Category: Review

Scot’s Product Review: Hatsan Model 125 Sniper Vortex Air Rifle

For the prepper, air rifles offer quiet shooting that can be done for hunting, pest control, or practice. Quiet is always good. While these guns do make noise, it is a lot less than virtually all non-suppressed firearms. The sound signature is different as well; they sound more like an air nailer or stapler than a gun. They also can cost less to shoot, since you are just buying pellets and not a cartridge case, primer, and powder. There is even a chap in England selling kits to make your own pellets http://airgunpelletmaker.weebly.com/ , if you want more independence. When …


Scot’s Product Review: FLIR LS-Series Thermal Imaging Camera

Seeing in the dark is something we poor humans aren’t good at. The term “cover of darkness” is an apt description, and if we can penetrate it we have a serious advantage over those who can’t. This also applies to anything that obscures visibility, such as smoke, haze, or other obstructions. We often hear the buzz phrase “force multiplier”, and anything that helps us see when our opponent can’t is a big one in my book. Being able to detect attackers first or control our own people is pretty huge, as the perils of being clueless are obvious. Besides the …


Scot’s Product Review: CMMG .22 LR Conversion for AR-15

We can have a lot of discussions about the good and bad points of the AR-15 and the .223 cartridge it is usually chambered for. Some think they are worthless junk, while others feel they are the cat’s meow. A lot of folks, myself included, are somewhere in between those two ends of the argument. I find the ergonomics to be quite good and very adaptable for left-handed shooters, like myself. You need to add an ambidextrous safety, and I think an ambi charging handle also helps. An ambi magazine release really rounds it out, but I can live without …


Scot’s Product Review: Blastmatch

Fire is cool stuff, though I may have said that before. Much like a nine-year-old boy, it needs to be carefully controlled, but when it is, it is indispensable. Getting fire when you want it is pretty easy when you have access to store-bought matches that have been kept dry along with nice dry tinder, kindling, and fuel. The problem with fire is how to get it when you lack matches. All the tinder, kindling, and fuel on the planet won’t do you a whit of good, if you don’t have something to make the tinder hot enough to burn. …


Mike’s Product Review: Roschworks SLM1 combination front sight and light mount

For those of us with AR type rifles or those with similar sights, this is a useful piece of kit. One of the issues with a tactical rifle can be the light mount. Should it be under, to one side, and where should the switch be mounted? How will it work when shooting over or beside a barricade? Roschworks’ SLM1 (Picture of the SLM1) avoids all this by mounting the light directly over the barrel, with an iron sight above it. The unit is milled from one piece of 7075T6 aluminum, and mounts solidly to a standard rail. The profile …


Scot’s Product Review: The M1 Garand

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You can’t write an article on the M1 Garand without quoting Lt. General George S. Patton, who called the rifle “the greatest battle implement ever devised”. That was incredibly high praise coming from one of the greatest leaders of combined arms in WWII and considering the number of superb weapons that were developed in the conflict. The Garand is the semi-automatic rifle adopted by the U.S. Army in 1936. It was the first standard issue semi-auto adopted by any army. The Russians tried next with their SVT 38 and 40 rifles in 7.62mmx54R, but the combination of technical difficulties and …


Scot’s Product Review: Mosin-Nagant M91/30

A reader suggested that I take a look at lower cost firearms, particularly military surplus ones, and I thought it was a great idea. The one he told me that would make a good start is the Russian Mosin-Nagant, which is currently the easiest to find and cheapest surplus rifle on the market. It is chambered in a .30 caliber round, 7.62x54R, and there are a lot of them available at the moment coming from old war reserves in Russia and Ukraine. They were refurbished and put in storage when replaced by more modern arms. Russia and Ukraine are both …


Scot’s Product Review: Sharp-Shoot-R Products

It was a dark and cluttered place. It was crowded. The children were dirty and uncared for. It looked as if their parents never cleaned them. They were streaked with charcoal. Someone had smeared molten plastic on some of them, while others had strips of lead and copper hanging on them. You could sense their dejection. If only someone would come to my gun safe and clean their barrels! Okay, I’m exaggerating…a little. My usual approach to cleaning guns is to wipe them down with an oily rag and run one or two patches with a cleaner-lubricant-preservative (CLP) product through …


Scot’s Product Review: Otis Technology Tactical Cleaning System and Ripcord

Otis Technologies is a U.S. firm based in New York State, where they make all of their products. That’s good for them and good for us. The company was founded by Doreen Garrett in 1985 after a bad experience on a hunting trip. She took a fall into some cold mud with her rifle, which wound up with a plugged bore. She wasn’t able to clear it and had a long, wet walk back to their cabin. Making matters worse, it was her grandfather’s Model 94. As she sat warming up, she started thinking about something that could have saved …


Scot’s Product Review: Work Sharp

I used to dread sharpening things. Sometimes I would go look for another knife, hoping it would be sharp rather than fixing the one in hand. Other times, I would just make do with the dull one. I’ve sometimes thought that my sharpening phobia might have something to do with how my dad was able to make anything sharp with one of those round axe stones that are coarse on one side and fine on the other with a finger groove around it. He could apply some oil and make short work of most any cutting implement. He passed away, …


Scot’s Product Review: InstaFire

Fire is kind of a big deal. It keeps us warm, cooks our food, and can signal for help. It’s comforting to sit around one. Being able to have a fire quickly is a very nice thing. InstaFire FireStarter lives up to its name, though you do actually have to go to the bother of striking a match to light it. That’s really not too much to ask for, though, considering the benefit. Yes, there are a lot of things you can set on fire with a match, but unlike a piece of wadded up newspaper, this stuff burns hot …


Scot’s Product Review: SUN OVENS International All American Solar Oven

I’ve already written about solar cooking (and plan to continue writing about solar stuff), but I will try not to repeat too much from the last review in this one. That said, there was some good generic information there, and you might want to refer back to it . As I continue on this trail, I have come to the All American Solar Oven http://www.sunoven.com/. It is a very high quality, made in the USA product that works extremely well. SUN OVENS is a long time player in the field. The original Sun Ovens came on the market in 1986, …


Scot’s Product Review: Chinook MinimalistPak

Chinook Medical Gear, Inc. calls the kit I’m reviewing the MinimalistPak. They mean minimal in terms of size and cost. It’s not minimal, however, in terms of what you can do with it. It’s a good basic kit for handling most of the injuries one might get on a hike or perhaps while doing a roadside repair on a recalcitrant car. It can handle a good sized cut, though I would want more with a gunshot wound or other major injury. It is one of the seven kits available in their PAK line of first aid kits. The kit comes …


Scot’s Product Review: SUNFLAIR Solar Oven

I think I’m on to something– solar cooking. I’ve been interested in it for a long time but never got around to doing much about it. Writing for SurvivalBlog gave me an excuse, actually a duty, to check this subject out. I plan to do at least two reviews on solar cookers and hope to do more since there are a variety of them on the market. You can also make your own, and I’ll look into that, too. Why solar? Well, being able to cook without requiring fuel is huge. Not only can you cook, you can make water …


Scot’s Product Review: DRD Tactical CDR-15-556

AR-15s are pretty common these days. I like them a lot, though they aren’t perfect by any means. We can quibble about the caliber and gas systems all day, but they have good ergonomics and are widespread and popular. Good ones are reliable. I hadn’t really planned on reviewing factory-made AR-15’s, as they such a generic, well-known commodity, but when DRD Tactical offered one, they put a word in the subject header that made me interested. The word was “takedown”. Takedowns are something that I have always found fascinating, and DRD builds a takedown version of the AR. The idea …