To be totally honest, I’ve been waaaay too busy to shoot much lately. Between family commitments and other events to be revealed this year, I just haven’t had much time to get out there and get at it. I’m hoping that I’ll have this resolved by the end of the year, but for now, I’m suffering through a real shooting drought.
However, when the “back in stock” email for the Masada Slim Elite grip came floating through my inbox, I just knew I had a project to do. Now that it’s after Passover, I found time to do a quick grip swap with my Masada Slim. You’ll recall it from my review, where I found it to be a reliable micro-compact that took common mags and had somewhat mediocre iron sights.
Well, IWI released an “Elite” version that fixed a few problems with it, and nicely enough, the grip module is fully backwards-compatible with the original Slim’s FCU… time for an upgrade.
I bought an IWI Tavor 7 with 20″ barrel a few months ago. It was one of those embarrassing “this bid on Gunbroker could never win” moments, but I have to admit, I was sort of happy I did. I was an early adopter of the US version of the Tavor SAR, and it continues to be one of my favorite oddball rifles. I’ve been shooting it a bit lately, and the Tavor 7 feels like an upgraded version of the the original Tavor, and seems like the rifle the X95 should have been.
A buddy of mine was selling a certificate for a Masada Slim. I had passed on the original IWI Masada because I didn’t want to deal with the proprietary magazines. The Slim, on the other hand, uses standard CZ-75 / Tanfoglio small frame magazines, which is much more appealing to me as a shooter – and the Israeli connection obviously puts it in collector territory. I bought the certificate from him, and got it from IWI. Here are some thoughts after shooting it a bit:
Size-wise, the Masada Slim is pretty similar to a Glock 19 with a Glock 26 slide. It is a comfortable gun to hold.
The Tanfo small frame / CZ mag compatibility is a nice feature if you like to carry a larger mag on you for your reload. Most of the online reviews don’t seem to have tested this, so I’m here to tell you it works great. No problems, except that the 13rd Tanfo mags don’t seem to fit (14rd CZ mags do fit).
It does not seem to be ammo sensitive at all, and is quite reliable. Zero failures so far.
Sight return was shockingly good. I shoot competitively, I’m used to gripping my gun. This gun delivered. I fired, and the sights were pretty much right back to where they were with no intervention by me.
The iron sights suck. No other way to put it. Good enough for A-zone stuff, but too big with the hold way too high for smaller stuff like plate racks. I’m not saying it’s unusable, but I’d pretty much kill for sights that gave me a proper center hold and a smaller front sight. (The fact that nearly zero reviewers seemed to mention this makes me wonder how much payola is going on.)
The trigger is acceptable for a carry/duty gun. Lots of take-up, good break. Not too heavy or light.
Balance-wise, it’s a bit top-heavy. I don’t think this has much impact when shooting the gun.
Take-down sucks. It’s technically tool-less, but good luck getting the pin out without pliers. This isn’t a deal-breaker for me – I’m not really doing field strips outside my house – but it’s a negative.
Controls are intuitive, and I didn’t find myself having trouble with the mag release or slide lock.
Oddly, there is no accessory rail. I don’t think this is a deal-breaker, either, but it’s unusual to see in a gun in 2023.
If this became the mainline Masada platform, it’d be a smart move by IWI. Jericho mag compatibility is a big deal, and the rest of the gun (excepting the sights and take-down) is pretty solid. I wouldn’t rush out and tell people to buy this instead of a P365X, but it holds its own, especially with an optic so you don’t need the horrible iron sights. (I wound up using a cheap Primary Arms sight.)
As an interesting aside, it almost fits the IDPA BUG box. If you were willing to chop the grip and use the 13rd Tanfo mags, you might be able to pull it off. Unfortunately, without spare grip modules on the market, this is too much of a one-way trip to risk it.
IWI-US has announced the release of the Galil ACE Gen II guns. For now, it seems like the 7.62×51 ACE isn’t being upgraded, but the 5.45×39 version is getting a bump to full-production status.
As you can see from the picture, there’s been some changes:
The buttstock is AR compatible.
The trigger has supposedly been upgraded.
The handguard is MLOK, and free-floated. It also looks moderately longer, but that may be a scaling trick.
No more built-in iron sights.
Upgraded safety lever.
My personal take is that this was probably a manufacturing optimization as much as an upgrade, but it is an upgrade nonetheless. Keen readers would be advised to keep their eyes open for closeout Gen I ACEs at the usual suspects.
On a similar note, IWI also recently released a minor update to the Uzi Pro, giving it a threaded barrel.
You have seen this before, back in 2017. It looks like a nice update to the platform, so I’m glad they’re bringing it over. Hopefully IWI will be releasing a version with a factory optics cut.
IWI announced a limited edition release of the Galil ACE in 5.45×39, with 16″ rifle and 8.3″ pistol variants. This is pretty cool, as there are not a lot of new 5.45×39 guns coming on the market these days, and even fewer that AK-74 magazines. They are being directly sold through IWI. There are supposedly only 545 of each model being made, so there is some scarcity involved.
Unfortunately, it’s $1850 (pistol) and $1900 (rifle), which is a little too rich for my taste as an impulse buy, even if they would ship the rifle to MD. On the plus side, 500+ of each means that some will eventually wind up on the secondary market, so maybe I’ll get another bite at the apple…
IWI has announced on their Facebook page that they are now shipping the Tavor TS12!
You may recall that this was delayed due to alleged issues with properly cycling weaker shotgun shells. Whether this is fixed will be an interesting question to answer. On the face of it, the TS12 is a compelling option for home defense: semi-auto, large magazine(s) that are easy to cycle, fully ambi (including ejection), and already set up for easy optics mounting. I am not a huge fan of the full-length trigger guard or cross-bar safety, but those are minor complaints on the whole.
TheFirearmBlog has an excellent article on the IWI Carmel rifle that was displayed at the LAAD expo in Rio recently.
It looks a lot like what you’d get if you crossed a Tavor with a Galil ACE, and it does look a whole lot like the ARX-100. Height over bore is a little bigger than I’d prefer, and it doesn’t seem to have ambi-ejection, but it appears to be a solid traditional-format carbine. I think it’ll sell well in the US if they can bring it in under $1000.
I’d hazard a guess it’s for export purposes, albeit I do think the IDF would do well to have a non-bullpup rifle available for cheap domestic manufacture in the event that they want to transition off the M16 for political purposes.
The Hebrew Hammer 