Tag: SHOT Show

Exclusive Interview with Murdoch & Co. at SHOT 2026

I had the opportunity to speak to Evan Murdoch of Murdoch & Co. at this year’s SHOT Show 2026. Murdoch & Co. have launched one of the most ambitious firearms manufacturing projects I’ve seen in a long time – recreating the British SA80 bullpup as closely as possible.

Speaking to Evan, I had the opportunity to ask him why he took on this enormous engineering undertaking, how the company approached the task and he ran us through the various clones of the A1, A2 and A3 that Murdoch & Co. have developed and showed us one of the guns stripped down.

Having handled the guns, albeit relatively briefly, at SHOT 2026 I was impressed by how authentic they appeared and felt. It’s an impressive feat to resurrect a rifle that has been out of production for 40 years.

Check out Murdoch & Co.’s website for more information.

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Cutaway Tavor

Last week Matt attended SHOT Show 2020 and spotted a pair of Tavor cutaway demonstration guns at the IWI booth. Above is a quick video, put together on the fly, looking at the cutaway guns and showing how they illustrate the Tavor’s working parts and operation.

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Cutaway IWI Tavor (Matthew Moss)

Developed in the mid-1990s to meet IDF requirements for a reliable and compact rifle to replace the M16s & M4s in service. The rifle had to be shorter to deal with the close quarter urban fighting the IDF often found itself in.

The Tavor or TAR-21 uses a long strike gas piston system inspired by the AK and has a rotating bolt. The bullpup configuration gave the desired compact weapon without sacrificing barrel length.

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A closer look at the gas piston system, the barrel, chamber and the bolt face (Matthew Moss)

The cutaway rifles on display at the IWI booth were actually civilian, semi-auto only, Tavor SARs but they give us a good look at the rifle’s internals and how the Tavor functions. We can see the gas piston system, the charging rod and the barrel at the bottom. Moving back we can see the chamber, the bolt carrier group, the sear assembly and the bolt hold open mechanism.

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In this photo we can see the cutaway magazine as well as the mainspring at the top of the photo and below it the bolt carrier group and the bolt release mechanism (Matthew Moss)

They also cutaway the magazine so we can see the spring inside. At the top of the weapon we can see the mainspring that stretches back into the butt. The model was fully functional so on pulling the trigger the connecting rod acted on the sear release to trip the firing pin.

Additionally, the bolt release, just behind the magazine, also functioned and when operated the bolt went forward onto battery. The Tavor entered service in the early 2000s and has been superseded by the X95 and joined by the 7.62 chambered Tavor 7.

We will have a more in-depth video on the Tavor in the future.

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