atek3
Member
I hadn't actually intended to go to SHOT this year... but after my car got fixed on friday, I said, "Orlando is basically along the way to West Palm Beach." And thanks to my good friends, Tim Pack of www.tacticalgunfan.com and Chris Rhines of THR, I had a place to crash Friday night and some people to go out to dinner with last night.
Also... see the pictures, a lot of them are funny:
SHOT 2009 pictures
The SHOT show is ridiculously large, it encompasses basically everything shooting, hunting, outdoor, military, law enforcement, competitive, etc. etc. You had everything from flashlights to grenade launchers, beef jerky to body armor. In terms of space, it entirely filled the west concourse of the Orlando Convention Center... which is massive. It would probably take about 4 hrs to walk past all the booths without stopping.
One general "vibe" I got was that despite the worst downturn since the great depression in the general economy, the gun industry is booming. I spoke with many of the vendors to get a feel for the split between panic buying and a secular change in demand and I came away with the following impressions. Yes, the massive price hikes for Black Rifle parts and mags are due mostly to Panic buying because of the Obama Victory. Many people within the gun community are convinced that Obama is going to ban EBR's (Evil Black Rifles) the first chance he gets, however the jury is still out on that, IMHO. Counter evidence for the panic buying theory comes from booming sales for pocket auto's. Kel-Tec, Taurus, Ruger all are making affordable pistols designed for concealed carry and they have been selling like hot cakes.
Hunting, however, feels like another story. Some new ammo came out, but nothing revolutionary. Within Hunting Rifles, I don't remember seeing any major new products... whereas last year (when hunting was still hot) every major rifle company had something new-fangled and great.
The Cerberus takeover of the gun industry is bearing interesting fruit. First a bit of back story. George Kollitides, a life long shooter and Cerberus MD began rolling up major American gun companies at the height of the private equity bubble. The gun industry was ripe for a roll up... many fragmented players, inefficient companies deficient in best practices, etc. Now Cerberus owns Bushmaster, Remington, Marlin, Cobb, DPMS, and Eotac, and a few other small gun companies. As a result, Cerberus has been able to consolidate marketing and administration to some extent, also there has been some rebranding... for example, Remington now sells AR-15's as hunting rifles called R-15's. Cobb, a relatively unknown maker of big bore AR-type rifles (338 Lapua, 30-06, etc), is now selling it's MCR 4000 as a Bushmaster.
Two more interesting pieces of Cerberus related scuttlebutt. Many gun companies establish a "Custom Shop", basically an in-house gunsmith that builds high end, low volume guns to customers who want something a little different. Bushmaster now has a "Custom Shop"... however Bushmaster's custom shop is actually Iron Brigade Armory, the company that built most of George Kollitides custom boltguns. George Kollitides, a long time gun owner, is now trying to buy an NRA board of directors seat. He's become a life member of every hunting and gun rights organization of the US and has the support of all of Cerberus's portfolio companies. The guy seems pretty committed so I'd be inclined to support him.
Okay, enough color, onto the actual show. While walking around, I was basically twittering everything I saw that really stood out to me. Unfortunately that means many things that weren't novel to me won't be mentioned.
I think the company that surprised everyone the most this weekend was
Taurus, a Brazilian handgun company. According to the head of their US subsidiary they'd worked on pocket 380 semi-auto but never really followed through. Following the smashing success of the Ruger LCP, Taurus embarked on a crash program to release the TCP (Taurus compact pistol). Very similar to the Ruger and Kel-tec in size, the Taurus feels much better built and has the availability of a titanium slide for those that demand a really really light pocket pistol. The pistol is DAO and packs 6+1.
They also came out with the Taurus "Slim", a single stack compact nine that competes with the Kahr PM9, Rohrbaugh R9, and dare I mention it in the same sentence, the Kel-Tec PF9. While the "slim" really can't hold a candle to the Rohrbaugh, the Taurus is easily as nice as the PM9 and is much better built than the PF9. The Slim is a DA/SA with a manual safety and packs 7+1.
The award for wackiest item at SHOT goes to the TAC 15... a Crossbow upper for your AR-15. To any normal person this seems like a crazy idea but the designers put a lot of thought into it. The TAC-15 has some features that make it a great crossbow. One is the trigger. Most crossbow triggers actuate a part under 140 pounds of bow tension giving them a terrible sensation compared to a fine rifle. The TAC15 is actuated by the falling hammer in the AR-15 lower. So if you have a JP trigger, it still feels like a JP trigger. Another point was the accuracy. They claim 2" groups at 100 yards. Having never shot a crossbow I can't vouch for the veracity of that claim.
Chinese companies were in full effect hawking knockoffs of every great western scope. They're getting better, but still need a lot of work. for example I tried their state of the art knock off of the Schmidt and Bender Short Dot, a $2500 dollar scope. While the scope had some pretty great features, 1-4x, FFP reticle, red and green illumination, I still wouldn't trust it. For example, by applying up and down pressure to the illumination knob the green reticle would short out. What this says to me is the first time you drop the gun, that reticle is toast. Not what I'd want on a "real gun".
Ruger was quite impressive. They developed a new snubnose revolver called the LCR. An extensively fluted 5-shot 38+P cylinder enclosed by a lightweight aluminum frame...nothing special so far. The entire grip, trigger, hammer, enclosure was made out of polymer...Boom. The revolver weighs nothing, feels great (the grip was designed by Ruger, Hogue, and Crimson Trace), and has an EXCELLENT double-action pull.
Glock had 10mm's that didn't require banana hands, and some new heavily textured full-size auto's that will literally take off your epidermis under recoil.
XD had their new XD(m) which holds a lot of rounds of 9mm or something.
S&W had their M&P9 Pro... I'll probably buy that if I get back into IPSC.
As far as "Wow" stuff it was basically all handguns. In the rifle world, everyone has a great AR-15-clone. The two areas that still have some innovation are Gas-Piston uppers and AR-10-clones (that run). I handled one of the new DPMS AR-10's with a 16" bbl and a Carbon Fiber Free-Float tube and I could almost convince myself it was an AR-15 (that is until I used the charging handle).
Sig has their new 556 Classic, which looks like the Sig 551. A lot of fanboy's love the rifle, but I'd rather have an AR-15 any day of the week. The charging handle is on the right... terrible.
Besides Guns, I most enjoyed the various Firearm Training Systems. Most of them use a projector to display a scenario on a screen... Then you the shooter use a real firearm (modified to shoot a laser pulse) to deal with various situations. They varied in price and realism. The better systems used a CO2 cartridge system to actuate the slide and simulate recoil. The best system was hooked up to an infrared tactical flashlight. The system blacks out everything out but the area the flashlight is pointing. Let me tell you, the "shoot/no-shoot" scenarios are much more interesting at night. You have to be constantly scanning for threats. Beyond simply illuminating the target the AI responds appropriately. During a possible felony stop the driver raises his hands to his eyes and squints, then curses at you to remove the light. After some banter, he suddenly draws a concealed gun, giving you the trainee less than half a second to make the shot. One lesson I learned from the simulators was that on the scenarios where you were shooting at targets or everyone was a bad guy I crushed the simulation. It was simply "front sight, press, repeat". I tripped up on the "shoot/no-shoot" due to an issue I didn't really consider before. My eyes were focused on the suspect, attempting to judge whether he was a threat. When the suspect grabbed a gun my reaction time was great, but my accuracy was terrible. The problem was that my focus didn't return from the target to the front sight. An excellent lesson that you don't really appreciate when all you shoot is square range exercises and matches. I really need to sign up for a Force on Force class.
A couple of the highlights of the day included seeing the shooting world equivalent to celebrities. Taran Butler, Robbie Leatham, Eric Graffel, Doug Koenig, John Plaster, David Fortier, Dick Heller. Also I finally got to meet the founder of THR, Oleg Volk. He was quite cool in person. I spent about 10 minutes chatting with Alan Gottlieb, the famous gun-rights author about Heller vs. DC, Nordyke, and several other upcoming court cases. The night before SHOT I met up with with my old friend, Chris Rhines and his father, a pair of accomplished 3-gunners and Gunsmiths. Also I bumped into Tim Pack, who was rolling with the Intermedia crew as they were shown the latest and greatest at Nikon, Winchester, and Taurus. Looks like Tim's authoring career is taking off, good for him.
Winchester was showing off a microsoft surface... blowing people who'd never seen it away.
Oh ya... Ashbury International... Lame. They had an interesting bolt gun chassis system. I asked questions about it and the guy interrupts me to ask if I was LEO or .mil, and of course I say no... and he says, "well then, that info isn't important because we only sell to the government." Wow... and I thought H&K owned the phrase "because you suck, and we hate you".
Remote control aerial shotgun targets. Expensive but cool.
Enough stuff for one day.
atek3
Also... see the pictures, a lot of them are funny:
SHOT 2009 pictures
The SHOT show is ridiculously large, it encompasses basically everything shooting, hunting, outdoor, military, law enforcement, competitive, etc. etc. You had everything from flashlights to grenade launchers, beef jerky to body armor. In terms of space, it entirely filled the west concourse of the Orlando Convention Center... which is massive. It would probably take about 4 hrs to walk past all the booths without stopping.
One general "vibe" I got was that despite the worst downturn since the great depression in the general economy, the gun industry is booming. I spoke with many of the vendors to get a feel for the split between panic buying and a secular change in demand and I came away with the following impressions. Yes, the massive price hikes for Black Rifle parts and mags are due mostly to Panic buying because of the Obama Victory. Many people within the gun community are convinced that Obama is going to ban EBR's (Evil Black Rifles) the first chance he gets, however the jury is still out on that, IMHO. Counter evidence for the panic buying theory comes from booming sales for pocket auto's. Kel-Tec, Taurus, Ruger all are making affordable pistols designed for concealed carry and they have been selling like hot cakes.
Hunting, however, feels like another story. Some new ammo came out, but nothing revolutionary. Within Hunting Rifles, I don't remember seeing any major new products... whereas last year (when hunting was still hot) every major rifle company had something new-fangled and great.
The Cerberus takeover of the gun industry is bearing interesting fruit. First a bit of back story. George Kollitides, a life long shooter and Cerberus MD began rolling up major American gun companies at the height of the private equity bubble. The gun industry was ripe for a roll up... many fragmented players, inefficient companies deficient in best practices, etc. Now Cerberus owns Bushmaster, Remington, Marlin, Cobb, DPMS, and Eotac, and a few other small gun companies. As a result, Cerberus has been able to consolidate marketing and administration to some extent, also there has been some rebranding... for example, Remington now sells AR-15's as hunting rifles called R-15's. Cobb, a relatively unknown maker of big bore AR-type rifles (338 Lapua, 30-06, etc), is now selling it's MCR 4000 as a Bushmaster.
Two more interesting pieces of Cerberus related scuttlebutt. Many gun companies establish a "Custom Shop", basically an in-house gunsmith that builds high end, low volume guns to customers who want something a little different. Bushmaster now has a "Custom Shop"... however Bushmaster's custom shop is actually Iron Brigade Armory, the company that built most of George Kollitides custom boltguns. George Kollitides, a long time gun owner, is now trying to buy an NRA board of directors seat. He's become a life member of every hunting and gun rights organization of the US and has the support of all of Cerberus's portfolio companies. The guy seems pretty committed so I'd be inclined to support him.
Okay, enough color, onto the actual show. While walking around, I was basically twittering everything I saw that really stood out to me. Unfortunately that means many things that weren't novel to me won't be mentioned.
I think the company that surprised everyone the most this weekend was
Taurus, a Brazilian handgun company. According to the head of their US subsidiary they'd worked on pocket 380 semi-auto but never really followed through. Following the smashing success of the Ruger LCP, Taurus embarked on a crash program to release the TCP (Taurus compact pistol). Very similar to the Ruger and Kel-tec in size, the Taurus feels much better built and has the availability of a titanium slide for those that demand a really really light pocket pistol. The pistol is DAO and packs 6+1.
They also came out with the Taurus "Slim", a single stack compact nine that competes with the Kahr PM9, Rohrbaugh R9, and dare I mention it in the same sentence, the Kel-Tec PF9. While the "slim" really can't hold a candle to the Rohrbaugh, the Taurus is easily as nice as the PM9 and is much better built than the PF9. The Slim is a DA/SA with a manual safety and packs 7+1.
The award for wackiest item at SHOT goes to the TAC 15... a Crossbow upper for your AR-15. To any normal person this seems like a crazy idea but the designers put a lot of thought into it. The TAC-15 has some features that make it a great crossbow. One is the trigger. Most crossbow triggers actuate a part under 140 pounds of bow tension giving them a terrible sensation compared to a fine rifle. The TAC15 is actuated by the falling hammer in the AR-15 lower. So if you have a JP trigger, it still feels like a JP trigger. Another point was the accuracy. They claim 2" groups at 100 yards. Having never shot a crossbow I can't vouch for the veracity of that claim.
Chinese companies were in full effect hawking knockoffs of every great western scope. They're getting better, but still need a lot of work. for example I tried their state of the art knock off of the Schmidt and Bender Short Dot, a $2500 dollar scope. While the scope had some pretty great features, 1-4x, FFP reticle, red and green illumination, I still wouldn't trust it. For example, by applying up and down pressure to the illumination knob the green reticle would short out. What this says to me is the first time you drop the gun, that reticle is toast. Not what I'd want on a "real gun".
Ruger was quite impressive. They developed a new snubnose revolver called the LCR. An extensively fluted 5-shot 38+P cylinder enclosed by a lightweight aluminum frame...nothing special so far. The entire grip, trigger, hammer, enclosure was made out of polymer...Boom. The revolver weighs nothing, feels great (the grip was designed by Ruger, Hogue, and Crimson Trace), and has an EXCELLENT double-action pull.
Glock had 10mm's that didn't require banana hands, and some new heavily textured full-size auto's that will literally take off your epidermis under recoil.
XD had their new XD(m) which holds a lot of rounds of 9mm or something.
S&W had their M&P9 Pro... I'll probably buy that if I get back into IPSC.
As far as "Wow" stuff it was basically all handguns. In the rifle world, everyone has a great AR-15-clone. The two areas that still have some innovation are Gas-Piston uppers and AR-10-clones (that run). I handled one of the new DPMS AR-10's with a 16" bbl and a Carbon Fiber Free-Float tube and I could almost convince myself it was an AR-15 (that is until I used the charging handle).
Sig has their new 556 Classic, which looks like the Sig 551. A lot of fanboy's love the rifle, but I'd rather have an AR-15 any day of the week. The charging handle is on the right... terrible.
Besides Guns, I most enjoyed the various Firearm Training Systems. Most of them use a projector to display a scenario on a screen... Then you the shooter use a real firearm (modified to shoot a laser pulse) to deal with various situations. They varied in price and realism. The better systems used a CO2 cartridge system to actuate the slide and simulate recoil. The best system was hooked up to an infrared tactical flashlight. The system blacks out everything out but the area the flashlight is pointing. Let me tell you, the "shoot/no-shoot" scenarios are much more interesting at night. You have to be constantly scanning for threats. Beyond simply illuminating the target the AI responds appropriately. During a possible felony stop the driver raises his hands to his eyes and squints, then curses at you to remove the light. After some banter, he suddenly draws a concealed gun, giving you the trainee less than half a second to make the shot. One lesson I learned from the simulators was that on the scenarios where you were shooting at targets or everyone was a bad guy I crushed the simulation. It was simply "front sight, press, repeat". I tripped up on the "shoot/no-shoot" due to an issue I didn't really consider before. My eyes were focused on the suspect, attempting to judge whether he was a threat. When the suspect grabbed a gun my reaction time was great, but my accuracy was terrible. The problem was that my focus didn't return from the target to the front sight. An excellent lesson that you don't really appreciate when all you shoot is square range exercises and matches. I really need to sign up for a Force on Force class.
A couple of the highlights of the day included seeing the shooting world equivalent to celebrities. Taran Butler, Robbie Leatham, Eric Graffel, Doug Koenig, John Plaster, David Fortier, Dick Heller. Also I finally got to meet the founder of THR, Oleg Volk. He was quite cool in person. I spent about 10 minutes chatting with Alan Gottlieb, the famous gun-rights author about Heller vs. DC, Nordyke, and several other upcoming court cases. The night before SHOT I met up with with my old friend, Chris Rhines and his father, a pair of accomplished 3-gunners and Gunsmiths. Also I bumped into Tim Pack, who was rolling with the Intermedia crew as they were shown the latest and greatest at Nikon, Winchester, and Taurus. Looks like Tim's authoring career is taking off, good for him.
Winchester was showing off a microsoft surface... blowing people who'd never seen it away.
Oh ya... Ashbury International... Lame. They had an interesting bolt gun chassis system. I asked questions about it and the guy interrupts me to ask if I was LEO or .mil, and of course I say no... and he says, "well then, that info isn't important because we only sell to the government." Wow... and I thought H&K owned the phrase "because you suck, and we hate you".
Remote control aerial shotgun targets. Expensive but cool.
Enough stuff for one day.
atek3
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