Shipping - A Box In A Box

RFV Tactical is a Type 07 FFL, so you can ship directly to us and we can ship directly back to you when done. When shipping an item to us, we recommend that you use the "box in a box" method for packaging up the item to minimize potential damage or issues regardless of what shipping company you decide to use.

A USPS Small Flat Rate box is the ideal size for the internal box for shipping an item. Be sure to wrap the item in bubble wrap and pack it up in the small box with extra packing material to keep the item from moving around inside the box before sealing it up with packing tape. This should be done with care as if the item were going to ship only in the small box.

Place the packed and sealed small box into a USPS Medium Flat Rate box (or a box of similar size if not shipping via USPS) along with sufficient packing material on all sides of the small box to keep it from moving around inside the larger box when shaken vigorously. Be sure to seal up all open seams of the outer box with packing tape to reduce damage and/or accidental opening while in transit. USPS flat rate boxes are free and can be obtained at your local post office.

Alternatively, you can pack the item in it's original hard or soft case instead of a separate small flat rate box, and pack that case into a shipping box.

Cerakote Service FAQs

Below are some frequently asked questions and answers about our Cerakote service.  If you don't see the question/answer that you are wanting please contact us via email or a direct message on Instagram or Facebook!

Q: Do you offer MultiCam or other multi-color patterns?

A: Currently we only provide single color Cerakote service for handgun frames/grips and slides. It is a very time consuming process to paint, flash cure, lay down stencils, and then repeat for each different color. There are also a lot of variables in this process, like how long to flash cure based on the material you are painting (polymer, steel, aluminum, etc).  Due to the complexity of the process, we only provide single color application to keep things simple since Cerakote is not the only service we provide.

Q: Do you offer Cerakote service for rifles, shotguns, or other larger items?

A: Our Cerakote service is really only meant to compliment our polymer handgun frame/grip texturing service.  We also offer this service for metal handgun frames and/or handgun slides, but the equipment we use to sand blast the parts and cure the Cerakote is not ideal for larger/longer parts associated with rifles and shotguns. The exception to this is AR-15 style components that can be broken down into smaller parts (upper, lower, handguard, etc), however those components typically require more time to sandblast due to their large surface area, so the cost to refinish those parts is higher than handgun slides and frames.

Q: Can you Cerakote over the stippled area on a polymer frame/grip?

A: Yes we certainly can. However, please be aware that the stippled areas on polymer frames and grips usually wear down over time, so the Cerakote that is applied to those areas will also wear away exposing the natural color underneath.

Q: What if I want a specific color that you don't keep in stock?

A: We can order any Cerakote H-series color that you want for the cost of the smallest bottle that they offer, which is typically $40 for a 4oz bottle (we'll pay for the shipping).  Cerakote typically ships their products out pretty quickly, so we can have your preferred color delivered within a few days of ordering as long as they have it in stock.

Q: What is your lead time to get a frame or slide refinished?

A: That really depends on what is already in the queue, but we are certainly not back-logged like the more well-known professionals out there. Once we receive your frame/grip and/or slide, we can typically get it done and shipped back out to you within a week. Having texture work done by us at the same time typically only adds a day or two to the process. The exception to this is extremely cold weather. Our small paint booth is in a heated garage, but extremely low temperatures during the winter months are not good for Cerakote application and may delay the process.

Q: How do I ship you my frame/grip if I am not in the Texas Panhandle area?

A: We are a Type 07 FFL and you can legally ship your firearm directly to us and we can ship it directly back to you when done. Please send us an email or a direct message on Instagram or Facebook for specific details on shipping your frame/grip to us.

Check out our website for more details and pricing on all of our products!

http://www.rfvtactical.com/

Holster Length Matters!

While the smaller slimline subcompact handguns are theoretically more comfortable to wear and easier to conceal, it's important to note that the shorter slide/barrel versions of these guns as well as shorter barrel compact guns will greatly benefit from a longer holster when it comes to in-the-waistband concealment in the appendix position.  A shorter gun/holster combo is definitely comfortable to wear, but that shorter length allows the gun to tip away from your body above the belt line, which creates a major printing problem. To resolve this issue, we always make our holsters for shorter guns a little longer than their slide/barrel to distribute more mass below the belt line (see "The Keel Principle" by PHLster). This extra length is also necessary to mount a drop clip and concealment wing to the holster, and it also gives us room to mount a round rubber wedge on the back of the holster.  The combination of the longer holster, the concealment wing, and the wedge all add up to drastically improved concealment for even the smallest of handguns.  If there is not a longer version of your gun available for molding purposes (i.e. - Glock 48 vs 43X or Sig P365XL vs standard P365), then we will sometimes artificially extend the muzzle length during the molding process if we feel it is needed.

Also check out "The Basics of Concealment Mechanics" by PHLster for more information and tips on better concealment practices.

Check out our website for more details and pricing on all of our products!

http://www.rfvtactical.com/

CZ P-07 Urban Gray - Re-textured

We recently re-textured this CZ P-07 frame that was previously stippled and botched with major discoloration in one spot on the right side of the grip. Our plan was to retexture the grip area and then Cerakote only the textured area in black to cover up the discoloration, but after finishing up the texture it was apparent that a cover up was not necessary! We don't usually work on colored polymer frames due to the extra time and care it takes to do them properly, but this was a personal gun that needed an update. We'll consider this one saved! 👍

Here's a couple of in-progress photos to show the discoloration spot

M&P Shield Plus with an Accessory Rail? Yes!

At RFV Tactical, we really like the Smith & Wesson M&P Shield Plus as a choice for a slimline subcompact, but in our opinion it has one major flaw... the lack of an accessory rail to attach a quality weapon mounted light.  There are gun specific lights from Streamlight and Nightstick that clamp onto the trigger guard, but those lights are only around 100 lumens.  Recover Tactical makes an add-on accessory rail that clamps onto the trigger guard similar to the Streamlight and Nightstick gun-specific lights, which gives you the ability to attach more substantial lights to the gun, but the add-on rail is kind of bulky and spaces the light away from the gun's frame a little too much for our preference. We gave it a lot of thought, and decided to permanently modify the frame of our shop gun to accept a custom made picatinny rail so that we could attach a quality light and not have it hang off the gun too badly. Worst case scenario is that if our custom add-on rail didn't work out, then we would just have two small holes in the bottom of the frame's dustcover that shouldn't pose any issues with the functionality or reliability of the gun. We did this by drilling two holes in the bottom of the dust cover of the frame and dremeling out the inside of the frame a little to allow two threaded posts to sink down enough to clear the slide when it cycles.  With these threaded posts installed into the frame of the gun, we mounted our own custom picatinny rail that we made out of a Magpul polymer M-Lok rail section. The Magpul rail section was cut down to only a three slot section, reshaped and new mounting holes were drilled into it and then chamfered to countersink the screws a little bit. The threaded posts and screws were from our supply of hardware that we use to make kydex holsters.  The add-on rail pictured below was our second attempt. The first one worked fine, but was only a two-slot section that didn't extend all the way back to the trigger guard. The one pictured below extends all the way back to the trigger guard, but that is purely for aesthetic purposes. Obviously, this is not a modification for someone that is not comfortable with permanently modifying their firearms.  We currently don't offer this as a service or product (yet), but it turned out great and we wanted to share.

 

 

 

Streamlight TLR-7sub (1913 version) mounted to the gun

 

Of course, a custom mounted light requires a custom holster!

Check out our website for more details and pricing on all of our products!

http://www.rfvtactical.com/

Inforce WILD1 Weapon Light - Minor Design Flaw

The Inforce WILD1 compact weapon mounted light is a great light, but we've discovered a minor design flaw with the activation switches. The outer most ridge of the serrated activation paddles extend right to the edge of the light body which can sometimes catch or snag on the inside surface of a holster (kydex or leather) when inserting the gun into the holster and inadvertently activate the light. This typically only happens when the holster is being worn on the body (inside the waistband) and the tension of the belt squeezes the holster slightly. This may not be an issue with ALL of the WILD1 lights, but depending on the manufacturing tolerances of your particular light, this problem may exist. One of our two lights had this problem, but we modified both lights to alleviate any potential issues. If you find that your light is mysteriously getting turned on when you insert the gun into a holster, you can fix the issue yourself by filing down those ridges slightly so that they don't snag on the inside material of the holster.

Outer most ridge of the switches can catch on material when holstering the gun

Light body and activation switch taped off so that minor filing can be done

A small needle file or sandpaper can be used to remove just a little bit of material

Touched up with black paint and reinstalled on the gun

All The Lumens! Compact Weapon Mounted Lights

With the much anticipated release of the new Inforce WILD1 compact weapon light and no other new reasonably priced compact lights slated to come out in the near future, we thought we would compare the latest offerings of the most popular compact lights. These lights include:

Olight Baldr S and PL-Mini2

Streamlight TLR-7A/TLR-7sub

Nightstick TCM-550XL/XLS

Inforce WILD1

RFV Tactical makes holsters for these lights mounted to several popular compact and subcompact handguns (see the list of guns here), so we own and have experience with all of these lights. We are not going to comment on the durability or reliability of any of these lights because several of them are fairly new to the market and long term testing just isn't feasible at this time. We won't go into as much detail with these compact weapon lights as we did with our full-size weapon light blog post, but we wanted to at least give some comparison of the light output of each light. The size, switch activation, fitment, and price are all very similar with these lights, so we won't go over those aspects with much detail in this post. The photos below were taken with brand new batteries installed or freshly recharged.

Olight Baldr S

The Olight Baldr S is the company's newest compact weapon light offering and is slightly larger than their popular PL-Mini2. It also includes a green laser sight that is projected from inside the bezel of the light, so there is no extra "wart" hanging down from the body of the light to accommodate the laser. While this light is not as aesthetically pleasing to the eye as some of the other compact weapon lights, it's performance is actually really good! It is rated at 800 lumens, but it's probably closer to 600 lumens which is still brighter than all the other compact lights.  It also has the widest spill of all the compact lights. The fact that it also has an easily selectable green laser is a nice bonus to an already great performing light. A unique thing about all of the Olight compact weapon lights is their adjustable rail mounting mechanism with a quick release lever that allows you to easily mount the lights to a very wide variety of handguns. We don't really like the aesthetics of this adjustable mount as it spaces the body of the light farther away from the frame of the gun, but we appreciate the versatility of it. As with almost all current Olight weapon mounted lights, it's rechargeable battery is not removable, so when the light is in need of a charge, it is out of commission for several hours while it's attached to a special USB charger. It's probably a good idea to buy two of these lights and keep one on the charger ready to swap out when the one mounted to your gun dies. 😏

Olight PL-Mini2

The Olight PL-Mini2 has been around for a couple of years now, but is still a current and very popular compact weapon light despite all the negativity associated with Olight on various internet gun forums. It is rated at 600 lumens but is probably closer to 400 lumens. As with the Baldr S, it's not very aesthetically pleasing to the eye with it's adjustable rail mounting mechanism (although it is smaller than the Baldr S), and it also has a rechargeable battery that is not removable.  Better buy two of these lights too! 😁

Streamlight TLR-7A

The Streamlight TLR-7 has been around for several years, but the "A" version came out to address the consumer dislike for the activation buttons being on the sides of the original version which placed the buttons slightly out of reach for a lot of people. The newer 7A has improved switches that come back farther towards the trigger guard area and includes two different style of buttons/paddles for your preference. The original version with side buttons is still available for those that like those switches. This light is rated at 500 lumens and performs as good as you would expect from a Streamlight, but it does not have as far of a throw as some of the other compact lights.

Streamlight TLR-7sub

The Streamlight TLR-7sub is a slightly smaller and sleeker version of the TLR-7A that was made specifically for subcompact handguns.  It comes in four different versions: "GL" for the Glock 43X/48 MOS, "SIG" for the Sig Sauer P365/X/XL, "SA" for the original Springfield Hellcat, and "1913s" for various subcompact and compact handguns that have a short 1913 picatinny accessory rail. It's performance is nearly identical to the 7A, but appears to be slightly brighter than the 7A as it's light output is a little more white in color temperature.

Nightstick TCM-550XL/XLS

The Nightstick TCM-550XL and XLS (strobe) appears to be a clone of the Streamlight TLR-7A with some subtle differences, but actually has slightly better light output than the 7A. This light has a nice white output of 500 lumens with a good amount of throw. One weird quirk to this light is that there is a split-second delay when turning the light off from either constant-on mode or momentary-on (more noticeable from the momentary-on mode).  Not a major issue (more annoying than anything), but worth noting. 

Inforce WILD1

The Inforce WILD1 is brand new to the market as of the date of this blog post. The WILD1 is the company's new and improved replacement for the long discontinued APLc compact weapon light that was very popular despite only having 200 lumens and being plagued with flickering problems when they first came out. It has the same overall appearance as the APLc, which is subjectively a very good looking light, but is a little larger than the APLc, so it won't fit any holsters made for the APLc.  It's also made out of aluminum instead of polymer like the APLc, so it should be more durable. The 500 lumen output is good, but it has the most narrow hotspot of all the compact weapon lights. This makes it seem not as bright when used indoors, but it has the farthest throw of all of the compact lights, which is impressive for a compact light.

NOTE: we discovered a minor design flaw with this light's activation switches that should be inspected.

As we mentioned in our full-size weapon light blog post, regardless of which weapon mounted light you use (or don't use), we recommend that you ALWAYS carry a good handheld light with you.

Check out our website for more details and pricing on all of our products!

http://www.rfvtactical.com/