Taran Butler is renowned for his shooting championships–he is a Combat Master–and for training actors for shooting scenes in top-grossing movies, but he is also sought out for his ability to morph standard firearms into refined shooting machines.
In fact, his company, Taran Tactical Innovations (TTI), has become wildly popular for gunsmithing packages that upgrade the Sig Sauer MPX and Benelli M1/M2, or take Glock and Staccato handguns to the next level.
Of particular interest here is TTI’s Copperhead Glock package.
What precisely is the Copperhead package?
It is the literal transformation of a standard Glock 17 handgun into something one might see in the hands of Keanu Reeves’ character John Wick — and something that one regularly sees in Taran’s hands, as he races through various target scenarios at his range outside of Hollywood.
Via the Copperhead package, a Glock 17 (or 19, 34, or 45) is given TTI fiberoptic sights; the Copperhead Bronze two-tone slide finish; a Timney Alpha Competition Trigger, which also has a bronze inlay, custom TTI logo and grip/memory pad stippling; Coyote bronze magazine base pads/extensions; a black DLC barrel; an RMR cutout on the slide, and more.
An RMR optic can be included in the package as well. (There is a Holosun 507Comp sight on the Copperhead we shot at Taran’s range in California.)
Once TTI has done the gunsmithing, the transformed Glock 17 yearns to be put through its paces. It comes up on target quickly, delivers superb accuracy, and runs like a pistol with a race gun pedigree.
On August 5, 2023, Breitbart News visited TTI and spoke with Taran. We discussed how he came to be a shooting champion and, eventually, a gunsmithing legend. He told us he took part in a 1995 Southwest Pistol League match with a borrowed Glock 24 and finished seventh out of 118 shooters, at which point he realized that if he had the skills to place seventh with a Glock that was not set for speed, he could dominate if he could get the necessary practice under his belt and a faster gun in his hands.
He begin tweaking pistols then, and eventually transformed them. Myriad championships later, he has trained Hollywood actors, directors, and producers in how to handle and shoot firearms and is turning run-of-the-mill Glock handguns into works of art that perform on a level one only expects from higher-end firearms.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, and a pro-staffer for Pulsar Night Vision. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Beef is his favorite vegetable. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
