The inauguration of our new President went more smoothly than many professionals had feared, but then, those in public emergency services are paid to be pessimistic. The law enforcement network that coordinated the NSSE (National Special Security Event) was enormous, and it did its job well. You’ll get an idea of the scope of their task, and some of their obvious concerns, from the FBI’s own website, here.

In his inaugural address in its entirety if you haven’t caught it yet), President Obama said among other things, “We come to proclaim an end to petty grievances and false promises.” One hopes that he remembers the “promise” he promulgated throughout his campaign, that he wouldn’t take guns away from honest citizens.

However, his and his Vice-President’s support for making the assault weapons ban, which was a total failure throughout its decade of existence, permanent, gives one pause.

I suppose we law-abiding American gun owners must wait…and see…and hope.

The SHOT show is over, and like most of the 48,907 people who attended, I’m pretty well shot.

Playing catch-up: that Springfield 1903A4 clone from Navy Arms uses original receiver and bolt, new Pedersoli barrel and stock, and Chinese copy of the WWII-vintage Weaver 330 telescopic sight. A blast from the past.

One reader asked for more details on the re-issued Model 58 .41 Magnum revolver, so I went back to the Smith & Wesson booth for another look. It’s not pinned and recessed. Nice gun, though. If you want pretty, get the adjustable sight Model 57 version in nickel. Just gorgeous.

A US rep for one of the Italian makers got with me today regarding a prototype revolver with the barrel set up to fire from the bottom chamber, not the topmost. This was last seen on another Italian revolver, the Mateba, and in years past the Russians have done something similar. Still a ways down the pike, but should be interesting. The lower barrel axis reduces muzzle jump. The Mateba was a good-size sporting handgun; I’m told the new concept will be smaller and more portable.

If you’re interested in the “tacti-cool” side of things, check out the thread on the SHOT Show at www.eotacforum.com.

The SHOT Show isn’t just about guns. You’ll see clothing, for all gun-related purposes. You’ll see accessories. You’ll see the latest in hunting blinds.

I spent the entire show wearing EOTAC garments. (I shoot with their company pistol team, and I wear this stuff on my own time, not just at matches.) Owned by Fernando Coelho, the guy who designed the Woolrich Elite line of tactical garb, this is the latest evolution of “shooterwear” designed with heavy input from beta testers from the sharp end of the war on terror to domestic shooting champions. I was comfortable throughout, and thanks to all the pockets, never lacked for anything I wanted readily at hand.

Today, brother writer Charlie Cutshaw turned me on to SHADOWSHIELD (www.theSHADOWSHIELD.com). Available in hunting blind, sniper hide, or assault team shield formats, all but the hunting version are also available with bullet-resistant reinforcement. The key is a mirror-like outer surface that reflects the surroundings, turning the user into a human chameleon. Not exactly cheap, but pretty neat. Y’all decide if y’all need it. As a toy, it’s expensive, but if you fit a certain pattern of need, it’s downright cheap.

Like the National Rifle Association Annual Convention or the annual Gun Rights Policy Conference sponsored by Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens’ Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the SHOT Show brings together thousands of people who’ve looked at life the way we have and have seen the same rights and responsibilities. It’s an affirmative thing.

Most of us left tired…but most of us left feeling uplifted.

The old Chinese saying has come true, and we “live in interesting times.” It is good to know that none of us are alone in this.

Burnout is setting in. Yesterday I mis-typed LCP (Lightweight Compact Pistol) when I meant to write LCR (Lightweight Compact Revolver) in reference to Ruger’s new polymer .38 snubnose. And today, the most memorable product I saw was the fixed bayonet on a Glock pistol, courtesy of Laser-Lyte. A buddy of mine, a police academy firearms/officer survival instructor, bought one. He’s going to bring it to class as an only slightly humorous reminder of why you fight, fight, fight and never give up. Hell, I’m thinking of buying one of these pistol bayonets to cure students from shoving a pistol down the front of their waistbands…

I’m told that Navy Arms is now offering a replica Springfield 1903A4 rifle, complete with World War vintage telescopic sight, the scope being a Chinese copy. With the new administration, it’s possible that soon, pre-WWI-vintage bolt actions like this will be the only kind of military rifles allowed. If so, this Navy Arms flashback would be a choice example. I will try to get my hands on one tomorrow.

The SHOT Show is always alive with highly skilled demonstrators. I watched world champ Todd Jarrett give a gun handling demonstration at the ParaOrdnance booth: awesome, as always. At the Smith & Wesson complex, revolver wizard Jerry Miculek joined the precise Doug Koenig and the graceful Julie Goloski-Golub for a speed demo. Dave Sevigny, Jessica Abbate, and young Randi Rogers were signing autographs at the Glock booth – great shooters all, freely dispensing good advice to any shooter who cared to ask. Among them all is one common thread: a lack of the arrogance we often see in superstars in other sports. It makes us all the prouder to have them as the champions of our chosen sport.

Another of the great champs is Rob Leatham, and if all goes well I’ll record a podcast with him tomorrow. Rob won many of his world championships with target pistols with triggers as light as one pound, but when I asked him this afternoon what he actually carries nowadays, he told me it was a Springfield Armory EMP 9mm with a four- to five-pound trigger pull. He knows that target guns with target triggers belong on the range, and that on the street you need a street gun with a street trigger.

We recorded a ProArms Podcast with Charles Brown, the guy who markets low-priced guns such as the old Charter Arms revolver and the often-maligned Hi-Point semiautomatic pistols that start at $119 suggested retail. The Hi-Point product was the focus of an active and very two-sided discussion on this blog a while back, and when this particular podcast is up, I’ll post a link here.

Federal has reintroduced their excellent 125 grain Nyclad hollow point .38 Special load. If you own Grampa’s antique Smith & Wesson .38 Special made in the year 1902, or the new little six-shot Taurus Magnesium six-shot .38 Special that barely weighs enough to keep it from floating out of your pocket, you know that modern +P ammunition is too hot for either one. Within that range of needs, your best standard pressure .38 Special round for defensive purposes is, I’m convinced, that long-since discontinued Nyclad load. We’ve seen it expand reliably in flesh and bone, even when fired at low velocity from short barrels, many times. Its return is most welcome.

More tomorrow after the 2009 Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show passes into history on its last day.

Just when you thought you’d seen everything…

Two days ago, I shot a plastic revolver (Ruger LCP) and a break-open semiautomatic shotgun (Beretta). Today I came face to face with a muzzle-loader…with an electronic trigger. When I told my significant other about it, she asked, “Isn’t that a little like a Glock at a cowboy match?” Actually, it makes a certain kind of sense. If you get a few more days to put venison in the freezer with a muzzle-loader hunting season, and tradition is NOT your motivation, anything conducive to a clean, surprise break of the trigger that sends the projectile true is in your best interest. This strange melding of Davy Crockett and Buck Rogers comes to us from CVA.

Old and new is always a theme at such “gun gatherings.” Replica 19th Century Sharps rifles, Winchesters, Peacemakers etc. are always good to see, especially with today’s prices through the roof on original antique guns. Ithaca’s sweet, trim slide-action shotgun, which goes back to before WWII, is back in yet another incarnation. You can get the original format or one with a space-age pistol grip/thumbhole stock.

Remember the Ginsu knife from TV infomercials? There’s now an outdoorsman’s line of Ginsus.

High tech flashlights (oops, I mean “tactical illumination devices”) are burgeoning. Leatherman has a line of them now. So do a bunch of other folks. I photographed the appropriately-named Beast light from SureFire on a .50 caliber M-2 Browning machinegun. Just the thing when night-hunting raccoons in Jurassic Park…but also, I expect, useful after dark to our young service men and women fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Telescopic sights are mature technology, but incremental advances do occur. The most significant I’ve seen at the show thus far is from Leupold, one of our Cadillac-level makers of firearms optics. Their new VX-7 scope will give extraordinary visibility in twilight.

The best thing about these gatherings is the people. It recharges your batteries to be among folks who share your values.

In a time of recession closing in on full-blown depression, most here are saying business is great. It’s unclear how much of this is the continuing concern that the new administration will soon ban some firearms. Randy Luth, head of AR15 manufacturer DPMS, told the SHOT Show folks that his company has taken as many orders in the last month and a half as it did in all of calendar 2007.

Will put up some pictures after I get home.

The Show officially opened today. I for one prefer the Orlando venue to SHOT Show’s traditional haunt, Las Vegas, where they’ll be for the next several years after this one. More room in the aisles, for one thing, less sense of being packed in like sardines.

The “miles of aisles” take their toll early on us geezers, and I still have a podcast interview to do tonight. Producer is down with a bad cold, host/moderator is stuck on the other side of the city, and I got elected to run the microphone, God help us all. Like giving a monkey an AK47…anyway, I don’t even have time to put things in alphabetical order by manufacturer tonight. So, please forgive the “potpourri” approach.

There is, overall, a definite sense of foreboding about the incoming anti-gun administration that pervades this gathering of firearms professionals. Lots of the heavy hitter gun rights players are here. Over at Second Amendment Foundation, Dave Workman notes that while he personally feels the new administration will come in early with all guns blazing (so to speak), director Alan Gottlieb has cautious optimism that President Obama will have his plate too full to come after us from the get-go. Time will tell. My friends at Sabre Defence, manufacturers of one of the finest lines of AR15 rifles, are taking orders hand over fist from the attending retailers, as are their competitors. Sabre’s Charlie Shearon told me today, “We took orders for more guns in November than we’ve sold in the last three years.”

At Taurus, CEO Bob Morrison showed off several new handguns, all geared for concealed carry and personal defense. They had on display a new little polymer frame .380 pocket pistol to compete with the hugely-in-demand Ruger LCP and the pistol it appears to have been almost cloned from, the Kel-Tec P3AT. Weight will be 10 ounces with a steel slide assembly atop its polymer frame, and a mere 8.5 ounces with Titanium slide. It will be produced in Miami and Taurus USA will be hiring some 70 new people to carry out their plans. Taurus’ biggest seller right now is their unique Judge, a revolver that can hold a .410 shotgun shell OR a .45 Colt cartridge in each of its five chambers. The recently introduced version that takes a 3” Magnum .410 shell is now joined by a small frame revolver (the size of an S&W J-frame or Taurus’ similar Model 85 .38 snubnose) that will take .410 shells. The Judge series is particularly popular among outdoor folks who live in poisonous snake country, for obvious reasons. Second in popularity is their PT1911, a well-executed, low-price clone of the classic Colt 1911 .45 pistol.
Blog reader Erich (welcome to this place, bro!) asked about the new little SIG .380. Played with it today. It’s a scaled-down 1911 that does indeed resemble the late, lamented Colt Mustang and Pocketlite .380s. Flat metal grip panels enhance its slimness and concealability.

Smith & Wesson has sort of re-introduced the classic old K-38s to its “retro” line – I say “sort of” because the front sights and stocks aren’t quite authentic – and the .41 Magnum revolver in both the target version and the iconic 4” barrel, fixed sight Model 58 variation. A truly beloved “cult gun” among knowledgeable gun enthusiasts, the S&W .41 Magnum will earn a hearty “welcome back” from those of us who habitually carry a handgun in the outdoors.

More tomorrow…

Today was the first day of the Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade Show. The main Show itself won’t actually open until tomorrow (at the Orlando, Florida Convention Center). This was Media Day, when writers for the gun magazines, the hunting and fishing publications, and the military and police journals show up at the range to test-fire the newest wares of the gunmakers. Kinda like a wine-tasting.

Beretta has something new under the sun: the UGB25 Xcel, the first “break-open semiautomatic shotgun.” You thumb down the lever on the left side of the receiver, to “break” it like a conventional single-barrel or double-barrel shotgun. Then you close the action…and slip one more 12-gauge shell onto a loading tray on the right. Two pulls of the trigger will fire each shell from the same chamber and barrel. The rationale: the handling of a fine single-barrel trap gun with the soft recoil of a gas-operated semiautomatic shotgun. A definite “one of a kind.”
Some high points: Colt was a welcome if unexpected presence. This brand has so long refrained from advertising in gun magazines that shooters frequently ask on Internet gun forums, “Does Colt still even manufacture handguns?” Yes, they do, and their long-awaited re-issue of the Delta Elite 10mm pistol, in stainless, is finally here. The one I testfired on the Orange County Sheriff’s Academy range grouped satisfyingly at 50 yards. They also have a “rail gun” model of their classic .45 auto pistol.
Ruger introductions include a gold-trimmed 60th anniversary version of their classic outdoorsman’s handgun, the Super Blackhawk .44 Magnum. However, the Pro-Arms Podcast (http://proarms.podbean.com) crew I was running with voted unanimously that the big Ruger hit was probably the most innovative gun we’ve seen at the show so far: the LCR (Light Compact Revolver). Designed in-house by Joe Zaik, this is the first “plastic revolver.” It’s a snub-nose .38 Special 5-shot with specially designed Hogue grips (or Crimson Trace LaserGrips, your choice) and totally new lockwork with a very smooth trigger pull, double action only with no exposed hammer. Weight is in the 13 ounce range and it is very comfortable to shoot. Suggested retail will be $525 with those sweet Hogue grips, and $792 with the Crimson Trace laser unit.
Marlin has their latest bolt-action sporting rifle engineered to where it’s only a little over $300 retail at dealers. It has earned high points from testers for its accuracy, and the price is certainly right. There’s a version of their .45/70 Guide Gun with enlarged lever loop and extended magazine, just the thing for when you’re in the thickets after grizzly bears. I saw as more useful their lever action stainless in .338 Marlin, which spits a fat 200 grain bullet at .30/06 energy, but handles almost like a .30/30 deer rifle.
Remington now owns famed AR15 manufacturers Bushmaster and DPMS, and all their wares were demonstrated side-by-side. Bushmaster’s .50 BMG (Browning Machine Gun) caliber bolt action rifle was as impressive as it sounds. DPMS has an AR15 style semiautomatic in .308 Winchester that resembles their low-priced .223 Sportical, and which in .308 will retail for under $1000. The big news from Remington, though, was the .30 Remington AR cartridge, which is designed expressly for the AR15 platform and spits a 123 or 125 grain bullet at a velocity that far exceeds that of the 7.62X39 Russian cartridge. It had more of a push into the shoulder than a .223 when I fired it, of course, but little more muzzle rise. (Would’ve liked to have tried it on full automatic, but no such setup was available.) Curiously, the magazines were the size of .223 20-rounders, but modified to hold only four cartridges, though we are told it will be available with high capacity magazines. It was no trick to keep four shots in an inch at a hundred yards my first two tries on the Central Florida Rifle & Pistol Club range. Lots of promise here.
Among accessories, Crimson Trace now has sights that attach directly under the barrel for Glock and Kahr pistols, resembling larger versions of the ones they make for the Ruger LCP and Kel-Tec P3AT. I shot a Kahr 9mm with one, and the shots hit directly above the red dot. EOTAC has a new line of tactical clothing designed by and for women. Sorry, couldn’t test it without cross-dressing.
More to come. Back at ya tomorrow, I hope.

The largest trade show in the firearms industry is the SHOT Show. The acronym stands for Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade. Limited to industry folks, and geared mainly to distributors and dealers, it is not open to the public.

Literally miles of aisles, SHOT constitutes the world’s biggest gun show. For gun people, it’s like a gigantic county fair. And, yes, I’m gonna be there.

I’m still new to this bloggin’ thing. I understand the rule of thumb is a short post a couple of times a week. I’ve run a bit less frequent than that, but generally with longer posts to make up for it. The SHOT Show, however, is such a huge thing in the world of the gun that it warrants some deeper coverage. I’ll have a laptop with me, and we have access to a limited number of computers in the media center, so I’ll TRY to get a dispatch into this space each day, starting Wednesday if I can. “Try” is the operative word here, because a lot of the business at SHOT (and a lot of the investigative reporting) gets done after hours, at evening get-togethers and one-on-one debriefs with the principals.

Most of my work time there will have to be devoted to the firearms areas I focus on in almost all my research endeavors except for Backwoods Home magazine, to wit, law enforcement and personal protection firearms, ammunition, and related gear. However, I’ll make an effort to gather the latest on hunting and utility firearms for y’all, too.

The SHOT Show is managed by the industry organization known as NSSF, the National Shooting Sports Foundation. NSSF recently noted that in November, NICS checks increased an unprecedented 42%. NICS is the National Instant Criminal Background Check System run by the FBI. Last month, December, revealed a 24% increase. These firearms purchaser background checks, required by law, are a reliable indicator of firearms purchase rates. (The figures compare to NICS checks in the same months of the previous year.) Gee, I wonder if the election had anything to do with all that…?

Sales of defensive firearms have skyrocketed, while those of sporting arms have dropped. Consider one company, Smith & Wesson. In the last couple of months, sales of their polymer-framed high capacity Military & Police series of semiautomatic pistols soared to unimagined heights, as did orders for their version of the AR15 rifle. However, over the last several months, orders for their sporting arms (the excellent new line of S&W shotguns made in Turkey, and the fine blackpowder and cartridge rifles manufactured by their subsidiary Thompson/Center in New Hampshire), plummeted. We’re seeing the same pattern industry-wide.

I’ll look forward to sharing with you the new products that debut at the show, and also sharing the buzz from industry insiders as to what the imminent new Administration will bring in this area. So, I’m taking a shot at covering SHOT for the blog. Bear with me, ‘cause there may not be a dispatch posted every day.

The President-elect is now admitting that he won’t be able to fulfill the promises he made before the election. I’ve always found it easier not to promise more than one can deliver, to begin with.

When was it, exactly, that the left became the “blues” and everyone else became the “reds”? I was from that generation that grew up huddling under elementary school desks in “atomic bomb drills” and being told by teachers that Communism was evil, and now folks like me are called “Reds” ?!?!?

A new “blue” scheme currently underway (yes, founder Dave Duffy has checked it out, and assures us it is true) is the already drafted Ammunition Accountability Act. You can read about it here.

Let’s think about that. The technology to make ammunition “accountable,” – cartridge by cartridge, shell by shell, casing by casing, projectile for projectile – is largely vaporware and almost entirely unproven. It will be hugely expensive. Affordable ammunition for practice, competition, hunting and home defense will become a thing of the past.

Notice also the very early expiration date at which all previously owned “old, low-tech” ammo would become illegal to possess. One must ask, what would the law abiding citizen do with it? It could not be sold. Property lawfully purchased and responsibly owned would become contraband: there would be huge ex post facto issues here, and some serious Constitutional issues as well. And that’s before we start looking at vast collective tonnage of “hazardous materials” that some Governmental entity would be responsible for storing or destroying. Did any of the idiots who drafted this stuff even discuss the ramifications with EPA and OSHA?

If, like most rural folks, you’re a gun owner, you’ve found an old box of ammo or maybe just a single cartridge in an unexpected, forgotten place. After a certain date, if this BS becomes law, that would make you a law-breaker. Roughly half of our population – far more than half in rural areas – owns or have owned guns and ammunition, which means that if such laws come to pass, they will unnecessarily criminalize half of our citizenry.

Look this stuff up. Find out if yours is one of the states that might put you in the crosshairs of this insanity. And start writing every elected official (and appointed official, such as chiefs of police who would have to enforce this stupidity) and let them know where you stand.

This drafted legislation reaches a literally mind-boggling level of ignorance and foolishness, and if it goes unchallenged, the “blues” will have a lot of us “singing the blues.”

Yeah, I know…some out there are muttering, “Whaddaya mean, ‘Happy’!?!?”

Yes, the economy sucks…but people who not only read the magazine Backwoods Home, but take its advice and cleave to its ethics, are going to be more ready for that than the rest.

True, we “gun folks” didn’t get the election results we wanted…but we’ve survived hostile Presidencies before. I expect we’ll do it again.

Indeed, we can anticipate attacks on firearms owners’ rights from the “change-dot-gov” folks now at the helm, who have made it abundantly clear where they stand on those issues. But we do have the landmark Heller decision from the Supreme Court of the United States that came down in mid-2008, and I think that’s gonna help.

I just got back from a post-Christmas sojourn on the west coast with my younger daughter, her husband, and my adorable granddaughter. If I’m uncharacteristically optimistic, well, so be it. I’ll just bask in those good vibes for a while.

Lots of folks think the incoming Administration will leave law-abiding gun owners alone, maybe even for a couple of years until the interim elections. God knows, they avoided the gun issue studiously enough during the campaign, and the new team will indeed have its hands full with real issues, perhaps enough so that they’ll lay off of the “gun control” that so many of them have touted for so long.

The logical side of me is still skeptical about that, though. Rumor has it that the incoming administration wants to hit the ground running hard enough to make some very deep footprints, and their powerful majority on Capitol Hill will allow them to do that.

I figured out when I was a little kid that it was better to be a pessimist than an optimist. You see, when you’re an optimist, the best that happens is that things go as you planned, and half the time you’re bitterly disappointed. But when you’re a pessimist, the worst that ever happens is that things to exactly the way you were prepared for them to go, and half the time you’re pleasantly surprised.

With the musical babble of my two-year-old granddaughter’s voice still ringing in my ears, I’ll allow myself some cautious optimism, if only because my usual pessimism has left me prepared for the worst.

I’d be interested to know what all of you out there see coming for 2009.

And I wish you all a prosperous, safe, and productive New Year!