We’ve had a love affair with the OpticsPlanet OPMOD BattleMug for awhile. Farago blogged about it back in May of 2010, I wrote about it again a month ago, and it even popped up across the pond a few days ago. Shortly after I wrote about the BattleMug, one of them showed up in my mailbox.

Serial Number 24 of the series at a cost of $250 yanked straight from the desk of the CEO of OP. It turns out Dan knew my birthday was coming up and got me an early present. The only catch was that I had to destroy the cup and post my results for the world to see on YouTube. I couldn’t bring myself to do it at first. The cup sat on my desk at work for a week or so. Every now and then, someone would bring beers at the end of the day and I’d show off my cool mug and talk about my glamorous career as a writer. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was just so ruggedly beautiful. It made me cool by proxy. I worried that I couldn’t pull the trigger.

Luckily, OpticsPlanet emailed and wanted to know where in the hell the video was, and by that time Nick had moved to Texas. So I sacked up, packed my gear, and headed to the ranch. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a million. Check out the video to watch how Nick and I shot, blew up, smashed, and generally destroyed the OPMOD BattleMug.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqOXp1rIUZg

For those keeping count at home, the BattleMug took rounds from a Ruger 10/22, M&P 45C, Mosin-Nagant shooting Armor Piercing Incendiary, and the .300 BLK AR. It then withstood two tannerite blasts, a trip behind a truck, and a tumble at 35 mph. But the final nail in its coffin was a date with a 10-ton bulldozer.

In my opinion, there is no finer cup in the world. Save for the A2 carry handle popping off after the first explosion, the cup retained structural integrity throughout the entire testing process. It stopped a .45 ACP round from 10 yards and stood its ground against a damn explosion. Oh sure, the striker plate blew off eventually, and it was riddled with holes, but c’mon! Let’s see your garden-variety pint glass do that.

The only drawback came at java time. Hot coffee (how else do you drink it?) makes the cup too hot to handle and burns the lips. But that weakness is the BattleMug’s strength when it comes to handling beer. Throw it in the freezer for 20 minutes and you have yourself the best damn frosty beer mug in existence. Fillerup with 24 oz. of your favorite hoppy concoction and get to drinking.

At $250 this cup is not something you buy to destroy. And honestly, you really shouldn’t buy one for yourself. The BattleMug is best given (or received) as a gift. Present one to the special shooter in your life knowing that they will have the cup for a lifetime. My BattleMug (or whats left of it) is back at my desk now, and even though she’s a little worse for wear, people are still coming by to ask about it.

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12 COMMENTS

  1. Hey guys, just a little safety advice. If you ever play with explosives in the great outdoors, it is generally best not to launch pound and a half chunks of metal 200 feet in the air when you don’t have any cover. It is really easy to lose track of flying objects, especially when they are going to come down on you. Wear a helmet or shoot from under some type of cover. I’ve taken baseballs, 2×4’s, brick walls, concrete floors, fists, a ceramic mug, and handfuls of rocks to the head alone. I’m not afraid of a lot of types of blunt force trauma. A tactical battle mug falling at 20-30 mph terrifies me.
    Seriously.
    You will die.

    • Building logging roads in the Pacific NW, we would blast a number of stumps at 3:00 PM each day. This was the standard time for major blasts and a air horn would sound, theory being that if you could hear the horn you were within the fallout danger range. When I would hear the horn and realize it was 3:00 o’clock I would scramble for the nearest dozer. I would crawl under it and wait. Never heard any “rain” hitting but I knew I was in the safest possible place. Nothing gets through the undercarriage of a Cat.

  2. Two things: First, I recognized Tyler’s high-pitched laugh after the first half-pound of Tannerite went off. It sounds much like mine. You can’t control it, it’s an involuntary reaction to that stuff when it goes off.

    Second, I have never been more jealous of you guys than I was by the end of that video. Pure unadulterated fun.

    • That laugh came right out of my soul. This was my first time to shoot tannerite as well so it was double fun. I mostly enjoyed Nick’s, “well shit on me” quote. Extremely eloquent.

      • Yeah, I wondered if it was the first time, for either of you. Don’t worry, the surprise goes away, but the fun never does.

        Side story: At my friend’s last range day in Virginia, he had a coworker there who was from the Czech Republic, and though having been in the army there, had literally only fired something like six rounds, ever, and that was basic qualification. I think every gun there went through his hands, from Mosquito to Mossberg Cruiser (“I’ve seen this one on TV!”) to Mosin to XD(M), easily 20+ weapons. The last thing we did for him was hollow out a watermelon and drop a pound of Tannerite inside. Turned it sideways, put a 1″ dot on the side with a black sharpie, and handed him an AR. His first shot went right through the black dot, and I don’t think the smile left his face the rest of the day.

  6. Oh dear.

    Frosty mugs destroy good beer. Only freeze the mug if you don’t want to taste the beverage. Mass brand “lite” beers are fine for a frozen mug… but don’t abuse good beer by pouring it into a frozen coffin!

  7. If I bought one of those for cold beer utilization…my wife would make it and myself look much worse than the dozer did by banging it over my head.

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