IWI Tavor TS12 Review

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Coolest shotgun ever, let’s check it out. 

 

Now IWI definitely is an unconventional weapons manufacturer and a lot of it has to do with just their experience in the field, but they always come up with the really cool designs that are outside the box. Starting out with the Tavor series, which is an incredible firearm.

Of course, the Galil, the Uzi, I mean, the list goes on, but now they’ve come out with the TS-12. This is one of the most incredible shotguns. It definitely looks very unconventional, something like you’d see on Halo.

It’s just phenomenal, but what’s really cool about this is that it has a rotating magazine right here, and it holds 15 plus one of two and three quarter or 12 plus one of three inch shells. And man, is this thing fast. And guys, I want to thank IWI for sending the TS-12 for this test and evaluation.

This has been an incredible experience. Now the TS-12 is definitely an unorthodox looking firearm. In fact, it looks pretty bulky, it looks unweldly, it looks clunky.

And that’s what I thought when I first saw it. I was not really impressed. I was thinking, what in the world? This thing looks crazy.

But I have had a lot of experience with the Tavors, even the Tavor 7, which is in 308, and they’re just excellent, excellent firearms. And so I knew that IWI wouldn’t come up with something that was not going to perform. I took this out to the range and everything changed about my initial impression.

The gun was just flawless with multiple different type of ammunitions. And I’ll tell you guys, just so fast to shoot. And I think that’s the big thing.

Now IWI started out as IMI, Israeli Military Industries. It was Israel’s weapons manufacturing. Now with IWI, it is a privatized company.

And guys, they have a lot of experience in combat. They’re very serious about their self-defense. And so typically the firearms that come out of Israel are excellent and they’re built to last.

And there’s no different than this. Now this gun is totally unloaded, but I’m just going to show you how the chamber opened. Now guys, to me, one of the biggest things about this shotgun is it holds 15 rounds in a three tubular magazine.

And it is a rotating magazine. We’ll look at that in a minute. It is really fast to deploy.

And this is two and three quarter inch shells. When you go with a three inch shell, it drops it down to 12 rounds. So you have four rounds in each magazine.

The great news is it will shoot buckshot slugs. It’ll shoot high velocity. It’ll shoot birdshot and target loads.

Now according to IWI, they recommend that you don’t shoot anything less than 1200 feet per second velocity, one and one eighth ounce. But we were shooting again, some of the field loads that were underpowered and this thing was still functioning. In fact, the first time I shot it, that’s what I did.

Put a picture on Instagram, first shots, ran right through 15 rounds in just a matter of seconds. Incredible, man. Incredible.

Now we have an 18 and a half inch barrel, but this shotgun still is less than 28.24 inches overall. Very compact. It’s a bullpup design.

We have our receiver back here right next to the buttstock. And so it really makes a small package because the end of the receiver acts as your stock. And so it really brings it down much shorter than most of your shotguns out there.

And then of course it is semi-automatic, which makes it great. Now we have the Mossberg Shockwave. This is a five in one pump.

I do have a SP tactical brace on here, which really extends this out. But even with the birdhead stock, it’s about the same size as your Tavor 15 in one semi-automatic. Now here at the front, we have M-lock all the way through on this high impact polymer housing.

And then we have the polymer here and then also your magazine tubes. And again, this is three tubes and they rotate. And when you disengage the lever, you can just turn this and then you can fire five rounds or four, whatever you’re using, then bring it around.

It’s a very simple way to lock it in. It takes a little bit of getting used to and you’re working with it, but it doesn’t take long to get up to speed. And again, the barrel is 18 and a half inches.

It has this cover here and it does use Benelli Beretta choke tube. You just unloosen this and your choke tube’s right there. It does come with a modified and improved cylinder choke.

Then just twist back on. Now, obviously you have a large trigger guard and then you have your trigger. It does have a crossbolt safety that pops either way.

And again, you have your magazine release right here to be able to rotate those drums. This is a short piston gas operated system. You have two settings, high and low, and you can easily adjust those.

We’ll show you that in a second. And then right here is your piston with the spring. Now we have an aluminum receiver back here at the back, and we’ll take a better look at this when we break it down.

Then we have our recoil reducing butt and our spacers. It also comes with two QD points on this side and two on the other side. Now we have Magpul Emba sights.

These are not included, but we also wanted to put a red dot on here and Primary Arms sent one of their Holosign little red dots. This is a great red dot. And I have one of the American defense mounts, and this was extra.

And this is a QD mount. This is the HS503G, has the ACSS reticle in it. Great little sight.

It’s the same place that Primary Arms, Vortex, and SIG sights. Now you have your charging handle right here, but if you want to remove this, you just pull it out and it comes right out. This will also be the tool that you’ll use to adjust your gas system.

So it’s on low here. I want to bring it down to high. I just push it and it’s ready to go.

Bring in, and it just says pull vigorously. So back in we go. And this can be switched to the other side.

And speaking of other side, if you want to switch this out to a left-hand configuration, you have to send it back to IWI. I mean, there’s a lot of things. You’ve got your ejection port here, but to get this thing back to a left-hand shooting configuration, you’re just going to have to send it back.

When it comes to loading the TS-12, right here, there’s just a little bit of a tray. You take your round, just push it through. One thing that’s really cool about this is, is that number one, it’s easy.

It’s fire to load. I mean, you can just load all five rounds right here, but let’s say you don’t get this one quite in and it pops back. There’s a stop right here that holds it.

So then you go ahead and put it forward. Now, if you want to release it, right here’s your release button. You press it, and then the stop holds this in.

So I can pull this out, release. I mean, this is just really a well thought out piece. And guys, you can also load from the other side.

So that gives it an ambidextrous feature for loading and unloading. Now, before you start loading it, you’ll want to close your bolt. The other thing is, right here, there’s a little tab underneath, and this is the carrier release button.

And so we can hit that, and that’s going to keep it from forwarding the shells in when you turn and rotate the magazine. And then you just load in right here on this trough. Now, the reason why you want to go ahead and close your bolt is because that way it’s not going to automatically load a round in.

And that’s one of the cool things about this shotgun, is that with the bolt open, every time you start to turn, you’re rotating to the next magazine. This will automatically feed in a round. And so there’s no stopping.

I mean, it’s just automatic. And guys, when I realized that, I was in love with the TS-12. And as far as the trigger action, there’s a little bit of take up right here, a little bit of resistance, and then a decent break.

I mean, this isn’t a trigger, but it works. Trigger pull weight with our Lyman trigger gauge from Brownells, nine pounds, 12 ounces, and that’s pretty much what I was getting. But honestly, guys, when you pull the trigger on this thing, it belies that weight.

It really doesn’t feel like it’s that heavy. And it’s got a decent break, so that helps as well. We have some high velocity Fiocchi 12 gauge, two and three quarters, and we have buckshot, and this is X-Acta nickel plated.

We’re going to start out with the high velocity stuff. You’ll notice you just load it right here. It’s super easy to load.

Once you get it loaded, hit this lever, bring it around, and you can load the others. Guys, that was buckshot. I like buckshot.

Now guys, to be honest with you, the first time I saw the TS-12, I thought, what in the world is this? I mean, again, it looks like something out of Halo. It looks like something out of Starship Troopers. I mean, it’s just so unusual.

Very compact package, 12 gauge, and just a really molded kind of look to it. I really didn’t know what to think until I got to the range. Shooting the first magazine through here, 15 plus one again, guys, with two and three quarter, 12 plus one with three inch shells.

You have a lot of capability right here at your hand. You don’t have this long magazine hanging off, and it is so quick to deploy. Really, just pushing that button and turning it, going to your next round.

Then what’s really cool is that it automatically goes forward and feeds. You’re ready to go once you turn this magazine. A very different design, and one that’s really based on hard use experience.

So they have to be ready. Guys, it’s a very practical firearm. Very similar again to the Tavor.

I mean, it just definitely brings a lot of cues. From that platform, they’ve been able to develop a lot of neat things. Now it’s definitely weighty, but you’re going to need that weight for those 12 gauge shells.

Most of the balance is back here on your shoulder, and as you’re firing it, you’ve got a really good place to grab hold of with this magazine. I mean, it’s just natural. And I’m telling you guys, honestly, once you start just manipulating this firearm, it doesn’t take long to get up to speed, but it does take a little time to figure things out.

How the gun’s loaded is really easy to load. I mean, easy to deploy the magazine. And then again, that shell goes straight in and you’re ready to fire.

You’re back on. While it is a polymer all the way through, back here at the back where it counts, it’s all metal. But again, it gives it a little bit more weight.

Now when shooting different type rounds, we had different experiences. We were shooting some Fiocchi high velocity, and it was pretty stout. I mean, it would give you a good run for its money.

Shooting birdshot, we didn’t have any malfunctions. Went to buckshot, it was actually less recoil than the high velocity rounds that we were shooting with the Fiocchi. Very manageable, but yet you can run it up and get magnum loads or whatever you need to for whatever mission or what you’re trying to accomplish.

But guys, for a home defense firearm, 15 plus one or 12 plus one, this would be devastating. 12 gauge is definitely one of the top self-defense weapons for home defense out there. And I’ll tell you what, this one can do the job.

Now we’re going to do a field strip. Right here at the back, you have a lever. Just push in and pop up and your back plate comes off.

Now you’ll notice this QD socket. You want to get a little bit of pressure on the back and then you can actually push this through. If you don’t put pressure on the back, it makes it a little more difficult.

There we go. And it just comes right out. It doesn’t matter which side.

Next, we’re just going to go ahead and pull off the next spacer and then we can pull off the entire aluminum housing. Next, we’re going to remove our spring, our recoil spring, and then the bolt just comes right off. Now this is one beefy bolt and you can see how it locks up and you just drive these pins out and you can use a punch to do that.

We’re not going to do that now, but it’s pretty simple. Here on the front, we’ll just release our muzzle cover here and then this entire housing just comes right off. And here is where you make your adjustments to your gas system.

You can see again, short stroke piston. So smooth. The monolithic Picatinny rail, there is a screw right here under this sight.

You can remove that and you can remove the pick rail. And guys, for cleaning and maintenance, this is pretty much all you need to do to disassemble. I mean, you can go ahead and go much deeper, but you need tools.

This is a great way to be able to keep it clean in the field. For reassembly, the hand guard actually slides into the pick rail, just like so. Take our muzzle cover, go ahead and tighten it down.

Next, we’re going to put our bolt back on, slide it over the rail, close it up and then take your aluminum housing. It just fits over. You kind of have to rock it a little bit to get it to fit over and then it closes down.

It does have some spring tension. It’s going to pop it back. So you want to apply a little pressure.

Then bring in your spacer. And again, you want to put a little pressure here to be able to put in this QD point again, that locks everything in. Once you get it in and you release it, it’s going to put tension right here on your QD socket.

And then I just depress that little detent and bring it down and then it locks and then this snaps back into place. I mean, really simple. So while the firearm looks really complicated, it’s honestly a very simple process and I like simple because I’m simple.

Now the TS-12 runs about eight pounds. So it’s not super light, but a lot of the action is back here in the back. It really balances out very well and it shoots very well.

You don’t have a lot coming off the end. So when you’re firing those magnum loads, it’s just more compact and together. And the way you have it gripped right here and then on your shoulder just makes it a really nice package.

And according to the IWI website, it only comes in black. But when I was looking around at different options, I saw a couple that were even in FDE and in a green color, an OD color. And obviously IWI does offer those colors in the Tavor.

So it’s no surprise. Now the manufacturer suggested retail price is $1,399. I’ve seen them in a number of places for around just over the $1,200 mark.

And of course, this is a brand new firearm. It’s just come out at the end of 2019. And so once more get out on the market, I think you’re going to see that price settle in, but probably around the $1,200 range.

So guys, honestly, the ultimate home defense firearm, yes, this is expensive, but it is worth every dime for the capability that it has. I mean, so easy to manipulate, so easy to get those rounds off. You’ve got a lot right here in your hand.

And so you’re ready to go. But of course, with IWI quality and reliability, it’s just unsurpassed. And so check out the Tavor TS12.

Guys, I’m telling you, if it’s in your budget, this is going to be an excellent addition. And in a home defense situation, it’s unparalleled. And I want to thank IWI for sending the TS12 for this test and evaluation.

This has been an incredible experience.

 

Be strong, be of good courage. God bless America. Long live the Republic.

 

-Don