#9mmNATO

As you know, this year Vista Outdoor ammunition brands came up with a large number of new products. Some of the most interesting ones we covered in separate dedicated articles and today we’ll take a brief look at the rest of the new products released by Federal Premium Ammunition, CCI, Blazer and Speer.

We fired Speer 124 gr Short Barrel Gold Dot from a S&W Shield through heavy clothing and bare gel to assess penetration, expansion, and retained weight. The Speer Gold Dot is one of the most highly regarded handgun projectiles for defense, but we find some surprising results with this load.

Is SIG about to win a major contract – likely worth more than ten million dollars – to supply pistols for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency? That is the scuttlebutt on the street, as part of a wider theory that the agency’s Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs is in the pocket of SIG’s sales department. Whether this is true or not is unknown, but according to WeaponsMan’s Hognose, that’s the perception among the agency’s rank-and-file:

The US Army released its second draft of the request for proposal (RFP) for its Modular Handgun System earlier this week. The draft gives the designation for whichever handgun is selected as “XM17”. From the draft RFP: