The Springfield Hellcat has been a popular concealed carry choice since its release in the fall of 2019. In fact, the gun won several awards within the first year of its release, including 2020 Handgun of the year and Best Compact Handgun. It’s touted as the world’s highest-capacity micro-compact with a capacity of 11+1 and 13+1. And now, the Hellcat just got a nice boost. Springfield just announced a new magazine that increases the round count to 15+1 and is only slightly more than a quarter of an inch taller than the 13-round magazine.
Even though the new magazine (right) has an additional two rounds, the total increase in length compared to the 13-round magazine (left) is only .28 inches. Image Source: The Armory Life.
Like the 11-round and 13-round magazines, the new Hellcat magazine body is made of stainless steel with numbered round count witness holes and a polymer follower. The extension is patterned with the same Adaptive Grip Texture as the Hellcat frame, and, though it isn’t much, that little bit of extra length offers more gripping area.
As far as capacity goes, Springfield says the Hellcat becomes comparable to compact and duty-sized pistols.
Here’s the press release straight from the company.
Springfield Armory has taken its Hellcat pistol — the smallest, highest-capacity micro-compact 9mm handgun in the world — and increased its already impressive capacity with the new 15-round Hellcat magazine. The result is a micro-sized 9mm pistol with an astounding 15+1 capacity comparable to compact and duty-sized pistols, yet in a package that is smaller than similarly configured, lower-capacity competitors.
The new magazine, which is only slightly longer than the 13-round extended version, is currently available directly from Springfield Armory with an MSRP of $39.95 and will soon be available from Springfield retailers as well. It is offered in both black and Desert FDE.
The Hellcat is available in both standard and OSP™ (Optical Sight Pistol) versions, with the latter featuring slides cut to accept the smallest micro red dot sights on the market. The micro 9mm ships with a patented 11-round magazine as well as an extended 13-round magazine, and this newest magazine will allow users to have a full 15+1 rounds of 9mm ammo ready to go.
The increased capacity magazine is available in Black and Desert FDE.
“This magazine offers Hellcat owners the ability to increase the total capacity of their pistol by two rounds or to carry a larger 15-round mag as a back-up,” says Steve Kramer, Vice President of Marketing for Springfield Armory. “This increased capacity puts the Hellcat platform even further beyond its competitors and means users can carry with even greater confidence.”
The Hellcat has received numerous awards since its release in 2019, including the 2020 Handgun of the Year Award from the National Rifle Association’s American Rifleman, the Guns & Ammo 2020 Handgun of the Year Award, Ballistic magazine’s Ballistics’ Best 2020 Reader’s Choice Award for Best Compact Handgun, the NTOA MTR Gold Award, and more.
Stephanie Kimmell is the firstborn daughter of Missouri’s Pecan King, worthy scion of a Vietnam veteran sailor turned mad engineer-orchardist-inventor-genius. With a BA in technical writing, she freelances as a writer and editor. A Zymurgist greatly interested in the decoction of fermented barley and hops, she is in many ways a modern amalgam of Esther Hobart Morris, Rebecca Boone, and Nellie Bly. She hunts, fishes, butchers, and cooks most anything. When not editing or writing, she makes soaps and salves, spins wool, and occasionally makes cheese from cows she milked herself. Kimmell is a driven epistemophilic who loves live music and all sorts of beer.
The world released a small tear the day US Palm closed their doors. 2017 was a rough year for all of us. American-made AK stuff had a long history of kinda sucking. US Palm came around and changed that with their furniture, magazines, and more. It sucked when they shuttered their doors, but Century Arms recently revived the brand. I approached this with cautious optimism. Can Century Arms keep the reputation US Palm built? Well, I got my hands on the banana clip edition of the US Palm AK30 Magazine.
Hungry? I got a banana for you!
US Palm produced the first American AK magazine that mixed both polymer and metal in the design. Since the AK30 magazines came to be, companies like Xtech and Magpul have released their polymer and metal-infused magazines. US Palm magazines have an exciting history. The founder of the company was inspired by the Tango Down ARC magazine and its waffle pattern. He approached Tango Down and formed a partnership to produce the AK30 magazines.
What Made the US Palm AK30 Mags Different?
In short order, the US Palm AK30 mags became the standard to which the rest of the American AK market had to live up to. Century’s revival of the brand was smart enough not to change the design to save a few bucks.
US Palm waffled the outside of the magazine, giving it an unbeatable grip texture and rigid reinforcement. The waffle-like design was chosen because it adds strength and rigidity to the magazine.
The Waffle texture adds rigidity to the design.
Tango Down invented the ARC magazine to be the toughest magazine ever made. They did so by making the magazine effectively a one-piece design. The US Palm magazine retains the same idea. There is never a reason to take it apart, and doing so is rather difficult.
So how do you clean it?
Well, you sink it in hot, soapy water and drain it out the top. Place that bad boy upside down and let it dry. US Palm placed several holes in the follower to allow easy drainage, and they wrote those cleaning instructions themselves.
This follower allows you to drain water after cleaning the magazine.
The Cage
Next, they incorporate a metal cage molded into the top of the magazine. AK mags are traditionally made of metal, and AKs are designed to function with metal on metal contact. The metal cage in the top of the AK30 magazines provides steel locking lugs that allow positive metal on metal contact. Polymer in these areas can be weak and can break under stress.
The included steel cage lends strength to the magazine.
Steel though? Steel is good, reliable, and strong. That metal cage ensures the polymer AK30 magazine is just as tough as any steel magazine. US Palm invented the American metal/polymer hybrid magazine, and it’s good to see Century retain this design, even if it drives the price of the magazine upward. These are professional-grade magazines designed for demanding customers.
Professional Grade Yellow?
Okay, just because it’s a professional-grade magazine doesn’t mean it’s a professional-looking magazine. I’m a professional writer, but I’m also typing this in my boxers, so looks can be deceiving. My model is a special edition ‘Banana clip’ Century has made as a bit of joke.
If you are the super-serious type, have no worries, the AK30 mags come in black and FDE as well. However, if the Banana clip gives you a laugh, check it out and join us in the world of fun and sun.
The US Palm AK30 fed reliably over hundreds of rounds.
Anywho, the big question you might have is, “Does it work?” US Palm magazines were famously reliable, superbly well made, and set standards we all look to. I understand that once new ownership and new management come in, we should be cautious. Hopefully, you come to places like The Mag Life to get the lowdown on what works and what doesn’t.
I filled my AK30 with the classic Wolf ammo most AK users frequent. This steel-cased stuff fills the mag of countless AKs and shouldn’t be an issue for a well-made magazine. The friction-free follower glides smoothly downward with each round, and the magazines never feel difficult to load.
I try to get a little actual training in when reviewing stuff, so here I’m trying to use cover.
After I squeezed in 30 rounds, I popped the magazine in my test AK, a PSA GF3 model. Popping the magazine in the gun revealed a very tight fit. A tight fit isn’t a bad thing. I find tight fighting magazines are often easier to remove, especially on Battlefield 4 style speed reloads. You just have to make your drive that magazine into place on the reload.
Hitting the Range
How does it function under fire? Well, surprisingly well. I broke testing down into 5 phases.
Phase 1
This was a simple slow fire test with thirty rounds of ammunition. I used this time to ensure the rifle was properly zeroed and to see if the magazine can do the most basic of shooting.
Results: It functioned flawlessly. Not that I’m surprised, but there were zero issues. My rifle’s irons are zeroed and I’m ready to rock and roll.
Phase 2
Let’s do some speed reloads. For the first set, the US Palm AK30 will be empty in the gun and will be cast out! It will hit the ground, and I’ll reset and do it again twenty times.
Let the bodies hit the floor, am I right?
Phase 3
Reloads once more, but this time I’ll be using the US Palm AK30 to eject an empty AK mag, then load and fire the weapon twice. No cleaning will be conducted between Phase 2 and 3. Again, we’ll repeat this test thirty times with 60 rounds total.
Results – The reloads hit the wet and sandy ground of my range over and over. I got pretty sick of speed reloads and got complacent enough to rap my knuckles. Even after a bit of a beating and some sand exposure the magazine never failed to feed.
Suck it, magazine.
Phase 4
Let’s add a little stress to the AK30. First set into a prone position with the magazine acting as a monopod and fire ten rounds. Then press the magazine against a barrier causing forward pressure, and fire ten rounds. Finally, place the magazine in front of a barrier and pull the magazine rearward, creating rearward pressure. Fire ten rounds once more.
Results: No amount of top, rearward, and forward pressure caused a malfunction in the magazine.
Keep shooting, and shooting, and shooting.
Phase 5
The final phase is the long-term test. I’m currently testing the PSA AK, and I like to be efficient. So in my PSA AK test, I’ve exclusively used the US Palm AK30. Long-term testing involves 300 rounds of Steel cased world and 100 rounds of brass cased Sellier and Bellot. Total round count was 520 rounds.
Results: I wish I had more ammo, to be honest. In 520 rounds I had zero malfunctions, even no ammo-related malfunctions presented themselves.
Is The New US Palm AK30 Magazine Good to Go?
The AK30 proved to be issue-free over my testing. I tried my hardest to beat it up, beat it down, toss it in the sand and feed it average steel-cased AK fodder. While some may be turned off by this color, keep in mind this is a special edition and we got all the tactical colors you can handle. These days it seems like we have more high-quality AK magazines than we have high-quality AKs, and now we’ve got one more.
Travis Pike is a former Marine Machine Gunner, a lifelong firearms enthusiast, and now a regular guy who likes to shoot, write, and find ways to combine the two. He holds an NRA certification as a Basic Pistol Instructor and is the world’s Okayest firearm’s instructor.
What if I told you that there is a way to turbo-charge your shooting skills while using less ammunition than you may be accustomed to? Sound too good to be true?
Way back when I was a brand new sniper for a very large state agency, I had the distinct and humbling honor to speak with the world’s foremost authority on sniping. My sniper instructor had attended a sniper school called White Feather, Inc. in Virginia Beach, VA, and he put me in touch with the owner of the school. None other than Gunnery Sergeant Carlos N. Hathcock II.
Gunnery Sergeant Carlos N. Hathcock II. Image source: The Virginian-Pilot.
Gunny Hathcock is a legend in the sniping community, having racked up 93 confirmed kills in Viet Nam, along with a few hundred probable kills that were not confirmed. For a long time, he held the longest recorded kill in history, 2,500 yards, using a Browning .50 caliber machine gun with a special scope. For more on the Gunny’s exploits, I recommend the book Marine Sniper by Charles Henderson.
The Gunny was kind enough to give me about a half-hour of his time on the telephone, and words cannot convey how honored and humbled I was.
We talked training and philosophy at length. The man was so humble, and yet an ultimate authority at the same time; I’ve never spoken to someone exuding such extremes on both ends of the spectrum before or since. When I thanked him for doing such an amazing job for our country, he simply replied, “I was just doing my job.” That was it, he would not acknowledge accolades.
One of the things that he told me has stuck with me, and will forever.
“When you go to the range, don’t go just to put rounds downrange. You train as if life hangs in the balance of every single shot. Because it very well could. Train, train, train!”
In closing our conversation, he wished me well, I thanked him, and he said, “Don’t let those hamburgers getcha!” That made me smile. You don’t understand that last line? Well, you’ll have to read the book. And when you pick that book up, you will curse me, because you will not be able to put it down until you finish it. But you’ll love the book, I guarantee it.
I’ll be upfront that I’m not God’s gift to sniping. I was very good, but there were guys who were better. But I could hang with the best of them, and the reason for that was because the sniper schools I completed used the curriculum that was taught at Gunny Hathcock’s school.
Before sniper school, I thought I was a pretty damn good shot. In fact, I knew it! I’d grown up spending the majority of my free time as a kid in the woods (just like the Gunny). Over summer vacation, I would wear out a BB gun every summer, shooting dragonflies around the pond at my boyhood house, going through a box of 7,500 BBs in a week.
At sniper school, I found out how to be a lot better. And I’m going to share that secret with you right now. Stress shooting. Yes, it’s that simple. You practice stress shooting.
What the hell is it, and how do you do it?
Hold your horses, I’m getting to that!
As part of our sniper qualification, our Stress Shot consisted of the following drill: We ran about 500 yards in full gear, stopping at our spot on the firing line where we jogged in place until a whistle blew. At the whistle, we had 30 seconds to hit the deck, load our rifle, and send one bullet directly into the No Reflex Zone of our target. That’s it.
After that run, your heart is pumping, you are breathing very heavily. And you find yourself trying to keep the crosshairs of that scope on a very tiny part of the anatomy. The No-Reflex Zone is the medulla oblongata, our target. When it is hit, the body shuts down as though a switch is thrown. If the bad guy is holding a gun to a hostage’s head, he drops and does not pull the trigger. Tactical Neutralization, we called it. The No-Reflex Zone is about a two-inch band in which the eyes are centered. Anything outside of that zone was considered a miss, even if the subject would have been killed because the goblin would have potentially been able to kill a hostage. As the vast majority of our shooting was geared toward hostage rescue, we could not afford to miss.
In those 30 seconds that we had to prepare and fire our rifles, we had to get our heart rate and breathing under control, which developed a laser-like focus. The Gunny wasn’t telling me what equipment to choose or what brand of rifle or ammo to buy, because anyone can figure that out in a short time. No, he was telling me to train my mind!
Pushups are also useful for raising the heart rate and causing arm fatigue, forcing the shooter to work through the discomfort and developing focus. I’m a staunch advocate for training in the gear that I will fight in, and in 95+ degree heat, this is my fighting attire!
Get into “The Bubble”
Sure, it’s important to get intimately familiar with your rifle, scope, and other gear. You need to do that. But you have to look beyond the gear, to your mind. Once you break through and beyond the physical, you will reach new mental heights and that will translate into confidence, which is vital. You will carry yourself differently once you realize that you can break what you once imagined were limits. This doesn’t only apply to shooting — it carries over to so many other aspects of our lives. The purpose of this entire article is to get you to shift your perception, which opens up new possibilities and horizons.
After that run, the crosshairs would actually jump around on the target with each beat of our heart. I personally would force myself to breathe very deeply for about 15 seconds or so to get my heart rate down to a manageable level. As I did so, I got into what the Gunny referred to as “The Bubble”, where nothing else in the world existed aside from that target that I was about to successfully engage. Nothing was going to stop me, not the wind, not my pounding heart or heaving lungs. I was going to kill that target, and there was just no way around it.
To deal with the raised heart rate, you will need to breathe deeply for several seconds, oxygenating your system and developing that focus. Get into your bubble where nothing can affect you.
In a real shooting situation where you are defending your life, your heart will race, your breathing will skyrocket, things will go into slow motion. The Stress Shooting will simulate the effects of shooting under real-world stress. You will learn how to fight through your fatigue and still perform.
After practicing Stress Shooting repeatedly, we came to realize something; taking “normal” shots had become extremely easy! Stress Shooting was so difficult that we had developed a level of focus that we had never dreamed of before training.
“Alright”, you’re saying, “But I’m not a sniper, how does all of this apply to me???”
Well, the same Stress Shooting techniques that help snipers can help anyone at the range to fire any weapon better. I don’t care if it’s a pistol, rifle, shotgun, airgun, archery, even a slingshot…you can improve.
Stress shooting is helpful whether you’re shooting rifle, pistol, shotgun, archery, airgun…anything that throws a projectile! Remember, it’s quality, not quantity. Train, train, train!
Excell with Less
Hear the good news – you don’t have to run 500 yards (unless you want to) to train. Just do enough to get your heart rate and breathing up appreciably. For some, dropping down and doing 10 or 20 pushups or situps would do the trick. Do a short sprint. Whatever works for you, do that, and then return to the firing line, load your weapon, and get to work. The important point is to get out of your comfort zone! We tend to stay in that comfort zone, it’s human nature. But staying there defines our limitations.
But wait – there’s more!!
You can accomplish this training using a bare minimum of ammunition. And these days with ammunition being in short supply, this is a very Good Thing. If you do five Stress Shots in one training session, you’ve just improved yourself. Imagine going to the shooting range and shooting only a handful of rounds and leaving with the satisfaction that you just significantly improved your abilities.
The idea is quality over quantity.
Take your time and do it right. Remember, we’re not putting rounds down range just to say we shot. We are improving our accuracy and focus. Don’t expect perfection right away, it may take time as you bring your mind and body more in line with each other.
Notice I haven’t listed any specific shooting drills here; it’s not the aim (no pun intended) of this article. If you’re shooting a pistol, maybe you would staple a 3×5 card to a target and make that your target. Do calisthenics or sprint and engage your target with one round at first. Then, after you get the hang of it, you can add more shots and more targets and work up to a routine.
Train in various shooting positions, not just the ones that you’re most comfortable in. Getting out of your comfort zone makes you a more accomplished and rounded shooter.
Basically, you’re only limited by your imagination here. By increasing the quality of your training, you can reduce the quantity of ammunition that you expend. As such, you can even increase the frequency of your range visits and still not go broke buying ammo. The point is, this is more of a philosophical concept to grasp than a physical one. Once you understand the concept, the physical aspect is easier to sort out.
Push Yourself to Do Better
There were also some other methods that we used to improve our focus and concentration.
One of these was that an instructor or team member would approach us while we were waiting to receive clearance to fire on a target, and just as we were about to get authorization to fire, they would begin pouring a thin stream of ice water onto our body. Anything that caused distraction or discomfort was the order of the day. This helped us get into “The Bubble” that Gunny Hathcock would preach about so reverently.
Other variations included utilizing loud noises as we were engaging targets. A very loud stereo blasting such things as obnoxious music or recordings of sirens next to our head. Gunfire next to us was another good way to get used to operating in loud environments. At night, they’d put flashing lights out on the range to distract us and make it more difficult. Sometimes smoke grenades were used.
A typical tactical exercise involved maintaining radio contact with other units and guiding a hostage rescue team toward a target. We had to maintain surveillance on the target so that we could tell the team when it was safe to move and what the bad people were doing at the time. All this while estimating range, adjusting scope settings, reporting what we were seeing to controlling units (how many bad guys, good guys, hostages, etc.). We looked at such details as how the hinges on doors were positioned so that the team would know if the doors opened inward or outward. What the construction of the building was so they’d know the tools they’d need for breaching. It was something like riding a unicycle while juggling running chainsaws.
Tactical exercises are not something that we can typically replicate on our shooting ranges, but it does illustrate the focus required to function in the real world.
When you get comfortable with a certain size target, reduce it to make training more difficult. Always push yourself to do better.
The ultimate stress shooter – a trained sniper!
If there is a more effective way to improve your shooting skills, I am not aware of it. This method has been and continues to be used by the top warriors in the world. It works, pure and simple. It is not new, and I wish I could take credit for inventing it, but I can’t, as it’s been in use since before I was ever in the game.
We are training to think and solve problems with a weapon, that is our ultimate mission of the training. And remember… don’t let the hamburgers getcha!
Did you know we have a badass YouTube channel – you’d be doing yourself a solid by visiting. Me nem nesa.
Jim Davis served in the PA Dept. of Corrections for 16 ½ years as a corrections officer in the State Correctional Institute at Graterford and later at SCI Phoenix. He served on the Corrections Emergency Response Team (CERT), several of those years as a sniper, and also the Fire Emergency Response Team (FERT). For 25 years, he was a professional instructor, teaching topics including Defensive Tactics, Riot Control and Tactical Operations, Immediate Responder, and cognitive programs as an adjunct instructor at the DOC Training Academy. He was then promoted to the title of corrections counselor, where he ran a caseload and facilitated cognitive therapy classes to inmates. His total service time was close to 29 years. He was involved in many violent encounters on duty, including incidents of fatalities.
If you’ve been following silencer-related news you may have recently seen word of this: “The Mute”. The Mute suppressor appears to be a rather unusual silencer on a number of levels. Let’s see…
• it’s non-metallic,
• it doesn’t use baffles,
• it mitigates heat in addition to noise,
• it’s “printed” (-ish) vs. traditional manufacturer…
The Mute suppressor an “advanced form 3D print” manufactured can, rudimentarily similar to the 3D printer you’re probably thinking of, but using what’s described as an advanced aerospace polymer they refer to as “D28”. D28 evidently exhibits some properties that are more like glass than plastic, which somehow plays a role in controlling the heat.
That’s enough to pique your interest, prob’ly. It was ours, anyway.
There are a lot of questions, more raised by the company’s release than answered, but that was probably intentional.
The can focuses sound “forward and away” from the shooter, utilizing something called a Thermal Shroud for self-thermal regulation. The intention here is to reduce heat, mirage, muzzle rise, and sound in comparison to an unsuppressed firearm; that’s pretty much what any suppressor is supposed to do of course but…
Notice that the word heatis mentioned in there.
That sort of mitigation is definitely not what more typical suppressors do.
The Mute also has some QD (Quick Detach) characteristics, at least when it comes to an AR platform. It attaches to the host weapon via its own proprietary muzzle device.
Attaching The Mute suppressor via its proprietary flash hider.
Here’s what they tell us:
The Mute Suppressor
The Mute offers a combination of durability, low weight, and excellent sound reduction without baffles. Utilizing the Venturi Effect, The Mute was designed to remain incredibly cool, making it mild to the touch and allowing you to remove The Mute after firing. This product integrates self-thermal regulation via the Thermal Shroud function. Our proprietary D28 material and next-gen unibody construction methods reduce recoil and regulate the heat for less mirage, muzzle rise, and blowback. The highest level in all details ensures best in class performance.
The Mute Suppressor Design
The Mute is a baffleless nonmetallic design consisting of a thermal shroud and flash hider mount. Incorporating advanced manufacturing techniques and our proprietary D28 material, The Mute’s innovations result in a sleek and resilient unibody, with excellent thermal regulation and portability.
The Mute: “Self-Thermoregulation”
As the bullet travels through the mute, gases are focused out the front vent, bringing cool air in from the rear. The more rounds you fire the more air is cycled through allowing the Mute to cool faster.
Heat Regulation
The intended purpose is to not trap and cool, rather direct gas through the thermal shroud. The improved thermal shroud instead uses a venturi effect to mitigate the heat. The average temperature is 97f – 120f even with intense rapid-fire. The exterior wall is tame to the touch allowing you to remove the Mute even after intensive shooting compared to traditional suppressors.
Mute Suppressor Calibers
At Launch available in .22, 9mm, .223/5.56, upcoming .45, and .30 cal
Pricing
The Mute Suppressor – Launch price $599, After May 31st price is expected to be $799.
We’ll be looking forward to seeing how this thing stands up to testing and use. Will it be one of the best QD suppressors we’ve used? The worst? It certainly has the potential to be the lightest…but possibly also the most short-lived.
We’ll be watching for reviews by people who know what they’re about and we may just do our own. Hit the picture to visit their site or follow ’em on Insta, @themuteofficial.
Brock Trautman is the senior news anchor for The Mag Life, the official publication of GunMag Warehouse. He’s also a cartoon, so…don’t get butt-hurt about anything he says. He’s not making subjective judgments on things, or reviewing anything – he’s just passing along the news.
Princeton Tec has expanded their Modular Personal Lighting System (MPLS) lineup with the Vizz Tactical headlamp.
The MPLS has four different colors of LED for those who require something other than white light to accomplish a task. Red, blue, green, and IR are all available in one package, and all are programmable to set the user’s preferred order of illumination. Each distinct beam profile and corresponding customization is easily accessed via a large, easily located button situated on top of the light. Press, hold, or double press: one of ’em will get it done.
For ye olde white light the Vizz MPLS Tactical produces a dimmable 420-lumen white spot (making it the brightest light in the series) and also features a 50-lumen white flood for close-up tasks (also dimmable).
When not in use the Vizz Tactical – MPLS can be locked to prevent accidental turn on to prevent the 3AAA batteries from becoming drained. As with all of PTEC Professional Series headlamps, the Vizz Tactical – MPLS is waterproof (IPX7) and is equipped with regulated circuitry making it lithium battery compatible.
That’s a good feature to have whether you’re mounting the light on a tactical helmet, keeping it in your hunting gear, or throwing it in your range bag.
Princeton Tec says,
“Durable body construction and an IPX7 waterproof rating round the Vizz Tactical-MPLS out for a top-of-the-line choice in tactical lighting equipped to endure your next mission.”
Features
Dimmable spot beam
Order programmable additional color modes: red, blue, green, and IR
Waterproof
Includes MPLS Headlamp mounts:
NVG Adapter Plate
Bracket mount for MOLLE and/or standard nylon headstrap
Brock Trautman is the senior news anchor for The Mag Life, the official publication of GunMag Warehouse. He’s also a cartoon, so…don’t get butt-hurt about anything he says. He’s not making subjective judgments on things, or reviewing anything – he’s just passing along the news.
While it may seem like the world of high-capacity concealed carry has enough contenders already, there is definitely room for at least one more, especially at a lower price point. With two 11-round magazines included, the new diminutive-framed Taurus GX4 9mm is clearly aimed at the SIG P365, Springfield Hellcat (original and RDP), and Smith & Wesson Shield PLUS as its biggest competitors, but it is also aimed at shooters who don’t want to spend $500+ on a concealed carry gun.
Ever since Sig introduced the P365 in 2018, every reputable manufacturer has upped their game to compete in the larger capacity concealed carry arena, so makes sense that Taurus would join the fray sooner or later.
There is a lot to like about the GX4 and a few things that gave me pause. Here is a breakdown of what I liked and didn’t like.
Spoiler alert: most of it is good.
The Good
The Taurus GX4 has a lot to recommend. It’s not perfect (no gun is), but the Plus column is a lot longer than the Minus column. Understand before we get too deep into the goods and bads that this is not an exotic firearm full of expensive bells and whistles. It’s a basic concealed carry gun.
The Taurus G4X is a basic concealed carry gun.
Let’s start with the size. It matters, right? (Sorry, not sorry.) At around 1 inch thick, it falls right in line with its competitors, tucking easily away under even the lightest cover garments.
The magazine easily holds 11 rounds within its narrow grip, with a spring that is surprisingly light for being brand new. Like so many of us, I typically use my speed loader with a new magazine because the spring is so stiff. However, this one was light enough to load all 11 rounds without any mechanical assistance, a refreshing change.
Once loaded, the gun was easy to get into battery with a medium weight recoil spring making slide rack easy, aided by deep serrations on both front and back. Press check was easy.
Taurus did an awesome job on the grip texture — not too rough and not too smooth. Kudos to the grip design engineers. Goldilocks would be proud. Shooting with both dry and sweaty palms proved solid and firm, with little worry about the gun moving in my grip during recoil and realignment.
The grip texture was really good, but I was a bit confused by the interchangeable backstraps. Not the concept — I get that — but why they are virtually identical.
The GX4 comes with two interchangeable backstraps that are simple to swap out, but they are so similar that I couldn’t tell much difference between them. The slightly larger one that came installed on the gun fit my hand solidly, but of course, I was obligated for scientific reasons to swap them to feel the difference, which was nominal. The swells were close enough that I don’t know that Taurus needed to include the second one.
I would like to have seen a more significant difference between the two. It’s also interesting that they chose to spend money on interchangeable backstraps instead of fixing some of the small items I’ll mention in the “The Bad” section below.
(Don’t jump down there yet. That’s cheating. There is more good stuff first.)
The grip length, often the bane of large-handed people’s existence on compact pistols, is better on the GX4 than on most of the competition. Taurus did an admirable job of shortening the grip to reduce printing without going too small for larger hands.
For sure, cramming 11 rounds inside prevented them from going too small. While only part of my pinky rested comfortably on the bottom, it only sort of hung off, barely. When I started shooting, my fingers stayed firm on the grip, not ever slipping off. After a few shots, I forgot all about it. This was all during a session where I threw 100-, 115-, and 124-grain ammo downrange in a healthy mix of practice and defensive rounds from Federal, Winchester, and Black Hills, all of which ran flawlessly with zero malfunctions.
The Taurus GX4 has a wide trigger guard and a flat-faced trigger.
One often neglected feature in compact pistols is the trigger guard size. But Taurus paid attention to it. The GX4 incorporates a large trigger guard, wide enough to comfortably insert a gloved finger without the danger of an accidental discharge.
Speaking of the trigger, the GX4 features a flat-faced design with trigger safety. I was half expecting a squishy action with lots of slack and a mushy reset, especially given the price point (see below), but what Taurus gave us instead is a 6-pound pull with a crisp break, minimal slack, and a firm, audible, tactile reset — the kind of trigger feel normally associated with more expensive guns.
I have to call out one feature that floored me, in a good way.
You know how hard it is sometimes to close a slide on a compact with your thumb because the slide stop is just too dang small and hard to push? Not on the Taurus GX4! (It’s the little things, right?) The slide stop on this compact is easy to operate with the thumb, removing the need for a two-hand rack on every reload. This may not sound like a big deal but think about reloading under pressure in a real gunfight. Now, how big of a deal is it? Kudos to Taurus for this little oft-overlooked detail!
The Bad
Now, before you start thinking this is a Taurus GX4 love fest, there are a few things about the gun that definitely could be better. Some are big, some small. Remember, this is a budget-conscious pistol, so don’t expect too many high-end features, but a few small improvements would have been nice.
The Sights
The factory sights are okay but not great. They are basically Glock knockoffs with a non-glowing white dot on the front and blacked-out rear with anti-glare texturing, which is a nice touch if you like blacked-out sights. I’m not a big fan, especially on concealed carry guns designed to be used in heat-of-the-moment self-defense situations where you need to immediately see the sights, but maybe that’s just me.
Thankfully, replacing the stock sights is fairly simple, if you so choose. It would have been nice to see a dayglow sight on front at least, but that might raise the price beyond Taurus’ target market, so maybe we will see that in a 2.0 version down the road.
Takedown
The GX4 has an unconventional takedown system that requires tools. Unlike the typical takedown lever found on most guns, which pushes up or rotates with a finger or thumb to release the slide, the GX4 requires a flathead screwdriver to twist the lever while the trigger is pulled and the slide is pushed forward. And the screw is on the other side of the gun, which is a bit odd.
This is not terribly difficult or prohibitive, just unnecessarily awkward. The good news is once these gyrations are complete, the rest of the takedown process is like any other striker fire.
Where is the accessory rail, even a short one?
Right now it has none, zero, zilch, not even a stub of one for tiny accessories. It would be nice to have at least a little rail to attach a small laser or light. Space is not an issue. There is enough real estate in front of the trigger guard to allow for one. This may not be a huge miss for some, but it might turn off at least a few potential buyers.
One last thing — and this is a biggy.
It’s missing an optic plate, something more and more expected as standard across the pistol world nowadays. While the rest of the compact concealed carry market is either including an optic plate (some even throw in the optic) on new models or going back and adding them to new versions of an existing gun, Taurus inexplicably left off this ever-increasingly popular and important feature.
Even though it should have been on the original, perhaps we will see it as at least an option on any upgraded versions of the GX4 in the future.
The Ugly
Okay, shame on me. Yes, I threw this in just to perpetuate the movie theme at the risk of copyright infringement. There really is nothing ugly about this gun. But there really is nothing all that pretty about it either. In fact, its looks are fairly unremarkable. The GX4’s boxy exterior is neither ugly nor beautiful. It’s…functional, which is fine because it’s a gun, not decoration.
While it won’t win any beauty contests, it also didn’t fall out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down like many other lower-priced firearms. Its design serves the purpose: to hold all the parts and pieces together and provide good ergonomics and concealment for the shooter.
While the GX4 may not be the sexiest gun on the market by a long shot (pun intended), its average looks do justice to a gun that clearly only serves a utilitarian purpose. It’s a box. And that’s okay.
Takeaways
Overall, the Taurus GX4 is a rock-solid, reliable option in a basic carry gun that won’t break the bank. It fits the hands well, shoots flat with minimal felt recoil for a small gun, has enough rounds in the mag to compete in the higher capacity concealed carry market, and performed flawlessly in my limited testing.
Manufacturers will soon introduce holsters and other accessories, so support should be good. If you’re looking for a budget-friendly, no-nonsense, frill-free concealed carry gun that checks all the basic boxes and a few extras, the Taurus GX4 at $392.42 MSRP is definitely well worth consideration.
The following is the notification we initially received about the new micro-nine from Taurus HQ in Bainbridge, GA.
This is a copy of their PR, not a part of a review or endorsement.
Taurus, manufacturer of premium handguns for defense, hunting, and sport shooting, is excited to announce the all-new Taurus GX4, designed to deliver maximum concealment without sacrificing ergonomics, performance, or capacity. In short, the Taurus GX4 offers everything you would expect from a full-frame defensive handgun (and more!) but at a fraction of the size and weight. The new Taurus GX4 redefines the micro pistol segment to deliver the concealability of a .380 but with the power, capacity, and function of a full-size 9mm handgun.
The Taurus GX4 is built on a stainless frame with a polymer grip that earns high marks in shooter comfort and strength. This thin, one-inch-wide frame provides negligible printing when worn inside the waistband and features a grip dimension sized to fit any hand. To ensure structural rigidity and reliable cycling in such a scaled-down foundation, the polymer receiver bolsters an integral stainless-steel framework that eliminates flex or deformation when firing.
Intelligent channeling beneath the slide rail allows for recessed placement of the slide stop lever and takedown pin. This permits easy manipulation of these controls while maintaining a flush, no-snag profile for a smooth draw from deep concealment. Likewise, the magazine release button is flush to the grip to eliminate snag potential without hindering quick manipulation during mag changes.
The stippling pattern along the grip offers the perfect balance of aggressive texture across the front of the grip, the side panels, and the full length of the backstrap for a concealed carry application. Stippling is also found forward of the trigger at the indexing and recoil management pad locations. These pads, working in conjunction with the high-texture grip, help the shooter maintain proper hand positioning and assist in managing 9mm recoil while promoting fast target reacquisition in a small handgun platform.
The Taurus GX4 comes with two backstrap options. Installed at the factory is the standard backstrap profile with its slight palm swell to accommodate the preferred grip for most shooters. Those who favor a higher wrist position for natural point-of-aim via a more pronounced palm swell can install the included high-swell backstrap.
Shooters will enjoy the accuracy and predictability of the Taurus GX4 trigger courtesy of its crisp, precise sear break and the pleasingly short and tactile reset that is fundamental to quick, on-target follow-up shots. Adding to the control quotient are serrations along the trigger safety blade. These serrations help prevent finger slip and promote a straighter, more consistent trigger pull.
Located at the front and back of the slide, the serrations not only provide a positive grip for charging and cartridge extraction, they also allow for push or pull manipulation from either end of the slide to accommodate the shooter’s preferred operation style.
Topping the slide is a fixed-position steel front sight and square-notch steel rear sight. The rear sight features serrations across the back to minimize glare, and the cross-cut dovetail slot allows for drift-adjustment of the sight’s windage. The front sight includes a white alignment dot for improved visibility in reduced light conditions. Understanding that many personal defense practitioners desire a tritium or fiber-optic sight system for extreme low-light performance, the Taurus GX4’s dovetail slot is sized to be compatible with common aftermarket tritium and fiber-optic sights. The front sight also uses the conventional screw attachment system, so upgrading the Taurus GX4™ to aftermarket night sights is a simple matter for a gunsmith or anyone with a pistol sight installation tool.
As with all Taurus polymer frame pistols, the Taurus GX4 slide includes a visual loaded chamber indicator. This allows the shooter to quickly see if a cartridge is loaded in the chamber and eliminates the need for the traditional “press check.” To separate the slide assembly from the frame for cleaning, the Taurus GX4 utilizes an easy take-down pin system.
The Taurus GX4’s 3.06-inch stainless-steel barrel, for example, features a satin black DLC (Diamond-Like Carbon) treatment for reduced friction and greater wear and corrosion resistance. For the slide finish, Taurus engineers opted for a gas nitride coating to maximize slide surface hardness. This treatment is ideal for a gun intended for daily carry and for deep concealment due to its wear resistance properties.
Elsewhere, operational control parts receive a Teflon™ coating. The inherent lubricity of Teflon allows components such as the reversible mag release to operate with maximum smoothness while also resisting wear and corrosion. The steel slide stop has polymer overmolding for maximum durability. Inside the Taurus GX4, metal internal parts are nickel-plated to further resist rust and corrosion.
While the Taurus GX4 proves that neither ergonomics nor reliable performance need be sacrificed to create a full-feature micro pistol, it also proves that firepower or cartridge capacity need not be compromised, either. Chambered for 9mm Luger, the Taurus GX4 delivers several double-stack magazine options.
The Taurus GX4 comes from the factory with two flush 11-round magazines. There is the standard magazine with a floor plate that is flush with the bottom of the grip and an optional 11-round magazine with a finger extension for those who prefer a larger grip surface. If more capacity is desired, Taurus offers an optional 13-round extended magazine. The Taurus GX4 comes in a 10-round magazine version for those consumers in capacity-restricted states.
In keeping with the Taurus philosophy of producing handguns with the industry’s best performance-to-cost ratio, the new Taurus GX4 delivers. With an MSRP of $392.42, Taurus GX4 buyers can enjoy all the feature benefits and ergonomics typically associated with larger polymer frame striker-fired pistols at a price point that fits any budget.
David Workman is an avid gun guy, a contributing writer to several major gun publications, and the author of Absolute Authority. A logophile since way back, Workman is a quickdraw punslinger and NRA RSO and Certified Pistol Instructor. He helps train new shooters on basic handgun skills and CCW requirements and is a strong advocate for training as much as practicable. “Real-world shootouts don’t happen at a box range.”
Boots. Every man, woman, and child should have a good pair of boots. As a real American, I own several, and my latest comes from Viktos in the form of the Johnny Combat boots. Specifically, the black multi-cam variant that gives me a stylish look combined with a practical set of boots. Multi-cam black is rather hipstery, but as the resident tactical hipster, I accept that fully. So how did I review the Johnny Combat boots? Well, I freaking walked in ’em, duh.
Reviewing the Johnny Combat Boots
I got these bad boys in the middle of March and hit the ground running. Well, walking mostly. I was heading to South Carolina for the Gathering event, so I strapped the boots on and jumped on it. Like most gun events, you are on your feet, shuffling from event to event on the shoelace express.
Unlike other events, this one was held outside in the foothills, so lots of up and down, with a hefty dose of bad weather. I faced hills, mud, and lots of clay during this thing.
It presented a good chance to ‘break’ the boots in. As I type this, I hit my hundredth mile wearing the boots with several days of 3 to 5-mile hikes under my belt.
Multicam gets all the love.
For me, rest days involve a long morning walk with a weight vest on. The pace varies on my mood. It’s often faster than your grandma but nowhere near as easy.
Beyond that, I’ve worn them on my quest to be big and fit. The Johnny Combat boots aren’t designed for sprinting, weights, flipping tires, or box jumps, but how else would I know if they work in dynamic movements? I pushed these boots to the edge because I needed to see if they function as good as they look.
I can recreate Fallujah in my backyard, but I still put these bad boys through the wringer.
What I Found Out
The break-in period was anything but. I brought a spare pair of shoes in case the break-in was rough on my feet. My sensitive self didn’t want to deal with blisters and cramping feet at a media event. I never changed out of the Johnny Combat boots. These things never hurt my feet or caused much discomfort.
As far as a break-in goes, the Johnny Combat boots have gotten more comfortable over time, but they never hurt me in the first place. Within that week, in which I walked 18 miles, I would say they had softened up and broken in a bit.
Comfort was always great with the Johnny Combat boots.
Today, on my hundredth mile, I’ve walked a total of 7.73 miles, including a five-mile hike and then my regular around-the-house stuff. Wearing the Johnny Combat boots the entire time, I never felt a single hot spot or blister. It was perfectly comfortable.
When facing down the elements, I also had zero issues. From the cold rain, wind, and mud to the dry spring of Florida, there is nothing that brought shame upon the name. Viktos builds the boots to be inherently water-resistant. While I haven’t tried to go swimming in the Johnny Combat Boots, I’ve struggled through the mud, walked through puddles, and knee-high wet grass. The whole time my beautiful feet remained dry and warm.
Bringing the Heat
Are they jungle boots? Cold weather boots? Well, they are neither. More like a three-season boot or a Florida boot. If I lived up north and faced snow, I might want something heavier; in my weather, they don’t present an issue. Even in the heat, which has climbed to the low 90s this week, the boots are never hot.
They are light enough to breathe and breathe well. In South Carolina, it was rather cold. Colder than I like for my Marches, and again, my feet never felt cold. In the actual desert or in the tundra, I might want something specific, but for the regular world, they’re perfect.
These boots are made for walking… and well..isn’t that what all boots are made for?
Viktos installed a very aggressive tread pattern into the bottom of the Johnny Combat boot. It really digs into the earth and soaks it in. Climbing up and down those South Carolina hills coated with rain and wet clay didn’t slow me down. I didn’t slip and fall, which is a feat for my clumsy ass.
The tread is impressive and provides you a good, stable platform for climbing hills, hiking, and life living.
Putting Work In With the Johnny Combat Boots
I live in the absolute middle of nowhere. I am surrounded by jungle with a thin dirt road as my only access to the world. That thin dirt road is my hiking trail, and depending on the weather, it is covered in either moon dust or the slickest mud imaginable. I’ve dealt with both in the last month and I’ve yet to trip over my own feet.
On tire box jumps, I never slipped and ate dirt either. Doing walking lunges and farmer’s carries also proved that I could keep my feet on the ground without tripping or rolling an ankle. Not to mention side lunges, goblet squats, and burpees were all completed without issue.
These aren’t designed as gym shoes, but a workout proved to be a great way to test them.
The Johnny Combat boots make carrying a heavy load comfortable too. A wide forefoot allows for foot splay under a heavy load. It doesn’t cause the sides of my feet to aggressively rub the boots and challenge my callouses to a fight.
Speaking of Tripping
The week before my first deployment to Afghanistan, we did a three-mile hump to do a final BZO on our weapons and optics. Somewhere on the way back, I rolled an ankle and got a fracture. I then deployed and just taped it up and went on business as usual. Since then, I’ve had a weak ankle and I tend to roll it often.
The Johnny Combat boots are a bit of a weird size that doesn’t conform to the norms of low, mid, and high. Instead, they go up six inches on the ankle and, when tied tight, provide a ton of support to the ankle. It’s almost cast like in its support. Rolling an ankle hasn’t happened yet, and it doesn’t seem to be an option.
The mid-length-ish height provided excellent ankle support.
That being said, I had enough mobility to run sprints (or what my fat ass calls sprints) and flex my footwork around a heavy bag. You certainly feel the tread dig in when doing both. The Johnny Combat boots aren’t too heavy either, so it doesn’t feel like you’re hauling boat anchors. I’m not gonna run in them by choice, but if I had to, these would work.
The slightly lower cut offers a lot of mobility mixed with a lot of stability. It’s an excellent compromise between mobility and stability, and my weak ankle appreciates it.
Tactical Hipster Approved
The Johnny Combat boots and I have some miles in. Happy miles, good miles, miles I wouldn’t trade for anything. They are a rock-solid set of boots that are supportive, offer good mobility, support, and are nice for most weather conditions.
Box jumps suck, but the Johnny Combat Boots don’t.
They also look good! The black Multicam looks excellent, although it likely doesn’t offer me much actual camouflage. Honestly, I plan to wash them after this review. All the clay, sand, and pollen has given them a unique color of filth, and I didn’t pick black Multicam not to show it off.
Check out the Johnny Combat boots and the other gear at Viktos.
Travis Pike is a former Marine Machine Gunner, a lifelong firearms enthusiast, and now a regular guy who likes to shoot, write, and find ways to combine the two. He holds an NRA certification as a Basic Pistol Instructor and is the world’s Okayest firearm’s instructor.
While some internet tough guys pretend they’re ‘Ministers of death, praying for war’, the reality of having to use a firearm for home defense is a grim and terrifying one. Making the decision to defend one’s home and loved ones with lethal force seems like an obvious choice for many gun owners, but it isn’t so cut and dry for everyone. Not just with regard to the implements necessary but also with the willingness and determination to use them. This is as critical to a solid home invasion defense plan as is a reliable self-defense gun and what we’ll refer to as “home defense magazines”.
Personally, I couldn’t live with myself if I had the chance to stop any terrible harm befalling my family – and while that may be the most ethical choice for me, it’s one gun owners shouldn’t take lightly. Taking a human life, no matter how justified, takes a toll on our souls, or for you more agnostic readers, on our psyche.
Though the cost of saving the lives of you and your family may be more material.
Very, very few of us have an elite team of trained shooters standing by to act as a home security system. It’s up to us.
Note:This article originally ran in 2016.
Even if you’ve steeled yourself to the idea of that, courts are full of easily influenced jurors and blood-thirsty prosecutors, though the extent of which greatly depends on your home state – Texas, for instance, is a different world compared to California when it comes to gun- and personal defense laws. Also, even if you’re found innocent, even if you were forced to use violence during hour home invasion defense, unscrupulous family members of your assailant will go after every cent you’ve ever earned.
Once a shooter has made the choice to at least consider the use of deadly force, they must fully commit if they truly care about the outcome.
Think of it like the meek drivers who slowly attempt to merge into fast-moving traffic before getting slammed by a semi. While their milquetoast mentality buys them a few moments more on this Earth, their reluctance to take the initiative ultimately leads to disaster.
Does that mean shooters should pounce at the thought of engaging in a firefight with every mysterious sound they hear in their homes? Not at all – it means being prepared both physically and mentally are equally as important.
When you awake at three in the morning to the sound of your daughter screaming in fright and the icy sound of shattering windows, it’s too late to ponder the moral quandary of having to shoot a man.
If you’re wondering what on Earth that has to do with picking a magazine, it’s all related. Though for me, I believe I would be remiss to not mention the cold, hard realities of any event that might lead to the use of deadly force, home invasion, or otherwise. That said, part of being prepared for dangerous situations at home is having good, reliable equipment.
If a shooter is worried about their equipment not performing, they aren’t 100 percent focused on the task at hand. This is true for competition, target shooting or home defense; though each requires a unique approach and solution.
As I mentioned in my AR15 magazine guide, extended magazines are great for competition use, but their ungainly weight and added length/bulk make them a poor choice for navigating the tight hallways of a residential home.
The key to picking the perfect home defense magazine is to set out certain practical ideals for the magazine and choose a solution that meets or exceeds as many of those metrics as possible. For this guide, I’m going to use my own metrics, but I’ll present them in such a format that they can be tailored for other shooters.
The five areas I use to narrow down my selection are reliability, durability capacity size, and weight.
“But Jim, you forgot price!”
I didn’t forget the price. I intentionally excluded it.
When picking any product that could potentially save your (or someone you love’s) life, cost should be the least influential aspect. After all, would you skimp on a life jacket or seat belt for your child because it was a hundred bucks more than you budgeted for?
(Don’t answer, it’s a rhetorical question)
Home Invasion Defense
Attributes of perfect home defense magazines
Keep this in mind as you read this. We’re linking to some of the magazines we sell from the Warehouse side. That’s what we do — we sell magazines. A vested interest in capitalism our part doesn’t change the truth of what we’re saying. Do some research. Perform some due diligence. We encourage you to make your own informed decision about what to buy: we’d just prefer you buy it here.
Reliability
So we’ll start with reliability. This is an important concept for basically every firearm decision you ever make, save for collectors, and such. An auto-loading firearm is an expensive, awkward, single-shot piece of junk if its magazines aren’t feeding correctly.
The best way to determine which magazine runs best in your given firearm is to test dozens of variations and eliminate them based on your personally experienced failures while minimizing as many variables as possible. So shooters should load the same ammunition they intend to use in a home defense scenario. Also, be sure to clean the gun between tests.
This is prohibitively expensive for most shooters, so I normally suggest narrowing down your selection to three examples: what the military uses, (if a military uses the gun) what competition shooters use and what the factory ships the gun with.
For example, we’ll use the AR-15.
The US Military issues their rifles with STANAG aluminum magazines, but soldiers often purchase polymer Magpul PMAGS, making both of these an acceptable solution. On the competition side, Magpul and Lancer L5 Warfighter magazines rule the day. As for factory magazines, most tactical rifles today ship with Magpul PMAGS for two reasons: they work, and they’re inexpensive. [Edit due to republication: obviously this has changed somewhat since this was first written, but the example remains sound.]
So we’ve got our selection to USGI Aluminum 30-round magazines, Magpul PMAGs and Lancer Systems L5AWM mags.
Durability
Further narrowing down the selection process, let’s take the next metric into consideration – durability. My personal favorite test for this is as simple as it is effective: a drop test.
Get somewhere high enough to drop your fully-loaded magazines approximately ten feet onto concrete. (Note: do not throw them, you want to let gravity determine their velocity, not your arm strength)
Inspect each magazine for anything other than cosmetic damage, and discard any with cracks.
For me, this resulted in the elimination of the USGI aluminum magazine, whose body deformed and prevented the magazine from fitting any magazine wells. The Magpul magazine regurgitated about a half dozen rounds and showed minor scuffing, while the Lancer lost a single cartridge and scrapped its baseplate.
Since these magazines will reside at my bedside, this test was sufficient to determine their ability to withstand abuse. If I were going to deploy somewhere with mechanized infantry, I’d like to test how well these mags tolerate being run over by heavy vehicles. The point here is to always tailor your test to the target environment, and make sure not to go overboard. Be realistic and be practical.
If my favorite magazine melts inside a hot oven or stops .50 BMG rounds, that doesn’t invalidate an otherwise completely reliable performance.
Also, after these durability tests, be sure to use a fresh example for home defense: there’s no sense in taking chances on an invisible crack or hairline fracture. Though you should obviously run your unsullied version through your chosen home defense firearm a few times just in case.
Capacity and Size
With reliability and durability out of the way, it’s time to address capacity and the directly-related issue of size. For the foreseeable future, the larger the magazine, the more rounds it holds…at least until we manage to capture tiny black holes to provide endless streams of ammunition.
As such, picking an ultra-capacious magazine tends to have diminishing returns; especially if the host firearm has a sizable magazine well like the AR15. More on that in a moment.
For now, I take a page from the Roman architectural playbook and subscribe to a golden ratio of magazine-to-rifle size. Unlike the Roman ratio, mine is a nice easy whole number – one.
I try to make the magazine extend no further than the lowest handing portion of the firearm itself – this obviously doesn’t apply to tube-fed firearms. For guns like the traditional-stocked Ruger Mini-14, this is a little tricky as the stock only extends downward far enough to accommodate a 10-round magazine. But, extending past that isn’t as big of a concern since the Mini has such a low profile.
For the more prolific AR15, I try to pick magazines that don’t extend past the pistol grip if possible. I do this because it makes shooting from either a prone or supported position much easier. From the prone, this means not having to balance the rifle on its magazine. For shooting supported or from cover, it’s one less protrusion to get snagged while manipulating the rifle.
Keeping your defensive tool compact means making it more maneuverable in close quarters and tight hallways. It also makes you more mobile. Another contributing factor to this is the weight.
Reloading with good home defense magazines is a better plan than dual-wielding. Doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with a home invasion or you’re at a competition.
Weight
One can subscribe to my ratio theory and still have a tremendously capacious magazine – just look at KCI’s double drum mag. It barely protrudes down past the pistol grip and holds a whopping 100 rounds of 5.56mm ammo.
It’s made of plastic, yet it weighs a freakin’ ton because it holds a ton of ammunition. This is fine if you’re not concerned with moving around with your firearm. So shooters who either don’t have children or family members residing in their homes (or visiting) when a home invasion occurs can pick as high a capacity magazine as their budget or local laws permit.
But if there is even a small chance you’ll be forced to venture out from your bedroom to rescue children or elderly relatives, this weight can be a curse. Manipulating a long arm indoors is already pretty difficult. Add extra bulk and weight and the logistics of flipping light switches and turning doorknobs while one-handing a fully-loaded carbine becomes daunting.
This advice, like most I give, is situational and carries a caveat. Ideally, when dealing with an armed home invader, shooters should take a defensive position in their bedroom facing the only means of egress. Then, call 911, explain that someone is in your house, you’re armed, and are currently in fear of your life.
Most importantly, nothing in your house that isn’t alive is worth dying for – if you can help it at all, stay put. It’s always easier to defend than attack.
Or, find all home defense articles we’ve published.
Jim is a freelance writer for dozens of firearm publications, the host of the YouTube channel Burst Review and the youngest author to write a cover story for Shotgun News in its 86-years of operation. Jim loves anything that goes, ‘boom’ but particularly enjoys military firearms from the Cold War and WW2. When he’s not slinging lead downrange he can be round hiking in the mountains with his wife Kim and their vicious attack dog, Peanut.
Of the Velo, Tenicor says: “The VELO holster is intelligently designed, easy to conceal, and built for every day. It is an appendix carry holster intended to be worn in front of the hip around slot terbaru one o’clock (for right-handed shooters). Bulky heavy clothes are no longer required; the VELO holster enhances your ability to carry a gun every day, even in tailored or athletic fit clothing.”
Tenicor describes the Certum thusly: “The CERTUM3 is Tenicor’s take on the classic fold-over inside-the-waistband holster. The streamlined profile and precision molding create https://www.openthailandsafely.org/ a sleek, intelligently designed holster. Excess is eliminated, and the result is unencumbered and precise performance.”
About Tenicor in their own words: “Tenicor is an American design, development, manufacturing, and training company. We build products that work. Since 2008, we have been determined in our design, development, and testing of innovative and slot gacor malam ini intelligent equipment. In 2017, we introduced our first commercially available products.”
Brock Trautman is the senior news anchor for The Mag Life, the official publication of GunMag Warehouse. He’s also a cartoon, so…don’t get butt-hurt about anything he says. He’s not making subjective judgments on things, or reviewing anything – he’s just passing along the news.
The venerable AK is one of the most recognizable rifles on the planet. There are so many that you’ll find them in every corner of all three worlds —first, second, and third—as a much-adored go-to for both military and personal protection. Because they are so popular, every gun maker out there makes some sort of straight AK or AK lookalike to satisfy the huge demand. Palmetto State Armory is no exception.
As reviewer Garand Thumb points out in the video below, the new PSA AK-103 may not be a pure AK-103, but it’s pretty darn close—close enough that non-die-hard enthusiasts might not know or care about the differences.
Tip to butt, what is this gun, from a shooter’s perspective?
To start, it has a pretty typical modern AK-100 series muzzle brake, “These muzzle brakes are very, very effective at controlling AK recoil. You can see in the video, this weapon does not really dance around and that is pretty cool, given the fact that it is launching a 7.62 x 39 round.”
Thumb points out that a lot of muzzle flash and concussion come with this particular muzzle brake, so he recommends the use of a suppressor for low-light situations.
As for the barrel, Thumb says, “Palmetto State Armory has done a lot of very incredible things in the AK world, and the barrel is absolutely one of them.” The cold hammer-forged barrel is made by Fabrique National made specifically for this gun. “What an incredible barrel to include on a very cheap gun.”
The PSA AK-103 has typical AK-100 series furniture, which can easily be switched out for modern furniture. It comes with your typical AK iron sights and they are very well constructed, there’s no canting.
One of the amazing things about the AK-103 is the forged parts like the front trunnion, carrier, and bolt which makes the rifle more reliable and longer-lasting. It’s got a typical AK magazine release and takes various AK magazines including Bulgarian and Magpul mags.
Thumb says the safety is incredible, “The thing that always annoys me with AKs is how terrible the safeties are. So, by having the enhanced safety on the PSA, one—that’s awesome. And two, it’s very easy to manipulate.”
How about quality?
How does this compare to other AKs out there? According to Thumb, after over 3,000 rounds, the rifle has held together just fine, with no pins walking out or other design/build issues. The gas block and system have held up perfectly with zero issues. Overall, he says, the build quality has been outstanding.
As far as accuracy over the long haul, Thumb says the cold-forged barrel resisted serious deflection after heating up, allowing for tight groupings even on faraway targets.
The PSA AK-103 may not be a pure AK, but it’s still a ton of fun and just as potent as its original Russian daddy.
So how much are you shelling out for this Cold War beauty? The fixed stock version will run you about $899 rubles, sorry, dollars, while the folding stock version kicks it up to around $1,000. Compared to other AKs out there, that’s a pretty sweet price point.
To the naked eye, you’d never know this wasn’t an authentic AK. Shooting it won’t give away its secret either.
Check out all the rest of his comments in the video. Afterward, check out our selection of AK mags and accessories.
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David Workman is an avid gun guy, a contributing writer to several major gun publications, and the author of Absolute Authority. A logophile since way back, Workman is a quickdraw punslinger and NRA RSO and Certified Pistol Instructor. He helps train new shooters on basic handgun skills and CCW requirements and is a strong advocate for training as much as practicable. “Real-world shootouts don’t happen at a box range.”
