Tom is a former Navy Corpsman that spent some time bumbling around the deserts of Iraq with a Marine Recon unit, kicking in tent flaps and harassing sheep. Prior to that he was a paramedic somewhere in DFW, also doing some Executive Protection work between shifts. Now that those exciting days are behind him, he teaches wilderness medicine and runs an on-demand medical staffing business. He hopes that his posts will help you find solid gear that will survive whatever you can throw at it–he is known (in certain circles) for his curse…ahem, ability…to find the breaking point of anything.
You can reach him at tom.r AT thefirearmblog.com or at https://thomasrader.com
Let’s be honest. Most of us get the cheesy required gun lock when we buy a gun. And that cheesy lock gets chucked on a shelf (or in a bag), and we forget about it (until we sell it). And if we do actually install it on a gun, we find it is basically useless. [Read More…]
Welcome to the third installment of our ballistic gel testing series. The current series is sponsored by Clark Armory who provided the testing medium and rounds. Technical Details of Gorilla Silverback in .45ACP The Gorilla Silverback (both variations) are following the [Read More…]
Now before you tune out just because this is a vertical fore grip, I implore you to read a little further. A couple of years ago I reviewed a Grip Pod, but really didn’t do much with it after. It was solidly built and put up with a ton of abuse, but again, it was [Read More…]
Walt (at BMC Tactical) occasionally breaks out the shop’s .416 so people can shoot $7 of freedom (on New Year’s Day and 4th of July). The problem is that it is not zero’ed for distance shooting. Mainly because he’d rather have people [Read More…]
When it rains it pours. I’ve not previously been interested in the 6.5 Creedmoor round (not because of any dislike; I just haven’t had the bandwidth to engage it) and I recently found out I am getting the chance to review a rifle chambered in it. Queue [Read More…]
Now that I have become interested in precision shooting, I am always on the lookout for products and services related to that field. An email from Burris (whatever your opinion of their optics may be) hit my inbox and I am please to see technology being brought to bear [Read More…]
With the relatively “new” craze of mounting optics to your handgun comes another entry into the market, specifically for the Leupold Deltapoint Pro (I am firmly in “Camp Leupold”). Who would have anticipated the popularity of Glocks for getting [Read More…]
Tacshield Belt It seems like I have reviewed a ton of belts in the past few months, and honestly they have all been good products, though I have found that each belt has it’s place, and the “thing” it is best at. I don’t think there is “one [Read More…]
Now that I have started getting interested in precision long range shooting, I’m actively hunting for gear. While I have come to believe (and have been so instructed) that learning to manually range find is one of the core skills that all shooters should have [Read More…]
Another topic wreathed in myth and lore among firearms enthusiasts is the cleaning of their toys and tools. Some say never clean it, some clean every X number of rounds, some clean after every trip. Some swear by Hoppes #9 (and I’ll admit there is something deeply [Read More…]
So, a friend of mine approached me about holster selection the other day, and I thought about it a little bit and decided I really didn’t have a good answer. And really, neither did the internet (at least not a consolidated answer). Along the lines with gun [Read More…]
Tikka, the Finnish manufactured rifle by Sako, has updated their popular T3 line to the “T3x” with nineteen variant builds (which should make Tom Gomez happy since he loves the Tikka): T3x HUNTER T3x HUNTER STAINLESS T3x HUNTER FLUTED BARREL T3x HUNTER [Read More…]
RISE Armaments RA-140 SST RISE Armaments was kind enough to send me out one of their RA-140 Super Sporting Triggers shortly after they launched (and when they were in super high demand). I had the opportunity to run the trigger for somewhere north of seven-hundred fifty [Read More…]
So, now that I have been playing around with modifications to my Glock 17 in the pursuit of building a “race” gun, or NotGlock, I have started to encounter interesting issues. Take for example, installing a Ghost Elite Trigger Connecter which requires [Read More…]
Ballistic Testing of G2 Civic Duty in 9mm Welcome to the second installment of our ballistic gel testing series. The current series is sponsored by Clark Armory who provided the testing medium and rounds. Technical Details of G2 Civic Duty in 9mm The G2 [Read More…]
Discreet Messenger Bag A messenger bag, Tom? Really? Yep. Let me tell you about it. I had an earlier iteration of ITS Tactical‘s Discreet Messenger Bag and carried it every working day of my previous career. And it was my full “Get Home Bag”, along [Read More…]
Unity Tactical, who has produced the EXO Mount for Surefire weapon lights and the Monkey Bar MBUS Pro Offset mount has a new product hitting the market–a sort of cummerbund battle belt pouch system. I know right? Kind of a strange idea, though not an entirely [Read More…]
The Crossbreed Freedom Carry Holster I have recently “commandeered” my wife’s Glock 19 and have been carrying it pretty regularly in my Alien Gear Cloak Tuck IWB. I’d heard a number of good things about CrossBreed, but had never bought one, so I was definitely [Read More…]
TriStar 120 One of the things I really appreciate about being a writer for The Firearm Blog is being exposed to platforms and weapons I would otherwise not have access to, or go out of my way to try. At SHOT 2015 I had been scheduled for a review of the TriStar T-120, [Read More…]
I’m not sure that wearing around an inch and a quarter thick plate of titanium is an improvement over the thinner steel (based on bulkiness), but it sure does stop the rounds, even a black tip .50BMG (which almost made it through). I imagine that the energy [Read More…]
Guns ending up on the “black market” is generally bad for everyone. These are typically used in crimes, and each year, the BATFE releases a state by state report of firearm traces which includes firearms that have been recovered from crime scenes (and have purchased [Read More…]
First-Light is a small U.S. company that has some pretty cool lights which have a lot of utility in a number of venues. The new model they were showcasing at SHOT was called the TORQ and immediately evoked nostalgia for those old school USGI Angle Head [Read More…]
This year (as I mentioned in another article), I had been pre-contacted for an interview for a company that had a couple of products of interest to me, International Supplies. Also, after publishing a press release for a company selling shooting sticks (earlier this [Read More…]
I have a soft spot for storage things and ways to carry stuff. Probably some off-shoot from my OCD. Anyway, I am drawn to boxes and packs and hard cases whenever I see them. This year, I had been pre-contacted for an interview for a company that had a couple of products [Read More…]
Interestingly enough I found out about Laser Ammo while I was at the CoolFire booth. One of the guys from Laser Ammo had staged number of their small, laser-reactive targets (Interactive Multi Training Electronic Target System) to be used with the CO2 operated laser [Read More…]
While I was trolling the lanes at SHOT I happened upon a cool little booth offering a system for dry firing with a difference from any other system I had seen on the floor—it enables you to train with recoil. The system at the heart is very simple—it is a barrel [Read More…]
It is no lie that I am a fan of Primary Weapons Systems rifles. I own both their “Modern Musket” (which is the base of my 3-Gun Rifle), and the Mark 216 (which is actually my first AR-10). I stopped by their booth for a chat even though I wasn’t planning to cover [Read More…]
One of the requests for things to check out at SHOT was to preview the NEXT area (which showcases manufacturers and vendors that haven’t been to SHOT), and I had decided to make Wednesday a day to look for cool things related to training. Based on that tip, I went by [Read More…]
One of the requests for things to check out at SHOT was to preview the NEXT area (which showcases manufacturers and vendors that haven’t been to SHOT), and I had decided to make Wednesday a day to look for cool things related to training. Based on that tip, I went by [Read More…]
I run the RISE Armaments RA-535 trigger and RA-701 muzzle device on my 3-Gun rifle, both of which I love (and am nearly finished with a review on their “entry level” RA-140 trigger). So I definitely had to stop by their booth and see what was new this year (I only [Read More…]
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