The Q-Collar, made by Q30 Innovations, is on display here at this year’s Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show.

The collar, approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use to mitigate repetitive concussive impacts such as those received in contact sports, was analyzed in a recent study that partnered Army researchers with Emory University and concluded its first phase in November, Q30 CEO Tom Hoey told Military Times.

The recent analysis looked at blast exposure, like that experienced by soldiers using explosives and artillery, mortars or shoulder-fired weapons. While research into repetitive impacts has been evaluated by the FDA, blast exposure has not yet been reviewed by the agency.

Military Times recently reported that at least 459,000 troops have been diagnosed with a form of traumatic brain injury since 2000.

Separately Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C. cited Pentagon studies in a letter to Defense Secretary Loyd Austin showing cognitive deficiencies and memory problems among troops who repeatedly fire heavy weapons. Another study the senators cited noted 75% of blast exposure problems in one unit were from troops firing their own weapons.

The company has asked the FDA to evaluate the research and add the blast exposure results to their already approved use for impacts, Hoey said.

Separate from the Army-Emory study, which used small animals, Q30 worked with Cincinnati SWAT Team members, running functional magnetic resonance imaging on the team before and after a daylong explosives training course. Those who wore the collar had identical before and after scans, those who did not showed deficiencies in cognitive tests following exposure, Hoey said.

The collar puts 1.5 pounds of pressure on the internal jugular vein in the neck, Hoey said. That pressure slows the outflow of blood from the brain by about 20%.

By slowing the blood flow, it backfills blood in the brain keeping the brain from moving around in the skull, Hoey said. Concussions are largely a result of the brain sloshing around inside the skull and bruising or damaging its tissue when it collides with the interior of the skull.

The jugular vein compression has been validated by a 2017 study at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center showing protection against blast-induced traumatic brain injury by increasing brain volume.

However, some critics question the level of protection that the device could provide, and company officials said that research is ongoing.

James Smoliga, a professor of physiology at High Point University in North Carolina, has pushed back on claims made about the device in academic journals, the New York Times reported. In an interview with CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, he said that the research wasn’t based on “solid physiology.”

Martha Shenton, a professor of psychiatry and radiology at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is an expert in the type of brain imaging Q30 scientists have used for much of their research. She reviewed the FDA findings in 2022 at the request of the New York Times. She questioned the interpretation of the data provided by Q30 from their studies. Shenton said the numbers provided run in the opposite direction of what a brain scientist might predict, and only in “one narrow range of severity.”

“(Q30 scientists) say, ‘We get a change and it doesn’t matter the direction,’” Shenton told the New York Times. “It’s so not what you would expect.”

The FDA posted a more detailed summary decision that raised questions about the imaging work. Officials cited uncertainty regarding the imaging technology Q30 used in its studies. Under some circumstances, studies showed slight changes in the brain tissue of soccer and football players who didn’t wear the collar, even if they didn’t report concussion symptoms.

Retired Army Sgt. 1st Class Jon Johnson, a former medic with 5th Special Forces Group who now works for Q30, said the device gives operators a non-invasive way to reduce the effects of work they can’t avoid.

“You’re exposed to explosives, breaching, loud weaponry, all kinds of impacts and sub-concussive events as a lifestyle,” Johnson said.

There isn’t an effective way to completely modify the training or facilities to solve brain trauma exposure problems, he said.

“We’re not going to eliminate exposures — you have to fire these weapons,” Johnson said. “So how do you mitigate some of this?”

Hoey said that the company will continue their research with the Army and Defense Department to show that the collar is acceptable, safe and tolerable.

“I do think the blast study changes the narrative,” Hoey said. “It shows there is a way to prevent injury caused by concussive blast waves. I do think it will change the conversation.”

The SlingShot Ballistic Sunglasses by Revision are the latest eyewear designed specifically for military and law enforcement personnel.

Revision is one of only four eyewear companies with products on the Authorized Protective Eyewear List. The other three are Oakley, Wiley X and Eye Safety Systems, or ESS.

The list is controlled by the Army’s Program Executive Office-Soldier but covers ballistic eye protection for all the services. The company is preparing to submit the Revision SlingShot to PEO Soldier for a potential addition to the authorized list.

Andrew Stiles, Revision’s business developer and a retired Navy E2-C Hawkeye pilot, told Military Times that the company looked at one of its current designs, the Stinger Hawk, and sought ways to improve it for users.

The most obvious change is a “browless” frame that removes the top part of the frame from the design.

The move helps with three areas.

First, Stiles said, it makes changing out lenses much quicker. Most military eyewear comes with at least two options, a tinted and clear lens, for daytime and low-light or nighttime use.

Second, the brow bar on sunglasses can trap heat, fogging the lens. Without the bar, heat can dissipate quicker, clearing any residual fog or moisture for a better view.

But the third area that helps may be the most tactically advantageous.

“In stressful situations or using gun optics you lower your head,” Stiles said.

What that means is if they’re using eyewear, they’re often looking through the top of the lens.

“So where do you want your frame?” he said.

With no brow bar, there’s less obstructing the user’s view, Stiles said.

A newer feature to the Revision eyewear line offers another potential tactical advantage due to the use of their registered trademark technology I-VIS.

The company used artificial intelligence paired with photographs of a wide range of terrain and colors to match lens and color technology with the natural environment.

Historically, ballistic eyewear makers used clear, tinted, yellow or amber lenses. Over time, Stiles said, users found the single-dye, monochrome lenses reduced the amount of color hues a user could see.

That has a way of “flattening” the colors in a jungle or desert scene.

But, Stiles said, with better lens technology the circle of color hues a user can see widens, adding more detail to their vision.

“We can expand that and that gives you access to more hues,” Stiles said. “Being able to see more hues promotes a high contrast that gives you an increased depth of field.”

For military use that means target acquisition and noticing subtle changes in the environment.

One final change in the SlingShot is an optional “thin arm” that users can swap out on the eyewear when wearing communications headsets.

Though the currently fielded sunglasses do fit with existing communications gear, the slimmer arm, about half the width of the existing options, could streamline the fit.

*CORRECTION: This article has been updated to reflect that Revision is preparing to submit the SlingShot sunglasses to the Army’s Program Executive Office-Soldier authorized protective eyewear list.

Sig Sauer didn’t display its products at this year’s Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show, but the company’s dominance of recent U.S. military small arms contracts is likely to have a decades-long influence on the market. The M16 and M4 have been the military’s service rifle for more than half a century. The former sidearm, the Beretta M9 pistol, was in service for more than 30 years.

Historically, companies have grown in brand recognition and commercial sales due, in part, to their success with military contracts.

In 2017, Sig Sauer got a shot at the handgun contract when the Army decided to replace the M9. Sig Sauer won the Modular Handgun System award for providing both the standard-sized 9mm handgun, the M17, and the compact-sized weapon, the M18. The Air Force, Navy and Marines subsequently adopted the sidearm as well.

Since then, the company has shipped 480,000 pistols to the U.S. military. It also recently had its ROMEO M17 pistol optic added to the military supply inventory, making it an item units can order but that is not currently fielded with the pistol.

Shortly after winning the handgun contract, Sig Sauer entered the competition to replace the M4 carbine and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon for Army close combat troops under the service’s Next Generation Squad Weapon Program.

In 2022 the Army chose Sig Sauer’s M7 for the new rifle, and the M250 for its automatic rifle. Once fully fielded, the two weapons will be the primary arms for the more than 100,000 close combat forces, from infantrymen and scouts to combat engineers.

That same year, U.S. Special Operations Command chose the Sig Sauer MCX Rattler as its low-signature personal defense weapon. The compact rifle can be configured to fire either 5.56mm or .300 Blackout caliber rounds.

Over that same timeframe, Sig Sauer’s TANGO6T rifle optic won contracts for SOCOM and the Army’s Squad Designated Marksman rifle.

“We are essentially becoming the small arms company of the U.S. military,” Tom Taylor, Sig Sauer chief marketing officer and vice president of sales, told Military Times.

Taylor declined to provide specific sales figures for Sig Sauer products.

Notable non-Sig Sauer options do remain in troops’ arsenals. The Army’s non-close combat force will continue to use the M4. Though the Marine Corps has tested the NGSW, it has not adopted it. In 2017, the service fielded its own M4 replacement, the M27, Infantry Automatic Rifle, made by Heckler and Koch.

Also, the company is currently competing in the SOCOM lightweight medium machine gun program. That effort involves a .338 Norma Magnum machine gun.

The M4, a later version of the original M16 fielded to troops during the Vietnam War, has vastly influenced the U.S. civilian gun market in recent decades. The Armalite, or AR-style, weapons permeate popular culture firearms depictions in film, video games and other media.

Troops using the M16, M4 or M9 over the past decades were familiar with the weapons and sometimes more likely to purchase one post-service.

The incoming generation of soldiers will carry a Sig Sauer rifle or machine gun, use a Sig Sauer optic and strap a Sig Sauer pistol to their side.

“For millions of young men and women going into an AAFES or on the battlefield, Sig is going to be the only small arms they use,” Taylor said.

As the squad weapon, handgun and other Sig Sauer products flow into military use, the entertainment industry is already taking note.

Video games such as “Call of Duty” are already building the M7 and M250 into their next game rollouts, Taylor said.

“From this point forward, the handgun is already in service, military shows are having to transition to that gun,” he added.

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to show the number of Modular Handgun Systems delivered to the Army and to use the correct nomenclature for the ROMEO M17 optic.