Tag: New Guns

Rhino Review

Thanks to The Firearm Blog I found a link to review of the new Chiappa Rhino revolver. For those of you who haven’t heard of it the Rhino is a new revolver with a rare feature, it fires from the bottom cylinder instead of the top one. It’s an interesting design and did garner a favorable review from American Rifleman. Of course come to think about it I don’t think I’ve seen an unfavorable review in American Rifleman so your mileage may vary.

I really want to try one of these things out with a full .357 magnum load. It would be interesting to see how much lowering the barrel on a revolver reduces the muzzle climb.

Coliseum Gun Show

Well there was a gun show at the Coliseum at the State Fair Grounds in St. Paul this weekend. Due to events I got roped into I was only able to make it for the last couple hours on Sunday. Needless to say some people were already packing up so I didn’t get a chance to see a heck of a lot of things.

I did get to hold and mess with a FN SCAR though. After holding it, playing with the controls, and getting a general feel of the gun I question what makes it worth $2,700.00 (price tag the seller had on it). The gun just screams pointless retrofit of the AR-15 platform. My main complain is the height at which the optics are mounted. There is an entire assembly above the SCAR’s bolt that appears to be solely for the ambidextrous charging handle. The mounted iron sights also set high above the top rail which made it very difficult for me to get a good cheek weld and see through the sights (my head was sitting about a inch too low when properly welded to the stock). All this weight above the bolt also made the gun feel pretty top heavy to me.

Needless to say I wasn’t impressed. When I say I wasn’t impressed I don’t mean I wasn’t impressed for the value dollar-wise to what you get. I wasn’t impressed period. Even if the SCAR was only $800.00 I’d chose a traditional AR-15 over it just for the fact that I don’t like the feel of the SCAR at all. Yes it has hacked together ambidextrous controls but they feel exactly like that, hacked together.

I guess I’ll never manage to be an elite super cool mall ninja operator. Hell I still think the M-14 and AK-47 are pretty awesome guns.

There isn’t much I can comment on in regards to the rest of the gun show simply due to the fact I wasn’t able to make it there until a couple of hours before closing. I’m sure there was some cool stuff there that was all bought up before my arrival.

Glock Generation Four Sub-Compact

I’ve learned via Every Day, No Days Off that the Glock 4th generation sub-compact pistols should be coming out sometime soon. He is a scan of an advertisement on his site which shows the sub-compact Glocks will have the same interchangeable backstraps of their larger brethren.

I’m still waiting for the new Glocks in .45. Although I have no desire to rid myself of my 30SF I would like a Gen4 21SF. The 21SF is the gun I use to shoot USPSA and sadly mine happens to have the ambidextrous magazine release. I say sadly because the ambi mag releases on Glock pistols are known for not dropping magazines reliably. This is where somebody will stated Glock magazines aren’t “drop-free.” Frankly I don’t give a damn. My Gen4 17 and 30SF both drop magazines free and the only reason Glock released fully lined magazines is so they would drop free and thus appease the American consumers. In USPSA not having drop-free magazines costs time and I’m not a fan of that. Additionally it would be nice to have the larger magazine release button on my competition pistol.

Bottom Cylinder Firing Revolver Shipping

According to The Firearm Blog Chiappo has begun shipping the 2″ version of their Rhino revolver. The Rhino peaked my interested because it’s one of the rare revolvers that fires from the bottom cylinder.

The idea is pretty simple, the lower the bore axis on a handgun the less muzzle flip you have to deal with. Glocks are noted quite often as having a very low bore axis while XD pistols are known for having a higher bore axis. Frankly I own both and can’t tell the difference but still I have to say the Rhino Revolver is on my hopefully-get-somebody-maybe list just because I would like a revolver that shoots from the bottom cylinder.

I don’t know much about Chiappo (in fact I never heard of them until this revolver came up some months back) so I don’t know if they have a reputation for making shit or not. I do know that the Rhino appears to have no real rear sight to speak of which kind of turns me off. But the gun in unique enough where I’m certainly interested.

Who Remembers The Old VHS

No not that VHS, this VHS. Well the Croats puts out a video demonostrating their new assault rifle which can be found over on The Firearm Blog.

Overall it looks cool although doesn’t seem to bring anything too revolutionary to the table. Of course that is until you realize it’s being produced by a nation who generally had more experience in combloc weapons than NATO weapons so this is a completely new endeavor.

For those of you who don’t know much about the VHS it’s a rifle being produced by the same company who gave us the HS 2000, better known in America as the XD, handgun. As an owner of a said handgun I must say if they can make a rifle even half as good as the HS 2000 I will be very impressed. Of course I’m doubting anybody is going to import a semi-automatic version of this new rifle since it’s mostly a clone of other things already on the market.

Another Glock .22 Conversion Kit

Gun Nuts Media let us know there is another .22 conversion kit in the market. It has the following features according to the website:

* 15 round polymer magazine
* Last round hold open
* Fits the GLOCK® models 17, 22, 34 and 35
* Factory GLOCK® sights
* 1-16” Twist chome moly steel barrel
* 4140 Blued steel slide

It looks to compare favorably to the Advantage Arms kit I have. But the big difference is Advantage Arms is a California company and thus their magazines are restricted to 10 rounds, this new one doesn’t have that limitation. Unfortunately this new kit comes in at $350.00 to $410.00 making it quite a bit more expensive than Advantage Arms kit which comes in at $265.00 if you can find one (that being a HUGE if).

I don’t think a higher capacity magazine is worth an additional $85.00 myself. But I’m waiting with anticipation for reviews to see if anything else the new kit does is worth the additional cost.