FRanklin aRmoRy’s SerieS Roy Huntington, PublisHeR PHotos: Robbie baRRkman ComPaCt FiRePoweR FOr COPS theXo-26canhandleanystandardar-stylemagazines,regardlessof capacity.itcanalsobehadwiththeca-legal“bulletbutton”stylesystem. platforms exist in abundance, and new makers arrive almost weekly. The parts industry makes it easy for virtually anyone to buy a bag of parts and, with an often minimal skillset, assemble a rifle that might even work. If it’s a hobby and you’re building one to play with, that’s fine. But if you hang a shingle out and offer them for sale, it’s another matter entirely. If someone else is going to rely on your rifle for defense, it should (needs to) be the best it can be at every level. The fit, engineering, craftsmanship, build-experience, ergonomics and reliability should be the best possible. So how do you make a reasoned judgment of the quality of a rifle if a company just suddenly appears and has a website with plenty of “Coming Soon!” slots on it? You can’t, and it’s as simple as that. It’s a crapshoot, and Ar unless there’s plenty of company history involved, you “pays your money and takes your chances.” But if you’re in the market, how do you sort through the glut of makers out there? Actually, it’s fairly easy. First you need to find a maker who’s been down the road a bit and is run by a leader with skill, personal involvement and has a genuine passion for quality, service and engineering excellence. And to me, the only way you can get that sense is getting to know the people involved in making the rifle in question. For a factory model that’s tough, and you simply have to trust your past experience with the brand. But with a custom or semicustom gun, you can just pick up the phone and talk to the boss. The People I first met Jay Jacobson at the SHOT Show a couple of years ago. Jay runs 26 WWW.AMERICANCOPMAGAZINE.COM • APRIL2014
Share
Print
Archive
