Nifty or Funny Things Spotted at NRAAM

On Friday I talked about items of interest to preppers that I found at the 2016 NRA Annual Meeting; this post is mostly me cooing over pretty or unusual guns, with some occasional humor and bit of news thrown in. If you've listened to this week's GunBlog VarietyCast, you've likely heard me enthuse about some of these already... and seen the pictures if you followed the links in the show notes.

But really, who actually reads the show notes?

Here's the Palm Pistol, which Sean informed me I never once named during the entire segment. (insert Homer Simpson "D'oh!" sound here.)

The middle and ring fingers disengage dual grip safeties. The pistol is fired by pressing either the top button with the thumb, or the bottom button with another hand/ another part of the body/ something firm like a wheelchair armrest. Recoil from the .38 cartridge is mitigated by the barrel being directly in line with the arm.

I especially like how there's a mount for a laser at the muzzle, because something like this definitely needs it!

Pressing the button in the center disengages the breech and allows the barrel to flip open, ejecting the spent round.

The operator then drops a fresh round into the breech (the round needs to be rimmed in order to work this way, so no 9mm or .380 version is available; I do wonder how a .45 Long Colt version would handle.)

The breech can be closed by mashing the side of the barrel into a nearby surface (table top, leg, etc) until it snaps shut. Since there are two grip safeties, doing this against your leg shouldn't be too big of a hazard.

And here's the carbine version. I know it looks ridiculously overbuilt for a palm pistol, but this might be the only way someone with an injury would be able to go to the range. As someone whose parents are in their 80s, and whose mom has arthritis, I approve of any firearm that makes it easier for the elderly or the handicapped to go shooting.

A 2/3rd size IPSC target silhouette by Hill & Mac Gunworks.  Made from 1/2" AR500 steel, this particular target was said to have been shot over six thousand times by calibers all the way up to .50 BMG!

I checked the back, folks, and there wasn't even a bump or blemish back there. At $600 this isn't at all cheap, but considering what you can shoot it with I imagine there will be a huge return on that investment.

Speaking of Hill & Mac, they're the folks who make the reproduction StG-44 in a variety of delightful calibers.

I have no idea what this is (other than a motorcycle with a large gun on the front) or how it's supposed to operate, but it tickled me.

OH GOD THE RAPTORS HAVE MOLLE AND NIGHT VISION!!

It's like Rob Liefeld had a Jurassic Park-based wet dream. 

These next pictures get filed under PRITTY GUNZ. I took all of them except for the last one (which was too blurry to publish). These were cerakoted by Blown Deadline, a company with an obvious sense of humor (the hashtag written on their actual business card is #CerakoteThatShit).

A Kriss Vector with suppressor and folding stock, cerakoted to look battle-distressed.

An AR-15 pistol, done in the style of one of the guns from the Borderlands series of games.

Another Borderlands conversion, this time of the Kel-Tec KSG. According to Salem, who is a Borderlands afficionado, this is an excellent representation of an actual shotgun within the game. 

A Glock 17 in Mandalorian color scheme.  (This is the one picture that I didn't take.)

A cutaway of the TAR-21 Tavor rifle.

This fellow was at the Appleseed booth. He's holding the "assault rifle" of the Revolutionary War, which is (I think) a Brown Bess. It's huge -- easily more than one Erin Palette in length.

Some really nasty-looking shotgun ammunition from D Dupleks, a Latvian ammunition company. I don't know if it performs better or worse than standard buckshot, but I like the concept of "performs like a slug until it hits, and then it performs like shot." 

The original name is Hexolit, but the American version will be branded Broadhead. I'm going to see if I can get some for Lokidude to use during hunting season. 

This is the Manta Ray, a mint-green 140 lumen flashlight by LaserMax that snaps on and off of rails so quickly that they call it the "kung fu grip" model. Instead of being clamped or screwed on, spring tension along the sides holds it in place. I'm going to see if I can get one of these to test, because I am curious if it will lose its grip strength after multiple repeated changes. 

And finally from Hazard 4, a tactical guitar case that can actually carry a guitar (yes, yes, it can carry a rifle too) and also doesn't look like it's tactical. At $200 it's not cheap, but it's a lovely piece of kit if you're both a gunnie and a guitarist.

One interesting bit of information about Mossberg before I close (I didn't get any usable photographs, sadly):  They have FINALLY SEEN THE LIGHT regarding how their shotgun magazine tubes mount to their barrels and are adopting a customizable pass-through ring system like the Remington 870 uses. So long, barrels mounting to the end caps of tubes! So long, having to buy new barrels if you want a magazine extension!

Great job, Mossberg! It took a while, but you finally made the right choice.

Oh, speaking of Mossberg, here's a 12-gauge-yet-totally-NOT-a-shotgun from Black Aces Tactical. Sure, it LOOKS like a shotgun, because it's built on a Mossberg 500 receiver and uses shot shells, but since it's not designed to be shouldered it's (per the ATF) not a shotgun, and since it must be operated with two hands it's (per the ATF) not a pistol. It's just a "firearm".

I love it when gun companies use the letter of the law to troll the Feds.