The Moscow Times reports that on 31 Jan. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a decree allowing law enforcement officials to carry imported guns for self-defense.
The guns on the allowed list are the Beretta 92, CZ 75 and Glock 17. These are all chambered in 9mm Luger/Parabellum.
Previously they had been limited to the Makarov PM which fires the 9x18mm Makarov cartridge that is more than 30% less powerful than the 9mm Luger/Parabellum.
The Makarov pistol. Photo from AdamsGuns (used with permission)
I suspect this is the first time in the history of the Russian Empire since the Russian Tsar imported the S&W Schofield Revolver in 1880 that officials will be carrying foreign made pistols. Russian ended up canceling a large quantity of their order from S&W and produced clones themselves. Thanks to Brno223 for the correction.
UPDATE: Supernaut let me know in the comments that the internal security police have been using Glocks and other European firearms in a limited capacity for a while now.
Defense Industry Daily reports that the Marines are getting a new spotting scope called the Scout Sniper Observation Telescopes (SSOT). The SSOT is a variant of the Horus Vision Leupold spotting scope system designed specifically for snipers.
Horus Vision Leupold spotting scope
I was amazed that the M49, the standard military spotting scope, was designed during WWII!
Picture of M49 from War Department manual TM 9-1556 published in 1944.
In my personal opinion, optics are one of the two major improvements in firearm technology since WWII (the other being ammunition component improvements). While I am sure the current M49′s exceed the mil specs from the 1940s it is only 20x in power and has no reticle.
UPDATE: According to Allen, a Marine vet and analyst at The Columbia Group, The Marines will be using a standard Gen II Mil-Dot reticle, not the Horus reticle described below.
The Horus Vision Leupold, as the name suggests, is made with Leupold optics, and offers 12.7-38.1x zoom. Its main feature is the reticles. Unlike standard mil-dot these show a 2d-grid which allows for precise calculations of holdover and, in the case of a spotter for a sniper, calculating speed of moving objects.
Horus H36 reticle.
This promotion video shows how it works. The video is showing the Horus line of rifle scopes, not the spotting scope, but the idea is the same.
Defense Industry Daily has more info and details of the contact awarded to Horus.
The IBM bullet dodging patent story, which originally broke on this blog after being discovered by reader Daniel E. Watters, created quite a lot of noise on the internet.
Noah at Danger Roomnoticed that the patent has since been withdrawn. It seems odd to go to all that work writing a patent, paying lawyers, only to withdraw it after news of its existance hits the internet days later. Anyone know if this happens frequently?
I had already used pat2pdf.org to convert the patent to a PDF. So here is patent number 07484451 hosted on scribd for your viewing pleasure
The lesson here is that you cannot deleted stuff off the internet, someone, somewhere, has a copy.
Tech-Sight who are well known for M16 style peep sight for the Ruger 10/22 will be selling an AK peep sight later this year.
It features a “GI” style post and aperture sight picture, return to zero system (presumably after the receiver dust cover is removed) and detent locking click adjustments. UPDATE: War Wolf called them and found out the MSRP will be $100 – $125.
I think this could be a very popular accessory, if the return to zero works as advertised. Peep sights are great, I learnt to shoot with a peep sight and still prefer them over scopes.
James started blogging at Hell in a Handbasket seven years ago. His blog has changed quite a bit since then, the Internet Archive of the blog back in 2003 looks quite different, but he stuck with it and now blogs about self defense. It is one of my favorite gun blogs and I highly recommend it
Suppressor maker Gemtech will be selling a customized GSG-5 SD rifle that is suppressed. The GSG-5 SD is a .22 rifle patterned after the MP5SD, but the suppressor on it is fake.
The Gemtech GSD-5 is permanently suppressed (you cannot remove the suppressor) and is available in either a 16″ barrel configuration or in a SBR config. The price for the 16″ model will be $1195.
Florian @ sig556reviews.com has posted an extensive review of the TangoDown Model ACB-4 Advanced Combat Bipod.
I finally got my TangoDown Combat Bipod in on Friday after an almost 4 week wait. I put it on my Sig 556 SWAT the same day and took it out on Saturday. I have to say, the wait was definitely worth it.
As a bonus Florian has included a bunch of photos of his Sig 556 rifle.
Pretty quickly it turns out. James Yeager TASERed three of his students to find out. They had to complete a simple course of fire as fast as possible after being zapped. The first two guys did very well. The last guy was definitely a little shaken.
