Less Lethal

There can be numerous reasons for designing a new hunting cartridge: from “because I can” to non-satisfactory performance offered by existing cartridges and everything in between. One reason that has been heavily influencing cartridge designs in the United States is legislation. Many states have regulations on cartridge designs that can be used for hunting certain species within their boundaries; things like case/overall length limits, minimum caliber, straight wall only rules, etc. The new cartridge that we are taking a look at today, the 30 Whitetail, is an example of a cartridge designed to meet the law requirements, specifically the Illinois law for bottleneck deer hunting cartridges.

This has been a tough year for firearms rights in the U.S., with tough restrictions passed at the state level from east to west. But the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) continues to push back with legal action; its latest target is a notoriously tough-on-guns city. They’re suing Los Angeles as well as the nearby city of Inglewood over their handgun purchasing restrictions.

If you’ve got a Smith & Wesson M&P 2.0 or a Walther PDP pistol and you want to increase magazine capacity, then XS Sights hears you calling from the wastelands and has just what you need—the components you need to boost your onboard ammo by another five rounds.

What the sleep deprivation research actually shows about decision-making degradation, how rotating shifts disrupt circadian function in ways that compound over a career, and what the data says agencies and officers can do that is not just advice to sleep more.

It’s a weird thing, the North American firearms industry. Some guns are so popular they’re practically immortal, with factories around the world turning out copycats. Other guns that are quite interesting, and probably more fun to shoot, are cast the wayside. Here are three rimfires that I’d like to see come back into production, if only the dollars and cents made sense …

HK's MR308 has always been the civilian face of the HK417 bloodline, a .308 Winchester semi-automatic built to the same exacting standards as its military sibling, with cold-hammer-forged barrels, ambidextrous controls, and that characteristically HK feeling of nothing being left to chance. Where the G28 is Germany's designated marksman rifle, the MR308 is where that DNA reaches the sport and hunting market.

Welcome back to another edition of Concealed Carry Corner. Last week, we talked about how the Glock 48 is the new standard in concealed carry. If you happened to miss that article, be sure to click the link here to check it out. This week, with all the storms hitting the northeast part of the country these past few weeks, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to take a closer look at some ways to protect your gun after moisture creeps into your gun. Let's take a closer look at weather hazards to your carry gun.

The launch edition Gunwerks GOAT rifle will be available chambered in 6.5 PRC or 7 PRC. The carbon fiber wrapped 18” barrels are made of 416 stainless steel, have a C20 contour (.750” at the muzzle) and are fitted with Gunwerks Directional Muzzle Brakes. The rifle is built on the Gunwerks GLR Ti action with pinned 20-MOA Picatinny rail sections on the receiver rings for optics mounting. The ClymR carbon fiber stock has a standard length of pull of 13.5” with 12.75" - 14.5" LOP available optionally. The forearm comes with a forward 1913 rail for attaching bipods, and a mid ARCA rail will also be offered as an option. The bottom metal has a hinged floorplate design. The pull weight of the TriggerTech Primary trigger, which this rifle comes equipped with, is two pounds. The overall length of the rifle is 38.5”. The custom Cerakote camouflage on the buttstock is also launch-edition-specific.

Budget helmet-mounted thermal has been a hard category to fill, and this is coming from someone who’s into more expensive options. The options sitting below the $1,000 mark have historically meant compromising on frame rate, display quality, or build integrity, often all three at once. Nightfox thinks their new “Arctic” changes that math. Let’s take a closer look.

Few firearms platforms inspire the kind of lifelong devotion (or call it obsession) and global lore as the AK. Today, we’ve brought together three guys who live and breathe the platform every day. Emmanuel Barron of American Steppe, builder of tough, field-proven American-made gear designed with real hunters in mind, Kyle (@molasses_marmot), and Kalen of Rotating Bolt Industries, the Colorado-based FFL and boutique AK shop responsible for custom builds like the RB-01, which I reviewed here on TFB just a few years ago. Each of them shares their unfiltered thoughts on how the AK stacks up against its contemporaries, real-world reliability lessons from gunsmithing and competitive shooting, and helpful platform quirks worth knowing if you’re planning on adopting one yourself.

With the abundance of optics manufacturers in the marketplace today, it is cool to see one when it is homegrown and close to home. For me, that is AT3 Tactical based out of St. Michael, MN - which is my home state. For those who are uninitiated to the brand, they are sellers of an assortment of products - firearms, lasers, components, magazines, and more - to include other manufacturers’ products as well as their own in-house items.

Photo Of The Day: The 7th Army Training Command wrapped up Exercise Combined Resolve 26-07 at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, on May 10th, a month-long rotation that brought together more than 3,600 participants from seven nations to work through the kind of problems that don't always have clean answers. Combined arms interoperability. Multi-domain operations. The friction of working alongside allies who train differently, speak differently, and sometimes shoot differently - with “enemy” forces shooting back at you!

Welcome back to Wheelgun Wednesday, our weekly article series that covers everything about wheelguns, and on this selected day. This week, Taurus gives the single-action revolver segment something it has rarely offered: a factory dual cylinder setup on a traditionally styled wheelgun.

In the past few months, Virginia has quickly become a battleground state in the back-and-forth scrapping over firearms rights. One of the state government’s most recent moves, the reinstatement of universal background checks for firearms sales, has been opposed by Lynchburg Circuit Judge Patrick Yeatts, who ordered state police to stop performing background checks on private sales.

Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc. have announced an ongoing program to develop a 6.8x51mm caliber conversion kit for the Barrett MRAD MK 22 Advanced Sniper Rifle system. The MRAD MK 22 is currently fielded by the U.S. Army and can currently be chambered in .338 Norma Magnum, .300 Norma Magnum and 7.62x51mm.

The proliferation of drone-based surveillance on the modern battlefield has pushed individual soldier concealment to the forefront of defense priorities, and Saab is responding with a dedicated wearable camouflage system. The Swedish company has unveiled the Barracuda Poncho, a multispectral concealment garment designed to hide dismounted soldiers from thermal and, in its arctic configuration, UV sensors across a range of operational environments.

This year marked the first military parade in a decade in Armenia for the Republic Day, on 28 May. The parade offered a clear glimpse into the country’s changing defense posture, as Armenia showcased a range of newly acquired weapons amid a broader effort to reduce its reliance on Russian arms and ammunition while modernizing.

There are a lot of things in life I don’t understand, and one of those things is why some people in the AK community look down on 5.56 AK rifles.

Austrian company Fischer Development has taken a notably different approach to pistol suppression. Where virtually every other suppressor on the market threads onto the barrel, the FD-Silencer mounts to the frame accessory rail: no barrel threading, no gunsmithing, no modifications to the weapon whatsoever. One click onto the rail and you're done. I’ve tried it, and it works!

Derya Arms is no stranger to taking an established platform and pushing it further than buyers expect at a certain price point, and the new RAN and RAN-X series might be the clearest expression of that philosophy yet. The Turkish-American manufacturer has launched three lever-action models built around a straightforward premise: stop making buyers spend hundreds of dollars on aftermarket modifications to get where they want to be. Everything enthusiasts have historically sourced separately, threaded barrels, M-LOK forends, Picatinny rails, and adjustable furniture, comes standard from the factory.

For 25 years, Daniel Defense has built a reputation on the kind of hardware that ends up in special operations kits. To mark that milestone, the company is reaching back to one of its rarest chapters, a handguard so obscure it borders on myth. The GL/SSC, short for Grenade Launcher/Sound Suppressor Capable, was a slightly shortened version of the legendary RIS II rail, purpose-built for 12.5-inch barrel setups while retaining full M203 grenade launcher mounting capability.

Hi-Point Firearms and Davidson's have teamed up for a dealer-exclusive variation of the Hush-Point 22 rimfire suppressor, this time wearing a burnt bronze Cerakote finish. The limited-edition HP22 Hush-Point 22 in Burnt Bronze will be distributed exclusively through Davidson’s to dealers nationwide.

WOOX, the Italian-American maker of precision gunstocks, axes, and knives, has announced the Bravado Grey Laminate, a new line of stocks engineered for Henry and Marlin lever-action rifles. The Grey Laminate joins the existing Bravado family and extends WOOX's design philosophy into layered hardwood construction with a distinctly modern visual character.

The firearm marketplace today for handguns has fully embraced the adoption of red dots, and I am here for it! Handgun optics afford us a lot of benefits like faster target engagements, and they can be a workaround for some people who have vision impairments. Instead of focusing on objects at 3 varying distances from your eye - rear right, front sight, and the target - you can simply have a red dot overlaid visually on the target you’re engaging. So, whether you are hunting or shooting steel, it is a more effective way of engagement. Additionally, if red is a difficult color for you to see, manufacturers like Trijicon are also offering green dots. So, today we are going to take a look at the Trijicon RMR Type 2 3.25 MOA Green Dot, Adjustable LED to see how it performs. Let’s dive in!

I’ve never been to Hawaii, but it looks like paradise. I’m sure it isn't always. Heat, humidity, torrential rainfall, salt air, dense vegetation, the environment around Schofield Barracks is about as demanding as it gets for weapons and optics, which makes the 25th Infantry Division's backyard exactly the right place to find out whether the Army's next-generation small arms family can hack the jungle.

The Ruger 10/22 platform, in my book, remains one of the most legendary and customizable rimfire rifles ever made. So it's only natural that the aftermarket accessory giant Strike Industries has decided to expand its popular Strike Modular Chassis (SMC) catalog to include the king of plinking rifles, the Ruger 10/22.

Ahead of the state of Virginia’s impending ban on common semi-automatic firearms, gun sales are *booming* in the state, with more than twice the number of background checks in May of 2026 when compared to the previous year.

Off Grid Suppressors, headquartered in Shevlin, Minnesota, is introducing the Operator TI, a purpose-built 5.56 NATO suppressor constructed from aerospace-grade titanium using additive manufacturing. The company is positioning the can as a dedicated alternative to the multi-caliber compromise suppressors that dominate much of the current market.

Beretta is continuing its streak of releases for the year of their 500th anniversary. Unlike the Titan MSR and the SO10 EELL History, now we’re seeing a new pistol with a clear commercial pathway.