The North Sylva Report

2018 Looking Good For Imports

Words By: Wally F.          Photos By: Wally F.

……….North Sylva has been in the Canadian firearms scene for over 60 years. It’s said that one in five firearms sold in Canada are imported by them. Being a distributor for Colt Canada, H&K, IWI, FN America, KRISS, and a whole bunch of other manufacturers, I won’t touch on every single new thing coming up, but I’ll hit all the points folks hopefully are looking for. I’m not going to make you read all the way to the end of the article to get the answers to a whole bunch of peoples questions. IWI had a great booth at SHOT Show this year. There was a ton of talk around the TS-12 Semi-auto 15+1 shotgun, the Tavor 7 .308 battle rifle, and the Masada 9mm striker fire pistol (although not on display at SHOT).

……….Folks up here in Canada are also eager to get more information on the status of the M+M M10X DMR. For those not in the know, the M10X was submitted to the RCMP Firearms Labs for testing and classification. In October 2017 the RCMP gave the M10X a non-restricted classification. North Sylva has been courting the manufacturer since 2013 on a process to get the rifle into Canadian shooters hands. At time of writing the M10X DMR is slated to be in Canadian hands approximately by May 2018 at minimum advertised price of $1999 CDN.

……….As for the IWI TS-12 semi-auto shotgun. It is extremely unlikely that it will ever make its way to Canada. As its primary ammunition carriage system is based off of the X-Rail shotgun magazine system which I believe the RCMP already deems as a prohibited item, the chances that the sci-fi looking TS-12 will ever come to Canada are next to none. The Masada striker fire pistol, the first in IWI’s line up is a good looking 9mm service pistol, but at last check the Masada is still having some production delays. Since the Masada’s barrel length is 104mm which is 2mm short of the legal length in Canada this will factor into the wait time. As a result it may be a while before Canadians can get their hands on the Masada, no ETA for export just yet. The Tavor 7 .308 bull-pup battle rifle had a great showing earlier this year in Las Vegas.  If the RCMP gives their stamp of approval, this .308 calibre rifle is going to be coveted in the Canadian market, not only for it’s compact build, which combined with the .308 round will be very useful in the back-country, on hunting excursions, and wilderness protection. The US release has been delayed until May/June and North Sylva is currently waiting for a sample from IWI.

……….While the Type 97 rifle has been in Canada for awhile, the Gen 2 rifle has been in Canada and available for quite some time. I’m surprised more people don’t have this bull-pup in their collection as well. Now with an integrated 1913 picatinny rail, KAC-style flip-up iron sights, and updated design. This rifle looks sexy compared to it’s predecessor. If you don’t have one of these in your collection, you truly are missing out on a gem of a rifle to shoot.

……….North Sylva also carries a full line of Meprolight optics for your firearms. Their line-up of pistol aftermarket sights is pretty awesome, especially the uniquely designed FT Sight system and Micro RDS pistol sight that has QD release with built in iron sights. As always their line-up of award winning electro optical and magnified sights like the battle proven M21 and MOR sights and their Mepro 4x magnified sights are all available now.

……….I wrote earlier this year about the prevalence of first focal length variable magnification scopes being more popular and in more reasonable price ranges. Now EOTech is getting into that game as well with the new Vudu line of scopes. With a crisp wide and zoom-in reticle that is useful at magnification you are getting a feature packed optic for a very competitive price, especially when you compare the Vudu against the Night Forces and Schmidt and Benders of the world.

……….In the next month or so North Sylva will be getting a limited Colt Canada run of three-hundred SA15.7 and two-hundred SA20 rifles. This run of Colts will also have an engraving on the lower receiver that will be exclusive to North Sylva’s run of the SA15.7 and SA20s.

……….While the snow is slow to melt this year in Canada there is plenty of hot new firearms and accessories ready to launch very soon from companies across the country. North Sylva is one of those companies ready to bring Canadian shooters the products they want, and 2018 is starting to shape up to be a very good year.

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Reporting for TV-PressPass

Wally F.