Tag Archives: new handguns 2024

Baa, Baa .45

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While on the ground at the SHOT Show in Las Vegas last month, we came across a Government Issue .45 1911 that looked more at home in the South Pacific in 1943. 

As part of its Air Aces Series, Auto-Ordnance had its new Black Sheep 1911 on display. Crafted by the folks over at Outlaw Ordnance, the artists start with an Auto-Ordnance Stainless 1911 and then apply a carefully researched red, white, and blue Cerakote finish that emulates a World War II aircraft associated with famed Marine air ace Major Gregory “Pappy” Boyington. 

A functional work of art, underneath the custom Cerakote finish, the Black Sheep 1911 is still an Auto-Ordnance Stainless 1911 in .45 ACP. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

Note the “rivet” pattern, the sheet of Rising sun victory stencils, and the correct “Lucybelle” nose art. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

lso, note the “belly” of the gun is left in the white to emulate the aluminum body of an F4U Corsair. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

The aircraft Boyington was photographed with in November 1943, White 86 (BuNo.18086), was an F4U-1A Corsair of the same type he flew with the Black Sheep. Ironically, no records confirm he ever flew it in combat and the bird was made up specifically for the photoshoot. As such, it included 20 Kyokujitsu-ki rising suns, one for each confirmed Japanese aircraft he had shot down by that time, his name, and the nickname (“Lucybelle”) of his then-girlfriend, Lucy Malcomson. He would later fall out with Malcomson, leading to a bitter court case and, when the 1970s TV show “Baa Baa Black Sheep” would recreate this plane, Boyington, then on his fifth wife, advised the producers the plane was named “Lulubelle” instead.

A late model Goodyear FG 1D Corsair (BuNo 92246), one of only about 100 Corsairs left, is painted to emulate White 86 and is on display at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com) 

It has Boyington’s name stenciled under the cockpit but no “kill” flags or Lulubelle/Lucybelle nose art. I guess NNAM didn’t want to wade into that controversy

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Smith J-frame for the win

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The odd thing about carry guns, even in a day when the market is awash in micro-compact 9mm pistols like the P365 and Hellcat, is that the snub-nosed revolver still sells and sells very well. I have often carried one over the past 30 years, either as a BUG to my primary or when in a non-permissive environment.

This thing has tagged along with me more than I care to admit

Billed as the ultimate small-frame carry revolver, S&W debuted a new line of SAO aluminum J-frame snub-nosed wheel guns at the SHOT Show this year. 
 
The new Ultimate Carry line is offered in a Model 642UC (stainless) and 442UC (black) Airweight Centennial format in a 5-shot .38 Special as well as a new 632UC and 432UC in 6-shot .32 H&R Magnum. All feature a fresh style of .140-inch XS Tritium front sight with a dovetailed .160-inch black serrated Novak-style U-notch rear sight and flush-cut “High Horn” VZ G10 boot grips. Going past that, the internals have been beefed up with titanium pins (rather than the standard aluminum) as used with the Scandium frame models to add durability over the years and a much-improved trigger pull. 

They both look and feel great.

The weight on the Smith & Wesson Ultimate Carry is right at 16 ounces. Note the enclosed ejector rod shroud, beveled cylinder front edge which aids in carry, and VZ G10 boot grips that have been updated to provide a higher backstrap on the gun.

More in my column at Guns.com.

New CMP 1911s?

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The CMP has been in the Army surplus M1911 business for the past half-decade, drawing up to 10,000 each year since 2018 from a dwindling supply of 100,000 mostly World War II-era guns long-stored at the Anniston Army Depot. However, everyone realizes these guns are in short supply – leading to a lottery system by CMP to sell them to the public with prices starting at $1,050 for even a very well-worn pistol – and eventually, the Depot will run dry. 

With that in mind, in a partnership announced at the SHOT Show, the organization and SDS have teamed up with Tisas to produce a special CMP M1911A1 model for sale to the public to help fund its national youth-focused marksmanship efforts. 

The production of a new-manufactured M1911 for the CMP is big news. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

The .45 ACP Government model, according to SDS, will be “a museum-grade reproduction of a mid-war M1911A1 as it was issued during the Second World War.” This will include “United States Property” markings, a Type E hammer, and reproduction WWII-style brown plastic grips – although an extra set of walnut double diamond checkered grips will be included with each gun. 

In a nod to the special status with the marksmanship organization, they will be “CMP” marked. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

The slide, frame, and small parts will be Manganese Phosphate finished, and there will be no MIM parts used in the manufacturing process. Like most Tisas 1911s, it will have Series 70 internals. 

Sure, they are made in Turkey, but Tisas makes a hell of a 1911.

The cost, sold through the CMP, will be $479. 

Shark in the Water

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I thought this was one of the nicest guns at SHOT last week.

Beretta came to Las Vegas with something that any Selachimorphaphile, single-action handgun purist, model 92 fan, or budding USPSA competitor is sure to find of interest: the 92XI Squalo.

The Squalo – “shark” in Italian – earned its name, says Beretta, due to the “sleek and formidable nature” of the animal and its namesake 9mm pistol’s inclination to “stand out in a sea of competition.”

Optics-ready with a Vertec-style frame and DLC-coated trigger internals, it has a single-action-only trigger with a manual frame-mounted safety lever. A gray overall finish and custom Hogue G10 grip panels help pull off the moniker.

It comes standard with a Toni Systems flared magwell and has superb texture on the grip, akin to that of a shark’s skin, one could say.

Meanwhile, at the show itself, Beretta had an example decked out with gold accents and a comp, the latter giving it a very “Professional” kind of vibe

I think I need one.

Want to know the coolest thing I saw at SHOT Show?

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Probably the coolest story coming out of SHOT Show involves one of the largest state-owned firearms plants in the world spooling up to send pallets of iconic guns to anxious consumers in the U.S.
 
PT Pindad (Persero) dates to 1808 and since 1950 has been the primary domestic arsenal for the Indonesian military. Back in the mid-1960s, with the Pacific Rim country’s shift to embrace the West, Pindad began to acquire a series of licenses to make firearms locally in Java. These included two from Beretta to manufacture the PM12 9mm submachine gun and the BM-59 battle rifle in 7.62 NATO. In 1984, Pindad secured the same sort of technical package and license to produce the FN FNC 5.56 rifle. Of note, Indonesia was the first country to adopt the FNC, even before Sweden and Belgium. 
 
Now, commercial variants are headed to American shores. 

 
I interviewed Pindad reps, along with their importer, Nevada-based Terratek USA, at the SHOT Show last week to get the details. Terratek, a Type 08 FFL, has signed an MOU with Pindad for joint marketing, manufacturing, and assembly of Pindad’s products in the U.S.
 
“We hope to leverage Pindad’s long history and expertise in this industry to create jobs and diversify the economic footprint in the Las Vegas Valley,” said James Ferguson, General Manager of Terratek USA. “What Pindad brings to the table extends beyond the defense industry as their portfolio spans across heavy machinery manufacturing, electronics, and a plethora of commercial applications.”

Kate Ferguson, Director of Terratek USA, Samuel with Pindad with a PM-1 9mm, Yayat Ruyat (VP of Marketing, Sales, Business Development) with a PM-3 9mm, and Tom Saras with Pindad with an SS1-C. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

More in my column at Guns.com.

A Tale Told in 8 SHOT Shows

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For the record, this was not a factory option from Hudson (Photos: Chris Eger)

I was on the scene when the H9 had its first debut back at SHOT ’17 as well for the introduction of the updated H9A the following year. Sadly, I also covered the pistol’s demise along with its parent company in early 2019 – a short but spectacular run. This downfall came immediately after Hudson failed to appear at SHOT that year.
 
Shortly after came a federal bankruptcy sale, with several Billie Hudson’s patents acquired by Daniel Defense, followed by market research pointing at the Georgia-based black rifle maker seriously looking to reboot the pistol.

Fast-forward to SHOT ’24, and the new Daniel Defense H9 has made its return to the market.

More in my column at Guns.com.

If you want a cheap MP5 clone, they keep getting cheaper…

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The Cold War-themed Tennessee-based subsidiary of SDS Imports has gone MP5 and plans to hit the market with two very affordable 9mm roller locks.

“While we take our inspiration from the days of caterpillar mustaches, Thomas Magnum and Sonny Crockett, our contemporary products represent the cutting edge of technology in design and manufacturing for government and commercial clients,” notes MAC as part of its company ethos.

And what could be more 1980s cool guy vibe than an MP5, right? 

The new MAC-5 series are both 9mm pistols that use a very well-known style of roller-locked blowback actions and are compatible with HK and most other aftermarket products designed for MP5 variants. Both models have a 1/2x28TPI muzzle thread under a tri-lug, adjustable rear sights, use a paddle-style mag release, and sport a SEF pattern trigger with a 4.25-pound pull. They are HK claw mount compatible and have button-rifled barrels with fluted chambers.

The series introduction includes two models, the short MAC-5 and the shorter MAC-5K.

The Military Armament Corporation MAC-5 is 17.9 inches long with an 8.9-inch barrel and is 5.5 pounds unloaded. (Photos: MAC)

Meanwhile, the MAC-5K is 13.7 inches overall with a 5.8-inch barrel and weighs 4.6 pounds.

While it is not clear who the manufacturer of these semi-auto MP5 clones is, MAC says they are “Built on modern tooling based on original HK specs and decades of expertise,” which would seem to point to MKE in Turkey, who has been in the MP5 biz for generations. That would track as SDS gets most of their other stuff (Tisas, etc) from Turkey.

Similarly, Century has been importing its AP5 line from MKE as of late while Virginia-based Zenith had long been an importer for MKE before striking out to make guns domestically.

The MAC-5 Series pistols have an MSRP of $1,099– which could be lower at dealers– and ship with a premium case, sling, two 30-round magazines, cleaning kit, tri-lug flash-hider, trigger lock, and instruction manual. That undercuts all but the most fire-sale sub-MAP AP5s, is roughly half the ask of an American-made PTR-9, and is about a third the price of a German-made HK SP5.

I’ll bring you more on these from this year’s SHOT Show.

Yankee Kalash Updates

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While at CANCON 2023 in Savannah, Georgia a few weeks ago, I stopped by the Kalashnikov USA booth and ran into John Cason, KUSA’s director of sales. He told me that the company wouldn’t be in Vegas for the SHOT Show later this month, but he did have several sweet new models they had queued up for 2024.

Among them is the long-promised American-made 7.62x39mm AK101 sporter (KR101), a 5.56 NATO AK102 sporter (KR102), side folding wood-stocked (not a misprint) KR103s, and a tiny Vityaz.

KUSA’s “Micro 9” Vityaz, made for an Indonesian military contract but soon to come to the U.S. consumer market

Developed for an overseas military contract, KUSA had what is tentatively just called the “Micro 9” at the show. Now don’t confuse that term with a micro compact 9mm pistol such as a P365 or Hellcat. This is a 5-inch barreled semi-auto KP-9 Vityaz clone rather than the standard 9.25-incher that the company intends to market as both a pistol (that can either use a triangle brace or be Form 1’d later should the user want) and as a factory SBR.

PSA Krinkov (no, really, they say)

Palmetto State Armory has been teasing the public for years that they have an American-made Krink headed to market while not delivering.

Well, Cameron surfaced over the weekend on social media and said the company is in their final testing phase for the gun, expecting to launch it in February (yes, of 2024).

They intend to have five variants at launch– all in 5.56 with included side rails.

These will include a plum gloss, a Vudu version, a JMac railed option, a redwood version, and an SBR-ready variant. PSA says that they will work on 5.45, .300 BLK, and 7.62×39 variants after the 5.56s have been released. No pricing is available.

Color me excited.

A Rost What?

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If you have followed this blog for more than five minutes, you’ll get that I like new guns, which come around almost every day.

Something rarer are new gun companies, and I always take an interest in those and they can sometimes prove a bigger and more complex story.

The first new gun company of the year this year appears to be Texas-based Rost Martin, who has what at first appears to be a G19-sized vanilla striker-fired polymer-framed 9mm pistol, but at closer look seems to be a little better (and for a better price).

Their flagship RM1C pistol is a compact-sized double-stack 9mm, that sports a 4-inch hammer-forged barrel, 7.1-inch overall length, and a 21.1-ounce unloaded weight with a 15+1 round magazine. This puts it a hair smaller than the Glock 19 Gen 5. It is optics-ready on all models, shipping with an RMR footprint, while plates for “all other popular optic footprints” will be available.

Other features include aggressive front and rear slide serrations, ambidextrous surface controls including slide catch and mag release, and what is described as “a smooth, light 5-pound trigger pull with a clean break and a short reset.” Added to this are non-glare top slide serrations similar to what is seen on S&W and Walther pistols, an inherent low bore axis, and a Tenifer-treated nitrocarburized slide. It has interchangeable rear grip inserts.

The Texas-made RM1C will be offered in black, gray, and FDE, and has a very AREX Delta Gen 2 vibe.

Don’t worry about support, as it uses CZ P10 pattern mags that are free, and accept XD pattern sights.

Of note, it has a Glock-style takedown albeit with arguably better ergos.

All right, so enough of the windup – how about the pitch? The MSRP on the new Rost Martin RM1C is set at $459 across all models, a price that will probably be a little lower at retail. That puts it on par price-wise with an optics-ready Turkish-made Stoeger STR-9C or Canik TP9SF but about a hundo more than a PSA Dagger, but then again it has a feature set better than the basic Dagger.

The folks at Rost Martin are sending me one to test and I am meeting with them at SHOT next week to get some more background info, so watch this space.

A New Carry 10mm?

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Earlier this year SIG Sauer followed up on its first striker-fired 10mm handgun with something a bit more compact – and I’ve have all the details and some insights after kicking one around for a couple of months.

In early 2022, SIG debuted the new caliber option for its hugely successful P320 platform of pistols: the 15+1 capacity 10mm XTen. I extensively evaluated one with box after box of punishing 10mm loads and was impressed with it, the biggest complaint being that its size limited carry options.

Well, the company has an answer to that with the new XTen Comp.

Still chambered in potent 10mm Auto and using the same 15-round flush-fit magazine as the full-sized XTen, the (gently) smaller XTen boasts a 3.8-inch bull barrel instead of the standard 5-incher as seen on its big brother. This also shortens the slide and takes some weight (a quarter pound) off the scales.

Compare in size the XTen Comp, left, with the full-sized XTen. Note they have the same height and width but a shorter frame and top half in terms of length.

Plus, it has an open-top “integrated expansion chamber” that runs past the muzzle of the 3.8-inch barrel, a design that turns it into a ported compensator that cannot come loose with firing. SIG uses this on lots of its Comp model pistols, including 9mm P320s and the P365, and the company says it drops felt recoil by as much as 20 percent.

In initial testing, I found the compensated slide on the XTen Comp to have a better recoil impulse than either the full-sized XTen or the FN 510 Tactical which I tested recently.

More in my column at Guns.com.

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