Innholdsfortegnelse for February/March 2019 i Ballistic

In an effort to keep me out of trouble in my younger days, my dad always quipped, “Don’t be a follower. Be a leader.” For the most part, it worked. I did my best to heed those streetwise words—with a few bumps and bruises along the way, of course. But no risks, no rewards, right? We at Ballistic try our best to lead the way as “The Premier Firearms & Survival Magazine.” We dare to be different—hell, we once put a half-naked Kris “Tanto” Paronto on our cover—and honor those in the shooting world who, in one way or another, act as game-changing leaders. Those brazen, gutsy folks who simply won’t stand for the status quo. We’re talking about the types of companies that say to state legislators, “Screw you…

WOULD YOU RATHER… Not carry your cell phone or your concealed-carry pistol for the next month? I find this an easy question. My job issues me a cell phone, and I’m “on call” 24/7/365. I would be thrilled to leave that damn phone at home and instead carry just my CCW! That said, I also have a personal cell, and leaving it home would throw my whole world off kilter. I need to leave my cell phone at home for a month to remember what is really important. I’m sticking with my gun and ditching my Samsung Galaxy. UNDERCOVER BIRD-DOGGIN’ We all know the stories of the people who go deep undercover: Donnie Brasco, Barry Seal, Kim Kardashian. They sacrifice it all—family, safety, security—as they pretend to be Italian Mafiosi,…

I am a lucky guy. I make a living doing what I love most. My work as shooting instructor, consultant for some of the top defense companies in the industry and writer for this magazine allows me to shoot for a living and test some of the best equipment available. This is also a curse, as I can’t have my own rifle and use it for all my personal shooting and hunting. There is a job to do most times I go to the range, and I can’t shoot what I want whenever I want. My curse makes me have to shoot many rifles and not really feel at one with any of them. This makes me fantasize about what would be the best rifle to have—if I could have…

I RECENTLY HAD A VISITOR IN the office, and night vision came up in conversation. He talked about his night-vision setup and how good a setup could be. Then he dropped the real bombshell—that night vision is great, but to be more effective, you should be deploying thermal. He offered to retrieve his setup from his truck for me to check it out. What he brought in was something seemingly out of science-fiction. It was an AR-15 with a Vortex Razor HD 1-6x24mm scope on top, but with a flick of a lever, he dismounted the optic and simply clicked in place a Trijicon IR-Patrol thermal optic. Our visitor explained that having a hunting party with night vision is great, but the thermal increases your effectiveness. If he could spot…

The U.S. Secret Service has a well-deserved reputation as the world’s premier dignitary protection unit. Since 1901, the Secret Service has been charged with protecting the president of the United States. That mission has evolved to include protecting their immediate family and the vice president’s, as well as spouses and children of current and former presidents, major presidential and vice presidential candidates, visiting heads of state and others by executive order of the president. The Secret Service’s Presidential Protective Division (PPD) is comprised of various elements. The agents who form details for the president, vice president and their families are always close to their principals. Agents also carry out advance inspections for presidential visits and perform duties not in direct contact with their principals. Members of the Uniformed Division secure…

If all entrepreneurs and businesses operated like Paul Buffoni and Bravo Company Manufacturing (BCM), we might have a shot at curing Third World debt, our trade surplus and the national deficit. That’s a bold statement, but BCM’s growth from a basement business to a premier manufacturer of firearms and AR components is no accident. Not only has Paul Buffoni grown BCM from its humble roots to a 125-employee company, but he has also done so primarily with American employees and never strayed from either his core philosophy or his hometown of Hartland, Wisconsin. Continuing on that path, the company recently opened a 100,000-square foot refurbished facility less than two miles from its previous location. The new facility in Hartland will be home to more than 100 employees and focus primarily…

The firearms industry is tough to beat when it comes to its creativity and output. Every week we see new releases from every corner of the gun world, from mom-and-pop stores to giant manufacturers who have been around for decades. This year looks to be no different, and we’re already off to the races when it comes to cutting through the clutter and reporting on only the best. We’re not here to waste your time. So without further ado, here’s some of the hottest new stuff heading your way. 1> BUSHNELL FORGE 10X42MM BINOCULARS The 10x42mm model in Bushnell’s Forge binocular line defines clarity. With top-of-the-line low-light performance, these binoculars features ED Prime glass, PC3 phase and dielectric coated BaK 4 prisms, Ultrawide Band anti-reflective coatings and Bushnell’s exclusive EXO…

“HE’S UNAPOLOGETIC IN THE CAGE AND IN THE WOODS. FEAR AND FAILURE ARE NOT IN HIS VOCABULARY…” The bantering can be relentless when it’s time to blaze another trail down our North Central Texas highway for our next thermal hog hunt. This trip was no different. Using his own words, I quipped, “Dude, you keep poking the bear. Run up and get done up!” It wasn’t the first time I threatened him—in fact, it’s become routine, and so have his responses. He laughed and said, “I’m a prizefighter, Kev. I don’t fight for free.” And that “he” is James “The Texecutioner” Vick, one of the world’s best Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) competitors, who gained MMA prizefighting notoriety after taking the top spot in the popular reality show The Ultimate Fighter,…

I REALLY LIKE .45-CALIBER 1911s, but the darned things keep trying to twist out of my hands when I shoot them. The thin grips on many of them are too small for my hands, and the checkering usually isn’t very aggressive. For many years I used soft rubber grips, and these helped quite bit, but it wasn’t until I tested a Les Baer Hemi .45 with VZ G10 grips several years ago that I shot a 100-6X in competition. That was actually my first experience with VZ products. Since then, I’ve tested many 1911s with VZ grips, and I’ve never been disappointed by a VZ product. The guns stay put in my hand for faster follow-up shots, even when shooting the old supercharged CorBon 230-grain +P JHPs. I’ve always wondered…

When a guy is really hungry, there’s nothing like a thick, juicy steak to satiate that craving. Of course, lest I be accused of misogyny, the ladies are just as carnivorous. It’s just that guys and steaks somehow seem like a more natural pairing. There are eight recognized cuts of steak, but to do justice to all of them here would be too ambitious a task. So we’ll limit this effort to the four most popular cuts, then discus when to shop for steak, what to look for when choosing a steak, and finally, in Part II of this opus, how to cook them using both traditional and new-wave techniques with charcoal and gas grills as well as cast-iron skillets. CUTS ABOVE Whether supermarket or restaurant, the most popular cuts…

One solid lesson from history is that overwhelming force is the most effective strategy because it most likely won’t be necessary. Just ask Generals Patton and MacArthur, or Napoleon. A related philosophy comes from the Cold War: Mutual Assured Destruction. While it primarily meant that no one would use nuclear weapons if they knew they would be destroyed in the counterattack, it also meant that the more capable one’s weapons are, the more likely those weapons will never be used. This brings us to the .50 BMG, which was developed about 100 years ago as a “supersized” version of the .30-06. It was another fantastic idea from John Moses Browning, and its original purpose was to down aircraft. Later, it was enhanced to become an armor-piercing round as well, able…

From the days of hide-and-seek with branches in your hat and Red Ryder BB guns in the woods behind the barn, to modern computer-designed patterns designed to save lives on the battlefield, if you need to walk softly and carry a big stick, sometimes it’s necessary to hide said stick. Camo patterns for weapons and clothing generally combine two methods of color theory: matching and disruption. Color matching, just as it sounds, uses colors similar to the surrounding environment to help whatever is being camouflaged blend in, while disruptive coloration uses high contrast to break up outlines and disguise the shape of an object, person or animal. This brings us to the specially camouflaged shotguns up for grabs here. The first, customized by MAD Custom Coating, is a magazine-fed Mossberg…

THE LUMBERING GIANT robot known in science-fiction movies, TV shows and video games as a “mecha” or simply “mech” has existed for decades. In fact, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells envisioned massive mechanical monsters that were masters of the battlefield. This evolved more recently into the concept of human-piloted war machines that could fire rockets and rain hell from above. We’re still not quite at that point in warfare, and most military vehicle experts would agree that tracked vehicles like tanks that are low to the ground have vast advantages over a towering robotic warrior. Yet there’s still something compelling about the concept of mechs that it was almost inevitable—not for the battlefield, but for the sports arena. Eagle Prime, the first-of-its-kind Mega-Bot, was unveiled at New York Comic Con…

Shortly after chatting with Vick about Sergio Reyes, I sent Vick images of my boot camp platoon—the full platoon, then cropped images of Reyes on the left side and me on the right. I even included arrows and our names. “Yeah, dude, that looks like Sergio. I’ll send you his number.” A few days later, I dialed the number Vick sent over. While very little ever phases me, my nerves got the better of me as I listened to the line trilling. After a few rings, he answered. “Hello?” “Hey man, I’m sorry to bother you, but I was looking for a Sergio Reyes from Marine Corps boot camp platoon 2097, 2nd Battalion, Echo Company.” “You found him,” he said. Who’s this?” When I introduced myself, his hesitation emphasized his…

Springfield Armory re-entered the black rifle market in 2016 with the Saint AR-15 rifle. While the AR may have been new to the company, black rifles were not; the company’s various SAR series rifles remain highly sought after by collectors and enthusiasts alike. Very popular prior to and for a short time after George H.W. Bush’s ban on imports, they suffered the same fate as other high-quality rifle imports. Still, many consider the SAR-4800 the closest thing to an actual Belgian-made FAL that you could buy. This has always been a goal at Springfield Armory—provide something better for less money. The company has been doing it since 1985 with its 1911 pistols and pretty much everything else it makes. After testing a couple of different Saint rifles, I can attest…

In 2008, Uli Wiegand, the president of Inter Ordnance (IO) decided to get away from the surplus gun parts business and into firearms manufacturing, with the objective of making a decent, affordable AK-47. It took the Russians more than a decade to perfect the AK-47 design and production process with the benefit of the best engineers in Europe and unlimited national resources. You might think all IO needed to do was copy it, but as it turns out, making millions of rifles for soldiers where cost is no object is a very different manufacturing enterprise than making tens of thousands of rifles with your own capital to compete in a niche civilian market. The crux of the problem Wiegand faced was driving down costs to keep his rifles at a…

My wife and I have a saying: “Every night is Saturday night, but every morning is Monday morning.” We both work seven days a week, so taking a few hours off at night to link up and down a couple of pints is a necessary component to our days. We chew the fat and chat like schoolgirls for a few hours. If I go out, I am away from work distractions and that temptation to keep working until bed time. Additionally, being out among others is healthy. We are social creatures. That’s not saying that I am going out to make friends. Absolutely not. I do enjoy chatting with locals so long is it isn’t about guns. Guns and gun-related actions are my full-time job. The last thing I want…

“IN FRANCE, YOU CAN BUY A .22-CALIBER CAN UNCONTROLLED OVER THE COUNTER. IN THE LAND OF THE FREE AND THE HOME OF THE BRAVE, HOWEVER, THE SAME THING WILL REQUIRE A BUTTLOAD OF PAPERWORK, A NINE-MONTH WAIT AND A $200 TRIBUTE.” IT’S BEEN AN emotional couple of years for gun nerds and freedom-loving Americans across our great republic. We went from despondency in the face of an “inevitable” Hillary Clinton presidency to a new era of hope with the election of the ultimate outsider. For the first time in a generation we saw the real possibility of pushback against the persistent juggernaut that is gun control. There are two primary gun issues ripe for rectification in front of the U.S. Congress right now. The first is the Concealed Carry Reciprocity…