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AR-15 Rifles, Pistols & Tactical Gear | Gun Store in Roanoke, TX

Premium firearms, optics, and tactical gear for professionals and enthusiasts.

 

Tactical Gear

Grit Grips Glock-compatible frames: a gunsmith’s take

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Glocks made their reputation on reliability, not on how they feel in the hand. I’m Lance Rankin, owner and gunsmith at Western Sport in Roanoke, Texas, and a good share of the Glock work that crosses my bench exists because somebody wanted the gun to fit better. Stippling, grip reductions, trigger guard undercuts. Grit Grips went at the problem from the other direction: instead of reshaping a factory frame, they build a different frame entirely.

What Grit Grips changed

The company was founded by Dusty Sroufe, who came to it with real pistol design experience, and the headline change is grip angle. Grit Grips frames alter the front strap so the gun points more naturally for shooters who never got along with the factory Glock pitch. Whether that angle is a flaw or just a preference is an old argument, and I have customers on both sides of it. What I’ll say is that grip angle is the one thing you can’t fix on a factory frame, no matter how good your stippling guy is.

The texture is engineered to be directional, so it bites during recoil without chewing your side raw during a full day of carry. Palm swells fill the hand, an extended beavertail keeps the slide off the web of your thumb, and an undercut trigger guard lets you get your hand higher on the gun. Those are the same modifications people pay gunsmiths for, molded in from the start.

The lineup

Grit Grips started with frames compatible with Gen 3 Glock 19 components and later added slimline versions for G43X and G48 builds. They also sell slides and barrels for complete builds, plus aluminum mag wells for both frame sizes. If you’re deciding which footprint to build around, my Glock 19 vs Glock 17 comparison covers the size trade-offs.

The part people forget: the frame is the gun

Here’s the detail that matters legally. On a Glock-pattern pistol, the frame is the serialized part. A Grit Grips frame isn’t an accessory. It’s a firearm, and it transfers like one, through a dealer with a 4473 and a background check. Buy one online and it ships to an FFL like mine, where the transfer runs $40 plus $10 NICS. Your slide, barrel, and internals are just parts and can ship straight to your door.

My honest take

Aftermarket Glock-compatible frames run the full range from excellent to junk, so I pay attention to design details, and everything about these reads like it was drawn by people who actually shoot. Feedback from shooters running them has been positive on recoil control and on comfort across different hand sizes. My standing advice on any aftermarket frame still applies: build it, then feed it a few hundred rounds before you trust it for carry. Fit between aftermarket frames and various slides varies, and a weekend of range work tells you more than any spec sheet will.

If you want a build like this done right, that’s what my bench is for. We handle frame transfers, fitting, sights, and Cerakote in-house here in Roanoke, and I’m glad to talk through a parts list before you spend money. Call 817-393-4000, email [email protected], or browse the online store.

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Best 9mm Handguns Under $500 in 2026

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The best news in the gun business over the last decade is how good affordable pistols got. I’m Lance Rankin, owner and gunsmith at Western Sport in Roanoke, Texas, and I sell and service everything on this list. Five hundred dollars now buys a 9mm you can genuinely trust your life to. Here are the best 9mm handguns under $500 as I see them, nine picks with the trade-offs included.

Canik TP9 Elite SC

The subcompact that made everyone take Canik seriously. Good trigger out of the box, 12 and 15-round magazines included, an optics-ready slide, and a holster in the case. Caniks used to carry a budget-gun stigma; the ones crossing my bench have been putting that to bed for years.

Canik METE SFT

The full-size sibling, and possibly the most complete package under $500: 18-round magazines, optics cut, aggressive serrations, and a trigger that embarrasses guns costing twice as much. If your money mostly goes to range days rather than deep concealment, start here.

Bersa TPR9

The oddball of the list, and I like it for that. A DA/SA hammer-fired full-size with 17+1 capacity at around $470. If you learned on revolvers or old metal-framed pistols, the long first pull will feel like home. If you’d rather have the same trigger press every time, buy one of the striker guns instead.

Smith & Wesson Shield Plus

The Shield with its two old complaints fixed: the mushy trigger became a crisp flat-faced one, and capacity jumped to 10 or 13 rounds in a slide still under an inch wide. Holster support is everywhere. It’s the carry pistol I hand across the counter most often in this price range.

SIG Sauer P365

The gun that invented the modern micro-compact, carrying 10 to 15 rounds in a package that disappears under a t-shirt. It’s snappier to shoot than the bigger guns here, and base models float right around the $500 line, so watch for sales. Still the deep-concealment benchmark.

Smith & Wesson M&P 2.0 Compact

The quiet all-arounder: 15+1 capacity, four-inch barrel, tough Armornite finish, and a grip angle that points naturally for most hands. It handles carry, nightstand, and range duty without a strong opinion about any of them. Boring in the best way.

Smith & Wesson SD9 2.0

The budget pick. No frills, decent three-dot sights with a dovetailed front, 16-round magazines, and a price comfortably under everything else here. The trigger is nothing special and you give up the extras, but it goes bang with dull consistency, and that’s the actual job.

Smith & Wesson Equalizer

The one I steer toward shooters with hand-strength issues. It’s built on S&W’s easy-racking EZ formula, ships with 10, 13, and 15-round magazines, and comes with a Viridian green dot already mounted from the factory. If racking a normal slide is a fight, this pistol solves the problem without treating you like an afterthought.

FN Reflex

FN’s micro-compact hovers just under $500 if you shop around. It’s hammer-fired, which is rare in this class, and the trigger is better for it. An inch wide, 11 and 15-round magazines in the box, and FN build quality throughout. It’s the newest gun here, so its track record is the shortest, but it has earned the spot.

How I’d choose among the best 9mm handguns under $500

Carry gun: Shield Plus, P365, or Reflex, whichever fits your hand best. One do-everything pistol: METE SFT or the M&P 2.0 Compact. Tight budget: SD9 2.0, and spend the savings on ammunition. Hand-strength concerns: Equalizer, no contest. Whatever you pick, run a few hundred rounds through it before you trust it, including a couple boxes of your defensive load; my best 9mm self-defense ammo guide covers what to feed it.

One honest note: prices move. Everything here sits under or near $500 as I write this, but sales and market swings shuffle the list of best 9mm handguns under $500, so treat the number as a snapshot. We stock or can order all nine for local pickup in Roanoke, and you can see what’s on hand right now in my pistols section, and if you find a deal elsewhere online, our FFL transfer is $40 plus a $10 NICS check; new buyers should read how to buy a gun online first. Call 817-393-4000 with questions.

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Best Firearms 2026: Picking Your Perfect Trio

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Here’s a thought experiment I never get tired of: if you had to cover your bases with just three guns, one rifle, one shotgun, one handgun, what would you pick? The video below is one shooter’s answer, and it’s a good excuse to talk through the reasoning. The picks are his; the commentary is mine. I’m Lance Rankin, owner and gunsmith at Western Sport in Roanoke, Texas.

The rifle: Daniel Defense DDM4V7 in 300 Blackout

Hard for me to argue with this one, and not just because we’re an authorized Daniel Defense dealer here at the shop. DD builds some of the best factory ARs money can buy, and the V7 is the sweet spot of their lineup. His is chambered in 300 Blackout and topped with a Vortex Razor HD, which makes it a natural suppressor host and a fine hog and deer gun inside 200 yards. Is it more rifle than most people need? Sure. But quality you buy once tends to be the cheapest quality in the long run. If you’re weighing the caliber choice, my 5.56 vs 300 Blackout post covers the trade-offs honestly.

The shotgun: Beretta 1301 Tactical

The 1301 keeps showing up on these lists because it keeps earning it. Fast gas system, soft shooting, and it feeds a wide range of ammunition without complaint. Some folks argue it out-reliables shotguns costing considerably more, and I won’t fight them on it. It made my own list of the best home defense shotguns, so no objection from this corner.

The handgun: FN 510 in 10mm

This is the spicy pick. The FN 510 is a full-size polymer 10mm, and 10mm is a do-everything cartridge if you can handle it: mild FBI-spec loads for the range, full-power loads that make it a legitimate woods gun. The honest trade-offs are cost and recoil; 10mm ammo isn’t cheap, and a defensive handgun you don’t practice with is a liability. For a three-gun battery where the pistol has to cover hiking in hog country as well as the nightstand, though, I get it. Most folks are still better served by a 9mm they’ll actually shoot; my 9mm vs .45 ACP piece explains why capacity and practice win arguments.

What I’d tell a customer

The pattern behind these picks matters more than the models: buy proven reliability in each category, pick calibers you can feed, and spend real money on the gun you’d bet your life on. Swap the 510 for a Glock or P320 and the trio gets cheaper to run without getting worse. And there’s no shame in building the battery over a few years instead of one big check.

So, same question to you: three guns, all your bases. What’s your trio? We stock or can order everything mentioned here, with online ordering and local pickup by appointment in Roanoke. Call 817-393-4000 or email [email protected] if you want help putting yours together.

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CANCON Carolinas 2026: Suppressed Shooting Event

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CANCON Carolinas 2026 wrapped up at the Clinton House Plantation in Clinton, South Carolina, and by all accounts it was the biggest suppressor shoot of the year so far. I’m Lance Rankin, owner of Western Sport in Roanoke, Texas. As a Type 07 FFL and SOT, suppressors are a daily part of my business, so events like this are worth talking about even from a thousand miles away.

What CANCON is

If you haven’t been, the pitch is simple: dozens of manufacturers set up shooting lanes and let you run their suppressors on real guns, side by side, all day. That matters because a suppressor is one of the few purchases where you genuinely can’t judge the product from a spec sheet. Decibel ratings on paper tell you almost nothing about tone, backpressure, or how a can changes the way a rifle handles. Shooting ten of them in an afternoon tells you everything.

Highlights from this year

The Clinton House grounds gave companies room to spread out, and the lineup included names like LMT, Griffin Armament, and SIG Sauer. VIP ticket holders got a day of access before the general admission crowd, plus a gift bag that reportedly included an IWI suppressor and a Century Arms AK, which is a wilder giveaway than most people’s range days.

Event sponsor Wraith Metal Works showed off its new modular suppression system, which lets you pick baffles and configure different builds from one unit. They ran a competition to see who could assemble the quietest can, which is a clever way to prove a modular design does what it claims.

On the competition side, the Pros vs. Joes matches put regular attendees up against experienced shooters with guns and suppressors as prizes, and the Barrett 1-Mile Challenge let people send a suppressed .50 BMG round at a target a mile out. Ring it and you walked away with a challenge coin. There were also survival classes at the OFFGRID Basecamp, CQB training from combat veterans, K9 demos, and plenty of retail booths.

Why I pay attention

Suppressor ownership has grown fast, and with the NFA transfer tax cut to zero, the paperwork cost barrier is gone. The remaining hurdle is the wait and the process, and that’s where a dealer earns his keep. If you shot something at CANCON you liked, or you’re just suppressor-curious, we handle NFA items here at the shop and I’m happy to walk you through the whole thing in plain English. If you’re new to how licensed dealers fit into this, my what is an FFL dealer post covers the basics.

The organizers say CANCON Carolinas returns in 2027, and CANCON West runs in Las Vegas for those of us on this side of the Mississippi. If you get the chance to go, take it. An afternoon behind a dozen different cans will teach you more than a year of reading forum arguments.

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Is this gun too heavy to carry? What 12 ounces really means

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The video above is a comparison I wish more people would watch before buying a carry gun. The shooter takes two revolvers that are functionally the same firearm, an all-stainless Smith & Wesson 696 and the new scandium-framed Night Guard, and answers a question I hear at my counter constantly: how much does weight actually matter?

Quick introduction if you’re new here. I’m Lance Rankin, owner and gunsmith at Western Sport in Roanoke, Texas. The testing in this video is his, not mine, but I’ve handled both kinds of gun plenty, so I’ll add my two cents as we go.

The comparison

Both revolvers are five-shot .44 Specials with three-inch barrels. The 696 is a discontinued all-stainless L-frame from around the turn of the 2000s, a bit of a collector’s item now, and it weighs 35 ounces. That’s all-steel-1911 territory. The new Night Guard is the same configuration with a scandium alloy frame and a steel barrel and cylinder, and it comes in at 23 ounces, with adjustable sights the old 696 never had.

Same cartridge, same barrel length, same capacity. The bullet doesn’t know which gun it left. The only meaningful difference is 12 ounces.

Twelve ounces is a lot

Gun people will argue for an hour about the ounce and a half between a Glock 43X and a P365, and honestly, you can feel even that. Twelve ounces is a different category entirely. That’s the weight of an entire pocket pistol. His description matches what my customers tell me: the steel gun tugs at your belt all day and announces itself every time you move, while the lightweight one disappears like a phone in your pocket.

And here’s the pattern I’ve seen over and over in this business: the gun that’s comfortable gets carried, and the gun that isn’t stays home. A 35-ounce revolver in the safe protects nobody. This is the single best argument for lightweight carry guns, and it has nothing to do with ballistics.

The price you pay is recoil

There’s no free lunch. In the video, the lighter Night Guard kicks noticeably more and rises more at the muzzle, exactly as physics demands. He also found it printed a touch high at distance under recoil. But at 15 yards, defensive distance, he had equal confidence with both, and that tracks with my experience. For a five-shot .44 Special that exists to solve a sudden, close problem, the extra snap of a scandium frame is a fair trade for actually having the gun on you.

Where the trade tips the other way is practice volume. A featherweight magnum-frame revolver is not the gun you want to run 200 rounds through on a Saturday. If you go light, accept that practice sessions will be shorter, or do most of your volume with a heavier gun and confirm with the carry gun.

His verdict, and mine

His conclusion was that the 696 is only “too heavy” because the lighter alternative exists and gives up nothing that matters. I think that’s exactly right, and it applies well beyond revolvers. Carry comfort is a real feature, not vanity. If a lighter gun means you carry every day instead of when it’s convenient, the lighter gun wins.

If you’re in North Texas and sorting out your own carry setup, come see me. I keep a range of carry guns in stock at the shop, and if you’re new to carrying here, my guides on the Texas concealed carry permit and constitutional carry cover the legal side. Call 817-393-4000 with questions.

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