Palmetto State Armory is among the most creative and shameless firearms companies. They have come out with look-alike firearms of popular or historic firearms at half the cost. For example, the PSA JAKL is essentially a clone of the failed Magpul MASADA assault rifle which became the failed Bushmaster ACR.
The JACKL is a cosmetic modification of an AR upper on MilSpec lower. Since the JAKL’s release, a number of YouTubers have criticized the JACKL’s reliability. PSA is not unaware of these videos and user feedback.
To address some of the reliability issues, PSA created a custom lower which better optimizes the design of the JACKL upper. At this year’s SHOT Show, they released the Jackl 2
This is a design prototype and PSA wants to gauge public interest. PSA is asking fans to vote for their top 3 SHOT Show concept guns on their website. The top-voted guns will be developed into production guns, just like the original Jackl and the upcoming M5.7 pistol.
Palmetto State Armory is among the most creative and shameless firearms companies. They have come out with look-alike firearms of popular or historic firearms at half the cost. Last year, PSA created a custom housing for their Rock 5.7 pistol to create the X5.7, a look-alike H&K MP7. This was a boon for MP7 fans because the MP7 isn’t available for civilian purchase in the US.
This year PSA is in the final production models of the X5.7. In response to popular requests, they created another MP7 look-alike utilizing their Dagger Glock-alike action. PSA is gauging interest in a production X9 by asking fans to vote for their favorite prototype.
OLight surprised many when they quietly debuted their OSight micro-reflex sight. Nobody expected a flashlight company known for high-performance-budget-priced EDCs to make a pistol optic. I was not expecting them to follow up the following year with a big launch of two new variants, the compact OSight S (which I have reviewed) and the upgraded OSight X.
I presume the X stands for extra because on the surface the X looks nearly identical to the standard OSight. It has some minor superficial differences with the placement of logos and a different-sized tap and counter-sink on the mounting holes to utilize more industry-standard mounting screws. The X retains the OSights features such as motion activation, wireless recharging cover, and auto-brightness sensing.
The X now features user-changeable reticles. Pressing the “-” button allows the user to cycle between a 3 MOA dot, 32 MOA sunburst circle, and 32 MOA circle-dot. The X also has a slightly larger battery capacity and substantially longer runtime. The X is rated to run for 57,000 hours, whilst the standard OSight was rated 70,000 hours with the dot set at its lowest brightness. Both will run for about 2 weeks constant at max brightness.
The X can be recharged using OLights USB magnetic contact chargers used on their EDC flashlights but its primary charging method is the plastic cover box which displays the current battery charge level of the OSight when attached. Moreover, the charging cover has an onboard battery that can fully recharge the OSight up to 4 times. The cover can be plugged into a USB-C cable to recharge the OSight and the cover.
The battery capacity indicator alone should change the minds of anyone (myself included) concerned with a red dot with a dead battery. Replacing a coin battery quickly and cheaply has its advantages, but no red dot I own can display the current charge level of the coin battery powering it. With the cover recharges and onboard battery, the X can theoretically run for over 28 years when both are fully charged.
With all of these upgrades, I’m left with only three questions. First, when is OLight coming out with a green illuminated OSight X? Second, why even make the standard OSight without the X’s features? Third, shut up and take my money.
Discovery Optics is known for making high-quality optics for ridiculously affordable prices. But what I discovered at their SHOT Show 2025 booth was something even more surprising than a new scope, it was a prototype of a budget thermal scanner.
It was closer to a pre-production model than a rough prototype. The body was milled aluminium and the controls and displays were well thought out. The unit was about the size of an EOTech holographic sight. It has a QD Picatinny base that mates with an included handle.
Its primary use is as a handheld thermal scanning camera to look for living creatures such as game or search-and-rescue. Because of its base, it could be mounted onto a rifle rail and has been recoil-rated to .308 and higher. There was a high-resolution and a cheaper low-resolution version.
Just before SHOTShow 2025 KelTec announced the release of a pistol that was strange and unusual; even for KelTec and that’s saying something. The PR57 is a compact double-action-only pistol, chambered in 5.7, with an internal 20-round magazine, which means this is a clip-loaded pistol.
Stripper clip pistols haven’t been common since the early 20th century. And nobody I know of has made a new one in decades. It is probably no coincidence that the most recent clip-loaded pistol was the Zytec Grendel which the founder of KelTec invented.
I had a chance to try out this pistol at the SHOT2025 Range Day. Jokes about KelTec reliability aside, it appeared solid and equal to KelTec’s pistols in build quality and construction. Notable was its double-action trigger (which is also becoming exceedingly uncommon) which also functioned as the slide disassembly lever when pushed forward.
It was remarkably light at 14oz unloaded and loading and unloading it was simple enough using their adapter/loader which functions like a stripper-clip in function. Shooting, it had had a lot less recoil and snap than a 9mm or .38 of similar size. It shot flat and accurately (I was able to hit an IPSC plate a few times at 100yrds though any misses were shooter error).
It is a much better pistol than I gave it credit. But I think it’s a solution looking for a problem as its utility seems to elude me. And 5.7 is not a caliber I want to get into due to its cost per round. THE PR57 will probably attract the gun buyers who want something very different at the range, that can cause other folks to ask to try it.
Last year, Olight released the OSight, a revolutionary micro reflex sight (MRD) with a unique wireless charging cover. The OSight features an oversized window, which is great for fast target acquisition and re-engaging the target during rapid fire. However, a large window is a negative for those who want to mount an MRD onto a compact concealed carry pistol. OLight created the OSight S to address this issue.
The OSIght S (presumably this stands for “small) uses an RMSc footprint and is one of the smallest enclosed emitter red dots available. It is roughly half the physical size of the OSight but its smaller size means it also has a smaller battery. Fully charged an OSight can run for up to 21,000 hours, which is over 2 years. For those concerned with a non-replaceable internal battery, the OSight comes with a cover that displays the OSights battery charge level. Moreover, this cover functions as a mini-powerbank, capable of recharging the OSight up to 4 times.
Despite its small size the OSight S has the full-sized OSight X’s changeable reticle system. The user can press the “-” button to switch between a 2 MOA dot, 32 MOA circle, and a circle-dot reticle. This feature makes the OSight S one of the smallest MRDs on the market and also the most versatile.
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Bear Creek Arsenal is a value-priced ARs, firearms, and components maker. But it isn’t as well known as some other value-priced brands like Palmetto State Armory. What’s surprising to many more is Bear Creek Arsenal also sells branded rifle scopes and red dots. But more surprising to me is that they make a low-priced 30x scope.
The BCA SSCP is a 5-30x scope with a Christmas Tree reticle but in SFP which means the reticle doesn’t change size or thickness when changing the magnification. This means the ranging marks are only shown accurately when using it at 30x (without using mental math) but it also means the reticle is visually prominent and usable at 5x. For many hunters, this is a desirable trade-off.
Given its low price, there will be compromises. The turret numbers do not line up to the witness mark. Optically, it has a tight eye box and noticeable chromatic aberration. The image gets milky and dark at 24-30x.
For hunters looking for more magnification than a typical 4-16x scope but with a very tight budget the SSCP is a scope to consider. For someone interested in getting into long-range shooting on a shoestring, the optical limitations may be frustrating.
After the wildfires devastated Maui in 2023, one of the many victims left in the aftermath were the pets. These animals were left homeless and separated from their families who were relocated to shelters or relatives homes; some on other islands. These house pets were thirsty and hungry out in the open.
My neighbor Jessica, traveled to Maui as a volunteer to help locate these abandoned animals. Traumatized, they often hid from searchers. Fortunately, Jessica brought a Helion 2 thermal monocular which helped them locate many of these animals.
The Helion 2 is a handheld thermal imaging camera that has video and photo capabilities. Its lens has a built-in base magnification of 2.5x. The images look like black-and-white high-resolution security camera footage highlighted by bright red objects which are heat sources (it renders temperature differences rather than raw heat). It is also able to magnify its footage to 5x, 10x, and 20x but this is a digital zoom, which in effect enlarges the pixels and renders less detail.
Thermal imaging is a huge leap in detecting living things at night and even in complete darkness. In some ways better than Gen3 night vision goggles. But it does so with the same >$3000 dollar price tag as military-grade night vision. It’s certainly not something I will be purchasing anytime soon but I’m glad volunteers like my neighbor had access to this technology to do good.
