It’s that time of year again, people are already looking at their New Year’s resolutions. Lose 10 pounds, buy more ammo, finish that 80% lower… that’s all great. I’ve been thinking or a few annoyances I’ve like to see go the way of the dodo. These are the 2017 New Year’s resolutions for the Gun industry.
New year’s Resolutions No 1 – Iron Sights on All Rifles
This is one of the biggest annoyances I’ve come across. I buy a new rifle and there isn’t a set of iron sights to be seen. In the case of ARs maybe there is a fixed front sight. This isn’t limited to budget rifles either. Plenty of high end 1,000 dollar and up rifles aren’t coming with iron sights. Luckily throughout 2016 I’ve been seeing this less and less from gun companies, but it needs to be completely dead by 2017.
New Year’s Resolution 2 – More Light Bearing Holsters
Picatinny rails have been on handguns long enough for holster companies to start producing more light bearing holsters. Sure if you own a Glock you can find quite a few, but even then you’ll be paying out your butt for them. Own a CZ? A Walther? a compact firearm? Good luck finding a light bearing holster for it. C’mon guys there is money to be made here.
New Year’s Resolution 3 – Standard optic mounts for handguns.
Minature red dots on handguns are becoming a pretty popular option. Glock has the MOS system, SIG is releasing their own optics and optically equipped handgun, and Springfield is even releasing an XD with an optic attached. Companies making these minature red dots include Trijicon, SIG, Vortex, Burris, Docter, Insight, Meopta, and more. This is all great right? Yeah it is, but optics companies can’t decide on a base plate, so we have a wide variety of them floating around. The Glock MOS series comes with 4 plates to accommodate most of the options out there. How about these optics companies get together and settle on or maybe just two designs and stick with it?
New Year’s Resolution 4 – Minimize Proprietary Magazines
You know what I love about buying rifle? Paying 35 dollars for an extra magazine because a company has declined to use something already common and available. In general if you are going to design a 223/5.56 caliber rifle with a removable magazine its a good idea to go with an AR 15 magazine. If you are famous for a certain handgun and you make a new handgun that’s almost identical, use the same magazine. It’s cheaper and easier for all of us. I get that if you are designing a 338 AR 10 you can’t use existing magazines, so I’m not fully against proprietary magzines, I’d just like to see them minimized.
News Year’s Resolution 5 – Prepare to be suppressed
If you create a popular, or even semi popular handgun consider offering a factory threaded barrel. Not just a special, hard to find edition of your handgun, but a common option. Also consider having a factory suppressor height sights model CZ is great about this in my experience, but other companies seem to ignore this often. Make it cost more, most people will pay it versus plopping another 100 bucks on just a threaded barrel. Suppressors are getting more and more popular, and with the current election results we may even see the Hearing Protection Act pass.