger cartridge. I think they are wrong and these guns give up too much, in terms of shot recovery, weight (with ammo), handling and muzzle blast. Then again, to each his own.

The rifle type would likely be either an AR or AK variant of some sort. I am very partial to bullpup rifles, so I’ve got my sights set one exploring Desert Tech’s MDR, and Keltec’s RDB-C which forgoes the pistol grip (and is weirdly comfortable that way while complying to California’s lunatic laws). It is on my list of guns to get and test once it becomes available, but as of now, I stick with the AR platform. For most uses there isn’t really any practical reliability difference between AK and AR, but a well built AR is usually more accurate and can be configured for the Grendel. My version of this gun, sports a medium weight 18” barrel that is accurate enough to take me out to 800-900 yards in a pinch, while keeping the weight manageable for everything else. I took this rifle hunting with me and, while I am not a huge fan of humping up and down the hill out of general principle, the rifle weight was manageable. That is where I think it has a pretty notable advantage over large frame ARs. I have a similarly configured AR10 chambered for 308Win, and it is notably less maneuverable. It is not just the weight, but also the balance. That balance is really the reason I am so interested in bullpup rifles. My precision bolt gun is a bullpup Desert Tech SRS and it handles far better than a gun that weight ever should.

In terms of terminal ballistics, despite all sorts of fanboy commentary out there, the Grendel is not a match to 308 and larger cartridges, but with reasonable shot placement it is sufficient for typical big game in North America: pigs, deer, etc. Once distances start opening up, 6.5 Grendel is closer to 308Win than it is to 5.56.

Let look at drop velocity and energy for three bullets that I regularly shoot: 77gr in 5.56, 123gr in 6.5 Grendel, 175gr 308Win. I am going to look at drop in mrad, velocity in fps and energy ft-lbs. All data is from Shooter app on my phone. I am assuming 2000ft altitude, 60F, 50% humidity (which is very different from where I live, but clsoe enouhg for everyone else).

I am assuming that the 308 has a 16” barrel, while the other cartridges have 18” barrel. This keeps overall length of the gun about the same, although in terms of weight the large frame AR will likely still be a bit heavier. I am also assuming that the velocities are 2700fps for 5.56, 2525 for 6.5 Grendel and 2500 for the 308Win. These are the velocities I have actually chrono’ed. All barrels vary, so yours might be doing something different. Personally, I think I am being a little generous to the 308 since most 16” barrels I have seen were slower, but I like round numbers.

Also, keep in mind that I am only looking at one particular bullet for each caliber and these are not really hunting bullets. However, I like looking at SMKs for cross-caliber consistency reasons. With 308Win, I need to explore a little bit how well modern 155gr bullets do out of a 16” barrel. They are fairly efficient and go faster.

Drop, mrad

Distance, yards	5.56: 77gr SMK @ 2700fps	6.5 Grendel: 123gr SMK @ 2525 fps	308Win: 175gr SMK @ 2500fps
200	0	0	0
300	0.8	0.8	0.9
400	1.7	1.8	1.9
500	2.8	2.9	3
600	4.1	4.1	4.4
700	5.7	5.5	5.8
800	7.5	7.0	7.5
900	9.6	8.8	9.4
1000	12.2	10.7	11.6

Velocity, fps

Distance, yards	5.56: 77gr SMK @ 2700fps	6.5 Grendel: 123gr SMK @ 2525 fps	308Win: 175gr SMK @ 2500fps
200	2269	2217	2174
300	2069	2073	2021
400	1879	1933	1873
500	1698	1798	1731
600	1525	1668	1594
700	1360	1541	1462
800	1206	1420	1335
900	1078	1303	1215
1000	1017	1192	1106

Energy, ft-lbs

Distance, yards	5.56: 77gr SMK @ 2700fps	6.5 Grendel: 123gr SMK @ 2525 fps	308Win: 175gr SMK @ 2500fps
200	880	1343	1837
300	732	1173	1587
400	603	1020	1363
500	493	883	1164
600	398	760	987
700	316	649	831
800	249	550	693
900	199	464	574
1000	177	388	476

Simply looking at the numbers a few things are apparent. In terms of energy and stopping power, 308WIn is undoubtedly the better cartridge. However, in this case, I am mostly preoccupied with good enough within a certain weight/size envelope. Otherwise, there is no limit to how far you can go. 300 WinMag is better than 308Win, and 338LM is better than 300WM and so on.

Looking at the energy, the 6.5 Grendel should be good enough for me to use for hunting out to 400 yards, which is further than I have any business shooting at an anumal from field positions. Hunting is where 5.56 is obviously very marginal. 308Win would give me extra couple of hundred yeards over the Grendel in terms of energy, but to be honest, if I ever take a shot at an animal at 600 yards, it will not be with either one of these cartridges.

For target shooting, with these fairly short barrels, the Grendel is actually a little flatter than the 308Win and drifts a little less (this would change with longer barrels as 308Win benefits mroe from a longer tube).

There are of course other cartridges to look at that are in between like the 6.5Creedmoor and others, but after looking at a bunch I have basically concluded that for me, 6.5 Grendel is what I judge to be good enough. YMMV.

As far as the actual rifle goes, to each his own. The bulk of my training has been with an AR paltform, so I choose to stick with that. Since I tend to follow what I preach, I own an AR-15 chambered for the 6.5 Grendel, built on VC Defense upper and lower receivers, BHW 18” barrel, 15” Lancer carbon fiber handguard and, CA-compliant FRS-15 stock (which is fugly, but comfortable enough). I have a rather excellent Geissele DMR trigger in that gun, and I often use it to test scopes since despite reasonaby light weight (7lbs without optics) it is very shootable and sufficiently accurate with both factory ammo and handloads.

Since in my scenario this is a rifle that might be used for self defense, I must have the ability to run it 1x or similar with a very visible aiming point. If I could have only one sighting system for it, it would have a Tangent Theta TT315M on it with a compact red dot sight mounted at a 45 degree angle. Another interesting scope option that is even lighter than TT315M is Leupold’s new Mark 5HD 3.6-18×44 although I have some issues with the reticle options there. As it is right now, I am messing with Elcan Spectre TR on it. Spectre TR gives 1x, 3x and 9x and the ability to switch between them extremely rapidly. I took it to a carbine class and at 1x it functions virtually like a red dot sight. Switching magnifications with Spectre TR is faster than with any other riflescope I have seen to date. However, at 9x, while very serviceable, it is not a match to a proper precision scope at distance. On the other, it is not too shabby either. The reticle is set-up with BDC holds for 7.62×51 and they work exceedingly well for the Grendel. Also, if you are looking for a riflescope that is sturdy enough to club baby seals with any of the Elcans should be on your list.

Elcan Spectre TR on a similar AR-15 (this is not on my Grendel, but this is the only picture I can find right now).

Mantis-X training tool

Handguns, Rifles, Training Comments Off

Nov 132017

Every once in a while, I sorta step out of things that are within my range of expertise and talk about other things I experiment with. That is why every once in a while you see me talk about somewhat random things, like bags, shirts and other accessories.

Mantis X is an accessory that is a little more relevant than most. For a little while now I have been talking about miniature red dot sights and their applications on handguns. While I do not talk about handguns all that much, I shoot them quite a bit and go take classes once or twice per year. With all that practice, over the last twenty years, I have become a somewhat adequate shot (not good compared to people who are truly good, but good enough to understand my limitations). Some classes I take are shooting classes with a lot of lead heading downrange, while some are more of what I would call “thinking” classes. For both of them, to do well, my fundamentals have to be pretty solid. Generally, noone has ever become a worse shot by practicing the fundamentals.

With that preamble done, I stumbled onto the Mantis X rather accidentally, and about 3 seconds after learning about it, I made arrangements to get one here to play with. Basically, it is a small device that clamps onto the rail on your gun (be it handgun, rifle or shotgun) and using a bunch of internal accelerometers and stuff, it senses what exactly happens as you pull the trigger. Then it transmits the data to an app on your phone. The app plots what was happening before and after a trigger press, provides some statistics on how you have done overall and makes suggestions on what could be causing some of the problems.

Mantis X works for both live fire and dry fire.

I had grand plans to use on both handguns and long guns, but so far it has been so incredibly useful for my handgun shooting that it stays put on my Glock.

This thing is awesome. I repeat: it is freaking awesome. It seems to pick up subtle problems just fine. I can do some basic troubleshooting and see the differences between what I do in dry fire vs live fire. It gives me an idea of my wobble zone. It gives me some data to see what happens when I speed up or slow down. It tells me if I am doing anything differently when using iron sights or a red dot. It tells me what happens when I experiment with different ways of holding the gun. And the list goes on.

I could not be more impressed if I tried.

<br />

Long Slide 10mm Glock with red dot mount from www.sight-mount.com

Handguns, Reflex Sights, Training Comments Off

Apr 022017

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been looking at a lot of red dot sight mounts lately. I have already talked about the Unity Tactical slide and optics mounting system.

Now, it is time for a few words about the mount form www.sight-mount.com

To re-iterate: I like this mount and it works well if you want to us many different reflex sights. However, I would not use it for a carry/defense setup. Like many people do, I insist on having co-witnessed iron sights with the reflex sight.

If the shooting position is slightly off (let’s call it improvised) and you do not see the dot, the sight does not give you much feedback in terms of which way to adjust your position.

However, for my purposes for this 10mm Glock, the mount works well and I will continue using it.

SHOT Show 2017, Part 1

binoculars, Handguns, New products, Rifle Scopes, Rifles, SHOT Show Comments Off

Feb 072017

Just like the videos (here), this is going to be long and laborious. If you manage to make your way through this whole thing, pour yourself a nice bourbon. Personally, I am starting with the bourbon now, as I write this. I suspect, it will be a living document for a few days (so Scotch and Rum might be involved in some stages of this creative process).

Docter Optics

DocterSight G

I liked the DocterSight III quite a bit, so I made sure I visit Docter Optics at SHOT. They are now owned by a company called Noblex. I am not sure what that means for Docter, but I hope that means more funding for R&D and increased marketing reach. Docter is one of those German companies that I can never quite figure out like Kaps or Nickel. I know Docter has an arm that deals with the military side of things since I have run into theei US arm in the past. In the commercial world, Docter has a fairly complete line of hunting scope and a few offerings intended for some sort of competition use. I am not up to speed on the types of competitions that exist in Europe, but it sounds like a low range variable scope with a simple dot reticle and bright illumination is just the ticket for that. Aside from that, these all look like very solid scopes with the V6 line standing out to me as the more modern offerings that probably go head to head price-wise against Meopta’s MeoStar R2 line, the new Leupold VX-6HD and a few others. I honestly do not know where these sit quality wise, but they looked pretty good offhand, so I will make sure I look at one. I think the V6 2-12×50 will be an interesting design to mount on my 280Rem and test. It looks like it only comes with the #4 reticle which I happen to like, but the illumination system looks to be exceptionally well worked out. There are quite a few other magnified scopes in the Docter line-up (some come with intersting colors…), but I have to start somewhere and I think I will start with the V6.

I think these are Cerakoted…

On the red dot sight, they have a couple of products that got my interest. The new DocterSight G is the next evolution of their miniature reflex sight, but with a much larger lens, so I expect it to be notably quicker to pick up. It will also have manual intensity adjustment. I expect it to land on our shores toward the end of the year and I will test it then. Quicksight, is on the other end of the spectrum: it is a freakishly small reflex sight intended for shotguns.

Docter Optics QuickSight

It has a different construction which allows it to have a very low axis. The construction uses some sort of a prism to redirect the projected dot, so the LED can be set underneath the lens. That way the body you can see to the right of the lens is basically just a battery compartment. Vertically, the sight is extremely short and low profile. Looking it over, I did not see any means of adjusting POA, so I suspect that on shotguns, it clips to the top rib of the barrel and is considered to be more or less sighted in by design. I would like to test that theory.

In short, I see some things at Docter that are very traditional and some are pretty innovative.

Janz Revolvers

They were right next to Docter and the revolver there looked very cool with interchangeable barrels, cylinders, etc. Once I learned that these start at around $6k, I walked away, but not before taking a couple of pictures.

Janz

The whole kit.

EOTech

EOTech had some reasonably well publicised issues involving their holographic sights which tarnished both the company and product in many ways. Beyond this acknowledgement, I will pretty much ignore all of that sordid history and focus on the new products. New products in question are Vudu riflescopes. Finally, EOTech offers a line of proper magnified sights and they seem to be pretty decent magnified sights. What I am not entirely sure of, is whether they are sufficiently differentiated from everybody else on the market who uses LOW’s OEM designs. What I do not know is whether EOTech has made any modification to these LOW designs outside of their own reticles and external cosmetics. The EOTech person I talked to said there was some additional customization, but I do not have an easy way to verify that. There are four riflescopes in the Vudu product line: 1-6×24, 2.5-10×44, 3.5-18×50 and 8-32×56. There are some discrepancies between the brochures I picked up at SHOT and the information on the website, but best I can tell, 1-6×24 and 2.5-10×44 are available as FFP models only, while 3.5-18×50 and 8-32×50 are available in both FFP and SFP configuration.

EOTech Vudu 1-6×24

The two reticles available in the 1-6×24 both built on the original circle-dot theme of the HWS. There is a 65 MOA circle that makes for a very quick CQB aiming point. However at 6x, it disappears outside the FOV and whatever is in the center of the reticle can be used for more precise shots. There you have an option of either a mil-scale or a horseshoe with caliber specific holdovers for either 5.56 or 7.62.

The reticles in the other scopes are fairly simple designs that look a little bit like Gen 2 MilDot (or Sig’s milling reticle) and are available in two versions: mrad-based and MOA-based. They look like perfectly respectable reticles, but I am surprised EOTech is not offering something along the lines of a Christmas tree or grid style reticle. I could have sworn I saw mention of H59 somewhere in the past, but I can’t find it anywhere now. Honestly, I think that is an oversight. I am curious to see how these scopes will do, so I sent an e-mail to the gentleman I talked to at SHOT to see if they are willing to lend me one to play with. The model I am most interested in is the 2.5-10×44. It is a very underlooked configuration and there are very few of these in FFP form. My plan is to compare it to US Optics B-10 1.8-10×42.

EOTech Vudu riflescopes and Q’s “The Fix” rifles

Oddly enough an item that caused a lot of interest in the EOTech booth was the rifle that a couple of the scopes were mounted on. The rifle in question is called “The Fix” by Q LLC. Best I can tell, Q employs a bunch of people that used to work at Sig and AAC. I am not sure if either one of those companies has a financial interest in Q and do not particularly care. The rifles were interesting and, unlike most modern chassis-style rifles, quite light. I made a mental note to look them up and I did. And then I pre-ordered one. I like the idea of huting with the same gun I use for precision shooting and my Desert Tech is a bit too heavy for that. The Fix with a 16″ 308Win barrel weights right around 6lbs and takes a regualr LR-308 magazine that costs abotu $20. A Desert Tech Covert with a 16″ 308WIn barrel weighs around 10lbs and the magazines are $100 each. Desert Tech is probably a better precision platform. I like the bullpup configuration and its weight distribution, I like the quick change barrels. However, if I wanted to buy a Covert to add to me Gen 1 Desert Tech SRS, I’d be out around $5500. The Fix is $2800 and weights four pounds less. If it proves accurate enough for my needs, I’ll have to pull off some sort of a miracle of self-persuasion to keep my old SRS. Ultimately, that will become the question of how much I want to keep my 338LM.

Nightforce Optics

There were two fairly new things at Nightforce booth this year: ATACR F1 7-35×56 and SR-1 Competition 4.5×24 scope. Both were announced a bit before SHOT, but that was the first time I got to see them. The little 4.5×24 looked mighty appealing to me (I like compact fixed power scopes, probably owing to how much time I have spent with various Mosin PU scopes) until I figured out that it costs right around $1900. I will freely admit that it looks like a very well optimized scope and I am sure it will do well with service rifle competitors, but I am having a hard time justifying that cost for a fixed power scope. Then again, I am not a service rifle competitor, so I might be missing something. Also, it is cheaper than the March 1-4.5×24 that is also new this year. On the other side of the spectrum the FFP 7-35×56 ATACR is intended for a very different audience and I suspect it will do very well with precision rifle shooters. It is pretty expensive at right around $3500, but that is more or less in line with the competition, although in all fairness, if you want more than 30x in a FFP scope there isn’t that much competion out there. S&B 5-45×56 is close to $5k. March 5-40×56 is probably the closest and it costs about the same. There were two 7-35x56s sitting in the Nightforce booth and one looked excellent while the other seemed a little iffy. I am guessing these were prototypes of some sort, but in the meantime I asked Nightforce to send me one of these for T&E. I really liked the 4-16×42 ATACR F1, so my expectations for the 7-35×56 are pretty high. I have not shot my 338LM in a little bit. This will be a good opportunity to do so.

Trijicon

The big recent news with Trijicon is their acquisition of IR Hunter. That was a shrewd move on their part. In my opinon these are the best engineered of the commercially available thermal sights. Now, with Trijicon’s marketing muscle behind them, we will likely see them get a bit more traction. The first obvious effect though is that the price has gone up… Now, in principle, Trijicon has something to offer regardless of the type of a weapon sight you are looking for. Between RMR and MRO the have some of the better red dot sights on the market. ACOGs and Compact ACOGs continue to do well (although some could models stand a refresh). Accupoint and Accupower cover conventional riflescopes fairly well, while TARS serves the precision market (not sure how much impact it has had).

Trijicon MRO

On the non-thermal side of things there is a new version of the MRO called “patrol” or something along those lines, which is the original MRO with a different mount and some accessories. I really like the MRO and prefer it over the Aimpoint Micro, and the new mount is a solid improvement. THe top mounted control dial is much easier for me to use with either hand than most other arrangements. As far as small tubualr red dot sights go, I sorta settled on the MRO is being my overall favourite with Hi-Lux MM2 being the bang for the buck champ.

There is also a new Accupower, and it is an interesting design being a FFP 1-8×28.

Trijicon 1-8×28

A slightly larger than the more common 24mm objective might make a difference at 8x. Aside from that, it looks suspiciously similar to the 1-8×24 design that Light Optical Works from Japan makes for a bunch of other people. That is not a bad thing since this is a very respectable design, but I am not really sure what changes Trijicon has introduced other than a slight bump in objective diameter. The reticles are simple and fairly effective designs: broken circle and a ranging scale. There are two versions, one with mrad scale and another with MOA scale.

I have mixed feelings about broken circle designs. They work adequately well, but a solid circle or a solid horseshoe is, I think a better option. One other nice feature thing is a removable cat tail.

I asked Trijicon who I should talk to if I want to borrow one of these for T&E, and they gave me a business card for a gentleman named Eddie Stevenson who is the President of Driftwood Media. Apparently, that is Trijicon’s PR firm. I reached out to Eddie and got a fairly quick reply politely asking who I am. I told him what I do here and never heard back from him. He is either really busy, or he deemed that I am not worthy of testing the new Trijicon. I might still borrow one from one of my dealer/distributor friends, but that sorta depends on how busy I am in this coming year. In years past, I tried to get my hands on every new scope in some manner, but that was before I was married and with kids. Nowadays, I follow the path of least resistance: I figure out what I want to compare, reach out to the makers and spend whatever time I have on the actual testing process. If I have to spend time chasing after a manufacturer or, in this case, a PR firm, that’s basically a non-starter for me. Most of the time, that means they will not deal with writers whose opinion they can not easily influence (via advertising revenue or other means), and I do not feel like delving into figuring this out.

Juggernaut Tactical

I had never heard of Juggernaut Tactical before, although they, like me, live behind enemy lines (in California) and have to comply with California insane laws.

JT CA-compliant Stock for AR-type rifles

JT’s CA-compliant Stock for AR-type rifles

They make a lot of miscellaneous parts for semiauto rifles including a bullpup chassis for M1A and a bunch of other things. What attracted my interest was there CA-compliant AR stock. It replaces the buffer tube and provides a pretty good way to make a “featureless” CA-compliant AR-15 or LR-308. Interestingly, the part of the buttstock that replaces the buffer tube is apparently three times thicker and it feels exceptionally sturdy. They also tell me, it gets rif of that annoying twang sound AR buffer tubes make. It comes with an extended takedown pin that serves as a thumb rest and still allows yo to use your original pistol grip (except you cant wrap you thumb around it). The length of pull was about right for me, and I think it will serve well on my LR-308 when it finally comes out.

Kel-tec

I always stop by the Kel-tec booth to see what they have that is new. They are an innovative company that really needs more manufacturing capacity. What has a really got my interest lately with Kel-tec is their RDB-C rifle. It is a semi-automatic bullpup rifle that does not have a pistol grip. What it does have is a very respectable trigger. Since there is no pistol grip, it should be allowed in the People’s Republic of Kalifornia. It was surprisingly comfortable to hold and when equipped with a 20″ barrel, the overall length is just over 30″. If they actually make it, they will have the bulk of the California market to themselves. They have a 5.56 variant and they are working on a 6.5Grendel one. I will buy both when available.

US Optics

I’ve always had a somewhat complicated relationship with US Optics. I like a lot about this company, but for a little bit I thought that the market has sorta passed them buy. They did not have a whole lot of new development (they did have some with low range variables) and while I am a big fan of the EREK knob, I do not like the low magnification tunneling and I did not like how much their scopes cost. This year, they’ve got the new B-series scopes which are newer iterations of the original 1.8-10x, 3.2x-17 and 5-25 designs called B-10, B-17 and B-25 respectively. They told me that there were some changes in the system that helped with the tunneling and the turret box was redesigned a bit to be more streamlined. The tunneling is still there, but looks less pronounced. The elevation turret is still excellent, and, very importantly, the pricing is a bit more reasonable, at least for the B-10 which lists somewhere around $1700. B-17 and B-25 list at $2300 and $3300 respectively. B-10 is the one that I would like to look at. It is reasonably compact and I really want to give the new turrets a workout with the new zero stop design, tool-less zero, etc. I glanced at their website and it looks like they are still making changes to it. At the moment they’ve got some rather questionable product categories there, but I will reserve judgement until it is all updated.

Shield Sights

This is a British company I stumbled onto purely by accident. Apparently, they make Jpoint and have, in the past made a bunch of miniature reflex sights for others, like Trijicon. They are now marketing their sights under their own brand and best I can tell, they have been in use by British military for quite some time. There is a rumor floating around that their rifle sight (either SQS or SIS, I guess) proved to be more reliable than Aimpoint Micro in some British trials. If true, that is pretty impressive. Aimpoint Micro is a nice sight. Shield currently has for reflex sights in their product line. The original miniature reflex sight is called SMS (Shield Mini Sight) is what you get if you order a Jpoint and a few other sights. Best I can tell, this is the only one that Shield OEMs for others. The other models are RMS (Reflex Mini Sight), CQS (Close Quarter Sportsight) and SIS (Switchable Interface Sight).

Shield SIS

The SIS feature list, interestingly, enough, looks like someone reached into my notes and made a carbine/backup sight based on them: it has three auto adjust modes and a manual adjust mode, it has four reticles you can switch between (8MOA dot, 4MOA dot, 1MOA dot with a 65MOA ring made out of 12 dots, and SIS 2MOA bullet drop). It also looks pretty indestructible and very compact. The SIS 2MOA bullet drop reticle is unique to the SIS, while the other four reticle are available in the other sights as well.

1MOA with 65MAO circle reticle

CQS looks pretty similar to the SIS, so I am assuming it is the earlier version. That is the sight that is in service with the British military. Like the SIS and RMS, it has an aluminum body (earlier SMS has a plastic body). You lose some of the options you have with the SIS and save about a hundred bucks. I think SIS runs ~$500 and CQS runs around $400, so they are up against some pretty serious competition, and I am very curious to see how they stack up.

Shield RMS

For handguns, the sight that really got my attention is the RMS. It has the lowest base of any red dot I have seen and looks like it would be a perfect match for cowitnessing iron sights. With the proprietary plate, it cowitnesses with standard Glock sights, which is kinda remarkable. Basically, the body of the sight below the lens is concealed by the rear sight and does not interfere with the sight picture. That means that all the presentation drills I do with iron sights are not wasted. With RMS, I do not have to change a thing.

I sent the gentleman who owns Shield an e-mail to see if I can get my hands on one. We will see how it goes, but I am pretty pumped about these.

Nite-Site

Another British company around the corner from Shield was Nite-Eyes. I was probably pre-dispositioned to not take them very seriously since I have a pet peeve about intentionally misspelling words. I am not sure what the reasoning is behind butchering the words “Night” and “Sight”. Maybe they were trying to write in ebonics or something. I was not born in this country and I worked very hard to learn this language. I sorta take it personally when people butcher it for no good reason.

Nite-Site gizmo

This company makes a Near InfraRed camera that clamps onto your scope and blasts the image from the eyepiece onto a screen that hangs a few inches above the scope. The gizmo with the screen also contains a NIR illuminator that points in the same direction as the barrel. I see a few problems with this approach. First of all, if you are shooting a rifle with any sort of recoil, that camera will smack you in the face. Looking up at that screen while shooting is very unnatural and breaks your cheekweld, since looking at the screen without breaking your cheekweld did not work for me due to camera housing blocking the line of sight. Then again, they had it all set up with on a Rudolph scope, which kinda stands to reason… On a plus side, the had a standalone system that was essentially a NIR spotter: it integrates a NIR camera and illuminator into one module with a screen on the back. That seems like a perfectly viable idea except for some ergonomic issues. They claim that it is designed to spot things out to several hundred yards which requires some means of holding it in a stable manner. The way it is right now is not conducive to that. Still, that is a fairly clever gadget, while their system that attaches to a scope is… well, I think you worked out what I think about it.

Sightron

Sightron did not have too many new things this time around. They now offer simple plex reticles in some of their high magnification scopes. There is a new small rimfire scope in the SIH line (3-9×32) which looks like a pretty nice little scope, but a simple crosshair reticle it comes with is not my cup of tea. I think there were a couple of new SII Blue Sky spotters as well. The two announcements that are of interest to me were in two far removed from each other market segments: miniature red dots sights and ultra high magnification target scopes.

ED Glass in Sightron’s next to of the line scope

I spent a lot of time with Sightron’s SV 10-50×60 target scope and really liked the innovative dual speed side focus. That scope was almost good enough to go head to head with the Marches of this world, but did have some annoying CA at high magnification. More importantly, Vortex’ new Golden Eagle cost a bit less and performs better at high mag. Now, Sightron has updated this scope with ED glass, which should help at high mag. It should be out in late spring some time and I will make sure I get my hands on it. On the opposite side of the spectrum, it looks like Sightron is finally getting into the miniature red dot sight business with their new SRS6 that features a 6MOA dot and a battery compartment accessible form the top. I’ll make sure I look at that one too.

Pocket guns

Handguns Comments Off

Feb 242014

Written by ILya Koshkin, 2/24/2014

Before I get started with this, I have to make a confession: I do not know all that much about pocket guns. I live in California and getting a concealed carry license where I live is about as likely as winning a lottery. Now that I think about it, winning the lottery is more likely. In order to get a concealed carry license in this state you either have to be the local sheriff’s favourite cousin or a politician or a major campaign contributor. Everyone else in this state, apparently, is presumed to only need to defend himself in his own house. As far as the State of California is concerned, if you venture outside your house, you basically forfeit your right to defend yourself.

Now, I am, of course, being facetious, but unfortunately, accurate as far as my chances of getting a CCW are. There were some recent court decisions that might change things eventually, but chances are I will leave the People’s Republic of Kalifornia and move to the United States well before then (and to answer a rather obvious question: no, I can’t quite contain the sarcasm. Gun laws in this state are silly).

There are some situations where I am allowed to carry a concealed weapon (on my property, for example), so I have looked at it in some detail and did a bit of a survey of suitable firearms.

Not too long ago, a friend of mine asked me for some recommendations for a deep concealment handgun, hence this blogpost.

Up to now, his deep concealment firearm has been an old Beretta 950BS Jetfire chambered for 25ACP. He had some reliability issues with that gun, I think, and when I looked at it carefully I also found some significant cracks in the slide. With that in mind, he asked me for recommendations.

There are a few things to consider when choosing a deep concealment gun:

1) What is the minimum (or maximum) size gun are you willing to put up with?

2) How sensitive to recoil are you?

3) Are your hands strong enough to cycle the slide?

4) Are you looking for ammo commonality with your primary self-defense firearm?

5) What operating principles are you comfortable with?

Let’s tackle these one by one.

1) The smaller the gun the easier it is to conceal. However, the smaller it is, the harder it is to control. Overall, size of your pocket gun is a compromise. I am a big guy and I have big pockets, so with most pants I can comfortably carry my 3″ barrel S&W J-frame in a pocket holster. However, for people who are a little smaller and have smaller pockets, this is not an option. Also, very small guns often do not allow your pinky to find any purchase on the grip. That makes the gun decidedly more difficult to control, unless it is chambered in something fairly soft shooting. This, of course, depends on the size of your mitts. I have rather average sized hands, so the guns that do not offer enough purchase for the the three fingers for me are unlikely to do so for most people. The compromise, of course, is to add a magazine with a small extension that gives the pinky finger something to rest against. That makes the gun marginally larger, but it also gives you some additional options.

2) Recoil sensitivity is a big deal. If the gun is painful to shoot, you will never practice with it. A pocket gun is not something you will ever fire a lot, but you should not dread practicing with it

3) Many people have a hard time cycling the slide on compact guns that have direct blowback operation. When chambered for the same caliber, locked breach guns have softer recoil springs and are easier to operate. Some guns do not require manually cycling the slide at all. Most notable of those are Beretta Tomcat semiautos and compact revolvers. For people with weak or arthritic hands, those guns offer a good alternative.

4) There is a lot to be said about using the same ammunition in your pocket gun as you do in your primary handgun. Logistics are simpler and switching ammo between guns in a pinch is also a possibility. Now, if your primary handgun is a hand-cannon chambered for 44 Mag, it is not really feasible. However, for most common calibers it is an option.

5) A deep concealment gun is something you will use for only two types of occasions: sporadic practice or emergency self-defense. For occasional practice, it makes no difference how the gun operates, but in an emergency when adrenaline is screwing up both your fine motor skills and your ability to think clearly, you want your pocket gun to work in the same general manner as you primary handgun. For example, if your primary handgun is a Glock, consider a pocket gun that is striker fired, has no external safeties to disengage and preferably offers a similar trigger feel. If your primary handgun is a double action revolver, consider getting a small DAO revolver. If you primary gun is a 1911 that you carry cocked-and-locked, get a backup gun that works the same way.

Before I mention a few specific guns that are worth considering, I figure I should talk a little bit about the choice of the caliber. For a deep concealment gun (or pocket gun, whichever term you prefer), the terminal effectiveness of a particular round is rather secondary. You want this ammo to be two things: reliable and controllable. Everything else is either secondary or unimportant.

Now, for a primary handgun caliber, the choice is pretty simple: if you are a gun nut with a collection of firearms that rivals some Central American countries, enough ammo in storage to last your family for eight generations and enough OCD to recall every design John Moses Browning ever came up with together with dates, I am sure you can figure out what works best for you. For everyone else, there are really only three choices that make sense:

1) If you like 1911-style guns, use 45ACP

2) If you like other non-1911 semi-autos, use 9mm

3) If you like revolvers, use 38Special/357Mag

With modern bullet design, there is no practical difference between terminal effectiveness of any of these rounds on humans, no matter what crusty old gun aficionados tell you. There is plenty of statistics on this.

Whatever caliber you choose, consider using subsonic ammunition, i.e. heavy-for-caliber bullets. If you happen to have to pull the trigger indoors you will understand what I mean.

All four of the calibers I have just mentioned are available in such a great variety of makes, speeds and bullet weights that you are bound to find something that is reliable and effective in your gun.

With all this in mind, I spent a little time surveying the available subcompact handguns and tried a few of them at the range. I walked away with a few conclusions.

First of all, the sheer number of tiny handguns available at the moment is rather large and quite a few of them are pretty new to the market. It seems to be a growing market segment. Because of that, many of the more interesting designs do not have any significant reliability statistics behind them.

Most of the new semi-auto designs are chambered for 380Auto or 9mm. The bulk of them have polymer frames which make the guns very light and give them thin profiles aided by single stack magazines. The guns that I have tried had somewhat snappy recoil, but nothing that I would find particularly distracting.

If I were choosing a pocket semi-auto gun for myself, I would likely go with one of the designs that are chambered for 9mm. 380Auto does kick a little less, but not enough so to make a huge difference.

I like the quality of Kahr handguns, so two Kahr handguns would be at the top of my list: polymer-framed PM9 and steel-framed MK9. These guns are a little more expensive than some of the newer firearms like Ruger LC9, but Kahr subcompacts have been around long enough to have a reasonable idea of their build quality and factory support.

Kahr PM9 weighs in at 14 ounces, while the MK9 weighs 22 ounces. For pocket carry, MK9 is a bit on a heavy side, but it can be done. PM9 is definitely easier to pack with you, but it does have a bit more recoil. The polymer frame absorbs some of it, but there is not way around the laws of physics: lighter gun means more recoil. Both Kahr pistols come with two magazines: 6 round flush fitting one and a 7 round mag with an extended floorplate that allows some purchase for the pinky finger. Of all of the subcompact semi-auto guns, Kahr easily has the best trigger feel I have seen to date. I also like the fact that there are no external safeties on the Kahr, but that is a personal preference.

There are of course quite a few other tiny 9mm guns out there: Ruger LC9, Springfield XDS, Walther PPS, Sig P938 and S&W Shield. I think there is also a Bersa that plays in this field, but I have never seen it in person. I am sure there are others. Not all of these are the same size and the Kahr PM9 and MK9 ar eon the smaller side of the spectrum. In principle, all of the subcompact guns are more finicky in terms of reliability than their full size brethren, so break-in period is important. Similarly, making sure that the manufacturer stands behind the gun is important.

If you desire an even smaller semi-auto than one of these, I suggest skipping the next smaller caliber, 380Auto, altogether and moving on down to the diminutive 32ACP. There aren’t all that many modern production firearms chambered for the 32ACP with the ones I can think of being Seecamp, NAA Guardian, Kel-tec P32 and Beretta Tomcat. The first three are nice little guns, but the slides are quite hard to manually cycle, so if you have hand issues, consider getting a Beretta Tomcat with its tilting barrel. Early samples, were not particularly reliable, bur recent production guns seem pretty good and if something is off, Beretta supports them quite well.

Lastly, I think it is worth mentioning the tiny revolvers, since they offer a viable option. The smallest and lightest viable defensive carry revolvers are polymer-framed Ruger LCRs. S&W came out with a competing design called the Bodyguard that is similarly-sized.

The S&W offer more for the money since it has a built-in laser, but I did not like the grip. The LCR is available with a Crimson Trace laser grip if you must have a laser, but more importantly, you can get it with a soft Hogue grip that really helps with recoil control. I need to get a little more hands-on time with the S&W Bodyguard to form a better opinion, but I have had enough hands on time with the LCR to like it. Small metal frame revolvers of similar weight tend to kick quite a bit unless chambered for some very small cartridge (not necessarily a bad idea, by the way). Perhaps more importantly, most small revolvers have sub-standard double action triggers, while the one on the LCR is not half-bad.

The Ruger LCR comes in two basic flavors 38Special and 357Mag, with the 357Mag version having the metallic part of the frame made of steel while the same pieces in the 38Special version are made of aluminum.

If I were going for a 38Special revolver, I would get the LCR357 with the soft Hogue Monogrip. It is a touch heavier than the regular LCR which helps with recoil and has the same 5 shot capacity. Now, despite the fact that it can fire a full power 357Mag load, I would never attempt to do so. That is more recoil than I ever want to deal with. However, there are plenty of mild 38Special loads that are much more pleasant to shoot out of this gun.

For the minimal of recoil, the LCR is also available as an 8 shot revolver chambered for 22LR. While it is indeed a pipsqueek of a caliber, I would not want to get shot with one and as a last ditch gun for the recoil sensitive, it is a good option.