After a nice night out with my relatives, I was ready for my last day of SHOT Show coverage today. I have some interesting stuff to share, including pictures and details about Holosun’s unannounced, prototype ultra-low pistol red dot.

Trijicon: Trijicon introduced a new version of the MRO and an accompanying magnifier at SHOT, or almost immediately before it. I played around with both. The new MRO can switch between circle-dot and dot reticles, and you can do it purely using the brightness knob. In what I think was a really nice touch, the top brightness settings for the dot and the circle-dot are essentially next to each other, so you can switch between them very quickly. The magnifier was high-quality and had a firm cam-flip mechanism. It reminded me very much of the mount on my Sig Juliet4. MSRP for the pair is $1300, most of that being the MRO at ~$900. This is a big jump for the MRO’s price, which will probably keep the first version selling well.

Polymer80: Polymer80’s big releases for 2020 are a Glock 43 frame and a Sig P320 grip module. The P320 module felt awesome – just like their Glock frames. If I owned a P320 and wanted an alternative to the Legion tungsten frame, I’d buy one.

They’re also going to be selling complete serialized Glocks (pardon, “Glock-type pistols”). MSRP isn’t final, but probably like $550. It’s probably not a good time to be going into the budget Glock realm with PSA making headlines at $300, but the Polymer80 frame is far superior… not sure if $250 superior, but we’ll see what street looks like.

Holosun: I covered Holosun yesterday, but when I wandered into their booth downstairs, they had some rare unobtainium on display in plain sight. As previously seen in cryptic photos by Steve Fisher on Facebook, Holosun has a prototype ultra-low reflex sight that they’ve been developing. Here are the high points of how it currently exists (everything is subject to change!):

• No buttons. All auto-adjust.
• Reticle is a circle dot (2 MOA dot, 32 MOA circle).
• Ultra-low. Factory irons easily clear it.
• NO BATTERY. Entirely solar-powered.
• Titanium housing, IP67 water-resistant.
• Has enough capacitor capacity to function for a while in total darkness. No word on how long.

It’s currently called the BLPS sight.

BUL Armory: I met the guys at BUL Armory to see what was going on with the AXE, and their US distribution. Good news on both fronts: the AXE is due by the end of the year, and they are finally setting up their own operations in the USA rather than rely on third party importers. I really look forward to working with them this year. They’re trying to make some inroads on their own line of 1911s, and, tasty news, may be releasing a Carry Optics competition version of the Cherokee.

Inforce: Inforce has a new “machine aluminum” line of lights that will hopefully fix some of the durability problems they’ve had with their polymer lights. The rifle lights borrow some design cues from the Cloud Defensive OWL, but also can take a tape switch. While I wish the top button were bigger, having a cheaper way to have redundant switches is GREATLY appreciated.

PTR Industries: PTR freely told me they didn’t have much going on this year in terms of new releases – just a couple of 16″ models of previously released rifles. I was told, however, that they’re working on “a couple more calibers” for release eventually. I think you can do the math on potential candidates, and I don’t think they mean a 5.45×39 PTR that takes AK-74 mags (albeit that would be AMAZING).

Mantis: Mantis has always kind of on my radar due to my frequent dry-fire practice and Ash Hess promoting them on P&S. I keep thinking “maybe this is a thing that will help me improve my trigger press and draw”, but don’t ever quite decide to spend the money. The rep at Mantis’ booth walked me through their product line, which has expanded to five products:

• X2 (dry-fire trigger press)
• X3 (dry-fire and live-fire trigger press – this is basically an improved original Mantis X)
• X7 (shotgun)
• X8 (archery)
• X10 Elite (everything)

We spent a little time going over the X10. Physically, it’s QD, and will fit into any light bearing holster. I didn’t bother going over the software features, because I think that stuff is well-known at this point. As training aids go, it looks extremely promising, and I think I’ll be taking a look at one in 2020.

Ghost Gunner / Defense Distributed: I don’t talk about it MUCH on the blog, but I do a lot of 3D printing of gun stuff. This makes me a huge fan of Defense Distributed and Ghost Gunner, and I was totally happy to talk to them about the Ghost Gunner 3. The GG3 is a major upgrade over the 2, and can machine steel (albeit slowly). It was fun to watch the Ghost Gunner team be visibly excited about how their product was being used in ways they had not anticipated, and showing it off. It certainly made me more interested in getting one!

Vortex: I went over to Vortex’s booth to check out the Razor HD Gen III 1-10x scope. It is a magnificent scope in every respect, and a worthy successor to the Gen II 1-6x. The eyebox is a teensy bit touchy at 10x, but no worse than any other scope, and better than most. Brightness is excellent, even with the FFP reticle. If you can afford $2000 for it, I think it’s the scope to beat.