For my money, the stuff I thought was the coolest was not big ticket items like guns, but smaller gear innovations. It wasn't all peachy though.
Specifically:
-TNVC had an IR patch that illuminated veins under IR. Amazingly cool tech. They also had what they were calling IR Dirt, which is a binary compound that can be cut, shaken, and spread around the ground or on a person. It's basically the color of dirt, but glows bright under NODs. Absolutely cool tech.
-S&S Precision's plate harness was so simple but brilliant. 1lb 6oz. Shipping in a few months and 380 dollars. I can see this being a fantastic setup for police or special operations units needing either active shooter rigs or something incredibly low profile.
-This was truly the year of the slick rail. Between Geiselle's rail, Noveske's NSR-11, the new URXs, Troy, etc etc...excessive rails are going away...fast.
-Leupold's Mk6 and CQBSS. The Mk6 was everywhere this year, and for good reason. Leupold came out swinging with their 1-6 short dot which looks great. The Mk6 3-18x incorporates the turret design of the CQBSS, along with the zoom controls being the entire bell of the scope. Price looks to be about 1800-2000, or about 2700-2800 with the H58 reticle. The big news is that the CQBSS, which is a good scope in the H27D version, but was 4500 dollars (ugh), is that it's now been dropped down to 3000 dollars. Yay!
-S&B...wow, what a disappointment. Boooo! They've increased their cost to 3500 dollars, and STILL no solid release date. Now having to finally look through it, the exit pupil is bad...really bad.
-Suppressors. Wow did SilencerCo come out swinging with their Saker can. The biggest thing was that the Saker can be retrofitted to drop on the existing AAC 51-tooth muzzle devices. Talk about sneaky snakes. AAC also had their awesome Titanium Element .22, new SR 300BLK cans, break open rifle, and 91-Tooth cans and muzzle devices. Surefire had their new .22 (which to me felt way too complicated compared to SilencerCo and AAC's offerings).
-Lights. Sorry but I just do NOT get strobing...at all. And it seemed like strobes were on EVERYTHING this year.
I'll post up some photos shortly.
"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."
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