At Shot Show 2023’s Industry Range Day, there was a long line at the Ruger tent which ended up being mostly to try Marlin’s new lever action rifles. But on the less crowded side of the tent was what looked like their ARs. But it wasn’t, it was the new SFAR. You could be forgiven for mistaking it for yet another 5.56 AR, but the SFAR (Small Frame Auto-Loading Rifle) is chambered in .308.
Compared to other .308 AR10’s I had shot that day, the SFAR had the a smaller physical footprint. And more amazingly weighed as much as a typical 5.56mm AR. Perhaps it was the can they had had on it but the rifle had a softer felt recoil. Not unlike shooting a AR PCC. I was delighted and surprised.
I am not sure what sorcery Ruger used to shrink down an AR10’s components but it seemed to work. I understand that the guys at TFB had issues with their SFAR cycling reliably. My demo rifle functioned flawlessly as it did for the half-dozen other shooters ahead of me in line. If I was in the market for an AR10, I’d consider this one.
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.
The T12 Pro is a budget smart watch sold under a number of brand names from China. One such is Early Sincere, a brand I’d never heard of before they sent me a T12 which actually didn’t have that model name on it’s packaging. The box itself was fairly generic saying only “Smart Watch” and a sticker bearing the Early Sincere brand name.
Inside I found the watch, black watch band, instruction manual and a proprietary magnetic charging cable that plugs into a USB-A socket. The watch itself is an obvious copy of an Apple Watch in external design. In the multi-lingual manual was a QR code to download the DaFit App from the Android Marketplace, which controls the watch.
Pairing it to my phone via Bluetooth was a simple process using the DaFit App. In DaFit were charts for tracking my steps, heart rate, O2 levels, sleep pattern, and other vitals. The App also allows you to change watch faces and upload additional ones to the watch.
The watch has a suite of about 20 built-in Apps and control-panels like a stop-watch, camera shutter remote, weather, phone, messages. The watch allows you to send and receive calls through your phone but it does not have a built-in camera or a means to make video calls. Nor does there appear to any means to modify or update the apps.
Despite its very basic features, it has all of the core health-tracking functions I need in watch in a generally attractive design (albeit a knock-off one). The watch wakes from sleep quickly and without the usual lag I’ve experienced in FitBits and other budget smart watch. The touch screen is functional though a tad too sensitive in the shower where the phone misread the splashed water as my touching the face and sometimes cycling through menus accidentally.
For a price less than $65 this basic smart watch is a good value if you’re looking for a basic fitness tracker with a few more features.
UPDATE 1/23/23: After an initial 2 weeks use, I only averaged a 4 day charge on the watch. But after a 45 days, the battery capacity increased to 14 days. Apparently the battery needed to go through a number of charge/discharge cycles before optimizing.
