A few weeks ago I received an email requesting I review a CLP (Clean, Lubricate, and Protect) product for guns:

Hey there,

This is John with Professor Pew, a small Detroit-based gun care products company (affiliated with BravoBelt). Your blog caught my attention and we’d like to learn more about your brand collaborations.

Our website: www.professorpew.com

What’s your process for getting on your product review schedule? Happy to send you a bottle of our CLP (on the house) to test the waters. Just need a good address.

Let me know if you’re interested.
  
John
Brand Partnerships & Development
www.professorpew.com

I looked at their website and was skeptical for multiple reasons:

Welcome to Professor Pew, a plant-based gun cleaning, lubricant, and protectant company.

I haven’t used a CLP product in decades. My reasoning being that any product which is multipurpose must be a tradeoff and have inferior performance to a corresponding set of single purpose products. There can be advantages related to lower cost, size, etc. but function performance has to take a hit in a multiple function product.

When I read about the “plant-based” aspects of the product I rolled my eyes. They added another constraint and corresponding tradeoff.

But I agreed to review their product and they sent me an eight ounce bottle:

I cleaned two dirty guns with the CLP. I was shocked at how easy it was to get them clean. The most amazing part was the cleaning of the barrels. Usually there is carbon in the edges of the grooves of my pistols. I either leave it or use some bore past, a patch, and bronze brush to get most of it out. With this CLP I left it in the barrel for five of the recommended (as found on the back of the bottle) 2-5 minutes. I scrubbed it a few strokes with a bronze brush it and pushed a clean patch through the barrel. The barrel was clean! No line of black in the edges of the grooves.

There were other areas of the guns, corners in particular, that never get very clean which were now cleaner than they have ever been since the guns were new. This is an awesome cleaner! And there was no strong obnoxious smell.

But how about lubrication? The test which some lubricants fail is an extreme cold test. I lubricated one gun and wiped off the excess oil. I then put it in a zip lock bag and put it in the deep freeze overnight. The next morning I pull the gun out of the freezer, removed it from the zip lock bag, racked the slide, and exercised the hammer and trigger multipole times. Everything worked as expected. I have seen the slide on guns take two seconds or more to creep forward until they contacted the round which failed to chamber. The hammer would fall so slowly they would only make the slightest of dent in the primer. The lubrication had turned into a high viscosity grease at the cold temperature. With this CLP, I could not detect any velocity reduction.

I don’t have a quick and easy way to test the protective qualities, but I did have one more test.

I took a freshly lubed gun and put it in my brass dryer. I let it dry for about an hour to see the results. My usual lubricant will be essentially dry to the touch. Professor Pew CLP did not dry out to a film. It was still slightly moist.

For demanding dusty and/or sandy environments I probably will still use the Interflon Fin Super but Professor Pew CLP will get the nod in other situations.

You can get Professor Pew CLP direct from their website or from Amazon.

Last month I received an email from Widener’s. This is the important part of our conversation:

I’m reaching out to see if you’d be interested in reviewing some ammo on blog.joehuffman.org. Product reviews are an opportunity to increase website traffic and build a stronger relationship with your audience.

Think of your readers for a minute. They likely see ads for ammunition placed by manufacturers every time they go online. Wouldn’t it be better if they were receiving real information from a trusted resource like your website? Given your experience in the industry, I thought you would be interested in receiving some free ammunition to review.

If you are interested in receiving some free ammo for an unbiased product review. I’m sure we can find a caliber or two to send your way. 

If there’s anything I can help you with, just let me know. Thanks!

—

What type of ammo do you have in mind?

My primary calibers are .22LR (Steel Challenge type matches and practice), .40 S&W (Steel Challenge and USPSA matches) , .223 Remington (precision rifle out to 500 yards), and .300 Win Mag (precision rifle out to 700 yards).

—

Thank you for the fast reply. That sounds great, below is a $250 gift card code for you to use to get started. After you add items to your cart, enter the gift card code and the website will walk you through the rest of the checkout process. Orders are processed through a secure server and fulfilled remotely by our warehouse, so your blogger identity remains anonymous to us.

I ordered 1,000 rounds of CCI Mini-Mags 22 LR 40 Grain CPRN and 500 rounds of Federal American Eagle Suppressor 22 LR 45 Grain CPRN. That was on a Tuesday. The following Tuesday the ammo arrived at my underground bunker in remote Idaho:

I was a little concerned because the package had been damaged in transit. I’ve opened ammo shipments that looked similar to this and found hundreds of rounds rattling around loose in the box.

This time the interior packaging was more than adequate and the ammo was contained:

I’ve fired many thousands of rounds of the Mini-Mags with excellent results. Because of the high reliability it’s the only .22 ammo I use in competition. Hence, I didn’t bother to test it.

I was really interested in the Federal American Eagle Suppressor 22 LR 45 Grain CPRN. Would it work in my somewhat finicky competition gun? I had thought I had my suppressor in my range bag but I couldn’t find it. Without the suppressor to give some additional backpressure I thought there was zero chance of it working. I was wrong. I fired two magazines without even a hint of malfunction and with excellent accuracy.

That was almost a month ago.

Last week I put in an exhaustive search for my suppressor to finish off the review. I finally found the suppressor laying on a shelf in the gun safe rather than in a range bag or gun case like I expected. I went to the range for a late lunch one day (it’s about five minutes from work) and, as I had hoped, I had a few minutes when I was the only person in the bay. I put on the suppressor and took off the ear protection. There was the usual mildly intense pop with the first round then the rest of the rounds were not much more than the sound of the action of the gun cycling. Again, with perfect reliability and excellent accuracy.

Nice!

Thanks Widner’s!

Earlier this week I received an email:

From: BravoBelt Team
Sent: Monday, October 4, 2021 5:59 AM
To: blog@joehuffman.org
Subject: LOVE YOUR ARTICLE!

Hi!
I was searching around and came across with your article: A step in the right direction. I love the content! My name is Oliver and I’m on the Outreach Team for @BravoBelt. We recently released an updated BravoBelt holster that I think your readers would appreciate.
Let me know if you would like one to review and I will drop one in the mail for you.
Thanks!

Oliver Sana
Digital Operations Manager
The BravoBelt Team
www.bravobelt.com

After looking at their website I was skeptical, but at 3:00 AM the next day I agreed to review their holster. I was skeptical for three reasons:

1. The opening for the gun is elastic and collapses when the gun is removed which probably makes it difficult to reholster one handed and without looking at the holster.
2. The snapped strap over the top of the gun will slow the draw.
3. The spare magazine are shown on the same side of body as the gun. This will slow your reloads. And for the left handed shooter it’s going to take some real contortions to reach your reload.

From their website (see more pictures on Amazon):

I received the holster two days after agreeing to review it.

The first thing I noticed when I opened the package was the smell. The smell of neoprene was almost overpowering. Thankful the smell faded after a couple days in the open air.

I was pleased to observe the magazine holster was different from what was pictured. The magazine holster was a separate pouch which fastened with Velcro to almost wherever you want it. I was easily able to position it on my left side exactly where I wanted it.

The holster is extremely comfortable. It was almost soothing!

This is where I run out of nice things to say about the holster. My other concerns were mostly realized.

The elastic opening immediately collapsed when the gun was drawn. I could wiggle the gun back into the holster with one just one hand but I really needed to look at it as I was doing it. There are various scenarios in defensive handgun usage where this can be important. In the General Defensive Handgun class from Insights Training one of the critical features of a holster was that it be relatively easy to holster your gun, sight unseen, with one hand. This holster fails that test.

The same sort of story can be told about putting a magazine into the holster on the other side. If you do a reload with a partially empty magazine and want to put the used magazine in the holster you need to use another hand (holding the gun? Nope.), get your eyes on the holster, or fumble one handed for a bit. I’m not liking these scenario in a defensive encounter.

The strap over the back of the gun is required for secure carry. The gun moves around too much without it.

I practiced drawing for several minutes and I was able to get into a “groove” that was faster than I expected. It was more complicated than a typical draw with the snap needing to be released, then flipped over the back of the gun, and then the hand going down again to get under the strap. The elastic helped some. The strap would do a lot of the flipping on it’s own but I still needed to time things right and make sure my hand was under the strap when I gripped the gun.

I could comfortably and repeatedly get off my first shot in 2.25 S from concealment from underneath a unbuttoned flannel shirt. Not too bad, I thought. I could not get it down to 2.0 S. As I sped up the strap and/or my t-shirt would inevitably get between my hand and the grip of the gun.

I put my Kramer IWB #2 holster back on and tested my draw speed. 1.5 S was repeatable. Hmmm… 1.5 S to 2.25 S is a 50% increase in draw time. Is a 0.75 seconds critical? One could make the case that it could sometimes mean the difference between life and death. It’s probably not super critical in the big picture. I think I would worry more about the increase in complexity in a time of stress causing a tangled clothing draw of 5.0 S instead of the 2.25 S draw under controlled conditions.

I asked Barb to model the holster for pictures and she readily agreed. Pictures are with the holster unconcealed for demonstration purposes. Wearing it over a t-shirt and under my flannel shirt made little difference in functionality than as shown below:

Notice the pouch for your cellphone in the picture above? That worked well for me.

The Velcro attached spare magazine holster had the advantage of being adjustable to exactly the right spot regardless of your waist size.

She was not happy with it. If it was low enough to easily draw then it was just below the widest portion of her hips. This made it more difficult to conceal, risked having it slide down, and made walking and bending over uncomfortable. I had her raise it up to where it was above the top the widest area of her hips. Then the draw was difficult because she was running out of range of motion to be able to lift her gun high enough to clear the holster:

The fit on me was a little better. I could position the height of the holster such that the gun didn’t poke me when walking or bending over and I could complete the draw even though I was reaching the end of my range of motion.

The price for this holster is $27.77 to $29.95 (depending on waist size) on Amazon. That is a great price for a functional holster. But this holster has functional deficiencies for defensive carry. That said, because of the extreme comfort it might be that someone is more likely to carry than not carry. And the first rule of gun safety is to have a gun.

I recently received an offer from Craft Holsters for a free holster if I did a review of the holster. I know someone with a Ruger SR40 and no holster for it so I asked to receive one for that gun. They promptly shipped the holster from Slovakia and I received it a few days later.

Here are some pictures:

It’s a really nice looking holster. It’s very solidly built and comfortable to wear. The gun fights tight and there was no worry of the gun falling out even if were to be turning somersaults or some other vigorous activity.

At the range I drew and fired probably a dozen times. Three of those times the rear snap popped loose. This allowed the holster to rotate forward increasing the cant to the point I couldn’t easily remove the gun from the holster. I wish they had used directional snaps:

Directional snaps, as seen in the two images above, require that you hook one side of the snap over, then push down on the other side to secure it in place. To unsnap it you must pull up on the side you pushed down when fastening it. It will not unfasten, without breaking, from pressure on the other side. In a holster the nondeliberate forces on the snap always come from the bottom side. Properly installed, the directional snap will prevent the problem I had with it coming unsnapped during the draw.

That said, after some use the friction decreased and I no longer had the problem. Still, I would worry about it happening again at the least opportune time.

One other concern I had was that holster covered up the magazine release. Other holsters I have do not cover it up:

With an exposed magazine release I can take an empty gun, put a full magazine in it, rack a round into the chamber, put the gun in the holster, remove the magazine, and top it of with another round, then put the magazine back in the gun while it is still in the holster.

I thought the covered magazine release prevented me from doing this. It turns out it doesn’t. I can press on the holster over the magazine release and actuate the release just fine. Of course this created a new concern. Could normal wearing of the holster put sufficient pressure on the holster to actuate the release? I tried to make this happen but the area of the holster over the release is in a soft spot below my ribs and above my hip bone where I couldn’t get anywhere near sufficient pressure to actuate the magazine release. I was able to make it happen once during a somewhat contorted draw.

Enough of my whining. Here are some things I really like about the holster.

Each of the two fastening straps can be put in three different positions:

This allows you to change the height and/or the cant of the holster.

The extra layer of leather near the mouth of the holster keeps the mouth open after the gun is drawn such that you can always reholster with one hand and not be wiggling the gun around to work it into the holster. You can keep the muzzle at a proper angle such that you aren’t going to explode a kidney if you manage to do something stupid with your trigger finger during the reholstering process.

The holster has a 5-year warranty.

The holster is priced at $65 plus $14 shipping.

It is shipping via DHL from Slovakia and you will received the holster in five to six business days. There was no taxes added so at $79 you get a really great value. A similar holster from Milt Sparks is $135. A similar holster from Kramer is $126.50 plus shipping.

Here is a video made by Craft

You should give this holster serious consideration. You get a good quality holster in the the comfort of leather for a great price. The also have other types of holsters for the Ruger SR40.

I was given a free holster by Craft Holsters on the condition I review it on my blog. I received it several weeks ago but I was extremely busy at work (new invention disclosure came out of it and was sent to the patent attorneys just yesterday). I had looked at it some but didn’t actually try using it until yesterday.

I ordered the holster for a STI 1911 5”. I was thinking this would work with my STI DVC Limited. It didn’t. The magazine release button would catch on the holster. Pushing the leather aside and putting the gun the rest of the way into the holster wasn’t really an option. The magazine release button received a lot of pressure and would release the magazine while the gun was in the holster. I concluded this was a bug and not a feature.

I tried my Gun Blog 45 in the holster. The rear sight would catch on the holster as it was inserted. Okay, well, the Gun Blog 45 isn’t really a 1911 anyway.

I borrowed a true 1911. This combination worked. Pictures:

The angle is a little more than I am used to with my usual holster but it worked just fine for me.

I am a little concerned about the mouth of the holster and the potential for collapse. This is not an inside the waistband holster so it doesn’t get much pressure on it. But it was much more flexible than I am used to.

It could be that if the holster was intended for a true 1911 the fit would be more snug. Craft Holsters sent me a “break-in kit” so I’m pretty sure they expected it would be a snug fit. But with the given holster and gun tested the gun would fall out when the holster was turned upside down. It was a little more snug when on my belt but it expect that after some wear if I were to do a forward roll the gun would fall out. And possibly even just running and jumping would jeopardize control of the gun. But, again, this holster was intended for a different style of 1911. A true 1911 holster might have eliminated this complaint.

On a positive note, the price is $59. This is about half what I would normally pay for an IWB holster for my STI. Also, it is nice looking and comfortable.

As I reload almost all my centerfire pistol ammo I have not paid much attention to new ammunition. Hence, even though it has been out for at least three years, I had not heard of Federal Syntech Action Pistol until about 10 days ago when I got this email:

Hi Joe!

My name is McKenzie, I’m a fellow USPSA shooter (though not a very good one — haha!) and I also work for TargetBarn.com. Your post the other day about the Segway shooter had me cracking up and wishing my club had better footing for some Segway shenanigans!

I’m sure you’ve heard about the relatively new Federal Syntech Action Pistol line, which is the USPSA’s official ammo. It is on USPSA’s Certified Match Ammo list, with the .40 and .45 flavors meeting major PF. It’s been a huge hit among our customers so far and there are always shooters using it at my local match.

Now I know you load your own rounds, but I wanted to see if you’d be interested in trying out some of the Syntech Action Pistol. I’ve enjoyed reading your insights on your own loads, and thought it would be interesting to hear how you think this line stacks up, especially since it’s touted as a major PF load.

If you’re interested, I’d be happy to send some out to you. Of course, there’s no pressure and no worries if you’re not interested!

Thank you for your time, and thank you for your work in bringing new shooters to the range!

Best,

McKenzie
TargetBarn.com

It turns out Federal makes it in 150 grain 9mm as well as .40 and .45.

I accepted the offer for some .40 S&W:

I was very intrigued with the 205 grain bullets. I had never fired 205 grain bullets in .40 caliber. With a similar margin for making Power Factor the 205 grain bullets would yield a lower velocity than the 180 grain bullets I almost always use. The lower velocity would spread out the recoil impulse and give a more comfortable recoil. I had sort of considered it but another shooter I know said he was never able to get 200 grain bullets to shoot accurately. And here was 205 grain bullets intended for use in matches. And in 20 years I never tried it for myself.

I took it to the range yesterday and shot it through three different STI guns. I fully expected to see some keyholing at more distance ranges. I also expected it to be marginal in Power Factor for one of the guns. One gun, with the same length barrel, consistently gets lower velocities than the other two.

I was wrong.

I shot 20 rounds in each of the three guns. The Power Factors were 175.93, 179.72, and 179.89. The muzzle velocity standard deviation was outstanding: 7.1, 7.6 and 8.4 fps.

These are a little hotter load than what I normally shoot for Major Power Factor. With such consistent velocities I would not run these hotter than a PF of 170. But these guns all had barrels five inches long. If you were using a gun with a shorter barrel you would want the extra powder in these load to make sure you were reaching Major PF velocities. But even with the greater PF there was no significant difference in recoil from a new load I was test with a PF of only 168.5.

There was no keyholing. I put five rounds though each of the guns at a 25 yard target. Here are the results:

The accuracy was as good as my handloads. These are the 20 shots fired for velocity testing at a range of 10 yards. Some, or perhaps all, of the flyers were shooter error. With this many rounds I could feel some fatigue during the strings.

DVC Limited:

Edge:

Eagle:

The Eagle has never been as accurate as the other two and I don’t blame the ammo for the greater dispersion.

Today, I shot several USPSA stages at the Renton Fish and Game Club with the Federal ammo. I was pleased with how the ammo performed. No complaints at all.

Here are some videos from Federal on their ammo:

Target Barn has the ammo for $0.24/round in 9mm and $0.36/round in .40 S&W and .45 ACP.

On the right sidebar of this blog is this image:

A little over a week ago AmmoMan.com contacted me about placing an ad to get the word out about their new “two day shipping”. 97% of people are expected to get their ammo within two days but some may take three days. They gave me a code to order some ammo with and I made two different orders. I had one shipped to Idaho and the other shipped to my Bellevue Washington address. From looking at their map it appeared to me that the Idaho shipment could take three days.

It turned out that, according to FedEx, the Idaho shipment arrived 50 minutes before the Bellevue order and both were on day two after the order. Nice!

An occasional problem I have had with mail ordered ammo is that it is packed poorly and the ammo box breaks and there is loose ammo rolling around in the box. That was not the case this time. This is the box in which I received three bricks of .22 ammo after I had removed the three bricks. It was packed tight with stiff paper:

The other shipment was the original 500 round case, with shipping labels attached, which Federal Ammo packages their American Eagle .223 Ammo in. There were no issues with either packaging.

About three months ago I wrote about a gun lubricant which I was rather pleased with, Interflon Fin Super. Today I received an email which said, in part:

We have been informed by the Head Office of Interflon in the Netherlands that there is an issue with selling Interflon products directly to consumers online, because the Licensing Agreement that Interflon has with DuPont for the use of Teflon in their products limits them to selling these products to the professional market only. Selling to consumers is in breach of this licensing agreement and we have been asked to take the offering on Amazon offline immediately.

…

We will be taking the product off line by the end of this week and will no longer be selling directly to consumers. The product will still be available to professional buyers such as gun clubs and gun stores.

I haven’t seen this in any gun store so I immediately went on line at Amazon and ordered what I figured would be a lifetime supply for me. I don’t know if they will actually ship it but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try.

Update: This product is being taking off the direct to customer market. See this post for more information.

I received a free can of Interflon Fin Super for review a while back and have been using it on my guns and in a few around the house applications. Here is a portion of the email I received about it:

Hi Joe,

I am writing to you because I represent a  lubricant called Fin Super.  Fin Super is a multi-purpose spray.  It is not very well known in the states, but has been used for a number of years by military and police brigades for firearm lubrication in Europe.

Do you accept product to conduct reviews on your blog?  If so, I would be happy to send you a sample to try.  The feedback I get is always overwhelmingly positive.

I have included some info about Fin Super.  In the attachments you will find:

-a review written by a friend who has been using Fin Super for the past three years
-A picture of what the can looks like
-An article translated from an Italian Firearms magazine (the translations isn’t great but the information is very useful)

A copy of the article is included in text form lower in the email.

Lastly, here are some useful links:

Company site:
www.interflon.com

Product Page:
http://www.interflon.com/ca/en/products/570/interflon-fin-super-%28aerosol%29

Technical data sheet:
http://www.interflon.com/asset/download/2866

Safety data sheet:
http://www.interflon.com/asset/download/16513

Here are the two supplied reviews of the product and a picture of the container:

• Article published in the February 2006 edition of TACARMI, the first European gun culture magazine.
• A review written by a friend.

You can purchase Interflon Fin Super from Amazon.

I have been wanting a dry lubricant for my guns for some time. I frequently am in a very dirty environment and the oil on guns attracts even more dirt. Notice the dirt build up in the rear of the slide below:

Another problem with liquid lubricants, particularly with my .22s, it seemed that they contributed to the build up of powder residue in the receivers. Dry lubricants should reduce that problem.

And finally I have shot in matches where it was very cold, sub-zero, and because I had been using appropriate lubricants I had higher scores than Master class shooters because their guns turned into single shots instead of semi-auto because the slide would not go into battery without manual assistance. Dry lubricants don’t have this problem.

I had two main concerns I wanted to test:

1. I had used a Teflon spray lubricant before that dried within seconds but the lubricant seemed to rub off very easily. I didn’t trust it to actually reduce wear over extended shooting sessions. Would this lubricant persist after extensive use?
2. Would it make cleaning the inside of the barrel easier like the current lubricant (the original Friction Defense, not Friction Defense Xtreme) I was using?

I was initially annoyed when I applied the lubricant as directed and even after 24 hours the interior surfaces of the gun were still wet. I agree with one of the supplied reviews on this topic (emphasis added):

One essential – and actually, in terms of the way it appears, almost unique – characteristic of Fin Super is that it is a semi-dry detergent-lubricant-protective product (the manufacturer considers it to be “dry”, but we think our definition is more accurate). After it has been applied to metal after giving the bottle a short but necessary shake, it evaporates slowly leaving a highly adhesive film offering the great advantage that it does not grease or stain the hands and clothes, nor does it attract dust or dirt.

I had closed the action of the gun and put it in my holster with a loaded magazine and a round in the chamber. Of course evaporation is going to be unlikely in that environment. I tested it again by leaving the gun unassembled and having an incandescent light bulb shine on it from a few inches away overnight. The surfaces were no longer wet but had a film that wasn’t really wet and adhered well.

After shooting hundreds of rounds through the gun the barrel cleaned up easily. Perhaps easier than it would have with Friction Defense. The film was still detectable with a rub of your finger over the surfaces and hence the lubricant had passed my two tests. But the slow drying brought up another question.

What if you were to apply the lubricant and take it into a cold environment before it had dried? The same reviewer I quoted above had this to say (emphasis added):

Let’s take a look at the stated chemical and physical properties: this is a semi-synthetic PTFE (Teflon) oil with a medium density (0.85 grams per millilitre at 20°C), flash point at 80° C and self-ignition at 370° C, a muddy yellow-nut brown colour common to many products to which Teflon has been added, almost insoluble in water, usable between -43° C and +170° C (although it should be pointed out that after application and vaporation of solvents the product remains effective at between -200 and +300° C).

Okay. -43 C (-45.4F) is probably below the temperature I will be using it. But what does “usable” mean? Will the gun still cycle at low temperatures? I applied the lubricant to all the usual surfaces of the gun and without wiping the excess off put the gun in the freezer (6.2F) for several hours. When I pulled it out it was almost instantly covered in frost. I should have taken a picture because it was a pretty funny looking gun with the frost growing on all the metal surfaces. But despite the cold and frost the slide and hammer moved as freely as they do at normal temperatures.

Interflon Fin Super has passed all my tests and I’m now using it on all my guns (when I get around to cleaning them). The price does seem to be a bit high ($28.00 + $7.49 shipping from Amazon). But at the current rate of consumption I’m sure the can will supply enough lubrication such that each gun cleaning will only amount to a few pennies. I can live with that for the benefits of having a semi-dry lubricant.

I received a IWB holster from Alien Gear for review. I have the Ruger P89 Cloak Tuck 2.0 but they have different versions of holsters for a very wide selection of guns. I count 441 different pistols and 14 different revolvers.

I can’t ever recall giving unqualified praise for a product I have been asked to review. While I do have a minor quibble about the instructions I really like the product. As they claim on their web site, “You are not just going to like your new Alien Gear Holster – you’re going to love it. Guaranteed.”

My minor quibble with the instructions is with how they tell you to put the holster on:

First put on your pants and sturdy belt. Leave your pants unbuttoned and unzipped. Insert the holster into your pants in the front just to the right of the zipper. Then, slide the holster around to where you will be wearing it.

…

This didn’t work for me. The padding gripped the t-shirt I was wearing and slid it around with the holster. If I had not been wearing a shirt then it would have worked but why do this at all? Perhaps there is a good reason but I didn’t see it. I just rotated it into the position I wanted it and then slid it straight down sort of like I was tucking in a shirt.

The holster is very comfortable to wear. It has good retention for a holster without a locking mechanism. I could draw from it as rapidly as any other IWB holster I have worn and could reholster without a collapsed shell that needed to be opened up.

Although I found the defaults to be ideal for me the holster has a great deal of adjustment available. It has adjustable tilt angle, adjustable ride height, and adjustable retention.

It is a very versatile holster. You can even use it with a tucked in t-shirt.

Their warranty is awesome. With free shell trades for life if you change carry guns and forever protection against breakage.

Give this holster very serious consideration.

I was sent, for a limited review time, The GunBox Biometric Hand Gun Safe.

First the negatives.

They have a YouTube video on how to get into the box with a common tool. The video is not listed so that helps but security through obscurity is, putting it mildly, frowned upon in the security world.

The interior height should be a little greater. It was tough to get the lid to close with my STI Eagle. The oversized magazine well would hit the lid when I tried to close it. I was finally able to find a configuration to get everything, including hearing protection, in but it was tight:

And if I didn’t have the gun in just the right spot it would fail to open unless I put some pressure on the lid when the mechanism was activated.

My Gun Blog .45 fit fine in most positions. Some positions were still an issue. The magazines had to be laying flat which took up more space than I thought they really should. My Surefire 6PX Flashlight was limited to certain locations in the box as well.

Next, the positives.

It does seem to be pretty tough. I was a little disappointed in the testing in their video:

I would have like to have seen attempts at prying it open by someone with a little more skill and strength than the small children shown in the video. But it’s cast aluminum. A hacksaw is going to cut through it in seconds so anyone that has access to tools, time alone with it, and doesn’t care about damaging the box will easily gain access. This is not intended to be protection against skilled and determined thieves.

It is opened via an RFID (wristband, optional ring, or RFID label to put on your phone or drivers license) or fingerprint. The slowest access time is with your fingerprint as it takes longer to read and process it than it does with one of the RFID access methods. From “the buzzer going off” to “first shot” took me about four seconds. With the wristband I could do it in three. I was a little annoyed with the wrist band in that I had to present a certain portion of the band to the sensor. For the easiest access to the box the buckle of the wristband needed to be on the top of my wrist which is the least attractive way to wear the band.

Initially I wasn’t too keen about the opening mechanism but I was focusing on the wristband. I still don’t think I would wear the wristband all the time. And if you left the wristband in a drawer or in a closet then it would be more susceptible to discovery by the kids. Don’t worry about having the wristband around if you don’t plan on using it or if you lose it. You can have the box unlearn all fingerprints and RFID devices and reprogram it for just the opening methods you plan to use.

And I might see putting the label on my drivers license even though it would be much slower to find my wallet in the pile of clothes beside the bed. It could read the label through the wallet just fine. It wasn’t necessary to remove the label from the wallet so the time to open would be primarily the time to get your wallet to the sensor.

Some people might find wearing a ring acceptable. I’m not a ring person and I wouldn’t wear a ring just for this gun box.

The fingerprint method seemed to work well enough. This is how I think I would use it. I programmed it to accept three of my fingers and one of Barb’s then she, her daughter, and I all tried all our other fingers in an attempt to get a false match. All attempts at false entry failed.

I occasionally had failures to open on the first try with both my index fingers. I think it was the vertical angle (airplane pitch) I used when it was learning the fingers. When it was learning the fingerprints it was on the floor where I was taking pictures. When I was doing extensive access testing it was on the desk while I was sitting.

I had it learn the same fingers again with the angle I used when sitting at the desk and access was almost 100% on the first try. They claim it will hold “approximately 100 unique fingers” so you might consider programming it for the same finger in different orientations for more reliable opening. You do not need to do this for various horizontal (airplane yaw) angles. The sensor works just fine for 360 degree access on the horizontal plane. That is very nice feature and it work flawlessly for me.

Here is one of their many videos on the use of The Gunbox:

I liked this safe and for keeping guns out of the hands of children and casual access attempts by unauthorized people I would recommend people give it serious consideration. It’s attractive enough to leave on the nightstand and functional enough to keep the kids out of it.

Authority Safes contacted me about reviewing one of the gun safes they sell. They wanted to give me a SentrySafe Quick Access Pistol Safe for review. Before I accepted it I told them that if I found something I didn’t like that I wouldn’t hold back in reporting that. They told me they wouldn’t want it any other way. That was a good start. I accepted the safe and played with it quite a bit.

I didn’t follow through with this post as quickly as I should have. I have had the safe since sometime in early February. It has been sitting beside my bed making me feel guilty every time I step over it to get into bed. So today I finally got around to doing the last of the tests I wanted to do and now I’m reporting everything.

First is the worst thing I have to say about the safe. As reported in this video review if you press the buttons too fast it won’t open. You have to try again. And “too fast” isn’t all that fast. I didn’t even have to try to have it fail. I have to deliberately slow down from what feels like a natural speed to me. But I may not be normal in this regard. Since I was in grade school people have commented on how quick I am with my fingers and hands.

The second worst thing I have to say about the safe is about one of its features. That’s right, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature! After not opening the safe for several weeks I tried to open it and it failed even when I did it slow. What? I know that is the combination. Oh! Now I remember. The first button push is just to get its attention and doesn’t count toward the actual combination. It turns on the backlight for the buttons and gives you low level illumination for entering the combination. I understand why they did this. It’s kind of a cool feature but it delayed my entry into the safe by several seconds. If I had just woken up and was in a high stress situation my brain might not have solved the puzzle nearly as quickly as I did this time. I would recommend opening it at least once a week just to keep your fingers and brain up to speed on the proper combination and speed of button pushes.

The third worst thing I have to say about it is that I am a little bit concerned about the back up lock. There have been reports of this type of lock being defeated with the barrel of a Bic pen. I tried some things but couldn’t find a plastic tube of the proper diameter. This concern is going to depend on who you are trying to keep the contents away from. If your threat model is small children then this safe is going to be great. If the threat model is a criminal with tools then the safe is probably susceptible, even if you utilize the supplied lag screws, to crow bar removal from your premises and a metal saw. If the threat model is a smart teenager with lots of time who wants surreptitious access then maybe you need to investigate further.

Now the good things I have to say.

It’s small enough it will slide under the bed and fit in a lot of drawers. It’s large enough I can get everything I can reasonably expect to need, short of body armor, that I might need in a quick access pistol safe.

The safe feels solid. I didn’t even have a temptation to try and pry or force things to gain access. I used to have a gun cabinet that just looking at it gave me the urge to apply a drill and a hacksaw blade to it. This safe did not tempt me in a similar manner.

I trust this safe to keep my grandkids and casual criminals out of it while giving me ready access.

Here are my pictures and further comments:

It’s a nice looking safe. There are no easy pry points. The dark smudges are from me handling it with oily fingers. The surface cleans up easily and I would not expect corrosion even if I were to put it in a moderately abusive environment.

Above you see that I was able to put my loaded, cocked, and locked STI Eagle 5.1 with a 18 round magazine in the safe with room for two more 18 round magazines, in their holsters, a Surefire flashlight, and hearing protection.

In another configuration I removed one magazine and substituted ESS eye protection. I didn’t realize it until after I took the pictures but I can also rearrange things and put the magazine in it’s holster in the position where the eye protection is and move the eye protection to the magazine position in the above picture. It all fits.

I think it’s a good safe for most home applications and recommend people give it serious consideration.

See also reviews by Say Uncle, Robb Allen, and their commenters. I didn’t watch the YouTube video linked to by one but I scanned it without seeing this particular safe.

This is the gun (with part of the serial number obscured) I have been shooting:

Custom guns just for us knuckle dragging gun bloggers! How cool is that?

I had some problems yesterday and finally figured out what was going on (with a simpler repro of the problem by JR). If the gun cycles, you let up on the trigger to the first click, squeeze (it will hit a hard stop without firing), then let up until the next click, then pull the gun will lock up. You have to manually cycle the slide (roughly the equivalent to a computer reboot) to recover. I mentioned this to Kerby, the Para USA guy, and he said, “Yes. It will do that. Don’t do that. After the gun cycles move you finger until the nail touches the front of the trigger guard then do your pull.” He went on to explain that this is because I’ve been shooting single action guns for a long time. Others that shoot double action or Glock type actions before using a Light Double Action (which this is) don’t have this problem.

At Microsoft we call a bug that is easily reached and causes the program to crash a Priority 0 bug. Priority 0 bugs must be fixed before the product is shipped. Telling the customer, “Don’t do that” isn’t really an option for a released product.

Yesterday I had many failures to feed as well. After oiling the gun this morning those problems went away until very late in the day when the gun got dirty again. And after adapting my shooting technique to avoid the system lock up (and the required reboot) I did pretty well. On the last big “stage” at the end of the day with shooting on the move, shooting movers, and plates racks I had the best run of anyone (possibly even Todd who fumbled some reloads and had other problems) until Caleb shot the stage with a borrowed gun that had 18 round magazines. The rest of us used eight round magazines and I required five magazines to complete the stage.

At the end of the day several of us, including me, were able to hit the eight (?) inch plates at 35 yards half the time or better.

I have to conclude the gun works well as long as you don’t run into that one bug.

Draw your own conclusions as to whether the gun (your version would look like this) is for you.