Recoil March/April 2021 #53

With everything that’s happened in the past 12 months, you’d expect that someone in the firearms publishing biz would have something to say on the subject of guns and race. And yet, the silence has been deafening. RECOIL has a history of tackling uncomfortable topics — ones that old-school, established media in this space would rather ignore. So rather than sweep it under the rug, we decided to kick off that conversation by bringing in one of the most ardent proponents of the Second Amendment in the Black community. As a whole, we gun owners are overwhelmingly white and male, and, to date, any efforts to change that have tended to be perfunctory and patronizing. Now, you could take the position that no change is necessary, but you’d probably be consigning…

01 TUFF WRITER OPERATOR SERIES MSRP: $95 URL: tuffwriter.com When we show people our favorite tactical pen, the common response is, “Really? It doesn’t look that special.” That’s the point of the Tuff Writer Operator Series pen. It’s not supposed to scream tacticool. Plus, the body is made out of quality 6061 aluminum, hard anodized to Milspec, then finished with a proprietary non-reflective, non-marking surface treatment. The pocket clip is made out of cold-pressed spring steel, so it won’t get bent outta shape. Tuff Writer now offers the Operator in different colors, including this shade of blue that allows it to virtually blend into your dark wash jeans for even lower visibility. It comes with a Fisher Space Pen ink cartridge, which can write upside and in various harsh environments. Made in the USA. 02…

The Martyr’s Memorial Museum was established in Amman under the tutelage of King Hussein. Unique among museums in the Middle East, it serves as both a solemn memorial to Jordanian fallen soldiers, while also telling the story of the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF) since the countries modern inception as a result of the Arab Revolt during the First World War up unto the current era. The building itself is a simple but elegant square stone structure surrounded by a spectacularly laid stone formation that’s led to by a stone stairway from the street-level entrance. As a visitor walks up to the Memorial, they’re surrounded by concentric levels of trees and inlaid marble sections that’s a calming change of scene compared to the crazy bustle that’s downtown Amman. This walkway is very…

Ask 10 car guys what the term “hot rod” means, and you’ll probably get 10 different answers. However, most of these definitions will share a central theme. A hot rod is typically a mundane vehicle fitted with the largest-displacement, highest-output engine available — usually a V-8 — which is then pushed even further through the addition of performance upgrades. Some of the earliest examples of this trend came from the Prohibition Era, when bootleggers and outlaws (most notably John Dillinger) evaded authorities in gutted Ford coupes equipped with souped-up Flathead V-8s. Dry-lakebed and drag-strip racers adopted similar tactics, upping the ante with bored and stroked engines, high-octane fuel, and superchargers. In the end, the goal was to squeeze every drop of power out of vehicles that, in many cases, started…

Rather than focus on a particular blade profile, I decided to take a look at some nightmarish knives. These blades deserve that name in more ways than one. Some of them sweep upward, some drop down, a few of different grinds and angles, and of course, there are serrations. While they may not look like a classic Bob Loveless drop-point, and to some they’re garish or look like what’s referred to as a Klingon or Fantasy Knife, each one of these blades was designed with a real-world purpose. Every one of them is combat oriented. The nightmare moniker has another meaning for the maker. These knives are a nightmare to grind. In one case, the maker had one somewhat get away from him on the belt and it resulted in an injury…

One of RECOIL’s staffers lives behind the iron curtain, in sunny California. You might be surprised by how many shooters live in the state, despite its aggressively freedom-hating political leadership. Years ago, he bought a SIG Sauer M400 rifle that had been neutered for California with a device called a bullet button, which would only release a 10-round magazine with the use of a tool or tip of a bullet. When California politicians passed yet another law requiring the registration of rifles equipped with bullet buttons, rather than registering it, he disassembled it to remain legal and put in the back of his safe. But that’s not his only option — in California, you can freely own a magazine-fed semi-automatic centerfire rifle as long as it doesn’t have certain features that…