Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to TFB’s Silencer Saturday, brought to you by Yankee Hill Machine, manufacturers of the new Victra 20-gauge shotgun suppressor. Last week, we looked at blast overpressure risk from shooting small arms, particularly indoors. This week, we are turning to testing that maps these risks with suppressed firearms.

Today’s Photo of the Day comes from an eye-catching listing on GunBroker, featuring a striking POF‑USA P415 that has been finished in a full nickel plating. The rifle originates from Patriot Ordnance Factory, a company known for producing piston-driven AR-pattern rifles and other fun components.

Being entrenched in the world of firearms like many of us are, we also look to the fringes of our world to see how else we can remain protected, prepared, and armed with tools for self-defense. A big one that many people will search out are body armor plates. For some, it could be simply for the LOLZ among the bros and for LARP-ing (Live Action Role Playing, but not the Dungeons and Dragons kind). For others, it is a piece of their kit meant for duty use. For the more serious folks in the reading audience, we are going to take a look at the Strike Industries Hyperion Armor RF3 Level IV Plates to see how they can serve you for training, duty, and protection. Let’s dive in!

The joke about Fudds is that they’re in love with wood-and-steel guns, think semi-auto functionality is a curse of Satan himself and that they poo-poo any caliber below the .30-06. And yeah, some of those things are true, or at least sort of, speaking from the perspective of a professional Fudd—and yet, this Fudd is here to tell you that you should hunt with an AR-15. Here are four good reasons to do so.

Turkish manufacturer Derya Arms is making a real lane change with the   EX1400, a 12-gauge side-by-side that trades the company's usual tactical DNA for a traditional break-action format. For a brand that built most of its U.S. visibility around magazine-fed and tactical-style shotguns, that's a notable product-positioning move.

SIG handed the P320 platform to Daniel Horner and told him to build something that works on a shot timer and a nightstand. The result is the P320-XFIVE DH3, a competition-weight 9mm that keeps enough tactical hardware to pull double duty.

Coming out of Vortex's bag of surprises for 2026 is the new Vortex Strike Eagle 1-10x24 FFP riflescope. This new addition to Vortex's extremely popular budget line of LPVOs boasts a lot of the same features you’ll find on more expensive optics, but won’t come with the typical expensive LPVO price. This new offering will come in two different reticle options, new auto-off features to save your battery, and will be sold for a starting MSRP of just $699.

What you carry every shift, what you actually use, and what the cumulative cost looks like after a decade on the job.

In late 2024, Vietnam’s defense industry publicly revealed a locally produced light machine gun (LMG) based on Israel Weapon Industries’ (IWI) Negev design. The 7.62x39mm-chambered variant, commonly referred to in Vietnamese sources as the STrL-7.62 or STrL-7,62VN, represents a further deliberate effort by the country’s armaments sector to modernize squad automatic weapons while preserving logistical commonality with the large stocks of ammunition, AK magazines, and RPD belts that remain in service. “STrL” translates to “medium automatic gun,” as it is intermediately chambered. The new weapon is built at Factory Z111, a state-owned small-arms factory located in Thanh Hoá, south of Hanoi. It produces Vietnam’s licensed and unlicensed production and indigenous derivatives of foreign designs.

Far north of their usual operating areas, Swedish Air Force Rangers recently brought their new AK24 service rifles to Greenland as part of Arctic training operations. The deployment marks one of the northernmost appearances of Sweden’s latest standard-issue rifle to date. Would you run your weapon wet or dry?

Welcome back to another edition of Concealed Carry Corner. Last week, we took a look at some of the pros and cons of carrying a backup gun. If you happened to miss that article, be sure to click the link here to check it out. The comment section made an interesting argument for the amount of ammo someone should carry. This week, I wanted to take a deeper look at how many rounds you should have when you carry a concealed handgun daily. There's no exact, definitive answer, but there's a good baseline to build off. Let's try to answer the question of how much ammo you should carry.

A bill sitting on Governor Abigail Spanberger's desk would strip firearms dealers and manufacturers in Virginia of the liability protections that currently shield them from lawsuits when legally sold guns are later used in crimes. House Bill 21, which passed both chambers of the General Assembly, would subject the firearms industry to the same civil liability standards as any other business in the state.

What sets the Omni Buster apart from some competitors is that the gas mitigation is truly ambidextrous. Breek Arms specifically calls out that it works "without relying on unidirectional features that favor a single shooting orientation." A lot of suppressor-ready charging handles on the market redirect gas effectively for right-handed shooters, but leave lefties dealing with the same problem from the other side. If Breek's design actually delivers symmetric gas management, that's a meaningful differentiator.

Smith & Wesson posted net sales of $135.7 million for Q3 fiscal 2026, revenue up 17.1% year over year, with margins improving for the third consecutive quarter. The official release dropped on March 5.

On today’s episode of TFB’s Behind the Gun Podcast, I’ve brought on Vortex Edge's Chris Urrutia: A battle-tested Marine Scout Sniper veteran, ex SWAT sniper, and current Vortex Edge instructor/RSO specializing in handguns. Today, Chris and I reflect on a recent trip to Vortex Optics HQ/Edge I had, which generated a lot of questions, and today Chris is going to share his insights into how he goes about honing his razor-sharp pistol fundamentals, training discipline, progress measurement, and, of course, his top gear picks for 2026. From purpose-driven indoor drills to combat-proven progression plans that blend competition speed with real-world reliability, Chris reveals how Vortex Edge hones elite competency for civilians, vets, competition shooters, and LEOs through unmatched optics mastery and measurable gains no other program delivers. Please give Chris a warm welcome to the show!

Winchester's been making moves into the optics world with their Supreme Optics line, and I had the opportunity to get some “trigger time” with their W7x24mm laser rangefinder. This is the bigger brother of their two rangefinder offerings, with a claimed 3,000-yard max range and 1,500 yards on game. I got it out to the range for a couple sessions to see what Winchester's rangefinder game looks like. Let's dive right into the Winchester Supreme W7x24mm!