Tag Archives: Palmetto State Armory

Here come the Jackals

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Palmetto State Armory has been moving ahead with its neat JAKL long-stroke gas piston systems and had several concept guns on display at SHOT Show. While they aren’t in production, it is nice to see they are thinking with broad strokes and, like concept cars, they give a glimpse of what the company may start making in the future, especially if they get a lot of feedback.

Among the concept uppers they had were a 9mm ARV that fits standard lowers, a JAKL KS47 in 7.62×39 that fits KS47 lowers and takes AK style mags, and a 13.7-inch 5.56 that fits standard AR-15 lowers and allows for a folding stock.

Good to see there is some innovation out there.

The two Coolest things at SHOT Show

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You know, if you told me 10 years ago that the two coolest items across the 13.9 miles of aisles and 2,500 companies exhibiting at the 45th annual SHOT Show in Las Vegas would both be at the Palmetto State Armory booth, I would not have believed you.

However, it happened.

The company has brought back two icons: H&R M16A1s and a centerfire U.S.-made Sturmgewehr 44.

The H&R brand comes as a reboot of the old circa 1871 firearms company that PSA picked up for pocket change in Remington’s 2020 bankruptcy sale. Turning the refreshed brand over to NoDakSpud founder Mike Wettleland, they will be making classic M16A1 as well as Colt 723 and 635 models. The former were made by H&R as a Colt subcontractor in 1968-71.

The H&R M16A1 retro rifle is hand-crafted from proprietary forging dies with 1960s vintage government markings. As the guns made for the Army back in the Fortunate Son era were in the 2-million range, the new H&R will mimic that although will be distinctive in the fact that they have West Columbia, South Carolina rollmarks rather than the Worchester, Massachusetts marks of the original. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

This brings us to Hill & Mac Gunworks of Alpharetta, Georgia, a small gunmaker that had been working on an updated semi-auto Sturmgewehr clone made with modern techniques complete with a threaded barrel, a long stroke piston operating tilting bolt action, an HK style trigger pack, wooden furniture, and the possibility of being chambered in 5.56 NATO, 7.62x39mm, .300 AAC Blackout, or the original 7.92 Kurz– the latter is still in production by Privi Partisan in Europe.

Well, while HMG did sell some generationally similar CETME-L builds a few years back and marketed some reactive steel targets, their Sturmgewehr never made it to serial production and by 2020 the project largely fell off the radar after the company went radio silent.

Until now.

Popping up at Palmetto State Armory’s booth at SHOT Show last week was Mac Steil, the “M” of HMG, with news that PSA had stepped in to bring the project across the finish line. Advancing to the production stage, HMG customers that had preordered it from them back in the day will still get their HMG-marked gun while new guns for PSA will be under that company’s new “Battlefield” series.

The StG will still be offered in all four HMG calibers, use a STANAG mag pattern, and still runs an HK trigger pack. Caliber can be swapped by the user via a mag, barrel, and bolt change. There will also be things such as BFAs for reenactors, folding stock models, and more planned for the future.

So We Should Talk About the PSA Dagger

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This comes as a response to a reader’s question. 

One of the guns I carried and used the most from about 1999 to 2015 ish was my trusty (but never rusty) Gen 3 Glock 19. In short, I ran something like 30K rounds through that bad boy in a series of 3-, 5-, and 7-day classes during that period as a student and used it as a demo and “loaner” gun while as an instructor.

Mah beat-to-heck G19 Gen 3. All I’ve done to keep it running is swap out the recoil spring every 5K rounds whether I needed to or not and I recently changed out the firing pin spring, plunger spring, and trigger spring because I got paranoid. 

Today, Glock still makes the Gen 3/G19– largely because it is on California’s roster of handguns approved to sell to the public– with the 12-month average price as of this week running $558.11 new and $493.09 used. Heck, I recently just picked up a Mariner variant of the same gun just to say I had one.

So why all this talk about Glocks when the title of this post is about something called the PSA Dagger? Because this, if you haven’t heard, is the Dagger:

Call it a Glock 19 clone, call it a “Glock killer” just call it (says PSA, anyway)

In short, Palmetto State Armory in the past several years has beaten just about every black rifle maker in the AR-15 space with some guns that are just an absolute bargain. I can vouch for this as I have two extremely reliable builds I put together a few years ago using PSA’s 5.56 NATO “Freedom Upper” that included a lead-lapped, 1:7″ twist, 416R stainless steel barrel which yielded exceptional accuracy.

One of what I call my “6-pound basic $500 ARs,” with PSA uppers and guts. Again, these are often loaned out for classes and have never left the user with a bad experience.

With that same sort of logic, to hamstring their competitors by delivering well-produced guns and components at a lower cost, PSA last year tackled the consumer pistol market with the $299 Dagger that does everything a Gen 3 G19 will do for you at a much more attractive price point.

A striker-fired polymer-framed 9mm that has the same general specs (not to mention internal compatibility) of 3rd Gen G19s, the Dagger has several upgrades over the Glock. For instance, it uses a SAAMI Spec 1:10 twist stainless steel barrel that has been DLC coated as well as a stainless-steel slide that has been black nitrided. Go ahead a do a search to find out what Glock makes their barrels and slides from (hint: not stainless). Further, the Dagger has front slide serrations (something Glock only added on the Gen 5 guns), a better grip texture (IMHO), and a flat-faced trigger that breaks at 5.5-pounds.

By the way, PSA offers the Dagger as slides for those with an extra frame or kit on the shelf, and in versions with threaded barrel and CHF barrel options.

On the downside, the Dagger doesn’t have the same Glock name recognition and are a bit harder to find (you basically have to sign up over at PSA to get email blasts to see when they are available) but you get a decent modern double-stack 9mm that is domestically made and eminently supportable for a lot less.

And that’s my two cents on the Dagger.