I have been using Big Dot tritium sights and Lever Rail scope bases from XS Sights for many years, and was recently shooting at Gunsite Academy in Arizona with David Biggers of XS Sights when he showed to me a dandy little tool made specifically for breaking automobile glass windows. Vehicles use tempered safety glass for the side and rear windows in the US, as well as most of the world, and they can be very hard to break with a blunt tool. This new Glass Assault Tool, or GAT, uses a hardened steel point which is held onto the flash suppressor or muzzle brake of a fighting rifle, such as an AR-15/M-16/M4, a Ruger Mini-14/AC-556, or any other rifle that uses a flash suppressor with the same exterior dimension.

The great advantage of the GAT for police officers who are making a felony vehicle stop and have their rifle in hands, is that the weapon does not have to be slung or laid down to get a tool to break the car window in a situation wherein the suspect will not unlock the vehicle door. With the GAT attached, the officer does not have to even remove one hand from the weapon, but just push it forward into the glass, shattering the glass into thousands of small pieces. Tempered glass is very tough to break, and using a large flashlight or rock requires an equally large motion to get enough force to do the job, and takes the officer’s hand away from his weapon. With the GAT, just a slight jab forward, and the glass is broken. The cutting point is attached with a screw, and can be rotated, should one point be worn or broken, which is unlikely. The GAT slips over the flash suppressor and clamps down very securely with the wrench provided.

The GAT is a valuable accessory for an officer’s fighting rifle, and should be standard equipment on any police officer’s rifle. It is lightweight, easy to use, and has no effect upon the ballistic performance or the sighting zero of the weapon at all.

I had to try the GAT for myself. With so many cameras in the Wal-Mart parking lot, we decided that it would be best to do the testing at Craig Clack’s Auto Salvage in Palmyra, Tennessee. I had never tried out such a tool before, and was amazed at how easy it was to shatter auto glass with the GAT. No banging, no delay. Just push it into the glass, and it is shattered. The video shows it much better than I can describe. The GAT would work equally well on tempered safety glass used in residential and commercial doors.

XS offers two different models of the GAT for rifles; one for mil-spec flash suppressors, and one for the Ruger and DPMS flash suppressors, currently priced at $80 US each, retail. In addition, XS now has a GAT to attach to a handgun weapons light, such as the Surefire 2000. I will have an update on this new tool as soon as I get one in here.

The CSAT GAT is a simple, handy, reliable tool for quickly and efficiently removing automobile glass, and I highly recommend it for any police officer who might need to forcibly extract a suspect from a vehicle.

Check out the GAT and other XS products online at www.xssights.com.

Jeff Quinn