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Welcome to CANCON A Fully Suppressed RECOIL Range Day!
Save the date and make your plans to come down on Veterans Day weekend, Nov. 11-13 to the 17 South Rod and Gun Club in Savannah, Georgia.
Hundreds of the newest and best suppressors, firearms, and optics will be on the firing line for you to get hands-on trigger time.
All ammo will be provided, just bring your trigger finger!
Veterans get in FREE Friday, so come spend your Veterans Day weekend with us at CANCON!
SATURDAY NIGHT VIPs will have the opportunity to shoot suppressed with night vision goggles, clip-on night vision optics, IR lasers, tracers, and more.
CANCON will even have activities for kids, making this a completely family-friendly event.
Expect to see hundreds of firearms and suppressors, every one of them available to shoot. Don’t forget your eyes and ears for safety!
Not every day you get to shoot cool stuff like this!
Great food will be available on-site for when you need to recharge between shooting bays.
More information and ticket pre-sales coming soon!
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Designed Machined and assembled in Leupold Optic's Oregon factory, the Mark 5HD scope keeps the company roots firmly planted in its home.
Crafted to redefine accuracy, precision, and optical performance for long-range shooters, Leupold’s award-winning Mark 5HD is a testament to domestic manufacturing. It’s proudly designed, machined, and assembled in the company’s Beaverton, Oregon factory, where Leupold employs over 650 hardworking Americans.
In designing the Mark 5HD line, Leupold’s product specialists asked elite shooters what they needed to put accurate fire downrange faster, and used that input to design a riflescope that provides all the tools necessary — in both quality and features — without the unnecessary extras that add weight and cost for consumers. Combining relentless optical performance, rugged reliability, and user-friendly features in a package that could only be produced by leveraging the 70-plus years of optics manufacturing Leupold possesses, the Mark 5HD has wowed end-users throughout the industry.
Be sure to enter our American Made giveaway, with great gear from great American companies. Click the tab at the bottom right of page to enter.
Pick up a Mark 5HD and you’ll feel the difference; it’s up to 20 ounces lighter than other scopes in its class. Get behind one and you’ll see the difference, from its superior edge-to-edge clarity to its extreme low-light performance. With three revolutions of elevation adjustment, the Mark 5HD was built to max out the performance of the latest long-range rifles and ammo.
The heart of the Mark 5HD is in its ZeroLock adjustments, which provide precise, repeatable tracking with a dead-on return to zero. The M5C3 elevation dial delivers over 30-mils of adjustment in three turns. Visual and tactile revolution indicators are in place to ensure you don’t get lost in the travel, and the auto-lock at zero eliminates the risk of accidentally moving the dial. The windage adjustment is capped and the zero indicator mark has been relocated on the riflescope’s main tube so you can see it without moving your head off the stock of the rifle.
In short, it’s the most dominant long-range, precision riflescope on the market. Best yet, it’s backed by Leupold’s legendary lifetime guarantee, which guarantees performance where other companies warranty failure.
For more information on Leupold Optics, please visit leupold.com.
Top-tier, battle-proven products, Radian Weapons turns out rifles and accessories in which you can trust your life.
At Radian Weapons, we think American gun companies should make or source their parts from right here in the USA. That’s why 100-percent of the firearms products we sell are manufactured in America, by Americans.
We machine the majority of our rifle and accessory components in Redmond, Oregon, using state of the art CNC equipment. At Radian, we’ve prioritized vertical integration of our manufacturing processes over product development to ensure that whenever we deliver goods to the consumer, it’s of the highest quality and reliability standards.
Be sure to enter our American Made giveaway, with great gear from great American companies. Click the tab at the bottom right of page to enter.
The temptation in most industries is to rush new products to market. At Radian, we actively choose not to release “me too” products or rely on sourcing major components for new products from third party vendors. This helps protect our brand integrity, and hopefully gives consumers peace of mind when they purchase Radian products.
Our flagship products are the Model 1 rifle and related receiver sets, Talon ambidextrous safeties, and Raptor charging handles. Featured here:
MODEL 1 – 17.5-INCH 223 WYLDE
Clandestine Desert™ Cerakote Finish (Cerakoted by our finishing business, High Desert Coatings—www.highdesertcoatings.com)
RAPTOR CHARGING HANDLE FOR A15/M4
The original all-billet design with Cerakoted FDE handles.
TALON 45/90 AMBIDEXTROUS SAFETY
The screwless safety design ensures your levers won’t come loose and gives you two throw degree options to choose from. Finished with FDE Cerakote.
Buy with confidence, as all Radian products are backed with a limited lifetime warranty against manufacturer defects.
For more information on Radian Weapons, please visit radianweapons.com.
Best known for body armor, Blue Force Gear also offers the everyday carry essential Micro Trauma Kit.
The Micro Trauma Kit NOW!, or Micro TKN, is our smallest version of the Trauma Kit NOW! yet. It was designed to hold essential lifesaving gear with minimal size in mind. The Micro TKNTM is designed to be worn horizontally with minimal bulk—perfect for everyday carry, for law enforcement professionals, prepared citizens, or in low-profile mission sets. The inner carrier can be deployed with one hand or one finger from either the left or right side by pulling the BLIP featured pull tabs. The Micro TKN consists of two main components – the outer MOLLE or Belt mounted pouch utilizing the Ten-Speed® technology, and a removable insert that keeps medical supplies organized.
Be sure to enter our American Made giveaway, with great gear from great American companies. Click the tab at the bottom right of page to enter.
Supplies
Hemostatic dressing for wound packing/clotting (1 included)
4” Emergency Trauma Dressing (1 included)
9” Medical Grade Easy Tape (6 included)
Tourni-Kwik Compression Tourniquet (1 included)
Heavy Duty Medical Gloves (1 pair of Large sized gloves)
For more information on Blue Force Gear, please visit blueforcegear.com.
Unrelenting in design and execution, the new Berger Bullets Long Range Hybrid Target bullets are engineered for hair-splitting accuracy.
Berger’s new Long Range Hybrid Target bullets™ (LRHT) are 100% Made in the USA and feature a high Ballistic Coefficient (BC), jump-tolerant ogive profile that is Doppler verified with less than 1-percent BC variation.
Long-range target shooters and extreme accuracy enthusiasts endlessly seek a competitive advantage, using sophisticated ballistic solvers, custom drag models, complex optics, and twist-rate calculators, among others. All of these tools are rendered meaningless if the projectile exiting their favorite target, hunting, or Mil/LE tactical rifle is inconsistent and unpredictable. Using advanced proprietary manufacturing processes, Berger’s innovative Meplat Reduction Technology™ (MRT) applies controlled pressure along the nose of each LRHT bullet, producing a homogeneous and repeatable profile for the industry’s most consistent BCs. While a high BC is desirable, shot-to-shot BC consistency is most critical when engaging targets at 1,000 yards and beyond. When you absolutely need to maximize hit probability, never settle for a bullet other than Berger.
Be sure to enter our American Made giveaway, with great gear from great American companies. Click the tab at the bottom right of page to enter.
The story behind the construction of Berger Bullets is simple. We start with virgin copper and lead wire products with the tightest specifications. Then, we manufacture our own signature J4 Berger bullet jackets to unmatched tolerances of less than 0.0003 inches of total indicated runout. What does this mean? A better bullet begins with a concentric jacket! Lastly, we merge the materials into finished projectiles — all within the confines of our Mesa, Arizona manufacturing facility.
Berger Bullets are highly sought after by the leading shooters in the world’s most demanding competitive shooting disciplines, such as PRS, F-Class, Fullbore, long range, and ELR to name a few. New Long Range Hybrid Target bullets are available in .22 caliber, 6mm, 6.5mm, 7mm, and .30 caliber offerings.
New for NRA Show is our line of LRHT Ammunition offerings in 6mm Creedmoor, 6.5 Creedmoor, and 300 Norma Magnum.
For more information on Berger Bullets, please visit bergerbullets.com.
Improving the safety, performance and comfort of soldiers and safety professionals, Oakley Standard Issue has become a trusted first line of defense.
For over 20 years, Oakley Standard Issue has manufactured all ballistic products at their factory in Foothill Ranch, California. Products are designed, materials are sourced, and products are tested right here in America.
The Oakley SI Ballistic M Frame Alpha is our latest flagship product. Alpha is an eco-system; the product contains a frame, goggle, and helo-gasket with a lens interchangeable between all three. No matter the mission, the user can configure the product to his or her needs. Range work, close quarters battle, mobility, and even freefall are many of the environments applicable. Oakley Prizm Technology within the lens brings high contrast and definition. Specifically, Prizm Shooting was developed with the Army Marksmanship Unit and gives greater clarity to targets in different light conditions.
Designed with extensive input from our military and first responder community, Alpha is now authorized for wear on the Special Operations Eyewear Program (SOEP). SOEP, regarded as the highest standard for protective eyewear, certifies that all components are made in the USA and offer the highest level of protection. Available in multiple lens and frame color configurations.
Oakley Standard Issue was formally established in 2000. Committed to serving our military and first responders, Oakley SI offers exclusive pricing for products for active-duty military, government, first responders, and veterans.
A passionate gun parts and accessories company, Overwatch Precision has the kit to make you pistol run like a top.
The OP TAC Trigger System is a patent-pending seven-piece upgrade for your Smith & Wesson MP 2.0 that reduces total travel and pre-travel by 50 percent. Engineered by us from the ground up, this kit provides the unmatched performance you have come to expect from all OP products.
Through state-of-the-art manufacturing techniques, our trigger bar is held to industry-leading tolerances using a progressive die manufacturing process, a metal forming technique used in aerospace manufacturing that guarantees the most consistent performance and highest quality parts. This process, coupled with a space-age NP3 coating, provides the end user with the highest quality trigger bar ever offered.
TAC Trigger
Our proven TAC trigger is both functional and aesthetically pleasing, with features immediately identifiable as Overwatch Precision’s intellectual property. The overall design has been the go-to for Glock pistols since we released it in 2016, and its overall shape and function have been refined to excel in this new platform. With pre-travel reduction and a flat face, this self-correcting contact point aids in a linear rearward pull and increases accuracy. The indexing lip helps the shooter consistently place their finger on the trigger in the exact same spot every time, helping muscle memory and overall consistency.
The Sear
At the heart of this system is our NP3 coated sear. With a proprietary sear angle and large radius, this sear allows for a light and consistent break that can be tuned to the shooter’s preference with the two trigger return springs provided.
The Plunger
This product has a proprietary radius that replaces the OEM chamfer and creates a measurable “hump” in the trigger pull. This Swiss CNC’d part, coupled with NP3, creates a smooth pull to the wall. The plunger spring provides constancy and safe operation of this part, as intended by S&W.
The Trigger Springs
We offer two different trigger return springs with this kit. Standing by our ethos of serious-use defensive weapon components, we include a 4.5-pound return spring for duty or carry use for a dependable, predictable break. With the growth of USPSA popularity and participation in and amongst firearm enthusiasts, we also offer a 3.2-pound spring. Please note, this spring is not suitable for carry.
North Carolina based G-Code produces solutions for ever gun and tactical carry situation under the sun.
At G-Code, we don’t have a flagship product; what we have is a flagship philosophy and an unyielding commitment to excellence in everything we do. We don’t see ourselves as a company of products — we’re far more than that. G-Code is a solutions company.
Our purpose has always been to solve problems for our customers. We do this with design and innovation, and although our efforts manifest in products, we never sit back and feel like “we have arrived.”
Be sure to enter our American Made giveaway, with great gear from great American companies. Click the tab at the bottom right of page to enter.
Likewise, execution in our workmanship is paramount in its importance to us and to our customers. Our fit, finish, and function must always be unquestionably second to none.
To this end, G-Code products have always been, and will always be, 100-percent American made using only U.S.-sourced raw materials and components. At G-Code, we count it our privilege to provide tactical carry solutions to the men and women who serve in our military, law enforcement, and the civilian concealed carry communities.
This is why when you buy G-Code, you buy American, you buy quality … because we simply will not sell anything else!
The bipod has long been a tool used by shooters to obtain a more steady firing position in the field or on the range. However, in its many years of use, the fundamental design and function of a lot of traditional “stiff” bipods have not changed all that much.
Swagger Bipods, a Nebraska-based manufacturer, has developed a couple of bipods that offer the shooter a ton of flexibility and functionality, all while remaining incredibly lightweight. Using what the company calls Crazy Legs Technology, these bipods afford the shooter a wide array of shooting positions. The flexible, hyper-extending Crazy Legs are shock-corded and are easily adjustable with a simple twist motion.
Gun Digest Editor in Chief Eric Conn had the opportunity to experiment with a Swagger bipod this winter while sighting in for an upcoming predator hunt and came away very impressed with the bipod's flexibility and ease of use.
For more information on these great shooting aids, check out the video above, or visit the Swagger Bipods website.
CANCON East is back in the Carolinas for another year!
Welcome to CANCON A Fully Suppressed Range Day! The World’s Favorite Suppressed Shooting Festival!
CANCON is back again on the East Coast: Clinton, South Carolina. Join us at The Clinton House, May 8th-9th, 2026 for an action-packed weekend of fully suppressed shooting!
The Clinton House Plantation Shooting Complex is a massive venue and gives CANCON the room we need to expand! Located just 45 minutes south of Greenville, South Carolina, 1 hour north of Columbia, and 2 hours southwest of Charlotte, NC.
More space means more shooting lanes and more sponsors! Find more guns to shoot, more suppressors to test, all for one low ticket price!
Get on the 1,000-yard and 1-mile range and send some lead way, way down range!
Clinton House has tons of FREE onsite parking! Shooting all that free ammo will make you hungry, so stop by the concessions to refuel!
General admission is available Friday and Saturday, May 8th & 9th, $50 per day, or save money and get the entire weekend for just $85!
More information and ticket pre-sales are now available at the CANCON WEBSITE!
Early Access to CANCON from 2PM to 4PM on Thursday May 7th, followed by a catered dinner. Access to CANCON from 9AM to 4PM on May 8th & 9th, plus the legendary VIP Swag Bag!
VIP SWAG Bag from CANCON, Arizona
PROS Vs. JOES, SHIRTS, AND MORE
Returning to CANCON is PROS Vs. JOES! We select a random participant from the crowd to go head-to-head against a seasoned pro shooter. Can an everyday Joe outshoot a Recoil Pro in a high-stakes shooting competition? If they do, they win BIG!
CANCON T-shirts will be available for pre-order and at CANCON! These are high-quality shirts that feel great and look awesome.
CANCON Carolians 2024 shirts, new shirt coming soon!
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Rock River Arms has released a retro A1 Carbine SBR AR in celebration of zero-dollar tax stamps.
Now that the cost of some NFA tax stamps has been reduced to zero dollars, there’s basically no reason not to buy factory short-barreled rifles through a Form 4 transfer rather than making your own through a Form 1. Rock River Arms is just one of many companies embracing this change, and the company has launched a new retro AR-15 A1 Carbine SBR to shed some light on that fact. It’s available in two configurations and both look very cool.
Expectedly, the RRA A1 Carbine SBR is chambered for 5.56 NATO, and it features a chrome moly 10.5-inch barrel with a 1/2×28 threaded muzzle and an A1 flash hider. It has a carbine-length gas system, an F-marked FSB/gas block and is built on RRA’s LAR-15M lower receiver. For the cool retro aesthetics, it has a forged carry handle upper and a short A1-style triangular handguard, and it’s available with either a short fixed entry stock or an adjustable carbine-style stock. The grip is A1-pattern as well and the rifle has an RRA single-stage trigger. Not to be pedantic, but while RRA describes the upper as A1-pattern, it technically isn't as it lacks a forward assist. I think that's a good thing though for a little carbine like this, as the slick-side upper has slightly less bulk and weight.
Keep in mind, cool looks and practicality are not mutually exclusive, and RRA’s A1 SBR could be a handy, lightweight defensive carbine. There are ample accessory options on the market for mounting red dots on carry handles and weapon lights on the FSB or bayonet lug. You don’t always need rails to increase a rifle’s utility.
Both variants of the RRA A1 Carbine SBR are available now. The entry stock version has an MSRP of $1,135 and the telescopic stock version has an MSRP of $1,150.
New Osight SE Enclosed Green Micro Dot! Take a closer look at the multi-reticle RMSc green dot from Osight!
Sponsored Content
NEW from Osight comes the next generation of green dot optics for CCW, EDC, self-defense, and home defense! The Osight SE GN is an enclosed-emitter green dot optic with an RMSc footprint and features a 2-MOA dot with a 32-MOA circle. Multi-reticle system means you can choose between just the dot, just the circle, or both.
Osight SE GN comes with features you expect, like a side-loading battery (CR1620), 100,000-hour battery life (2 MOA dot), and motion sensor activation. It also comes with features you might not expect, but will definitely appreciate. Low-battery indicator when the battery drops below 2.2v, low-deck height, meaning the optic can co-witness with most factory iron sights, and 10-brightness levels (including 2 night vision settings).
Parallax-free, IPX7 waterproof, 7075-T6 Aluminium, Aspherical Lens, 530nm green dot — the Osight SE GN comes packed with features and extras.
Best of all, MSRP is only $220. From now until March 31st, Osight is running a 15% off discount via their Amazon Store.
WHY ENCLOSED?
Classic red dots (and green dots) are made using an open emitter design that leaves the window exposed to dust, rain, snow, and everything else. This is not ideal for optics due to the emitter getting blocked or obscured, causing the dot to not function correctly or make getting a sight picture more difficult.
Enclosed emitter optics are exactly what the name implies and provide a sealed box around the emitter and optic window. While adding a little bulk and expense, the added protection is highly recommended for optics you might need to depend on in a life-or-death situation. For CCW and open carry, this is espeshally importaint due to the optic being exposed to the elements more ofton.
The Osight SE GN, coming in at a price that is so affordable and packed with premium features, is great to see!
Green Multi-Reticle System: Switch between dot-and-circle, 2 MOA dot-only, or 32 MOA circle-only reticles for any shooting scenario.
Enclosed Emitter Optic: With this fully enclosed system, the optic offers unmatched protection against the elements.
Side-Loading Battery: Easy battery replacement without removing the optic, and a highend CR1620 battery.
Aspherical Lens: Ensures zero distortion, parallax-free performance, and exceptional clarity for rapid, precise target acquisition.
RMSc Footprint: Fitting directly to your optics-ready slides, delivers exceptional compatibility, and seamless integration across a multitude of builds.
Motion Sensor: Powers on at the slightest movement, and powers down after 3 minutes of inactivity to conserve battery.
Low Power Indication: If battery voltage drops below 2.2V, the reticle will quickly triple-flash once per minute to recommend a battery replacement.
Sleek Battery Tray: Stays comfortable to carry, quick to draw, and ideal for concealed or duty use.
Low-Deck Height: Provides a perfect co-witness with most factory iron sights, eliminating the need for lower 1/3 or suppressor-height sights.
10 Brightness Settings: 8 daylight and 2 night vision settings — compatible levels for versatility in any demands.
CNC-Machined Aircraft-Grade 7075-T6 Aluminum Housing: Making the optic nearly indestructible ensuring durability and a professional edge over time.
Memory Function: Once activated returns to the last selected brightness level, allowing users to focus on the target without distraction
Alpha Foxtrot is now shipping the Attila Compact, a double-stack 9mm 1911 that’s small enough to carry.
Double-stack 9mm 1911s are incredibly popular these days, but most are too big and heavy to comfortably carry concealed. Alpha Foxtrot is helping to remedy that with its Attila Compact 1911DS.
Featuring a 3.5-inch barrel with an integrated compensator, it should be supremely shootable despite its small size. Thanks to its slim-profile aluminum frame, it should be pretty light on the belt and easy to conceal, too. It feeds from Glock 43X/48-pattern magazines, and each pistol ships with three Shield Arms mags, including a 10-, 15- and 20-rounder. The 10-rounder offers you ultimate concealability while the 20-rounder offers maximum firepower and a larger grip.
Other features of the Attila Compact include an optics-ready slide (RMR & RMSc footprint), a front night sight, a crisp 4-pound trigger and an ambidextrous safety.
Alpha Foxtrot hasn’t published the Atilla Compact’s MSRP, but online retailer listings have it priced at around $1,000.
With Recover Tactical’s S-PRO conversion kit, you can stock your Glock, Canik or Walther PDP.
Ever since the advent of both the handgun and the longarm, people have been searching for the best way to bridge the gap between the two. The tree created in this quest for compromise has many branches and brought us to entirely new categories (looking at you, PDW). But one of the easiest ways, and first attempts, to clasp hands was simply adding a stock to a sidearm.
This makes a lot of sense. A buttstock increases stability and allows for better recoil management by adding more points of contact with the body. It won’t make a [typically] smaller pistol round hit harder, but it’ll make the shooter more accurate while allowing for faster fire. This is why detachable stocks were seen with some 19th century calvary guns, horseback being a place where the small size and maneuverability of a handgun has advantage but the increased stability of a stock is helpful.
We see the same trend for similar reasons in the early 20th century, though often with aviation and armored vehicles in mind rather than horses. Along with assorted Mauser broomhandles, the Germans had the LP08, essentially a plussed-up Luger with tangent sights and a stock. The Browning Hi-Power, too, received a comparable “artillery” treatment. In the postwar period, the Soviets produced the similarly stocked Stechkin.
Adding a stock to a sidearm to increase stability isn’t a new idea, just less common in America.
But by mid-20th century America, the stocked pistol largely disappeared. The reason for this is twofold: the American military moved toward the submachine gun and the carbine as the preferred middle path (carbines being much easier to train conscripted troops with) and the passing of the National Firearms Act of 1934. After NFA ’34 was enacted, pistols equipped with buttstocks that had barrels under 16 inches were declared short-barreled rifles—and had to be registered and have a $200 tax paid prior to legal possession.
There were outliers in the pistol/carbine conversion camp like the Dardick Model 1500 (a fascinating firearm in its own right) and truly custom pieces like the Bob Loveless S&W Model 41 convertible, but they are few and far between.
The convertible Dardick 1500 is one of the weirdest, coolest guns.
For some perspective, the NFA tax was $200 when the bill was signed in June 1934. If going by mere inflation, that $200 equates to around $4,800 in June 2025—but if we compare it to median income levels it’s the modern equivalent of $13,300. It’s no wonder that development of stocked pistols and conversions died on the vine among the American civilian market for essentially the rest of the 20th century. Now that the SBR tax has been reduced to $0, we may start to see that change.
Brace Yourself
Right around the turn of the millennium you start to see some basic carbine conversions being made in America, like the MechTech CCU, but they didn’t gain popularity until much later—the legal acceptance of pistol braces being the main reason.
Originally introduced in 2012 as a way for some disabled shooters to better stabilize so-called “large format” (read: rifle caliber) pistols, braces quickly became a legalese workaround for the more casual ownership and importation of short-barreled rifles. In the decade-plus that followed spanning several presidential administrations, the government would change their mind several times, release contrary determination letters, add and remove restrictions, follow shadowy regulations, classify braced guns as unregistered SBRs, and pass out free tax stamps—all before ultimately vacating their previous rulings. A big mess of their own making. Despite the current legal acceptance of braces on pistols at the time of writing, here we’re using a Glock receiver already registered as an SBR to avoid any gray areas.
As to why would someone need a “brace” on a regular pistol? A gun ready-made for one-handed use? While there’s a case scenario someplace because there always is, the simple answer is that a brace is really used as a buttstock—and everyone already knows that anyway. Like the glass “tobacco pipes” at the head shop, you’re just not supposed to say it out loud. Oops.
The reality is that the design of most braces make them middlin’ buttstocks at best. They’re often not adjustable, flimsy, with poor surface for purchase against the shoulder (to better defend yourself in court). That said, these aren’t universal traits, and even a bad brace/buttstock can increase stability by offering more points of contact with the body.
The LOP is enough that you can use your slide-mounted dot.
Simply Israeli
When we published a Glock Stock Buyer’s Guide back in RECOIL Issue 44 back in 2019, more than half of these pistol-to-carbine conversion kits originated in Israel. And in CONCEALMENT Issue 19 we followed up with the predecessor to what you see here, the Recover Tactical 20/20 Stabilizer Kit, which also hails from there. In fact, the bulk of these conversions come out of Israel, and that’s not for no reason.
Though you’ve undoubtedly seen plenty of pictures of IDF troops slinging rifles around cities, gun ownership for citizens of Judea is quite tight. There has been some recent loosening of laws, but Tel Aviv is still nothing close to Tulsa; there are strict requirements regarding who can own guns and what type and quantity they can possess as well as how much ammo they can have on-hand.
Oftentimes people will only have one gun, and usually that one gun is a pistol. But as pistol/carbine conversion is an accessory rather than a firearm, it doesn’t require any additional paperwork for use in many jurisdictions. Israel definitely doesn’t have the American National Firearms Act so there’s no barrel length nonsense, but they will play into the brace/stabilizer aspect in order to sell on the American market.
In short, if these kind of conversion kits don’t make sense to you, it’s because they weren’t really made for you. They are made first for Israeli citizens, with the American consumer market as a secondary concern.
Recover Tactical S-PRO
Founded by Tamir Porat, the man behind the love-it-or-hate-it Tavor bullpup rifle, Recover Tactical isn’t new to either the Israeli or American market. They first caught our eye by releasing add-a-rail adapters for older pistols, something that makes more sense when viewed from the perspective of modernized a “only one gun.”
The full kit has a lot of parts, pieces, and fasteners—but also a lot of options.
Back in 2020 they released the 20/20 Glock Stabilizer Kit, and while it’s tempting to say the S-PRO is a more-modular updated and upgraded version, it’s simply not this case because this is a whole different thing.
The real structural component of the S-PRO is the Main Frame, a metal spine with plastic carapace to which most fasteners secure and internally houses the stock/brace rod. Without this piece, there is no S-PRO. Adapters are used to hold the gun to the spine, with different adapters for different guns (at the time of writing you can get them for Glock. Canik, PDP, with the SIG X Macro listed as “coming soon,” though due to the nature of the platform the sky is the limit). The two-piece rear adapter holds the beavertail, and the front clamshell nestles around the trigger guard and clicks into place. Unlike the 2020 model, insertion and removal of the pistol is toolless and only takes seconds.
After your initial setup, the S-PRO doesn’t look so daunting.
The buttstock/brace is also modular and can be configured for left- or right-handed use (with a “real” buttstock option available). Also included is a barrel shroud with M-Lok slots, which acts as a secondary locking mechanism for the front clamshell adapter, a forward spare magazine holder that prosecutors probably/hopefully/maybe won’t consider a vertical grip, and a high-rise optic mount. The reason for the high optic mount is that when your length of pull, the distance from your trigger to the end of your stock (and shoulder), is too short, low optics can be hard or impossible to use. While the LOP and angle of the stock rod on the S-PRO is actually sufficient for many to use slide-mounted optics, it was a nice inclusion.
And oh yeah, the stock rod is spring-loaded and pops out like a switchblade with the press of a button. Recover Tactical seems to have learned the lesson of Flux Defense that cool is the first rule, and spring-loaded is definitely cool.
Quirks & Weirdness On The Range
Once the gun is inside the S-PRO, physically racking the slide becomes extremely difficult. It’s for this reason that Recover Tactical includes a new clip-on charging handle. The main problem being that it was designed only with non-optic OEM Glocks in-mind, rear grooves and all. In fact, everything about the S-PRO is essentially only for OEM. The adapters rely on the critical dimensions of the rear beavertail and the front curve of the triggerguard. Aftermarket Glock frames or any modifications that change those dimensions will make the S-PRO a non-starter.
You can run with two optics to confuse your friends and confound your enemies.
All isn’t lost, however. If you’re already running an optic on your slide, you can simply use the optic as the charging handle—and if you can’t use the optic on your gun as a charging handle, you shouldn’t be using that optic on your gun. It’s noteworthy that the high-rise optic and a slide-riding optic can both be mounted at the same time, to confuse your friends and confound your enemies if nothing else.
Here we purchased a metal Glock “racker jacker” rear plate replacement for Jackson to fill the role. It was originally ambi, but a Dremel tool took care of that quickly.
In terms of performance? A stock helps you do things faster. There’s an included cheekpiece you can bolt onto the rear for use with the high-rise optic but it didn’t really seem to be needed. The main complaint is that the stock rod has flex in it. While the main body spine may have a lot of metal in it, the stock rod feels flimsy and insufficient in actual use—it torques and twists with pressure and I don’t think I’d feel comfortable using this setup with an autosear. Damn.
Loose Rounds
The S-PRO improves on the Recover Tactical 20/20 system in many ways. It’s toolless after setup. It’s modular and able to accommodate a wider variety of arms. It allows for more accessories. It has that movie-cool switchblade stock. But the stock rod itself is a fatal flaw; hopefully they’ll add some more ounces to address it.
Using different multi-piece rear adapters and hinging front adapters which in turn bolt onto the main frame, the S-PRO can accommodate different pistols. However, the entire system is designed for the curves of OEM guns—no guarantees your modded frame will fit, and the included charging handle doesn’t work with optics or aftermarket slides (we made our own solution for $20, and you can too).
There are a lot of complicated clamshell carbine conversions out there. Though they’re technically convertibles, most of them should be thought of as semi-permanent because they take tools and/or time measured in minutes. This isn’t one of them, because popping a pistol inside the S-PRO only takes seconds (albeit with an asterisk attached, depending on your setup). This ease of conversion means you’re more likely to actually use it at home or on the range, which makes a lot of sense for a nation where if you own a gun, it’s probably just the one.
When it comes to home defense training, you have to train like you intend to fight.
In 2013, I hunted with some American war fighters on the U.S. Army’s base in Hohenfels, Germany. That was an interesting experience—a story for another time—and it has nothing to do with home defense. However, while I was in Germany, I went to a Pond Training Academy. At that time, Pond was conducting some of the security at the gates to the Hohenfels Army base, and in the Pond Academy, they had a unique shooting range.
That shooting range does have something to do with home defense.
In the basement of the academy, they had a video range, where they would play video on the large movie screen and cadets could engage targets in the video. A unique light system marked their shots, and the video could be replayed to see where they hit. This was a very cool range experience, and I got to shoot on it with a rifle and with a handgun.
With the rifle, I shot running boar targets, and with the handgun, I shot cartoons. (In Germany, it was against the law for non-security or law enforcement to shoot at humanoid targets.) The video range training for the Pond security cadets was custom tailored to the job they were going to perform.
The academy had video of the gates at Hohenfels base where the Pond officers worked, and in this video they had various scenarios on film for the cadets to respond to with firearms. Talk about training like you intend to fight, this video system put the security officers in the field where they would actually be working and allowed them to respond to nefarious actions like they might have to in real life.
Training like you intend to fight is nothing new. The U.S. Army and American law enforcement switched to humanoid targets a long time ago. At Gunsite, Jeff Cooper began crafting shooting drills that mirrored real-life and/or imagined incidents, and ever since then combat pistol competitions have been built around theoretical—but of course highly unlikely—self-defense scenarios.
It’s a training concept that’s very old and one that’s routinely used in sports: You practice like you intend to play.
How does all this dovetail into home defense? Well, it’s very simple.
If it’s your desire to be able to defend your life and the lives of your loved ones in your home, you should train for that exact circumstance. Sure, shooting a handgun, shotgun or carbine is the same no matter where you’re shooting them—sights on target/trigger press—but practice and training for the exact situation you might have to encounter goes a step further. Of course, you cannot go to some video range where there will be a video of your home with bad guys attacking you and for you to shoot at.
But you can simulate the experience.
Practice executing your home defense plan with the gun(s) you will actually use.
Make a Plan
The first thing you need to do is make a plan, and the plan needs to be multi-faceted to include various points of potential entry, various locations you would likely respond from, and it needs to address not just you, but everyone in the household. If someone busts through your front door while you’re eating dinner, how do you respond and what should everyone else in your home immediately do?
Home defense can be inside or outside. One plan is not enough. You need to have a comprehensive multifaceted plan.
A book could be written about proper planning and all the variables for dealing with a home invasion. There are so many different homes containing so many different family units that could be attacked, from so many different points of entry, that proper planning just cannot be covered in this format. However, we can look at a hypothetical situation and examine how we might create a training program to help us prepare for it.
Situational Considerations
Let’s imagine you live in a home with a floor plan as shown below. Let’s also imagine you want to devise a plan to deal with a two-attacker home invasion through your front door while you’re eating dinner. And finally, let’s assume your home is occupied by you, your wife and your 6-year-old son. The first thing I would do is invite two of my shooting friends over for dinner, but before dinner I would let them play the bad guys and walk through a home invasion scenario several times. This will give you some insight as to what the attackers’ movements might be as well as what your response could be.
This is a very simplified home defense plan but illustrates most considerations and shows what a range card looks like.
The goal here is three-fold. First, you want to familiarize yourself and your family with how everything might unfold. Secondly, you want to devise your plan of response. And finally, you want to identify the locations, situations and targets you might have to engage. Essentially, you are creating a mental video you can play out at the range. Granted, this is a very simplified plan and as with most tactical considerations, there is always more than one answer. However, it serves to illustrate the point.
Make a Range Card
A range card is a standard shooting tool used by the military and snipers. It details your field of fire and where potential targets are. In a combat situation, the actual range—distance to targets—is important, but in a home defense situation it’s generally not. You want to create a range card that will detail your planned point of defense and the potential locations of possible threats. Drawing it out is not a bad idea, because it can help you illustrate your plan to other family members, but in most cases a mental picture is sufficient.
This live-fire drill is a companion to the home defense plan also illustrated. It replicates the potential shooting scenario detailed in the plan.
When you’re creating this range card, you should also take note of the cover and concealment you and your attackers might use. For example, if there is a dividing wall the attacker might hide behind, is it a solid wall or just a shell wall? If it’s solid, you cannot shoot through it, but if you see an attacker duck behind a shell wall, you can. Most furniture will not stop bullets, and while it can provide concealment, it is not cover.
If your plan is to gain cover or concealment behind a barrier/wall, practice shooting from behind a barricade.
Live Fire
Once you have a range card, go to the range and practice the shots you will probably need to make, at the distances relative to your home. When you’re competent at getting hits, set up a stage reflecting the situation and the range card, and run through it while engaging the targets. Start slow, like a walkthrough, and then advance to real time. The training stage example below assumes you are wearing your home defense handgun in a holster while you’re eating dinner.
Your planning, training and live fire should incorporate how to utilize the concealment and cover you have identified.
However, when you make your plan, consider situations and build a range card, and do it realistically to represent where your gun might be in a real-life situation. If you keep your gun on top of the refrigerator, in the nightstand, or maybe in a gun safe, all this needs to be reflected in your plan and range card, and it will dictate your plan … and ultimately the training stage you set up.
Where you will keep your gun at home will directly influence any home defense plan you make.
Force on Force
Once you have worked through the training stage at the range that will likely replicate a real-life home invasion, you should then do a walkthrough at home, with your family and your two shooting friends. Invite them over for dinner again and simulate the scenario. If you’re smart, you will arm yourself and your friends with airsoft guns and give everyone a face shield. This not only adds some fun to the exercise, but it also adds adrenalin and can highlight flaws in your plan that might cause you to rethink everything.
Airsoft guns can offer a realistic experience, and through force-on-force exercises, they can highlight flaws in your plan.
Depending on the situation and where you keep your gun, the best plan may be to retreat to another room that is easier to defend. It might make you rethink where everyone normally sits at the dinner table. One thing you want to do is require your wife and son to react as planned when the exercise begins. Where do they go, where is the phone to call 911, and who is going to make the call?
You need to know who is going to call 911 and make arrangements for a phone to be where they are going to safety.
Train Like You’ll Fight
The underlying premise here is to evaluate the unknown. You and your family are mostly finding answers for questions that might be asked. As Jeff Cooper explained in his book, Principles of Personal Defense: “Short of extensive personal experience, which most of us would rather not amass, the best way to cultivate such tactical decisiveness is through hypothesis: ‘What would I do if … ?’ By thinking tactically, we can more easily arrive at correct tactical solutions, and practice even theoretical practice tends to produce confidence in our solutions, which, in turn, makes it easier for us, and thus quicker, to reach a decision.”
Principles of Personal Defense by Jeff Cooper.
Unfortunately, few if any of us have access to a video range, where we can watch and shoot at the screen where images of our own home being invaded is playing out. But we can plan and train accordingly. This is not a new or revolutionary concept. If you train like you’ll fight, you will fight like you have trained. And if you trained well enough, you’ll win.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the April 2026 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
Springfield Armory has just announced three new Aimpoint COA-equipped Echelon models.
When the Aimpoint COA and its neat new A-CUT mounting system were announced last year, many shooters were excited to get their hands on it. The ability to do so was limited, however, due to it being exclusively available on Glocks for the first year and those sales being limited to MIL and LE customers for much of that time frame. Thankfully, that 1-year exclusivity window has recently ended, and Aimpoint COA red dots are starting to become available on a wider variety of handguns. The latest to be announced is the Springfield Echelon, with COA variants being offered for the 4.0C, 4.0FC and 4.5F models.
The Springfield Echelon left our team impressed, but the new optic option should help make it even better. The trick behind the Aimpoint COA is twofold: there’s the red dot itself, and there’s its A-CUT mounting system. The COA is a rugged yet lightweight closed-emitter optic that features a 3.5-MOA dot, a huge 15x15mm lens and an excellent battery life. Meanwhile, the A-CUT mount dovetails the entire optic into the slide of the Echelon and secures it via a front hook and rear wedge. This system keeps recoil forces acting on the dovetail rather than the mounting screws, making for a very solid, durable lockup that retains zero extremely well, and also allows for co-witnessing iron sights due to how low it’s mounted. All in all, a very cool system.
Steve Kramer, Vice President of Marketing for Springfield Armory, said this about the new optics-equipped pistols:
We are extremely proud to announce the launch of these Aimpoint COA-equipped Springfield Armory pistols … Pairing the Aimpoint COA closed-emitter optic with these dedicated A-CUT Springfield Armory pistols makes for a combination ideal for facing the most demanding situations and environments.
The MSRP for all three new Springfield Echelon COA models is $1,120 and they’re available now. Springfield says that 1911 DS Prodigy and 1911 COA models will eventually be available as well.
Mossberg has just announced a special edition Bliksem version of the Mossberg 590 pump-action firearm.
The 590 Shockwave just got cooler, as Mossberg has announced the special edition Bliksem version of the 12-gauge pump-action firearm. It’s made in collaboration with Christian Craighead and his brand, Ministry of Defence (MOD). If you don’t know Craighead, he’s the SAS bloke who saved hundreds of hostages in Nairobi after single-handedly storming the hotel to engage their terrorist captors back in 2019. If that wasn’t enough, he looked really damn cool while doing it.
Speaking of cool-looking, the new Mossberg 590 Bliksem. Basically a 590 Shockwave at its core, the Bliksem features a 14.375-inch heavy-walled barrel, a 5+1 capacity and a bird’s head grip. Naturally, the special edition version has a few tricks up its sleeve. It comes standard with a Picatinny rail on its receiver, a Coyote Brown Esstac 6-shotshell carrier card and a very cool Rhodesian Brushstroke camouflage finish. The rest of its features are what you’d expect in a standard Shockwave.
Richard Kirk, Senior Director of Marketing for Mossberg, said this about the Bliksem:
Our collaboration with Christian Craighead was a natural fit … He understands gear that needs to perform in the real world, and together we built a 590 that's as tough, practical, and unapologetically stylish as the people who rely on it.
Christian Craighead said this about the pump-action:
Mossberg understands function over flash, and that's why this collaboration worked … We designed the 590 Bliksem to be practical, durable, intuitive and some might say most importantly, cool – qualities that matter far more than marketing lines. It's a solid bit of hardware.
Here are a few things you should consider when choosing or building home defense guns.
When things go bump in the night, there are of course some things to consider before you start bumping back. The gun community has been a mixed bag of sorts lately with products and technology coming out at a blistering rate thanks to changes in legislature and the expansion of the broader consumer base. There are more gun owners on a much wider spectrum of diversity than ever before, and this has inadvertently led to less tribal knowledge, less general understanding of technology and a “too many cooks in the kitchen” situation with the spread of information.
Something I’ve paid a great deal of attention to in the past few years has been the growing number of so-called experts who are little more than entertainers in tactical kit. Somehow, each of these guys is former special forces, a SEAL team member, SWAT sniper … whatever. I know and work closely with all of the aforementioned characters, and most things being promoted by entertainers are just straight-up fictional, and in many cases, simply there to encourage people to buy their snake oil.
Self-defense isn’t a cookie-cutter thing, and a lot of what is being marketed to you are gimmicks. So, let’s break it down a little bit: Here are the major considerations you must address before building out a gun for your home defense needs.
The Terrain
Your home and property are a form of terrain, just like being in the woods. You have elevations, blind spots, hiding places, areas to protect and others to flee. You might think you know your home very well, but problems arise when you must think of your place as a dynamic environment that can get you killed.
Think about this: It’s dark and you’ve had a late night, watching movies with the wife. She’s doing something or other in the house, but you’re having a drink before bed and wander into the garage for a minute … and suddenly you hear a window break and she starts screaming. Where are the kids? Is this a prank? Where is your gun? You also don’t know exactly where your wife is. Is she in the bathroom down the hall or in the master bedroom? Could she be downstairs?
Your home has now become a three-dimensional space with an unknown threat. Now, you need to navigate this to keep everyone safe. It could be a bear depending on what part of the country in which you reside, or maybe a guy obsessed with your teen daughter. Predator or pervert, you’ve got to make some fast decisions.
Knowing your terrain and how to navigate in an environment where your kids will likely be awake now, confusion abounds and dangers are unknown. What you do next will be important. Locating your family members is critical—bullets don’t care who is behind that thin sheet of drywall. Homes are very easy to shoot through. You can’t just start shooting until you are line of sight with a threat, and that can be difficult in any structure.
Knowing your layout, location of weapons and the locations of your family members are very critical to keeping everyone safe. Once a gun is in play, your structure is no longer safe for anyone; it’s the fact of firing in a home. Even if they are directly behind you, the danger of incoming fire is present as well. You need to find places you can defend that also don’t endanger your loved ones, which can be difficult in most homes.
So, with all this front of mind, are you building out a home gun because you like it … or because you’ve done the homework and it’s suited to your specific home terrain?
Caliber and Size
It’s my belief that any self-defense pistol set up for use in the home should be able to be operated at least by the adults in the household, and the older children should have general knowledge and training with it as well. In general, this means that whatever pistol I set up should feature ambidextrous controls. For instance, many members of my family are left-handed, whereas I am right-handed. Any gun used for defense should at least be able to be trained on with the weak hand. Many pistols out there today are effectively ambidextrous; this set of features is no longer difficult to find.
There is a prevailing belief that “nightstand” pistols can be larger and more powerful, but I don’t agree with this. Being easy to handle and fire is much better than greater power. If your wife has a hard time operating a semi-automatic pistol, but has an easy time with a revolver, a revolver should be what you train and practice with. If you’re incapacitated or shot, the last thing you want is your wife unable to chamber a round or manipulate all the controls.
Despite being a reliable self-defense tool for generations, the fashion in pistols has swung away from the humble “snub-nose” revolver to guns like the Staccato. In a long survey of self-defense trainers, most won’t even teach the pocket revolver, and some don’t even want them in classes.
Suppressors on pistols in the home … well, I’m not convinced it’s a smart move. As suppressors are gaining popularity, they have definitely found their way onto home defense pistols, but it’s not all roses. I am not a big fan of them from the perspective that they tend to add a lot of forward weight, are harder to point and handle, and can adversely affect reliability. As a generality, they are going to basically double the length of your pistol, and suppressors, while reducing noise, can interfere with lights and optics. If you want to do this, you need to spend a lot more time practicing and training with your setup … in the dark.
Onboard Technology
Take note: Smoothly operating technology is something that is more important than the most advanced technology. If you are equipping your pistol with a red-dot, light and all the bells and whistles, it better not be too complicated to use if you are incapacitated. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a regular 1911 and a flashlight; you’ve been coerced into believing that all of the stuff needs to be in one place.
To mount a flashlight or to not mount a flashlight, that is the question. There are benefits to having a light on your gun, but there are also many tactical advantages to having a handheld—namely you won’t have to have your gun pointing at every place you need to scan, like places that may contain friendlies.
The shooting industry, unfortunately, does a good job gaslighting people into buying more products because that’s what instructors in the military use, but you’re not going to have the support of those people or that military industrial complex when something bad happens at your house. If it’s too complicated for all of your family members to use, don’t use it. If your wife has a hard time using a pistol-mounted red-dot, don’t use it.
I don’t have the answer for what’s best for you. But I can tell you that overdoing it is a recipe for disaster, considering that there is a steeper proficiency curve the more items you add onto your pistol.
Safety Features and Storage
A big part of owning a gun is being safe about it. Just like racing to put all of the possible accessories onto your gun is something of a fool’s errand, if you can’t master the basics, getting all that equipment and then simply leaving it in a drawer unattended is a pretty bad option—even if it’s just from an investment standpoint.
As mentioned, complicated features can lead to liabilities, but complicated storage can lead to inaccessibility. There is a pretty wide margin between leaving a loaded pistol out in the open and leaving it empty in a safe. Today, there are quite a few options for safe storage, and our community has been slowly embracing them, among these are keypad and biometric options that allow quick access but remain secure. These are not exactly gun safes and should not take their place, but they do keep unwanted users from gaining immediate access. I strongly recommend looking into options from Hornady.
Additionally, there’s a bit of a debate about manual safeties and their advantages … and disadvantages. Most striker-fired pistols don’t have an easily verifiable way to show if the pistol is loaded or empty. Guns that have both striker fire mechanisms and manual safeties are not as common as those that have exposed hammers, such as a 1911. It’s very easy to, even from a distance, see if the 1911 is ready to fire.
Pistol lights vary quite a bit in size and length. Note that some of these stick out past the muzzle, thus increasing length. The size of light you use doesn’t matter so much in a drawer, but it will if you carry.
Manual safeties are definitely a bonus for safety in the home; however, they are one more thing to keep in mind under stress. You will find that there are a variety of schools of thought that go into this, and at the end of the day you’re going to have to figure out what’s best for you and your family.
The Big Question
Home defense rifles are not a new concept, but their expanding popularity in recent years has led to a lot of disinformation. A big one I hear is that 5.56 NATO is not “good at penetration” and is pretty safe to use in a standard residential structure. I’ve even heard from experts that it’s safer to use than high-mass pistol rounds, such as 9mm or .45 ACP. This is simply not true.
A 5.56 NATO bullet can and will penetrate walls. It’s an absolutely serious, lethal, high-penetration cartridge (as always, bullet dependent) that can very easily do damage several rooms over.
The same concepts apply to shotguns: Shotguns are some of the worst offenders for multi-wall penetration. Despite the fact that they have been the quintessential home defense firearm for generations, it’s the fact that they have been around so commonly that led to this, not out of any real purposeful design. If a shotgun is what you have, again, training and situational awareness are paramount.
Any rifle cartridge you use is going to be considerably more powerful than your home materials can withstand—7.62×39, .308 Winchester, 6.5 Creedmoor, you name it. A while ago on these pages, I wrote about a concept that I dubbed Schrodinger’s bullet, where we basically ask a bullet to kill a bad guy, but not cause excessive penetration in walls or create liability for nearby individuals. We are asking too much of bullets if that’s the case. There is no such bullet that will simply stop in a bad guy that can’t first make it through clothing to his vital organs.
Your home defense setup can and will kill your family members or neighbors by accident. Expect any home defense setup to go through walls—period.
Watch Your Weight
Many shooters have become obsessed with taking up every bit of real estate on a long-gun these days. I tend to trick out my field rifles. I simply like good-looking guns. However, I would be lying if I told you that these were ideal setups for home defense.
The rifle featured in this article is a PWS chambered in 6ARC and features an 18-inch barrel, a suppressor, a thermal optic from Armasight and a day optic package from Vortex. This rifle, loaded, weighs 16 pounds and is a rifle I used for hunting and usually off of a tripod. Despite the fact that it looks like a useful setup, it’s not easy to move around the home with. The optics on this rifle alone account for several pounds, and the suppressor adds weight and length to the front of the rifle.
It used to be taught that you wanted a compact package that you could operate off of either shoulder, and it would be light and handy. Most of my friends’ home defense rifles are so encrusted in gear that they’re approaching boat-anchor territory. The overly commercialized industry and gear-junkie instructors would have you preparing to invade Afghanistan again with what is commonly being pushed.
On the other hand, a bone-stock M16 A1 weighs less than half of this despite being “outdated.” In our day and age, iron sights are often completely overlooked for more complicated optics. However, in doing shoot houses and other training exercises, there is no real difference in speed between dots and irons inside close quarters. But I did notice LPVO optics are decidedly slower, yet do offer advantages the second you enter open areas. Weight as a consideration needs to be addressed: The more you add to a rifle, the harder it will be to operate by family members.
Less clutter and more function are exactly where you should start.
An AR with a suppressor can be quite long and unwieldy. Since ARs are usually compared to others of their kind, the author threw in a new CMP M1 rifle to show the scale. Adding frontal length and weight dramatically influences maneuverability. In fact, the M1 isn’t the heaviest rifle in this photo.
Slings and Things
There is debate around accessories like slings on rifles and shotguns for the home. I’ve heard both camps, and I can see all the sides. One says yes to slings because you can have a gun handy if moving kids or an injured person. On the other hand, they are easy to catch on things, grab onto and can generally snag easily while moving.
This is one you’re going to have to determine for yourself, but my middle ground is to have a sling that is tightly secured to the gun but easily deployed. Likewise, it would be a good idea to attach a tourniquet to the stock as well.
Lights and lasers are a mixed bag. A good defensive carbine is benefited by a light, although it does give your position away and can wash out optics in closed spaces. I’m not a big fan of lasers, as visible day lasers are not as fast or easy to use as you might expect, and infrared lasers require you to cut your power and put on your NVDs. I know some guys who do, but it’s a lot to go through when you’re already in an emergency and seconds count.
Preparing for Reality
If you’re a student of history or are the victim of your upper-level management handing out copies to promote sales strategy and synergy in the office, Sun Tsu’s The Art of War talks about the need to prepare accordingly for conflict, not about every kind of sword or spear. While the book could more easily be summed up as a collection of common-sense anecdotes repackaged for sheepdog guys to start PowerPoint presentations, there is a shocking lack of basic common sense in home defense instruction and training.
We’ve been looking at the wrong things in the wrong ways, and it’s a shame. You should be building a gun for your own exact reality, not warfare or team exercises despite how cool they look. Traumatic injury training is lacking virtually everywhere. Common sense says you have a weapon that causes harm, yet we don’t emphasize that angle.
Take a minute and look at your terrain, your rooms, and your strong and weak points. Think about whether you’d have to carry a child or if you get stabbed. Where are your medical supplies? Do your kids know how to stop bleeding? What if your toddler is shot? Grim, right? That’s reality, and adding more accessories to your gun isn’t going to teach your wife to pack a gunshot wound with underwear.
Building a gun is the last thing you need to worry about in defending yourself—surviving is. Your guns should be simple, reliable and not just for you. You might be the one who needs defending in the end.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the April 2026 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
Looking for a backpack loaded with tactical features but without the tactical look? That’s exactly what 5.11’s LVC12 offers.
We’ve all seen the gray man memes online. Maybe you even know someone who dresses that way in real life. They think they’re blending in, but in reality, they’re sticking out. Wraparound sunglasses, tactical pants and cop boots are the fashion equivalent of putting a Glock bumper sticker on your truck. You’re just announcing to the world that you have a gun. There are better ways to add functional capability to your wardrobe without the tactical aesthetic, and as far as backpacks are concerned, 5.11 offers exactly that with its LVC12.
The 5.11 LVC12 isn’t covered in MOLLE webbing or Velcro for your coolguy patches, and it’s not offered in camo patterns or overly tactical colors. It’s designed to be truly camouflaged in an urban environment. Frankly, it looks boring and generic, but that’s exactly what you want. My LVC12, which is pictured in this article, is in Dark Earth. That’s frankly the most tactical color it comes in, but it’s offered in plenty of other shades too, like blue and red, to look as unassuming as possible.
The LVC12 in Peacock blue.
Despite its pedestrian appearance, the 5.11 LVC12 is anything but. This bag is loaded with features that make it easy to stay armed and protected in public.
For example, it has an ambidextrous quick-access CCW pocket for carrying a handgun. The pocket even has Velcro lining and a strap inside for securing your holster to facilitate a rapid draw.
The bag’s rear compartment is also sized to accommodate either a laptop or a large SAPI plate and features a strap to hold everything in place. Hidden inside that compartment is access to another thinner pouch designed to hold a soft body armor panel. Whether you want to run two layers of armor or just one or the other, the LVC12 can keep you well-protected in a pinch.
For carrying something a bit more substantial than a handgun, the main compartment is easily large enough to accommodate a smaller PCC like an MP5K or a very short AR. The main compartment can open 270 degrees and also features Velcro lining for organizational straps to keep a gun or any other gear secure.
The LVC12 just barely zips closed on my AP5SD, and that's only with the suppressor removed. A smaller PCC would be more ideal.
Other more general features of the bag include two large and stretchy water bottle/gear pockets, a fleece-lined top pocket, a hidden zippered front pocket and an internal mesh pocket in the main compartment. For comfortable carry, it also has a padded back panel and an adjustable chest strap. For additional storage space, the LVC12 also features straps for attaching a 5.11 LV6 waist pack to the outside.
If you’re looking to be well armed and armored while blending in, the 5.11 LVC12 is worth checking out. It has an MSRP of $160.
We look at the Bruen Decision and why America’s historical gun culture still matters in modern court cases.
For decades, courts treated the Second Amendment differently from every other constitutional right. Judges weighed individual liberty against government interests, balancing policy preferences rather than examining history.
That era is over, as confirmed in the Bruen opinion.
Today, courts are being asked a simpler, but far more uncomfortable, question: Is a modern gun law consistent with the historical tradition of firearm regulation in the United States?
Answering that question requires confronting a reality many would prefer to ignore: American gun culture is not an accident of modernity. It is deeply rooted in law, practice and expectation.
When History Became Decisive
Modern Second Amendment litigation now turns on historical grounding. Courts increasingly demand evidence that contemporary restrictions resemble those accepted at the time of the founding.
This shift has exposed a serious problem for gun control advocates. Many popular regulatory ideas, like broad public carry bans, categorical disarmament of non-violent citizens and restrictions based on weapon capacity or technology, have little historical precedent.
The record of early America is not one of widespread disarmament. It is one of widespread armament.
What the History Shows
Colonial and early American laws repeatedly assumed that peaceable citizens would be armed. Governments mandated ownership, encouraged carry and punished neglect, not possession.
There is no tradition of banning arms based on their effectiveness. Repeating firearms existed before the Bill of Rights, and no laws restricted their capacity. There is no tradition of prohibiting carry across vast categories of public life. In fact, many public spaces explicitly required arms.
Perhaps most importantly, there is no historical tradition of disarming citizens solely because they were disfavored, unpopular or had committed minor, nonviolent offenses. Disarmament, when it occurred, was temporary and tied to demonstrated dangerousness, not status.
Dangerousness Vs. Disfavor
This distinction now sits at the center of modern legal debates.
Historically, communities acted to restrain individuals who posed credible threats of violence. But those actions were narrow, targeted and rooted in specific conduct. They were not blanket prohibitions applied to broad classes of people, as with, for instance, 18 USC 922 (g)(1), which makes it unlawful for anyone “who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” to possess a firearm or ammunition.
Modern laws often invert this principle, imposing lifetime bans based on labels rather than behavior. Courts are increasingly skeptical of that approach, and history gives them reason to be.
Analogues, Not Excuses
A critical misunderstanding has emerged in the wake of Bruen: the belief that courts must find an exact historical twin for every modern gun regulation. That is not the standard. History does not operate with carbon copies, and the Supreme Court has been clear that what matters are analogues, laws that reflect the same underlying principle, not merely the same outward form.
But this clarification cuts both ways. While governments need not identify a regulation identical in wording or scope, they must still demonstrate a genuine historical tradition that justifies the modern burden imposed on the right. That requirement has proven difficult because many contemporary gun laws are not modest evolutions of historical practices, but categorical innovations.
For example, founding-era regulations aimed at preserving public order were typically narrow and individualized. Surety laws required a specific showing that a particular person posed a credible threat, and even then, they rarely imposed outright disarmament. Instead, they required financial assurances tied to future conduct. Likewise, “going armed” statutes punished the misuse of arms in a threatening manner, not their peaceful possession or carriage.
By contrast, many modern statutes operate in reverse. They presume dangerousness from status alone, impose lifetime prohibitions untethered from conduct, and apply broadly without individualized findings. The historical record provides little support for that approach. Indeed, the absence of sweeping disarmament laws in a far more violent and unstable era speaks volumes.
This is why history has become such a powerful constraint in modern litigation. It does not merely inform constitutional interpretation; it limits it. Legislatures may pursue public safety, but they must do so within the boundaries of traditions that treated arms as normal instruments of lawful citizenship, not privileges to be revoked by default.
The Marketing Myth Fails Under Scrutiny
Claims that American gun culture was manufactured by 19th-century advertising also fare poorly in court. Judges are not persuaded by sociological theories when faced with statutes that required firearms centuries earlier.
History shows demand preceding industry, not the reverse. That matters legally, because rights do not arise from marketing campaigns. They arise from our nature, longstanding practice and recognition.
Why This Matters Beyond the Courtroom
These legal battles are not abstractions. They shape how millions of Americans live, train and defend themselves.
But they also reveal something deeper: the erosion of historical literacy has consequences. When courts and communities forget what early America actually looked like, policy debates drift into fiction.
The renewed emphasis on history is not a threat to liberty. It is its safeguard.
Conclusion: History Has Entered the Record
For years, history was treated as an inconvenience in Second Amendment cases. Today, it is evidence.
And the evidence is clear. American gun culture was neither marginal nor manufactured. It was foundational. Courts are now rediscovering what early Americans already knew: an armed citizenry was not a problem to be solved, but a solution to be preserved.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the April 2026 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
EAA Corp has just launched two new Witness2311 models, the CMX and the CMXX.
If you’re a fan of double-stack 9mm 1911s, EAA Corp has just brought two more options to the market for you to consider—the CMX and the CMXX. EAA also says that the CMXX will be available in 10mm Auto and .45 ACP later this spring, so it may be worth holding out if you want something with a bigger bore.
The Witness2311 CMX and CMXX are essentially the same gun, except the CMXX features an integrated compensator. Otherwise, both pistols have 4.25-inch bull barrels, tuned triggers, full-length accessory rails and optics-ready slides (RMSc footprint). They also feature lightening-cut slides, ambidextrous thumb safeties and auto firing pin-block safeties. That last detail also means that they were able to delete the grip safety. They have a capacity of 17 rounds with their standard flush-fit magazines and sport low-profile magwells.
Chase Duffey, Director of Sales at EAA Corp, said this about the new models:
Based on the feedback we received, we're now producing our entire Witness2311 line with the CMX and CMXX aggressive grip texturing instead of the traditional checkering … And while we're stepping away from tradition, we also removed the grip safety and replaced it with an Auto Firing Pin-Block safety. That change allowed us to deliver a much slimmer pistol with a smaller magwell. These are exciting improvements that people are going to appreciate the moment they pick one up.
The Girsan Witness2311 CMX has an MSRP of $1,000 and the CMXX has an MSRP of $1,150. Both are shipping now.
A closer look at what stress does to your mind and body during and after a lethal force incident.
Imagine you wake at 2 in the morning to the sound of breaking glass. Your heart races. In a split second your brain goes into overdrive: you worry about your family, defending your home, and the safety of the people you love. You jump out of bed, grab your weapon, and move through a house you know like the back of your hand. In the living room you see the silhouette of a figure who is too large to be one of your loved ones. You turn on your weapon light. A pistol is raised toward you and a shot rings out—it misses to the left. You raise your weapon, present, engage, fire three shots, and the intruder drops to the ground. You move forward cautiously, weapon trained on the body, check for a pulse, confirm they are dead, take a breath and then the adrenaline dump hits: Your hands start to shake. You call 911 and let the system do its work.
That entire scenario—the way your brain and body respond—is what we will explore. Today, we look at the science behind a home-defense encounter involving the use of deadly force. We will break down how your body and mind will react and the neuroscience of extreme stress responses. This information can help civilians and first responders prepare for and recover from these intense events.
Primal Neural Mechanisms: Fight, Flight or Freeze
A home-defense gunfight activates primal neural mechanisms in the human body. These mechanisms affect perception, decision-making, memory and behavior and are often beyond conscious control. Most people prepare for the physical aspects of home defense: training at the range, choosing an appropriate weapon and caliber for a home environment, and understanding layout and construction hazards. Today, we want to prepare for the neurological and psychological stress responses and understand what happens beyond our technical training.
The 2 a.m. breaking glass is the stimulus that engages the brain’s emergency operating system: the fight, flight, or freeze response. The amygdala—the brain’s fear and threat center—can be “hijacked.” When it takes over, the brain favors rapid threat detection and reflexive response over slow, rational processing. The amygdala drives reactionary decision-making and triggers chemical changes by activating the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis. For simplification, think of the HPA axis like a thermostat: When it senses danger, the hypothalamus signals the adrenal glands to release adrenaline, which speeds up the body’s reactionary processes.
When your mind perceives a threat, it initiates a biological response meant to help keep you alive.
These neurochemical changes activate the sympathetic nervous system. Heart rate rises, pupils dilate, and blood vessels shift to push blood to core organs and muscles. This suite of neurological and biological events prepares your body for a fight.
Time Perception and Sensory Distortions
Startled awake, your fight-or-flight response begins and your brain changes how it processes sensory input. You move down the hall toward the threat, but it may feel like the longest walk of your life. Ambient sounds can seem muffled by rushing blood. Tunnel vision can narrow your visual field, and you may feel detached, as if you are watching yourself rather than acting.
During extreme stress, time perception and sensory distortions are common. A phenomenon called tachypsychia alters time perception—moments can feel stretched. Auditory exclusion (reduced ability to hear) and tunnel vision (loss of peripheral awareness) are neuroprotective physiological responses to threat. You may also experience depersonalization or dissociation because of the adrenaline surge. Understanding these neurophysiological changes can help you maintain composure and an effective protective posture. Mental rehearsal and stress-inoculation training are key to managing these responses.
Training in high-stress scenarios can help you cope when the amygdala decides to take over.
Fine Versus Gross Motor Skills
As you approach the room, adrenaline courses through your body. Your heart pounds, your hands feel heavy or numb, and small fine-motor tasks become difficult. When you break the threshold and see a silhouette in the window light, you raise the weapon and aim.
Adrenaline impairs fine motor control (manipulating small objects or performing precise tasks) while gross motor skills (large, forceful movements) dominate. This has important training implications. Under stress people do not perform above their training level; they revert to the highest level at which they have been trained. Practice must include weapon manipulation under stress, target acquisition and a stress-fire routine. Shooting for sport and shooting to survive are different skills. Being accurate at the range does not guarantee competence under life-and-death stress. Design your training and home-defense plans with those differences in mind.
Threat Perception, Bias and Decision-Making Under Stress
You have a backlit silhouette in your sights. Your heart races, your hands tremble and thoughts—or the absence of them—move through your brain at lightning speed. You flip on the weapon light and see an unknown person holding a knife. You fire two rounds. The body hits the floor.
The prefrontal cortex is responsible for analytic thinking, impulse control and moral reasoning. Under extreme stress, the prefrontal cortex can be bypassed by faster, threat-driven circuits. Heuristics—mental shortcuts used for pattern recognition and rapid judgments—can be influenced by prior experience, training or trauma and may produce bias. Those rapid judgments can mean the difference between a life-saving action and a tragic mistake. Purposeful training that conditions decision-making under stress is essential to mitigate the risks of snap judgments.
The brain also uses rapid decision cycles such as the OODA loop—Observe, Orient, Decide, Act—to speed up responses. Conditioning, scenario-based planning, and realistic training are necessities for anyone who intends to use a firearm for personal defense.
Post-Incident Effects: Memory, Guilt and PTSD
After the event, your ears may ring and you may smell cordite. You turn on the lights, see the body, check for a pulse and confront a surge of emotion and physiological reaction.
In the aftermath of a shooting, the brain often shows acute stress responses. Memories may be fragmented, distorted or incomplete. Sometimes false or confabulated memories appear as protective mechanisms. This is one reason eyewitness testimony can be unreliable. Survivors may experience moral injury or survivor’s guilt after taking a life, even when the action was legally and ethically justified. Without appropriate therapeutic measures, acute stress reactions can evolve into post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Situations like these are chaotic and overwhelm the senses. The ensuing trauma makes post-incident care a top priority.
Returning to baseline takes time. Neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine) and hormones (cortisol) must rebalance. Sleep and mood are affected. Memory consolidation and emotional regulation can be impaired. It is imperative to connect with appropriate professionals, allow yourself to rest and process the event, and engage in corrective therapies as needed. Training and mental rehearsal can prepare you to act, but post-incident care is just as important for long-term recovery.
Conclusion
A home-invasion gunfight is not only a physical event—it is a neurobiological upheaval. Preparation, training and mental rehearsals will make you and your family safer. Responsible firearms ownership includes legal knowledge and range practice, but it also requires cognitive and psychological preparation both before and after an incident. Develop a plan that includes pre-incident training and post-incident care for yourself and your family. This is not just a legal issue; it is a psychological and physiological one as well.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the April 2026 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
Smith & Wesson has just added the Equalizer to its Carry Comp series.
Integrated compensators on pistols are so hot right now, and for good reason. They make it much easier to make good hits, especially when shooting small, micro-compact pistols like the Smith & Wesson Equalizer. That’s why it’s great news that the company has just made a Performance Center Carry Comp version of it.
The Equalizer is Smith & Wesson’s most user-friendly, easy-to-use 9mm carry pistol, and now it’s even easier to shoot well thanks to its Performance Center and Carry Comp upgrades. As a Carry Comp pistol, the new Equalizer features a PowerPort at the 12 o’clock position on its muzzle. This forces gas up and the pistol down during firing to help keep the muzzle flat for quick, accurate follow-up shots. That should be further aided by the upgraded Performance Center single-action flat-face trigger.
Other features of the Equalizer Carry Comp include its optics-ready slide, Ameriglo Trooper front night sight, blacked-out U-notch rear sight, enhanced aggressive serrations, manual ambi thumb safety and an accessory rail. It also features the same EZ Technology as the standard model to so it can have a very easy-to-rack slide.
The Equalizer Carry Comp ships with a 10-, 13- and 15-round magazine, or two 10-round magazines for restricted states. The MSRP is $650 for both versions.
I hit the range with AS Designs’ ARC-Fire Super Safety MP5 lower to see just how fast a semi-auto can go.
If you haven’t heard of the Super Safety by now, you’ve been living under a rock. The clever little gadget is capable of massively increasing a gun’s fire rate while still meeting the legal definition of semi-automatic, i.e., one round fired per pull of the trigger. More on that later.
All you need to know is that they’re federally legal at the time of writing and, if you own an MP5, there’s not a single better upgrade you could get for it than AS Designs’ Super Safety MP5 lower.
AS Designs Super Safety MP5 Lower
You may be asking yourself, why do you need a whole new MP5 lower? Aren’t Super Safeties just triggers? They are triggers, but they’re AR-pattern triggers, meaning to run in an MP5 you’ll need a redesigned lower to accommodate one.
While this is an added expense, the upside is that it also massively improves the ergonomics and trigger feel of the MP5.
I only got on board the MP5 train relatively recently, but I absolutely love the platform now. My AP5SD quickly became my favorite gun to shoot. Right off the bat, though, I felt it was lacking in certain departments. AS Designs’ MP5 lower fixes all of them.
Firstly, it’s compatible with standard AR grips and therefore provides familiar AR ergonomics. Secondly, because it now uses an AR trigger, even if you were only using it in standard semi-auto mode, it would still be a major improvement over the original notoriously long and mushy MP5 trigger. AS Designs’ MP5 lower can even accept a ton of great aftermarket trigger options, but I found the mil-spec trigger in mine to be more than adequate.
The AS Designs MP5 lower and Slip Trip, everything you need to make your MP5 Super Safe.
Finally, the MP5 was simply born to go fast, and like most PCCs, it feels absolutely neutered when limited to standard semi-auto fire. Thankfully, the increased fire rate of the Super Safety semi-auto mode remedies that.
To reiterate how Super Safeties work, each shot fired requires its own independent trigger press. The trigger is just being forcefully reset at such a high speed that you don’t consciously notice that it’s happening when firing. Slow-motion camera footage reveals the truth, but when you’re behind the gun, it feels like the real deal.
Yes, I really need to clean it.
ARC-Fire
I’ve been referring to the AS Designs trigger in my AP5SD as a Super Safety, but technically, the version I’ve been testing is the company’s ARC-Fire model. The difference? Instead of a 3-position push-button safety, it uses a standard 3-position AR selector. Not only is that an improvement over the original Super Safety design, but also a big upgrade over the MP5’s original stiff and hard-to-reach selector.
Buying the ARC-Fire version of the MP5 lower is $100 more than the standard Super Safety version, but I think it’s well worth it.
Is This Legal?
Yes, at the time of writing, Super Safeties and other similar fire rate-enhancing products that forcefully reset the trigger between each shot are legal. I can’t spell it out as clearly as AS Designs does, so here’s the company’s answer to the question straight from their website:
Are the Super Safety and ARC-Fire legal?
According to current legislation and federal court, yes. This requires a single action of the trigger for each shot fired, then the BCG forces it into safety which resets the trigger moving it forward, then the BCG moves it back out of safety as it chambers the next round, then the trigger may be activated again. A key step in this process is that the disconnector engages the hammer during the cycle, it does not defeat the disconnector, prevent it from engaging, or replace it. The recent federal court settlement between the ATF and RBT has defined that forced reset triggers are NOT machineguns (National Association for Gun Rights, Inc. v. Garland (4:23-cv-00830)).
However, if you live in a state with laws against forced reset triggers or “rapid trigger activators”, you can't possess the Super Safety or ARC-Fire (look up your own laws please, but it should be CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, HI, IL, MA, MD, MN, NJ, NV, NY, OR, and RI that have laws against them). Also, please respect any ranges that you visit that may have rules against these.
Installing The Super Safety MP5 Lower
Thankfully, getting your MP5 set up with AS Designs’ Super Safety or ARC-Fire system is even simpler than doing so with an AR-15. The AR install isn’t too hard either; it’s basically just a trigger and selector swap, but it is more time-consuming than this.
Since the Super Safety MP5 lower comes fully assembled, all you have to do is remove your standard lower and replace it with AS Designs’. Since the upper is the serialized portion of an MP5, this poses no legal issues and the new lower can ship straight to your door.
The only other part of the process is installing a component called the Slip Trip on the rear of your bolt carrier group. Once on, the carrier is reinstalled into the upper and the lower can be reattached while ensuring the reset lever is between the back of the carrier and the Slip Trip. It’s a bit hard to convey through words and photos, but there are videos online you can easily find that will show you exactly what to do. All in all, it’s a very quick, easy and completely reversible process that requires no permanent modifications to your gun.
The Slip Trip installed on the bolt carrier.
It’s also worth noting that the lower is available for what I think is every 9mm MP5 clone available on the U.S. market, but you’ll need to make sure to order the right variant for your model. I was testing the AP5 version on an AP5SD, and they mated up perfectly.
At The Range Knee-Deep In Brass
Boy oh boy, this baby is fun. Words can’t do it justice.
The three-position ARC-Fire selector works as fast and smoothly as it does on an AR, the trigger in standard semi-auto is just as nice as an AR’s, and as for Super Safety/ARC-Fire mode? Let’s just say that everyone that I’ve brought to the range to try it was grinning ear to ear after emptying their first mag. A full 30-round mag dump only takes a couple of seconds, by the way, but sometimes that’s all it takes to leave someone satisfied.
As for handling? That’s more up to the MP5 design itself, but it was built for this kind of fire rate and is legendary for its low recoil and excellent controllability, so no surprise the AP5SD felt the same when switched to ARC-Fire mode.
Its reliability was impeccable as well. In nearly 1,500 rounds of shooting in ARC-Fire, I only had two stoppages caused by the trigger failing to reset. That’s a damn good track record. The vast majority of that shooting was done with HSL 147-grain subsonics, but some various supersonic loads were thrown in the mix as well.
The only bug I ran into was at around the 1,000-round mark when I noticed the ambi selector switch had started to work itself loose. AS Designs almost certainly uses thread locker to install these parts at the factory, but after a lot of rattling, mine still started to back itself out. Thankfully, I caught it before it got lost and was able to simply reinstall it using more thread locker and elbow grease, and it stayed put just fine for the next 500 or so rounds since. That said, this is definitely something you’ll want to periodically check after shooting.
Here you can see the ambi selector dangling down due to coming loose.
I keep emphasizing how much fun the ARC-Fire MP5 is, and while that’s true, I have to point out its practical benefits as well.
We all know that guns chambered for intermediate cartridges like AR-15s are really more useful 90 percent of the time in true semi-auto mode, and that’s how militaries train soldiers to use their rifles in most situations. That said, if there’s any class of gun that can practically benefit from an increased fire rate, it’s pistol-caliber carbines. This setup proved that with how easy it was to put controlled bursts of relatively tight groups on target.
If you’re thinking about getting your first Super Safety, I’d recommend doing it for a PCC before something like an AR-15. That said, MP5 clones aren’t your only option, as AS Designs has models that fit AR-9s, MPXs, Kunas and more.
Parting Shot
AS Designs’ MP5 Super Safety lower took my favorite gun and instantly made it about 10 times cooler. Not a lot of accessories on the market can do that. We’re living in a pretty amazing time when these are currently legal, now we just have to hope it stays that way. While these devices in no way meet the NFA’s definition of a machine gun, and a federal court ruling agrees with that, you never know what constitutional infringements the future may hold.
There’s a bunch of different options on the market, but AS Designs’ MP5 solution has left me incredibly impressed. If you buy one, just get ready to buy a shitload more ammo. You’re gonna need it.
Improving your Kalashnikov’s trigger with the Geissele AK-X.
One thing AK shooters and admirers will never stop talking about is durability.
Well, duh. The AK-47 was designed to be used by peasants; simple and strong were built-in.
So was the crappy trigger.
If you want to keep the peasants from accidentally shooting each other while assaulting the fascist positions on the Eastern Front (did the Soviets call it the Western Front?), you give them a trigger with a lot of travel.
A lot.
That runs counter to the way we in the West viewed rifles—something you use by aiming and pressing off a shot.
What to do?
Just ask Bill Geissele. He can solve the problem.
The Geissele AK-X comes complete. And because it’s a packet trigger, assembly is simply a detail strip and then replacing the AK trigger parts with a packet.
What Geissele did was take the packet system that has proven so popular in the AR-15 world and built it for the AK-47. (And the AK-74 as well, just in case you were wondering.)
It’s an entirely self-contained set of parts, and since the locations of the hammer and sear are controlled by the packet, the dimensions of your AK receiver don’t enter into it. As long as your receiver is in spec enough to reinsert the pins, the packet will work. (If your receiver is so out of spec that you can’t make the packet go in, your problems are bigger than just a crappy trigger, and Geissele can’t solve that one for you.)
What the Geissele-X gives you is a two-stage trigger for your AK. It’s clean, crisp, relatively light … and it works like a champ.
Is it something you need? That depends. What other triggers do you use? If you shoot an AK, a Glock and a shotgun with a classic trigger, then no. (Sorry, Bill, I’ll explain.) The Glock and the shotgun will have spongy, gritty, crappy triggers. Changing your AK to a Geissele will mean you have to adjust your trigger press from one to the next.
If, on the other hand, your pistol and shotgun have good, clean, crisp triggers, then the AK is the laggard, and you definitely have to upgrade it.
That said, Geissele makes great stuff, and prices it accordingly. The AK-X has a list price of $350. A while back when we were still buying AKs for that much, it would have been more than odd to spend that much on a trigger.
Now, a basic AK made here in the USA runs you a grand. Anything better than vanilla-plain runs more. And you still get the 1947 peasant trooper AK trigger. Why not move into the 21st century and take advantage of Geissele engineering?
I have a new AK in 5.56 NATO on the rack for testing (no commie cartridges here), and the AK-X is perfect for it. Since all my other triggers are nice—not crappy—the Geissele will be perfect.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the April 2026 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
Looking to go armed, but are stuck in the weeds as to what to arm yourself with? Here are 20 of the best concealed carry gun options that will keep you on the defensive.
