At Shot Show 2023, I got an early look Lapua’s new Long Range and Super Long Range .22LR ammunition. They claim these new rounds are designed to shoot consistently at ranges of 200yrds, 300yrds or more.T he bullet and case are identical to Lapua’s Center-X and Midas+ match .22LR. By tuning the powder chemistry they claim to have increased velocity by a modest 30fps while keeping the maximum velocity spread to a minimum.
The new ammo will be released towards the end of February. I’m hoping to get my hands on some directly from Lapua to test and evalute myself.
At this year’s Shot Show 2023, I got an opportunity to check out Rock Island Armory’s newest pistol design. Not just see it at the booth but actually shoot it at Industry Range Day. This new 9mm has a low barrel axis design with the slide riding inside of the frame like the CZ 75, FN Bruno, and Sig 210. The RIA 5.0 shares no parts or magazine compatibility with those other pistols.
The RIA I shot on Range Day had a 4 lb single-action trigger that felt smooth, crisp, and tuned. It has a 4.9″ barrel with a unique rectangular profile that locks up with the aluminum frame to make it a very flat shooter. I was able to keep the barrel pointed easily with very little jump. I did experience one malfunction due to ammo not going bang (solid primer strike noted on the cartridge). And one momentary pause when an ejected shell lodged between my eye-pro and my forehead. Given the amount of use that pistol got that day without a cleaning, I’d say it ran reliably.
The initial release will only be available in black Cerakote, though the samples at their booth were in other colors, so other options will likely be forthcoming in the future. The pistol has a 17+1 capacity and comes with a single 17 round magazine. They will offer two models at release, a standard model with fibre optic sights (MSRP $998), and a SP model with a pre-installed C-more RTS2 red dot (MSRP $1298). Unfortunately it is yet another new, modern pistol that us law-abiding Californians are not allowed to own.
Rock Island Armory’s parent company is Armscor which was founded in the Philippines. Its not surprising that many of their staff are Filipino, as am I. I was able to make use of my limited fluency in my mother tongue to film a Tagalog language version of my booth visit video.
Guns are often called “Toys for big boys”. But at Shot Show 2023, we came across real toys at the Barnett booth. Barnett makes modern hunting crossbows made with polymer, carbon fibre, and optical sights. But they also make youth bows and slingshots.
The Phantom crossbows are plastic toy bows which fire suction darts that can travel 15′-20′. Toy crossbows aren’t anything new but what makes the Phantom special is that they have an internal magazine which hold up to 3 darts and allow the shooter to fire them in rapid succession, like a pump shotgun.
The Phantom is expect to ship in early Summer 2023.
Aero Precision is well known for making some of the best built ARs. They brought their engineering experience in aerospace manufacturing to firearms, hence their name. Recently they’ve diversified into other rifle platforms including Pistol Caliber Carbines (PCCs) and this year officially released their first bolt-action precision riles: the SOLUS.
At Shot Show 2023’s Industry Range Day, I got a chance to shoot a SOLUS rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor. The PRS Competition rifle I shot is modeled after the Remington 700 action with a lot of parts compatibility. Aero made some improvements including a 20MOA Picatinny optics rail integral to the receiver, a short 60º throw and a reinforced 3-lug bolt.
I shot a mag and half and got a good first impression. I don’t know how many rounds my sample rifle has had through it, but the bolt pulled smoothly. The trigger was crisp. The Aero designed chassis was well built with a nice thin profile hand guard with an integral ARCA/Swiss rail. I was able to reliably hit the 900m gong with a 10-30 mph gusting cross-winds.
The SOLUS system is available as a drop-in barrel and action or as a complete rifle. And sadly one of the few new guns I saw at SHOT show that will be coming to California.
While visiting the Leupold booth at Shot Show 2023, I asked John Snodgrass which scope he would recommend for NRL22 and without hesitation he said any of the Mark 5HD line, because it offered the highest quality optical clarity for small rimfire projectiles, along with the widest variety of reticle design to suit most NRL22 shooters.
At my visit to the Leupold booth at this year’s Shot Show, I got an opportunity see their newest Mark 5 HD 2-10×30. This scope appeals to that niche of old-school hunters who always insisted that a 3-9x scopes is all you need. But want the extra. This 2-10x scope has the Mk5HD’s bright glass and excellent turrets.
This scope will be releasing soon with a price of $1999 on the Leupold website, perhaps slightly cheaper when on sale on Amazon and select online and big-box retailers. https://www.leupold.com/mark-5hd-2-10×30-m5c3-ffp-tmr
I was asked what was the most interesting thing I saw at Shot Show this year and I replied, “Its not a gun.” Sometimes you see a product that is so simple and obvious that it’s brilliant. That’s what I saw at the Magpul booth their new DAKA Grid System.
DAKA is the brand name of Magpul’s non-firearms brand which puts out products for camping, organizing, and outdoors. At Shot Show 2023, they introduced their DAKA Grid System and their new hard shell travel cases and their patented new internal storage GRID blocks. These are foam plastic blocks which can be assembled and connected to customize storage for rifles, camera gear, or whatever you want to protect inside their hard-cases or any box, case, or luggage.
They are in two simple words: foam LEGO bricks.
It was one of those face-palm palm, “Why didn’t I think of that” moments when I saw a bin of black foam bricks. Unlike the soft foam that is the current industry standard that requires you to either pluck-and-pull pieces or use a hot knife to custom cut spaces for your gear, one simply needs to rearrange the blocks to fit your gear. This is one product that is useful not just for rifle shooters, not just for pistol shooters, but for anybody who wants to store and travel with any fragile item: photography, astronomy, scientific instruments, art, etc.
Like Camelbak was to canteens, Yeti was to coolers, the DAKA Grid is a game changer in protected transport. But like those other brands, if the DAKA Grid proves to be as successful as I think, I’m sure it will be copied. It all depends on how the patent is written but clever companies will likely find a way. I’m sure CCP Chinese companies will do so regardless of any U.S. patent.
I gave Jonathan of Magpul a suggestion for the next block they design: a block with 50 holes for ammo cartridges. If they introduce that next year, you’ll know it was my idea.
At Shot Show 2023, I was introduced to Leupold’s update to their laser finder binoculars. The BK4 are fixed 10x binoculars with bright, sharp, HD glass and a built-in laser rangefinder system. The BK4 has a remarkable maximum range of over 2000m on reflective objects and over 1000m for soft objects like deer and trees.
The new BK4 features updated external design case with user customizable ambidextrous control buttons. The only thing missing is a Bluetooth connection to more easily integrate this scope with App based ballistic software.
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary is one of San Francisco’s most infamous and most visited tourist attractions. Yet, in all the years I’ve lived in San Francisco or visited San Francisco, I’d never gone to Alcatraz. Until now.
After it was closed in 1963 Alcatraz became a museum administered by the National Parks Service. The only way to visit island is via a commercial ferry service from Pier 33 near San Francisco’s Fishermans Wharf district. Entry to the Prison’s various museums and audio tour are included with the ferry ticket price.
The ferry has a snack bar and food for sale but no food or beverages are available on Alcatraz island. No food or drink is allowed to be consumed within the Prison museum but you can consume food and drinks onboard the ferry or at the dock waiting area on the island. In front of the Pier 33 entrance, there are numerous street food vendors vending sausages and hot dogs.
Arriving on the island, we disembarked on the dock which has restroom facilities, information displays, and a gift shop. There are Park Service Rangers who give talks at various times and locations on the island. Visitors can choose to follow these rangers or explore on their own. I and the majority of visitors chose the later.
Walking up the main road from the dock up to the prison, you pass through administration buildings, staff barracks, and facilities, some of which date from when Alcatraz was a coastal fort. Civil War era coastal battery canons are on display in various parts of the park. It is a reasonable walk uphill to the prison but those with disabilities can take a free tram up to the prison.
The prison’s former laundry building has been converted into a museum hall containing an exhibit on the 1969 occupation of the island by Nativist protestors. Their protest graffiti is still present (or reproduced) throughout the park on signage and on the island water tower.
In a morbid reminder, on the walk up to the former Maximum Security Federal Penitentiary, all visitors must pass the prison’s Morgue, a small building just outside of the main prison complex. Entering the prison, all visitors enter a large intake room where everyone is issued a complimentary headset and a digital audio player to listen to an Audio Tour.
The audio tour was well-produced and informative. It was narrated by guards and former prisoners of Alcatraz who gave personal insights as to life in the prison. Sound effects and ambient sounds created an immersive experience. The only issue was a poor user interface and faulty equipment maintenance that didn’t allow me to reliably pause, rewind and forward sections of the audio.
The prison interior was creepy and oppressive in a way that only old run-down brutalist 20th-century buildings. I knew prison cells were small but the 5ft x 5ft cells looked even smaller in real life. Most of the cells were closed to the public except for “The Hole”, the isolation cells in D-block where rule violators were sent as punishment.
The most unsettling part of the whole prison tour was at the end: the gift shop. The large gift shop was filled with Alcatraz logo wear, replica eating utensils, and table wear. Why anybody would want to make another human’s incarceration, even if that human was a criminal, something to “enjoy” in their home is disturbing.
I tied for 3rd place in my first Falling Plates rifle competition hosted by the Coyote Point Rifle and Pistol Club. For the match I wanted to try out the Monstrum Spectre LPVO I recently reviewed. It’s the perfect type of optic to use for these short to medium range action shooting competitions. It offers a wide field of view of a 1x red dot with the ability to dial up the magnification as the engagement distances pushed out from 30 yards to 45 yards.
I had competed in a Falling Plates pistol competition a few months so was somewhat familiar with the format but this was my first rifle match which was a little different. This match involved 2 back-to-back rounds of shooting six 6″ steel plates. Each shooter was limited to 6 cartridges of ammunition, so any miss meant an a lower score. The shooting string had to be completed within 10 secs at 30 yards, 11 secs at 35 yards, 12 secs at 40 yards, and 13 secs at 45 yards. The target distance increased after each stage.
I rarely managed a perfect round, missing at last 1 plate every time. I rushed the last shots. I failed to properly pace myself and give myself the maximum aiming time. Often my last shot was a miss and 2-3 seconds would elapse before the timer ran out, which meant that I should have used those precious extra seconds to take more careful aim.
Steve, the other shooter who I tied with had the same complaint of his performance. We both had the pistol competition in mind which only allowed half the time to a complete each round. I hope I’ll know better next time.
The biggest surprise of the day was how well the Monstrum Spectre 1-6×24 LPVO worked during the match. In my previous target testing, I had some concerns that the Spectre’s thin target-style reticle wouldn’t provide sufficient visual boldness to quickly sight a target. But with the reticle illumination turned on to medium power, it easily allowed me to acquire a sight picture. I take back every negative comment I made about it.
