Tag Archives: firearms

Hudson H9

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For a little bit on Hudson’s no-show at SHOT 2019, and court documents relating to same, go read this article.

It’s being teased, and it’s coming at SHOT, so let’s talk about it. The Hudson H9. Or, what happens when a 1911 and a Glock get drunk one night.

It’s a striker-fired, metal-framed, double-stack pistol. It’s got a sliding trigger, which should feel good. It has an ambi slide release, may have an ambi safety variant (prototypes had one, all the teaser shots don’t), and a conventional rotating takedown lever. And it’s got a weird front end. It appears (and patent drawings seem to back up this) that the really low dustcover and bizarre front end is to put the recoil spring assembly and rotating take-down lever in front of the trigger rather than above it. This would lower the bore axis, which would lower the recoil vector to be more in line with your hand.

And now, a brief aside to step into one of the many minefields of gun discussions, bore axis. Bore axis is how far the center of the barrel is from the web of your hand. It’s also commonly either overblown into “GUNZ WITH A HIGH BORE AXIS ARE TEH UNSHOOTABLE!!1!” or ignored with a “GIT GUD, N00b!!!!” As usual when morons get to keyboards, both parties should be ignored. Clearly, physics tells us there is something to bore axis worth thinking about. It’s why we try to get a grip as high as possible up on the gun. To be closer to the recoil force vector. That works. Every reasonably good pistol shooter knows that works. So all things being equal, a lower bore axis is better. But it’s not a huge deal, because even guns that commonly are called out for a “high bore axis” are still pretty shootable. A higher bore axis will put more emphasis on your recoil control technique in your grip, if you care about fast follow up shots. It’s a thing, but it’s not the be-all, end-all of pistol design.

So a super low bore axis, because we’ve moved some important operating components out of the way, is going to be good for quick follow up shots and gamer-ness. Sweet. Plus, that metal (steel?) frame is going to soak up recoil like a sponge. Again, great for the gamers. And sliding triggers feel really good, and are easier to push straight back to the rear, all other things being equal. Presuming it’s not a stupid-heavy trigger, that should also be great.

Oh, and it’ a proper double-stack, single-feed magazine. You know, like a Glock, or just about any other full-size pistol that isn’t a 1911 these days. It’s a rather fat looking magazine too. List capacity is 15 rounds, at least according to the website. I was hoping for more before going to extenders, maybe 20. Oh well. I’ll live.

From an engineering standpoint, this thing looks like a real winner. So let’s talk outstanding questions:

  1.  Magazines. They’re a new design. Are they reliable? Will they be easy to come by? What will they cost?
  2. Sight Dovetails. Is this a new design, or something established. Hopefully it’s a standard dovetail so we don’t have to wait to see if the pistol is popular before looking for other sight options.
  3. Grip panels. Basically everything I said about dovetails. Are these a new grip panel design? Grips are a bit cheaper to fab, I think, so maybe those designs will come quicker if this is a new thing.
  4. Reliability. Hello 800 lbs. gorilla in the room. Have you done your homework, Hudson? Does this damn thing run and run and run? Or do we have an heir apparent to the Throne of the Feedway Stoppage?

So on the one hand, color me skeptical. On the other hand, I don’t know Hudson’s financial backing or engineering team. So I don’t know what kind of backing we’re looking at. On the one hand, pushing the envelope has gotten us things like Kel-Tec, makers of impossible-to-find vaporware guns, Boberg nonsense that pulls bullets apart, and the ‘recall all the things’ Caracal.

On the other hand, let’s also not forget that Glock was once revolutionary and weird for trying to make a frame out of plastic, and look where it’s got them.

There are a lot of ‘revolutions’ in the gun world that have gone nowhere. And a few that have taken off, and some that just kinda hang around unnoticed. We’ll see what this one brings.

As for my opinion of the H9, well, I am a cynical sort. I’ve already got a lot of really nice pistols. I’ll wait for the initial reviews and reserve judgment. I do like flat-shooting guns, but I generally don’t like being a beta tester. So we’ll see.

See more on range reports from SHOT here!

S&W M&P 2.0

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It may have lost the US Army’s competition, but it’s coming to a gun store near you! The Smith and Wesson M&P M2.0 is being teased with videos and press coverage.

Offhand, it looks like they took the M&P that everyone loved and fixed the major gripes. Let’s review:

  1. The M&P had a stupidly smooth grip texture. No more! The M2.0 has a properly aggressive looking texture
  2. The M&P factory trigger is crap. Parts from Apex are required to bring it to the level of a *factory* Glock. NO MORE! The M2.0 is teasing a better trigger.
  3. Users who like pushing their pistols beyond 10 yards sometimes complained of poor accuracy. No more! S&W is teasing accuracy improvements
  4. Users like front cocking serrations, but the M&P didn’t have them, necessitating expensive custom milling. No more! The M2.0 has front cocking serrations from the factory

Admittedly on 2 and 3 we have to take their word for it until review copies drop. So I wouldn’t buy this without looking at a bunch of reviews from places that don’t mind being critical. It still has the option of a manual safety, if that’s your thing, and it has those great M&P ergonomics.

That said, it’s facing a lot of stiff competition from the VP9, PPQ, P320, and the new CZ P10. Plus, the Glock 17M/19M that won the FBI contract are likely to be dropping this year too.

As with any other pistol, I would be reluctant to buy the first few copies. I prefer to let other people find bugs that slipped past initial testing if at all possible. But that’s me.

UPDATE: Read about early reports from the range here.

On Squad Automatic Weapons

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When equipping that base unit of infantry, the squad, with automatic weapons for support fires, there are two schools of thought. These are the magazine-fed ‘automatic rifle’ vs. the belt-fed ‘light machine gun’. In World War 2 terms, this might be seen as the BAR/Bren vs the MG-42. We can see the same question being asked today, with the US Marine Corps using the M27 IAR, and the US Army using the M249. Let’s look at these options.

First, the M249. Made by FN, this is a belt-fed weapon. Unlike the M240, the M249 is chambered for the same 5.56×45 mm round as the squad’s M4s. It is also generally considered to be operable by one man. No assistant gunner required. It has a quick-change barrel to facilitate sustained fire and help deal with heat buildup. It can be operated from 100 or 200 round belts. It weighs 17 lbs empty and 24 lbs loaded with a 200 round belt in a plastic box (sans optics). It has an integral bipod, and is most effective when fired from the prone position with the bipod for stability and support.

Second, the M27. Made by HK, this is a magazine-fed weapon. It is also intended to be operated by one man. While it has a relatively heavy barrel profile, it lacks a quick change barrel. It can only be loaded with standard detachable box magazines. While there are some higher capacity magazines on the market1, the US Marines currently only issue the standard 30 round box magazines. These are the same as what the rest of the squad uses for their M4s, so there’s some commonality there. Weight is 7.9 lbs empty, and a bit less than 9 lbs loaded with a 30 round box magazine (again, sans optics or other accessories).

Note that both weapons fire the same 5.56 mm round. So effective range and lethality are roughly equivalent. Specifics will depend on the skill of the shooter and the round being fired. I will not discuss this further.

It is also true that the M249 has a greater capacity for sustained fire than the M27. Even the M27’s proponents agree there.

A more useful question is “Is the greater suppressive capability of the M249 outweighed by what you give up?” The M27 is less than half the weight of the M249 (even after we add appropriate optics and other accessories to each weapon). The M27 is a more accurate weapon than the M249. The M27 can be used in a stack for room clearing, whereas the M249 cannot due to safety concerns stemming from its open bolt mechanism and the bulk of the weapon. Weight and bulk also means that the M249 gunner is harder pressed to keep up with the other members of his squad.

Let’s also briefly talk ammo weight. The basic load of a SAW gunner is 1,000 rounds, or five 200 round boxes, which comes out to about 35 lbs. It takes thirty four 30 round magazines to get about the same number of rounds,2 and that weighs about 34 pounds. Note that by-the-book loads for the M27 IAR gunners in a USMC squad vary from 16 to 21 magazines (480-630 rounds). Variance due to the weapon being new, and TTPs being worked out. That’s 16-21 lbs of ammo. This neatly side steps the question of weight of the spare barrel assembly for the M249, but I can’t find its weight. Assume several more pounds of weight for the barrel assembly, if it is carried. If it is not carried, then the quick-change barrel feature is not useable, and sustainable rates of fire will be lower. However, they will still be significantly higher than those of the M27.

There’s also a temptation we should avoid when considering infantry tactics. While it is easiest to ponder loadouts one organizational level at a time and build from the smaller levels to the bigger ones, we should remember that the smaller ones don’t fight alone. A squad is not going to be running around the battlefield on its own. Ad hoc room-clearing units can be assembled from the manpower from a few squads in a platoon without difficulty. If flexibility is desired, additional carbines can be stowed aboard the squad’s organic transport.3 We have lots of assault rifles already, which look an awful lot like the automatic rifles in question.

The most important matter, whether the greater sustained fire rate of the M249 means it is a more effective suppression weapon than the M27, is not something I have the means to test. I would question most tests of suppression on the grounds of failing to adequately simulate combat. Setting aside the intangibles, not having a belt-fed weapon in the squad does not have a good historical record for staying power. Let’s review it:

  • In World War 2, the US Army and US Marine Corps both had BARs as their squad-level automatic weapon. They considered a new Automatic Rifle version of the M14, but declined, and switched to the belt-fed M60 (and later the M249).
  • In World War 2, the British Army had the Bren gun, which is also more or less an automatic rifle, being fed from a magazine. The replacement for the Bren Gun was the L7, which is a licensed version of the FN MAG.4
  • In the 1980s, the British attempted to put a new 5.56 mm automatic rifle, the L86, into service to compliment their new 5.56 mm assault rifle. Caliber commonality. They were dissatisfied with the loss of firepower in the squad, and switched to using the FN Minimi as the squad automatic weapon.
  • The Germans had plenty of experience fighting American troops equipped with BARs in World War 2. The German soldiers were armed with the MG42. The American soldiers wanted MG42s instead of their BARs. The German soldiers agreed with them. They did not think the grass was greener on the other side of the fence, and stuck with the MG42 (rechambered for 7.62×51 mm NATO as the MG3).
  • The Russians built a belt-fed 7.62×39 mm machine gun, the RPD, to compliment the AK-47. It lacked a quick-change barrel, and proved to be unsatisfactory. They replaced it with the RPK, an automatic rifle version of the AK-47. They stuck with it through the caliber change to 5.45×39 mm. The Russians are very doctrinally disciplined. Once the Russians hit actual combat in Afghanistan, again the automatic rifle proved unsatisfactory and soldiers exchanged their RPK-74s for belt-fed PKMs (chambered in 7.62x54R mm). This happened again in combat in Chechnya. The belt-fed weapon was favored over the magazine-fed weapon for support purposes, even though it was heavier and bulkier. Russia is moving (albeit slowly, for want of money) towards equipping mechanized forces with PKP machine guns as squad support weapons. In the meantime, the PKM sees lots of service in that role.

There is a clear trend towards real combat driving the use and purchase of belt-fed weapons at the squad level. The US Marine Corps is bucking the historical trend, which gives me pause. The US Marine Corps tends to favor large, 13-man squads, and doesn’t fight mechanized. This might influence their decision somehow. The US Army, which uses 9 man squads (more similar to other powers at present), and does fight mechanized, has not followed the Corps in switching out M249s for M27s. Given the firepower and limited dismount capacity of the M2 Bradley, this switch would seem attractive for them. Perhaps they don’t agree with the conclusion of the USMC tests which said the M27 was better at suppression.

Without knowing the details, I could not possibly comment on the tests. Offhand, we’d want to make sure we weren’t favoring the M27s in test parameters, or putting new M27s against old, well-used, and worn-out M249s.

Here the Corps and I part ways. I much prefer a belt-fed machine gun or two at the squad level. Given the choice between the M27 and the M249 to support a squad, I’ll take the M249 every time. Belts all the way. Sometimes heavy is best.

1.) Magpul makes a 40 round box and a 60 round drum magazine, and Surefire makes a 60 round and a 100 round quad-stack box magazine. There are a bunch of others, but these come to mind first for being quality. That said, when the M27 was adopted, the USMC did not find any existing 100 round magazines to be reliable. I am unsure of their test protocol or which magazines were tested (or if 40/50/60 round magazines were considered).
2.) This works out to 1,020 rounds, but mais n’enculons pas des mouches.
3.) Admittedly I’m a big fan of mechanized infantry, but is there any army worth talking about that doesn’t provide some form of motorized transport for its infantry units?
4.) The American M240 is also a licensed FN MAG.

More Conclusions From Gun School

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Some more not so night-oriented follow ups. For the first part, go here. These are from two separate classes, because I’ve had some busy weekends of late.

Overall, I was really happy with the equipment I had. I had added the Vickers extended mag catch to my Glock 34 and it worked great. I had no problems with mags falling when I didn’t want them to, and it was much quicker to drop the mag. Also, love the Warren fiber optic sights on it. These got some compliments from other students.

I expected that having brought good night gear, and having managed to avoid fondling the IDPA Master Class shooter’s 2011, I would not come home wanting more stuff. As you might have guessed, this was incorrect.

I got some time with some other people’s custom Glocks. One of the instructors had a G19 with the grip professionally reduced and stippled. The finger grooves were removed. I don’t ordinarily find the Glock finger grooves all that objectionable, and I like the standard Gen4 texture, but this customized 19 felt even better. I was really impressed. Guess some Glocks might get sent out. He got his worked on by Fire 4 Effect weapons. This is one of those things that I really had to feel to be convinced of.

The other thing that was around that I wanted to try was a flat-face trigger. The specific trigger in question was the Apex Flat Glock trigger. Again, I never would have thought enough of one to try, even though a bunch of friends like theirs. But getting some time with one makes me want to give one a try. I found it helped with consistent trigger finger placement, and a consistent, correct trigger press.

Last Time at Gun School, I learned firsthand that full size guns shoot easier than subcompacts. The sort of thing that you always knew, but it’s nice to have demonstrated. This time, we had a female student with small hands have trouble getting a good grip around her Glock 19. Her hands were rather small for the gun, and this made shooting from a draw tricky. A good grip reduction, or a pistol with a smaller grip size might have been helpful here. I didn’t get much details on this one, so I can’t comment on what could have helped beyond that.

We had a student change guns on day 2 because he felt like it. Feelings, ugh. Anyway, he changed from an M&P9 without a manual safety to a SiG P226 SAO with a manual safety. Yup, you guessed it, he forgot to disengage it a bunch. I don’t really have much opinion on the manual safety one way or another, but it’s better to be consistent in your training one way or another. If you want to “try” something new, take it to the entire class.

We did some drills with other people’s guns. This was mostly uneventful, except for the one guy who brought an FNX-45. My hands were big enough that I had no problem reaching everything. It’s a double action semiautomatic, so there were two trigger pulls to mess with. I found the double action pull to be long, heavy, and annoying. A strong grip helped me fight through it. The transition to the shorter, lighter single action pull (with much less trigger reach) was the more problematic part, interestingly. Between the lame trigger that I’m not used to and the big .45 rounds through a polymer-framed gun, my times went all to hell with the FNX. Was it usable in “fight with what you find” drills? Sure. Still not my preference, though this is hardly an outstanding example of the type. It might have been a different story with the CZ Shadow that someone brought but didn’t use. In general, one should try to stick with what one knows.

Another student had a PPQ with the longslide and the 5″ barrel. For the drills we were doing with strict, challenging par times and tough accuracy requirements, the PPQ excelled. Coming off of the FNX and going to the PPQ was like a revolution. It made the drills seem easy. The PPQ’s trigger is remarkably tolerant of slackening grip. However, when you bear down on it properly, the “flippiness” that I noticed in my review turns into fast times back into battery.

There were many Glock 17s and an M&P9 with aftermarket triggers. Also very nice. I’m starting to see a pattern here. Jeff Cooper said perhaps the first thing we should ask of a carry gun is that it should be unfair.

My second class had some real crappy weather to it. Day one was about 48 degrees, and rainy, with the temperature dropping and the rain eventually turning to snow around 1430. Day two was about 27 degrees, with light snow all day. The ground didn’t have a chance to freeze overnight, so what was a quagmire on day one turned into the Argonne on day two. I need better water-resistant cold weather gear, better boots, and some shooting gloves. While Grandpa didn’t need no gloves at Bastogne in ’44, I’m sure he would have liked some. One can make do, and I’m proud I did. It is better to be prepared.

Lessons from Night Gun School

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One of the components of the class I attended last weekend was a dusk/night portion. We engaged targets in transitional light and darkness. I brought with me my trusty Glock 34, which has a fiber optic front sight and plain black rear (i.e. no tritium whatsoever), a Surefire X300U with DG Switch(and a second without), and a Surefire E2D Defender Ultra flashlight. I got some reps in with everything, and I can now draw some conclusions.

Note that these are conclusions from the perspective of a civilian concealed carrier. NOT a special forces type guy or a SWAT guy or a policeman. So I’m not usually engaged in hunting bad guys. This will impact a bunch of conclusions.

First, sights. Or, were fiber optic sights a handicap? I shot in both transitional and nonexistent light. I found that if there was enough light to see the target, there was enough light to use the sights I had. I had no problems in transitional light. Any less light, and you have to use some kind of light of your own, which will wash out whatever sights you’ve brought. So my fiber optics were no problem when it got really dark either. Win. Because they’re cheaper and more pleasant to work with in the daytime. I’m not going to optimize for transitional light.

See, while lots of crime happens at night, it happens in well lit areas. Because criminals need some light to figure out that you’re worth the trouble. They need to see you, size you up, and then make their move. That needs light.

Okay, that’s the carry problem taken care of. Let’s look at techniques that might be used in the case of home invasion, or other night work. First, the independent flashlight. We worked a number of techniques, including the Harries, the FBI, the temple index, the neck index, and the Kyle Lamb technique. Let’s break them down.

I really liked Harries. Despite not being a Weaver stance shooter, I found it was pretty intuitive and easy to use. It was the most stable of the flashlight techniques for me.

The FBI technique worked great for searching. Not so much for shooting in most cases. It’s just awkward, and hard to keep everything pointed where you want it. But it’s easy to transition to the temple index…

The temple index was another excellent technique. It was less stable than the Harries, but it was a lot easier to get the light pointed in the right direction. It worked well for me for shooting. And again, really easy to transition to the FBI technique for searching. Switching between the two worked really well for most purposes. Though it does make you shoot strong hand only.

The neck index is stupid. It illuminates the rear sight too much. The temple index does a better job of highlighting the front sight, which is the one you should be paying attention to.

I did not like the Kyle Lamb technique. This one was super awkward and needed lots of awkward push-pull mechanics. Maybe it would have worked better for a Weaver shooter, but this was significantly trickier than the Harries. And I ain’t a Weaver guy. Pass.

I also brought weaponlights. These are not good for searching, since that requires pointing your weapon at things. But they are great for target identification. Confirming that your target is a hostile and not the cat or your daughter or some shit is what weapon lights excel at. Way easier to engage targets with a weaponlight on your pistol. You have your natural grip. The light is automatically aligned with the barrel. And with a DG switch, a firm shooting grip means the light is on. Relax a little, it goes off. Easy.

Also note that if you come to a door (we did drills with a door), you can easily free a hand to open the door and then reestablish the master firing grip. Makes that problem a lot easier.

The experience of me and the other students reinforced the importance of simple switchology. We didn’t have time pressure or other stress, but people still didn’t get their flashlights to do what they wanted. This is part of the brilliance of the X300U/DG switch combo. You don’t have to think too much. It’s got two settings. On. Off. Press if you want on. Don’t press if you don’t. It’s great. Technically it’s a ‘momentary on’ switch, but I found that gripping correctly meant it was on until I relaxed.

By the end of class, everyone who had a weaponlight but no DG switch had ordered one.

The E2D is a really good handheld. It’s got a low setting and a high setting in addition to off. Default is high, which is what I want. To get to low, you have to double tap the button. So you have to want low to get low. This is useful for small tasks right in front of you like reloading mags. I had no instances of getting the wrong input. Also, the button can be pressed for momentary on or clicked to stay on. Again, this is useful.

Students with poorly thought out flashlights seriously considered flinging their lights over the nearest berm. Lots of problems were had with getting low when you wanted high or vice versa. I also learned strobes suck. I don’t see the point of a strobing flashlight. 500 lumens to the face is just as disorienting, and the strobe is more likely to piss off the user. Any kind of complicated fancy switch mechanism could be counted upon to suck and be gotten wrong. And this was not a stressful environment.

In terms of gear, I came well prepared to do night work, so I didn’t have any gear takeaways from this portion of class. Again, note that it’s very not necessary to have a weaponlight on your carry gun, for the same reasons that tritium isn’t needed. In terms of holster selection, our instructors really like Dark Star Gear and C&G holsters. Both make great kydex holsters. They, and most other good kydex holstermakers, have plenty of options for holsters that will carry a weaponlight.

As for light brands, Surefire. Surefire Surefire Surefire. The other consistent recommendation for something cheaper was Streamlight.

Why we don’t trust gun control

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If you were unfortunate enough to catch the final 2016 presidential debate, you may recall Hillary Clinton’s most bald-faced lie: that the Heller decision was about toddlers, guns, and accidental deaths. It’s difficult to express how comprehensively this is untrue.

The Supreme Court described the law at issue in DC v. Heller as a ‘total handgun ban’. This is not in any way in dispute. The word ‘toddler’ appears nowhere in any of the opinions, nor does it appear in oral argument. The word ‘child’ appears only in Breyer’s dissent, and comes up a few times in the oral argument transcript. In the latter case, though, the context is a discussion of the safe storage requirements imposed by the DC law1. In any event, the children under discussion are, depending on your statistical source, all people under the age of 14, or all people under the age of 18. Hardly ‘toddlers’.

So, there’s nothing in the court’s final decision, and very little in the supporting material, to suggest the primary issue at hand was anything but the aforementioned total handgun ban. And yet, Hillary brought up DC v. Heller as a case in which the Supreme Court failed to properly apply the Second Amendment. Put another way, she supports the DC law as written.

Why might she have chosen to express her position using toddlers as a framing device, then? One possibility is that it’s simple scoring of cheap political points. This is almost certainly the case. However, I posit that it is not the only cause here. I take Hillary at face value when she says that she feels accidental deaths by toddler with gun are a problem worth tackling2. I also take her at face value when she argues that DC v. Heller was a bad application of the Second Amendment. Taken together, what does that mean? Preventing the vanishingly small number of accidental gun deaths among youth per year is an admirable goal, and a complete ban on handguns is a proportional effort to make in service of that goal.

As a gun rights guy, this is a completely terrifying line of reasoning. The right to armed self-defense (whether against petty crime by petty criminals, or high crimes by petty politicians) is a fundamental right, however out of vogue it may be most places in the world. Subjecting fundamental rights to utilitarian arguments is a real slippery slope, not the fallacious kind a particular set of internet leftists are so eager to throw a flag on. There is literally nothing, legally speaking, which distinguishes the First Amendment from the Second. If you’re attacking one on utilitarian grounds, you’re opening the door for an attack on the other.

Leaving aside that argument, though, consider the end result of such utilitarian reasoning. If fewer guns in private hands reduces deaths (which is not settled science, but we, like the gun control supporters, will momentarily assume it to be true), and if government has a responsibility to reduce deaths to as near zero as possible, then the government has a compelling interest in reducing the stock of privately-owned firearms to zero. This chain of reasoning underpins the thinking of every major advocate of gun control.

Don’t believe me? How often have you heard gun control advocates express admiration for the gun laws in Australia or England? If you’re paying attention, the answer is ‘all time time’. Those two countries have de facto gun bans, and de jure gun bans on anything you might be able to reliably use for self-defense. It’s the same in New York, where a recent report blames lax gun laws elsewhere for criminal firearms violence in New York. (As opposed to, y’know, New York’s violent criminals.) The solution? Stronger gun laws elsewhere! Stronger laws in New York, even!

So, gun control supporters, I ask you this: are you for banning guns? If so, good for you; that’s a reasonable position, if one I completely disagree with. Come right out and say that, because it’s a very different position than ‘reasonable regulations’. People deserve to know exactly where you stand. If you do like the sound of ‘reasonable regulations’ but not ‘total gun ban’, then I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but you’re a patsy for the total gun ban people. They aren’t planning to stop with the gun show loophole (not a thing), the online loophole (also not a thing), better mental health reporting, or anything that sounds good to you. They will exploit your vote as far as you’re willing to give it to them, then they’ll dump you and find the next group of suckers willing to vote for them. Bear that in mind when you go to the ballot box tomorrow.

  1. ‘Disassembled and nonfunctional’.
  2. She’s allowed to feel that way, but frankly, they aren’t a problem worth tackling, at least not by federal law. I cite a David Mitchell sketch as evidence for this.

Parvusimperator Experiments with the RMR and Water, Part 1

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You didn’t think I had forgotten about it, did you?

I got to thinking about the RMR (maybe it’ll come with me to class soon). Specifically, it really does seem to improve my shooting. Now, I frequent certain forums, and I recall a long discussion from 2014 about issues with the RMR becoming unusable in the rain. Basically, everything got soaked and you’d get a starburst effect all over the optic. This denied you the aiming point of the red dot and made use of irons very difficult. Or so it was claimed. There were pictures. Of course, not everybody had the same experience. Some had no problems in the rain.

And of course, there are other issues. How heavy is ‘heavy rain’? Does RainX help? Did Trijicon make tweaks? How are the eyes of the person doing the shooting? Cameras often don’t show sight pictures well.

Time for some experiential learning of my own. I’ve become a fan of trying things myself and forming an opinion for me. Even if it is more expensive. We have some accounts of rain making the things not work, and some of rain not being an issue. Plus, it’s been about two years, so Trijicon may have quietly rolled improvements into the optic to correct any problems there might be. Let’s find out for ourselves!

Alas, I don’t see much rain in my near future. And I’d then have to go out in the rain, and hope it was good, pouring rain to get a good test. So I thought for a minute, and came up with the next best thing: the shower.

No, I didn’t start shooting in the shower. Don’t be an idiot. But that gave me a heavy stream of water for me to test sight picture. So I started up the shower (yay hot water), cleared my Glockblaster (a few times), and proceeded to soak it.

I tried all kinds of angles relative to the stream of water. I cycled the slide. I got everything good and wet. And through it all, I still had a usable dot to aim with. I also had no problem using my backup irons through the soaked RMR window.

Awesome! To be honest, I didn’t think it would be a big problem for the concealed carry use case, since the pistol spends its time under a jacket. But this does give me confidence for the next rainy match, where I can do some more testing.

So there we go. Preliminary testing shows that getting your RMR soaked will not impede its usefulness as a sighting unit. I’m not sure about other people, or about small changes or about where you live. I wasn’t there to see their problems or check the finer points of design at the factory. And I’m not you. But I can get behind this fancy technology.

Parvusimperator Reviews Trijicon HD Sights

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I decided I should replace the stock sights on my PPQ. The PPQ is a really great gun out of the box, but it comes with crappy plastic three dot sights. I don’t like the three dot sight picture, so let’s see what’s on the market.

I could have gone with a black rear and fiber optic front from Dawson, like I did on my VP9, but I wanted something different. Plus, Dawson’s manufacturing tolerances annoy me. The VP9 is made by just one company, HK. With just one set of specs and tolerances. This ain’t no 1911, where dovetail dimensions differ from manufacturer to manufacturer. I understand that adjustment is going to be needed on a 1911. But this is the age of computer aided design and CNC machines. I should not have to spend a large amount of time with files fitting sights to my modern pistol. To hell with that.

Instead, I went with the Trijicon HD Sights. These are an attempt to get sights that work in both high and low light conditions. They have a plain black rear with two tritium lamps, but no white rings around the tritium, so as not to provide distractions. The rear sight also has a wide, U-shaped notch. The front sight has a tritium lamp surrounded by a high-visibility thick plastic ring, in orange or yellow. That ring is made of traditional glow in the dark stuff that gets “charged” with light. As a result of the ring, this is a wide post for the front sight. That’s really been my only hesitation with these. I like narrower fiber optic posts. But, given that the rear sight is commensurately wider, I still get nice broad light bars on either side.

The tritium makes the Trijicon HDs expensive. But Trijicon is at least nice enough to make them for just about everything. In addition to the common guns, namely Glocks and M&Ps, Trijicon makes HDs for SiGs, the PPQ and other Walthers, the VP9 and other HKs, and even Fishbreath’s PX4. Dawson doesn’t even make sights for the PX4.

A quick aside. Mounting sights on the PPQ was super easy. The factory front sight is held on by a small screw that holds two plastic wings apart. To remove, just take out the screw and squeeze the wings with some needle-nose pliers. Done. The replacement front sight is affixed with a screw, like a Glock. I know this is supposed to be less sturdy than a dovetail, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to install.

The rear sight is kind of interesting. There’s a reverse-threaded screw with a square head on the right side of the sight. There’s a spring-loaded detent in the frame that has a slot cut in it to lock in with the screw, and it presses the sight into the square-cut slot. I’m not aware of anyone else who’s done this, and I have no idea how sturdy it is. But since I don’t use my rear sights as a hammer, I’m not too worried. Again, it was super easy to swap out the sights.

Then, I took it to the range to compare it with the aforementioned Dawson sights on the VP9. Both the VP9 and the PPQ have excellent ergonomics and triggers, so I figured this was as good a test as any.

The result was pretty much as I expected. For quick stuff in close-ish, the Trijicon HDs were competitive with the fiber optic for speedy sight acquisition. At range, it was a little harder to focus on the top edge of the sight on the HDs, since the bright dot is quite a bit bigger. Also, the wide front post covers more of a smaller target at range.

I’m a firm believer that for whatever sights you have on your gun, there exists some lighting condition and shooting problem to screw you over. In this case, you get pretty quick acquisition and good low-light capabilities, but make the long distance problems more difficult. It’s a pretty reasonable trade. I really like these as general purpose pistol sights.

Of course, if you aren’t sold on needing/wanting tritium, you can get nice, high visibility sights for a lot less money. This comes down to what are you comfortable with. Which optical conditions do you want to screw you over? Or, you could put a U-Boat1 on your carry gun, and always be ready to illuminate the living daylights out of an obscure target. But then there’s extra weight and bulk to play with.

Unfortunately, the best way to know if sights are right for you is to try them. Happily, some of the nicer gun stores have a set in a countertop display, which is pretty neat. If you want tritium, I don’t know of another commercially available solution to also get high visibility built in, short of having someone custom build them. They’re way better than any other tritium sight I’ve tried.

1.) Surefire X300U

Retro Review: Parvusimperator Looks at the M16A2

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Let’s have some fun with an old review. I’m a huge fan of the M16, as you well know. There was a pretty comprehensive set of changes put in from the M16A1 of my father’s Vietnam-era generation to my generation’s M16A2 (and M16A4, though that’s mostly an M16A2 with a picatinny-rail equipped flattop upper). Let’s look at them one by one, and I’ll tell you what I think. We’re starting from the muzzle end, of course.

Muzzle Device Changes
This is the later “birdcage” flash suppressor with the bottom ports not cut. Meh. I could take these or leave these. I suppose it’s a little better, because it’ll blow less dirt back in the face of the shooter when prone, but that’s hardly a big deal on the M16A1. I guess I’m okay with this, but I’m going to be looking at the price very closely. This isn’t worth a lot to me.

Front sight Changes
This one is really subtle. There were five detents for the M16A1 front sight as you adjust it for elevation. There are four on the M16A2. Because…better? Something about glare and flat faces, I don’t know. I don’t think this one matters.

Barrel Changes
That profile. It’s now fatter…in front of the gas block. The rest of the barrel is unchanged. There is literally no good reason for this. It’s beyond stupid. There were some dumb soldiers using their M16A1 as a prybar. Apparently this was the fix, not discipline. Is there any wonder we’re in such a sorry state now?

There were also some questions of barrel flex, especially under prolonged fire. Well, all that flex is going to happen between the chamber and the gas block. But that part of the barrel was left alone so they didn’t have to make new M203 brackets. A thicker muzzle end won’t do shit besides balance stupid. If this was an actual concern (and I strongly doubt it, but I’m not staring at the data) then they should have added notches or made new M203 brackets.1

There’s also the subtle matter of new barrel twist. The M16A2 was designed to work with the new SS109/M855 round. The NATO standard 5.56 mm. The Belgians, who developed that round, called for a 1 in 7 twist. Some experts think a 1 in 9 twist would work better. But the Belgians also wanted to make the barrel stabilize the associated tracer round, which was quite a bit longer. So they called for 1 in 7. I can’t blame anyone involved in the M16A2 design for choosing the manufacturer-specified twist rate for the new round.

New Handguards
Okay, these I like. I like these a lot. Way better than the old triangular-type ones. They’re more comfortable. They don’t have those “teeth” things at the top that break. There’s only one kind of part to stock in the inventory instead of two. And they’re better ventilated. Fun for the whole family.

Delta Ring
Colt angled the ring holding the handguards on. The new slip ring (now called the “Delta ring”) was designed to be easier to grab and pull down to remove or replace the handguards. A small change, but a good one.

Brass Deflector
I guess if you shoot rifles wrong-handed, you probably oughtn’t get brass in the face for your trouble. Pretty small change, doesn’t actually impact anything.

Range adjustable sights
Another feature I hate. Unlike the barrel profile, I understand the reasoning. It’s just wrong. These were added because the USMC has a focus on long range rifle marksmanship on known-distance ranges, and also because they wanted something that would do well in high power matches. The sight is better for this. However, the two apertures aren’t very well designed (the big one is too small for its intended use, and the small one is too big for its intended use). Further, I categorically disagree with the train of thought here. Range estimation is hard. Range estimation when you’re getting shot at is very, very hard. Studies have shown that soldiers are really, really bad at range estimation. And the whole point of SCHV rounds is that you have a large point-blank zone. So for the most part, put the sights on target, pull the trigger2, and the error should be small enough not to matter. Remember, these are iron sights, and Ivan or Charlie or Haji isn’t going to obligingly stand still at 500 yards and wait for you to shoot him. The original -A1 type sights were better.

Various Lower Receiver Reinforcements
The lower receiver got beefed up a bit in some critical areas. Apparently they were breaking. Anyway, I’m all for stronger, but soldiers can break anything. So I’d really like to see some data on this, in terms of breaking strength and what standard abuse modes will do to it.

New Pistol Grip
You were so close, Colt. So very close. The shape and size are the same as the old grip. But this one is made from a tougher plastic and it has more texture. I like textured grips, and yay tougher. What went wrong? The nub on the front. This is why finger grooves suck. If they fit your hand, they feel good. If they don’t, you’re gonna have a bad time. Because my hands aren’t like the dude that called for the nub, it doesn’t fit my hand right. I’d grind it off, except there are even better grips on the aftermarket. The best of breed are currently the TangoDown Battlegrips.

Burst trigger
I hate hate hate hate hate the burst trigger. Hate it. I hate the conceit that soldiers are too dumb to be trained to use autofire correctly. I hate the conceit that three is the only correct burst size. I hate the notion that the psychological aspect of carrying your own fully automatic rifle in your hands to respond to the enemy’s in kind isn’t worth having. I hate that it means you get three super crappy trigger pulls instead of one mediocre trigger pull. I hate that you never know how many rounds are going to come out, because it doesn’t reset. So, if you have one round in the magazine, the gun will fire the chambered round, plus the one in the mag. You reload. You pull the trigger again. Only one bullet comes out, because the system “remembers” where it left off. You want suppression? Do you need to break contact right fucking now? Automatic fire. Accept no substitutes. I’m so glad this “feature” is dying a much deserved death these days. Probably the worst feature on the gun.

New Stock
I’m split on this. On the one hand, yay tougher. On the other, it’s longer. It’s a great length for prone shooting on a known distance range, slung up with your rifle. It’s less good in combat when you’re using all kinds of positions. Especially if you’re not tall.

Overall, meh. Honestly, the best thing here are the new handguards, and you could easily put those on an M16A1. Also of note is the Diemaco/Colt Canada C7 rifle. Which is an M16A2, but with A1 sights, a safe/semi/auto trigger, and various spacers to adjust the stocks. That’s pretty good. Way better than the M16A2. Sigh.

Now, of course, just buy an M4. Duh. Or M4A1 if you want a barrel that’s in a heavier but sensibly-cut profile. Both are available with a proper safe/semi/auto trigger. The M4 has always been available this way in the catalog. It’s not Colt’s fault some stupid colonels didn’t buy the right triggers.

1.) This issue was finally fixed in the newest M4A1 builds, which use a nice, medium-profile barrel. It’s thicker under the handguards, and there are notches cut in the sides to accommodate the M203 mounting brackets. And, to the surprise of exactly no one, this barrel actually works as intended, holding up to lots of full auto better. There’s a separate question of whether or not this is needed for general issue…
2.) This is why red dot sights work so well on the AR-15 and other SCHV rifles. Modern technology has fixed this issue. Now, everybody uses an optic, whether an Aimpoint or an ACOG. Which is a separate discussion, but any optic will beat good irons, let alone stupid ones like these.

So make yourself an ARK: ragging on the platform

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Not very hard, I admit: I’ll grant you that the AR-15 is an excellent example of a weapon design which is easy to work on, easy to assemble, and easy to maintain. As far as building your own goes, the AR-15 is a lot like democracy: the worst system, except for all the other ones we’ve tried.

That being said, though, no other rifle has the same reputation as the AR-15, whose marketing says that any enterprising citizen with some tools in the basement can knock one together from your various parts kits. This is technically correct, and while I’m on the record saying that technically correct is the best kind of correct, I have to throw the flag here, for two separate reasons.

First: the AR-15 in its original design does require specialist tools, to attach a pinned gas block. Fortunately for modern end users, set screw and clamp-on gas blocks are much more popular, because they, y’know, work just as well. If you build to the original spec, you need a drill press, which brings us to…

Second: the fairer comparison is an 80% AR lower against an 80% AK blank. You’ll need a drill press for the AR lower as well as the AK blank; there’s just less of a market for AK building because it doesn’t have that Lego feel.

Beyond that, the AR has a ton of annoying fiddly bits which, while still better than, say, rivets, are still a pain. Consider the barrel nut. Rather than having a single purpose and a single torque specification, it has two purposes and a massive torque range: it holds the barrel to the receiver, and it supports the gas tube through its notched flange while being locked in place by same. This is an example of too-clever-by-half thinking. The barrel nut ought to just be a regular nut, and when designing a regular nut, it’s best to rely on torque over some external device designed to inhibit the rotation of the nut. If the gas tube needs support, design a separate part for that.

Consider also the roll pin. Sure, it does its job, but at what cost? In most cases where I may want to remove a part, I prefer set screws or mechanically-retained pins. (Remember, I have c-spring retained trigger and hammer pins on my lower receiver.) I will grant that the roll pin is fine in some places. For instance, I don’t intend to ever replace the trigger guard on my lower receiver, so roll pins are fine! Similarly, I don’t plan on unpinning the gas tube from the gas block; if I have to replace one, or if I want to change one, I’ll replace them as a unit. Same deal: roll pins cool.

Parvusimperator asked me to gripe about the dust cover, but I (intelligently) bought an upper receiver which already has the dust cover installed.

The worst part is that most of these failings need not be failings! It’s dead simple to make an AR-15-compatible receiver. Upper receivers especially already exist to meet a myriad of needs. Why not improved end-user serviceability? Lowers are a harder pill to swallow, since ‘needs special parts’ is a terrible thing to see on the side of one. Then again, ambidextrous lower receivers are a thing, and most end users are only going to bother changing furniture, triggers, and maybe buffers, none of which are big offenders in the special-tools market. The same reasoning holds here. We already have specialist AR-15 lowers for the ambidextrously-interested. Why not for the bolt-catch-replacingly-interested?