Hot Iron: The Coolest New Guns for 2022
Caiman's Picks from 2022's Industry Shows
Welcome Back, My Friends!
We’re now in Q2 of 2022. One entire quarter of the year is already over. I hope your annual plans are doing well.
As the world returns to normal from the COVID debacle, the firearm industry decided to come back with a vengeance, holding several trade shows in multiple different countries over the last couple months, showing off all sorts of new gear and weaponry either newly available or coming soon to the consumer gun market in 2022. Because I’m a turbo-autist, I watched hours of footage from these trade shows, but I realize my followers are Busy People with Jobs and Responsibilities and Don’t Have Time for Caiman’s Weird Hobbies.
So, in the interest of saving you all some time putting together your hypothetical firearm shopping lists, I’ve separated the wheat from the chaff to give you my Top Picks for 2022
These all fit the following criteria
It’s an innovative or at the very least interesting product. Not just another Glock Clone or AR-15 with no discernable new features
It has an actual value proposition. As guns blur the distinction between tools and conspicuous consumption, I refuse to recommend guns that are little more than fancy toys.
Quality and Reliability are Good to Excellent: A lot of less reputable gun manufacturers treat their customers as Beta Testers, rushing unproven designs to market and using “lemons” (broken guns) to improve their concept and QAQC. This is unacceptable, in my opinion.
That said, here’s the top picks.
SPRINGFIELD HELLION
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a new bullpup on the market. For those not in the know, a bullpup is a rifle with the firing control group (trigger and action) in front of the magazine. This allows the rifle to use a longer barrel in a smaller package, increasing the usable range and lethality of a compact rifle.
The Hellion is fully ambidextrous, meaning it can be set up to be used comfortably by right or left-handed shooters.
I’m not normally a fan of Springfield as a company, but the Hellion is actually an imported gun from Croatia, and being more ethically ambiguous than most, the Croatian government allowed these rifles to be “combat tested” over the last decade by sending them to places like Iraq and Syria to various Government forces and aligned militias. So you can be pretty confident they’ve worked out the kinks.
Lastly, it looks like something a Space Marine would use. Isn’t looking cool half the point?
CANIK SFX RIVAL
If you’ve never heard of Canik, let me introduce you to the worst kept secret in competitive shooting.
Canik is a Turkish company that designs 9mm pistols based off an old Walther trigger design. This allows them to shoot with superb accuracy while keeping costs to a minimum. A $500 Canik can run circles around other guns two or three times its price in a competition. And unlike most gun companies, Canik is constantly improving their designs, releasing new variants of their Walther clones year over year. The Rival, the latest edition of these pistols, is a phenomenal shooter with the nice side benefit of looking rad as hell.
Although I cannot recommend Canik as a Concealed Carry or Home Defense gun (yet), give these a hard look if you’re interested in getting into shooting competitively, or just want to dunk on your buddies during your next trip to the range.
SMITH & WESSON CSX
This little pistol was probably the biggest surprise of the season. Continuing on their classic Chief’s Special series (premium compact handguns meant for deep concealment), Smith threw convention out the window and RETVRN ‘d to an old concept, perfecting it in the process.
What you’re looking at here is an all metal (no plastic) frame, single-action only 1911 style pistol with a manual safety switch. But this isn’t just a compact gun. With a 10 round magazine, this is a gun so small it fits into your pocket while still carrying a whopping 11 rounds of spicy 9mm. And with the SAO trigger, it will be able to outshoot guns much larger with a bit of practice.
So while it might not be the most impressive looking gun on this list, I really must tip my hat to S&W for pushing the edge of what’s possible with a “pocket pistol”. There’s a solid chance this gun will be my next purchase.
ZASTAVA M91
This one’s just for fun. I’m a huge fan of Zastava Arms (made in Serbia, formerly Yugoslavia, and imported to the USA and assembled to comply with US law by Zastava’s warehouse in Illinois).
The M91 is the sniper rifle system currently used by the Serbian military, patterned off of the infamous Russian Dragunov rifle. It’ll throw cheap ammunition with decent accuracy out well past 500 meters.
At an MSRP of $3,500, this is far and away the most expensive gun on the list, but all that might be worth it to have a complete rifle system (optic included) from a foreign nation, especially considering the current climate of US import/export regulations.
WALTHER PDP PRO SD
Walther’s new PDP pistol took the shooting world by storm last year, and they just upped the ante with the Pro SD model. For a modest increase in cost over the “regular” PDP, you receive
A Threaded Barrel for mounting suppressors
Taller sights to use with that suppressor, not to mention co-witness with a red dot sight’
Improved, flat face competition trigger
Flared magwell for faster reloads
Extended high-capacity magazines
Additional machining on the slide for weight reduction
Reviews of the SD are slowly coming in, but initial impressions are that it has *The Best* trigger of any commercially sold firearm today. That’s a pretty incredible claim for a pistol that costs under $1000 with this many additional features. I expect to see it blazing through USPSA Carry Optics competitions soon (along with its distant cousin, the aforementioned Canik Rival)
HONORABLE MENTION: Adler Arms HT-108T
I typically don’t dive deep into the world of shotguns, but this caught my eye. Another product originating in Turkey, this shotgun is drawing buzz for its several high quality features for a very low price (MSRP $400). As someone who hates traditional “bead” sights on shotguns for any kind of home defense or self-protection use, the fact that this shotgun has Ghost Ring sights and a Picatinny rail for mounting an optic straight from the factory looks like an excellent value. Not to mention that the walnut wood furniture on gray Cerakote is a downright sexy aesthetic.
Note: This was listed as an honorable mention as there’s still limited data out there to inform whether or not it’s likely to be reliable.
Have you noticed any new guns on the market that I haven’t mentioned here? Mention it in the comments.
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Have a great weekend!