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S.W.A.T. The October issue of S.W.A.T. marks our exciting expansion into more newsstand outlets. You'll still be able to find S.W.A.T. where you always have, but now keep an eye out for it in places you've never seen it before. And when you do find S.W.A.T. October, you'll know it's another winner: five in-depth firearms T&Es (test & evaluations) on pistols, rifles and shotguns, a Pat Rogers think piece on combat mindset, maximizing your range and gear budgets and working with police interpreters. And those are only the features! In the columns and departments, your favorite authors tackle survival rifles, combat sights, knives, go bags, rifle suppressors, and of course, the latest on the gun rights front. It's all coming to newsstands in the October issue of S.W.A.T., on sale September 1. Don't miss it! Columns Briefing Room Light At The End Of The Tunnel by Denny Hansen Street Smarts Get In A Fight! by Brent T. Wheat Against All Odds Securing Your Internet Comms by Jeff Randall Frontline Debriefs My Two Cents by Scott Reitz Enemy at the Gate Gun Rights Warriors! by Stewart Rhodes Training & Tactics Just Another Lousy Gunfight by Louis Awerbuck Departments Mail Room: Letters from our Readers Staff The Cutting Edge: Spyderco Automatics Leroy Thompson Long Guns: Two Trijicon ACOGs Leroy Thompson Offbeat: RAP4 Sound Flash Trip Wire Grenade Eugene Nielsen Gear Locker: New Products and Accessories Staff |
by Steve Malloy (R.I.P.—The Best of Steve Malloy) The Czech vz.61 Skorpion has been somewhat of a ghost here in the United States—occasional sightings but nothing confirmed. The Skorpion had always eluded me. In my quest to procure a specimen, it was quickly learned that few, if any, existed in the U.S. as importation was not a common thing—I had my work cut out for me. Contacting Ceska Zbrojovka (CZ), in the Czech Republic, opened up the possibility of importation, and through the efforts of CZ-USA it appeared the quest was going to be fulfilled. The day I got the news that a Skorpion was finally on its way I felt like a kid at Christmas. Skorpions can be categorized as a true machine pistol for they can be fired handheld or from the shoulder. A well thought out folding stock flips open at the touch of the hand providing the user a very controllable shoulder platform. Firing modes include single and full-auto. The best thing about the Skorpion is its compact size. Specs include a 4.5-inch barrel with a folded overall length of just 10.6 inches. Unfolded it’s still a very concealable 20.5 inches long, with a sting rate of 750 rounds-per-minute. Weight is just 2.8 pounds and either 10 or 20-round magazines feed it. Triggers are very good two-stage types. Sights include a front protected post with a flip-up rear set for 75 and 150 meters. LONG-RANGE LIGHTWEIGHT LETHALITY ArmaLite’s AR-30 .338 Lapua Magnum by Charlie Cutshaw The .338 Lapua Magnum is a long-range precision tactical cartridge whose time has come. If there are any doubts, consider the fact that the next U.S. military sniper rifle will be in .338 Lapua caliber. In 1983 at the request of the U.S. Navy, Research Armament in the United States developed the original round. The .338 uses a necked down .416 Rigby case, and in its original configuration launched a 250-grain bullet at nearly 3,000 feet-per-second with muzzle energy of more than 4,800-foot pounds. A prototype rifle and ammunition were produced and tested by the Navy, but the cartridge was never manufactured in the U.S. Lapua and Norma Precision AB finished development and got the cartridge into production. For law enforcement use, where does the .338 fit in? The .338 gives the precision tactical marksman a huge range and ballistic advantage over any .308 caliber rifle, while adding little to the weight burden that every sniper must contend with. The test AR-30, for example, tips the scales at only 15 pounds. NO ROAD? NO PROBLEM! International Training Off-Road Driving Course by Steve Moses In Texas, any self-respecting man with a lick of sense goes to church, owns a gun, loves his dog and drives a four-wheel-drive truck or SUV. I was proud of my Nissan Frontier 4X4, despite the fact that I was probably incapable of driving it in excess of 25 percent of its capabilities. I had huge doubts about my ability to tackle rugged and steep slopes, ford heavy streams, negotiate sharply angled side-slopes and rock-crawl. This was largely because I had concerns about rolling my vehicle, getting stuck 25 miles from nowhere with a cell phone displaying zero bars or breaking something that was costly to repair. I was in need of therapy. The ability to safely move from point A to point B in rugged terrain is no laughing matter for military personnel operating in such environments as South America, Iraq and Afghanistan. The same is true for law enforcement and rescue personnel operating in the rural portions of all 50 states. If chaos breaks out in a large metropolitan area as the result of a natural or man-made disaster, major power outage or civil disorder, I might need to egress to a safer area. In order to effectively execute my exit plan, I may have to abandon streets and highways and drive through and over ditches, medians and fields. No matter how I look at it, there’s no valid reason not to have adequate off-road driving skills. As is most often the case, therapy lay in training, which came in the form of the Off-Road Driving course conducted at the International Training Inc.’s school located in Dilley, Texas. DON’T TREAD ON ME Springer Precision Tactical XD Pistol by Bob Pilgrim I have carried a firearm professionally for 33 years—both as a United Sates Marine and an FBI agent. Most of the time, these have been full-sized service short and long guns. Both medium and large frame four-inch barreled revolvers were no problem for larger stature personnel, but as dress belts and belt loops became narrower and the FBI’s height requirement was abolished, issue side arms also saw reductions in profile because of concealment concerns. If you’re looking for a lightweight and concealable handgun that has authority both in caliber and capacity, look no further than the XD Sub-Compact in .40 S&W. It provides a nice balance between the two requirements and, in keeping with the “if it ain't broke, don't fix it” axiom, the little pistol with the big bite has remained virtually unchanged since its American debut several years ago. My only request would be for Springfield Armory to come out with .22-caliber conversion kits for the XD family, so that practice could continue unabated in spite of the current high cost and scarcity of ammo. FIGHT CLUB Tactical Response Fighting Pistol Courses by Todd Burgreen “Fight!” That single word sums up the four-day training experience at Tactical Response Inc., with its Fighting Pistol and Advanced Fighting Pistol courses held in Hollidaysburg, Pa. Professionalism and safety were stressed at all times, as students were constantly pushed to the mental and physical limits of their handgun proficiency. The courses are about fighting with a pistol, not about sterile marksmanship. The Tactical Response Fighting Pistol courses do address handgun accuracy, but only as a way to end the fight more effectively. Misses mean nothing, no matter how fast you miss. The constant mantra of the entire four days is “Move Off the X.” Someone is much more likely to survive a hostile encounter if he does not freeze in place when attacked. The concept of moving while drawing a weapon, reloading or performing malfunction drills was constantly hammered home. Students’ eyes were to be kept downrange at all times when conducting drills, reloading, picking up magazines, scanning area for new threats and re-holstering. The instructors would concisely introduce a new drill or concept and then move rapidly to the line to implement. TACTICAL .45 ACP FIREPOWER ON TAP STI Tactical 4.15 by Matt Berger I've been carrying high-capacity 1911s for defense for many years now. John M. Browning's design is nearing a century of service, with a few modifications to keep the design updated along the way. Among these, the “wide-body” frame—accepting double-column magazines—has been the biggest design innovation. STI International Inc. surely wasn't the first to come up with this concept, though the men with whom the company's roots lie can certainly take credit for pioneering the “modular” frame approach. Introduced to the shooting world at the 1992 SHOT Show, the 2011 platform incorporated a steel receiver and frame, and a synthetic grip. These pistols shaved weight and girth from existing steel hi-cap designs. Early last year, I decided to give the STI 2011 platform a try in the role of both duty and off-duty carry. Partial to Commander-length 1911s, I chose the 4.15 over the 5.0, and since the gun would have to weather the rigors of duty and the sweltering heat of riding under clothing through the Oklahoma summers, I ordered mine with a hard-chrome finish rather than the standard blue. ALL ABOARD THE ARC TangoDown’s Advanced Reliability Combat Magazine by Patrick A. Rogers Don't fall in love with your magazines. Replace them when necessary. That metal magazines may be on the way out is a given, though some will cling to the old school magazines like Ned Ludd’s followers, who believed that machines were inherently evil. Polymer magazines offer many advantages and will probably replace all metal magazines in the future. Enter a new magazine—actually, several new magazines—from TangoDown. Jeff Cahill, the principal of TangoDown, has a background in industrial design and his company has produced a long line of polymer products, including pistol grips, vertical foregrips, rail panels, bipods and sling mounts (the steel/aluminum PR-4 and PR-16). During dinner in Carlsbad, Calif., in 2002, Jeff spoke of his plans for a polymer magazine. The realities of business put the magazine project at a lower priority, but when a solicitation for a new magazine was announced, Jeff already had the design in hand. SINGLE AND AVAILABLE New Techniques Revive Single-Action Revolvers by Denny Hansen Over the years I’ve attended numerous “tactical” firearm courses. With the exception of shotgun courses, the firearms I employed were modern semiautomatics, usually fed with high-capacity magazines. Recently, however, I attended a basic handgun course at Gunsite that was sponsored by Hornady, Ruger, Surefire and XS Sights. The handguns that were used in the course were various models of single-action Ruger revolvers in calibers ranging from .38 Special to .45 Colt. Ruger also brought along its new LCR .38 revolver for anyone who wanted to give it a try. More or less a prototype, the lesson plan was roughly based on Gunsite’s Defensive Revolver course. If there’s enough interest, Gunsite may add it to their regular curriculum. It is always great to see people who manufacture products on the firing line and be able to receive feedback from shooters on what works and what may be improved on. You’re probably asking the same question I was at the beginning of the course: With quality semi-autos and double-action revolvers readily available to almost any qualified individual, why bother with a design that’s remained basically unchanged for 136 years (Ruger being a notable exception), holds only six rounds, and is slow to load and unload? One person opined, “We should learn to use it because it may be all that we have left in a few years.” I refuse to agree with such defeatist thinking. The time for compromising our inalienable rights is long since past. SIGHTING OPTIONS For Long Range or Close Quarters by Eugene Nielsen L-3 EOTech Inc. introduced two new products at the 2009 SHOT Show—its second-generation 3X magnifier and its new XPS HOLOgraphic Weapon Sight (HWS). S.W.A.T. was among the very first to receive samples for evaluation. John Bailey, director of project management at L-3 EOTech, states that while the company has had great success with its first generation 3X WS Magnifier, it realized some need for improvements. The new G23.FTS (Generation 2 3X) HWS Magnifier is the result. A 7mm riser plate is included with the G23.FTS to raise the magnifier, allowing it to work perfectly with sights such as the 553, 557, 556, 517 and 516 HWS. It should be noted that although the L-3 EOTech HWS Magnifiers are designed specifically to retrofit with all L-3 EOTech HWS models, the HWS Magnifiers will work with any non-magnifying reflex sight (such as those from Aimpoint and Trijicon, for example), provided the sight is at the correct height. |
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