Editorial

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to TFB’s Silencer Saturday, brought to you by Yankee Hill Machine, manufacturers of the new Victra 20-gauge shotgun suppressor. This week, we are looking at some Father’s Day gift ideas for the dads in your life who love silencers. Gun products are very complicated and niche, so hopefully this gives you some ideas that can help you be his favorite kid this year.

The cat got let out of the bag this morning, and some of you are still processing what is 6.5 Creedmoor + Peak while others might be hearing it for the first time. This isn’t just another magnum. It’s not someone simply stuffing too much powder into a case and making a dangerous hot load. Federal really went into the lab on this one to make a scorching fast version of the 6.5 Creedmoor that is actually safe to shoot out of your normal 6.5 Creedmoor rifle. Let’s dive in to see if the hype is real, or if this is something you will want to pass on.

The clock is ticking. With the FIFA World Cup 2026 kicking off in Houston in a matter of days,  with seven matches at NRG Stadium, an estimated half a million visitors, and a 39-day Fan Festival in East Downtown, the city's law enforcement community is making sure it's ready for anything. The Harris County Sheriff's Office SWAT team has been training hard, and this set of images gives a rare look at what that preparation actually looks like at scale.

Before World War II, and especially before World War I, the rifles of the whitetail-hunting world looked a lot different from today. Lever-actions ruled supreme, and they were often chambered for rounds that have fallen from favor. These include .33 Winchester, .303 Savage and even .44-40. But to me, the most interesting of them all is the .250-3000. This round served many hunters very well, and was one of the best choices in the first half of the 20th century—and now it’s long, long gone from popularity.

When SIG Sauer launched the P211 GTO in 2025, it made a statement: a steel-framed, double-stack 1911-architecture 9mm with an integrated compensator and the kind of fit and finish that makes serious competitors stop and take a second look. The obvious follow-up shot (pun intended) was: what about everyone who doesn't want a comp? The answer is two new variants, the P211-GT4 and the P211-GT5. Names that sound like they belong on a Nürburgring racing entry list more than a gun, but here we are.

The 686 Silver Pigeon I lineup is now complete. Beretta has announced the final wave of its refreshed 680-series offering, bringing the updated sub-gauge field models and the first-ever sub-gauge Sporting configurations in Silver Pigeon I history to market.

Federal has accomplished something truly clever with this latest introduction. Their “new” cartridge, 6.5 Creedmoor + Peak, has taken the stalwart 6.5 Creedmoor round to new heights by adding 200+ FPS (feet per second) to it, and it is not as simple as dumping more powder in a casing and making a dangerous hot load. By using Peak Alloy technology and casings, along with other premium components housed by Federal, they’ve given 6.5 Creedmoor owners a faster, flatter, and more lethal cartridge on game and steel targets alike.

Boot selection by assignment and climate, break-in realities, insole and orthotic considerations, and the long-term foot and knee impact of poor footwear over a twenty-year career.

The XD series of handguns from Springfield Armory have been available for over a quarter century: 25+ years now. Having seen multiple iterations and upgrades, this truly is a suite of varying pistols for evolving needs: XD, XD Mod.2, XDS, XDS Mod.2, XDM, XDM Elite, and the XD Mod.3 round out that burgeoning family. Now, there is another offering that can be entered into that family tree with the unveiling of the XD Mod.4 OSP this spring. So, today we are going to take a look at the Springfield Armory XD Mod.4 OSP 9mm to see how it performs out on the range. Let’s dive in!

China's state-owned arms giant Norinco has never been shy about reverse-engineering a good idea, and the NP7A is exactly what it looks like: a Glock 17 clone, made in China, sold at Chinese prices (at least kind of).

Welcome back to another edition of Concealed Carry Corner. Last week, we took a look at whether the overall size of your carry gun really matters when it comes to comfort and concealability. If you happened to miss that article, be sure to click the link here to check it out. This week, I think it's exciting to see Glock releasing the updated 15-round magazine for the Glock 43X and 48 models, making an interesting shake-up in the lineup when it comes to their concealed carry line of pistols. Let's take a look at whether or not the Glock 48 is the new standard.

The American firearms industry is still going great guns after a minor slump in 2025, with the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) adjusted NICS numbers showing more than a million guns sold in the U.S. in May of 2026, as well as an increase over May’s numbers in 2025.

Q has a well-earned reputation for building rifles that feel like they emerged from an engineering thought experiment, specifically: what's the minimum amount of rifle you need to accomplish the maximum amount of work? The Mini Fix in 6mm ARC is the latest answer to that question.

Roni Corporation has added a new product to its pistol-to-carbine conversion lineup, and this one is built around a single priority: keeping things small. The Nano Roni is the company's most compact kit to date, designed to transform a compatible handgun into a braced PDW platform in the time it takes to hear two clicks.

The FM-9D continues to win over more shooters every month. For this week’s episode of Behind The Gun podcast, Adam from Freedom Ordnance joins us to talk company roots, the real development story behind their closed-bolt 9mm belt-fed upper, and why it’s seeing a major surge in popularity. What started as a somewhat boutique platform has become far more practical and downright addictive for civilian shooters thanks to the wider availability of forced-reset triggers and similar devices, including Freedom Ordnance’s own trigger-actuating grip. Adam breaks down the engineering choices, durability tests, ammo tests, talks to us about the proprietary belt system, and of course, options for those who don’t want ot mess with belts as often. Adam also takes some time to speak to the challenges of bringing a specialized firearm like this from concept to production while standing by his policy of only taking on orders he knows Freeodom Ordnance can fulfill.

Hearing is one of those things in life that you simply can't get back; once it's gone, it's gone. Growing up in the military, this was preached to us at every possible moment on the firing ranges, when operating around loud machinery and so on and so forth. Personally, I have always taken hearing safety very seriously, as I never wanted to rely on hearing aids in my later years. After becoming a helicopter pilot, I take hearing safety even more seriously. The problem is that most places I work now, I need to be able to communicate while also having hearing protection. The solution to this problem, headsets that can lower ambient noise while enhancing voice chatter, but also be able to plug into a radio communication system on a helicopter or PTT.

Microtech Knives just dropped the teaser image above, and honestly, it's enough or at least a really good start. The G19K is an OTF (out-the-front) automatic knife born from an official collaboration between Microtech and GLOCK, and the result looks exactly like what you'd expect when two companies with deeply devoted followings decide to combine their DNA into a single blade.

Heritage Manufacturing has expanded its Rough Rider single-action revolver line with a new centerfire chambering: .32 H&R Magnum. It's the first time the Rough Rider has stepped beyond .22 LR and .22 WMR since the platform launched, and it's a meaningful jump.

The Ruger 10/22 Takedown is already one of the more cleverly designed rimfires on the market, a rifle that breaks down in seconds and packs into a bag most people wouldn't look twice at. Samson Manufacturing looked at it and apparently decided the only thing missing was a folding chassis that makes it even more compact, more configurable, and, as one media personality put it at NRA 2026, "one of the unexpected hits" of the show. Meet the SAS/22 Takedown Chassis.

Idaho-based Tenicor has released the CERTUM4 and CERTUM LUX4, the fourth-generation versions of its most versatile concealment holster. Both models are available now at $125 and support IWB hip carry as well as AIWB appendix carry from the same platform, a defining characteristic of the CERTUM line since its inception.

Halifax Regional Police (HRP), the largest municipal police service in Atlantic Canada, has selected the GLOCK G45 COA as its new duty pistol platform following a competitive evaluation process centered on safety, reliability, and ease of use. The full platform package includes the GLOCK G45 Gen 5 COA pistol fitted with the Aimpoint COA red dot optic via an exclusive A-CUT mounting solution, Streamlight TLR-7 X weapon-mounted lights, Safariland duty holsters, and GLOCK G45T training pistols.

Duty belts have changed very little in decades. Threading pouches on in the right order, fighting keepers that fall off mid-shift, and liner belts that lose their grip after months of hook-and-loop abuse. It's a long list of small frustrations that add up fast for the officers who wear them every single day. Safariland is taking a hard look at all of it with the new HOLLE Duty Belt system, a platform that first showed up at SHOT Show 2026 and is now officially shipping.

It is hard to overestimate just how much movies shape modern gun culture. Like many, I attribute my fascination with firearms to Hollywood movies. But I am only aware of one instance when a movie gun accidentally created a new type of armament.

The line between small arms and unmanned systems continues to blur. Our Photo Of The Day shows the SIG Sauer MH322, a device from their Advanced Concepts Division. Rather than being a traditional firearm, the MH322 is designed as a lightweight remotely operated payload for unmanned platforms. There is no mention of the caliber, but I highly suspect it runs .22LR rimfire. There’s also an MH365, which I presume runs 9x19mm.

Peak Alloy technology was first introduced in the commercial market in 2025 with the then all-new 7mm Backcountry, and that iconic silver casing drew as much attention as the newly announced cartridge. Now, Federal has signed what they’re calling a landmark agreement with the United States Army to accelerate high-performance ammunition across a range of cartridges deployed by our military.

I am a huge fan of the Bodyguard 2.0 primarily because it conceals well in virtually any situation. One thing I really don’t like about it is that the magazines are notoriously difficult to load, and if you do any amount of practice, a mag loader is going to save your thumbs and fingers for the shooting, as these mags tend not to break in very much over the course of ownership. XTech has just announced the new LDR2000B1, a new addition to the LDR2000 lineup of affordable mag loaders, that is now specifically catered for the Bodyguard 2.0 and other .380 ACP pocket pistols with similar magazine bodies.

Although it was filmed in Spain by an Italian director with another Italian providing the soundtrack, and the majority of the cast was also European, the 1966 movie The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was a generation-defining American western film. The guns used in the film did not gain the iconic status of the firepower used in Clint Eastwood’s later Dirty Harry series, but a horde of moviegoers had their interest in firearms piqued due to the film, so interest was understandably high when one of those long-lost weapons was found.

Fabbrica d’Armi Pietro Beretta of Italy holds the title of world’s oldest firearm manufacturer, dating its roots as early as the year 1526. The current year is therefore the 500th anniversary of the birth of the company, a milestone that Beretta is celebrating in style. We’ve recently seen a rather unexpected high-tech MSR; now we’re invited to gaze at a gorgeously unattainable luxury shotgun.

When TFB first covered Dynamic Optronic Technologies back in September, the California-based company's debut EHS-1 holographic sight had already been turning heads since its SHOT Show appearance earlier that year. Now, DOT is back with a variant built around a different philosophy for how the optic attaches to your rifle. The EHS-1 L swaps the original's Quick Detach lever for a cross-bolt mounting system, and the result is a lower-profile package that DOT says is aimed at shooters who prefer a permanent, high-torque rail interface over a tool-free detach option.

FN Browning Group has unveiled their new 5.56x45mm rifle, the ARKA. The new rifle is set to have its public debut at the upcoming EUROSATORY defense exposition in Paris (15-19 June). Combining the operating system of the SCAR and the ergonomics of the AR-platfom, the ARKA is FN’s next generation service rifle.