2022 SHOT Show – “All In”

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2022 SHOT Show

Talk about starting the year with a bang, I spent today at the 2022 SHOT Show. It’s the firearm industries premier event featuring an endless amount of manufacturers and products related to the firearm, military, police and hunting communities. I have to tell you, it’s incredible!

Certainly 2020 and 2021 were “interesting” years for humanity given the ‘China Virus’ (aka COVID) but it was equally interesting for 2nd Amendment supporters and those in the firearms business. We saw mass rioting, chaos and lawlessness… what some selected to call “mostly peaceful protesting” and at the same time we saw an erosion of our rights, most notably our right to protect ourselves. This was compounded with a massive shortage of firearms, self defense products and ridiculous lead times and prices. But hey, lets put that behind us now. Because from what I can see, the firearms industry is coming back and coming back strong.

I had a chance to see many of the manufacturer reps live, in person and talk to them about where things are going and how fast we’ll recover from the backlogs. Stephen from Stag Arms was among several I spoke with and it seems there is good news as things are coming back strong. Even better news is the down time seems to have been used to do some more creating, imagining what is possible with new technologies and a growing market. Stag along with Daniel Defense, Mossberg, and many others are coming out with some very cool, creative and incredibly accurate products that will surely reignite the firearms market. The number of options, custom designs, colors, weights… the list goes on. It’s a dream for those that want something other then the same old rifle. Not everything was sunshine and apple pie though, for instance the Barret I’ve been wanting is probably yet another year to 18 months out. On the other hand I found some sub 6-pound custom long range bolt-action rifles, an amazing array of 3-gun Elites, and so many other ‘things I want’ that I’ll be able to keep myself (and my customers) happy until those Barret’s come in!

By the way, you can bet I took the opportunity to also plant the seed to these manufacturers to not forget about us gun owners in states that are, well…. less 2nd Amendment friendly. Some are aware and actually working on more products that are state compliant, others actually had some stuff that I wasn’t aware of, and still others weren’t really aware of some of the states with gun restrictions and when they found out things as simple as pinning magazines would make them state compliant they quickly agreed to look into that and give us better selection. If just one of them comes through it’s worth it and for many it will open new markets for their great products.

Tomorrow will be my 2nd day at the show. I’ve explored about about 30% of what’s here and that took me the better part of 7 hours so that should give you a sense of the size and scale of this show. I have a few very special customers who’ve given me a few things to be on the look out for so some of tomorrow will be searching to see if I can find the manufacturers and place some much needed orders. I’ll be checking out some new products for practicing dry-fire shooting, and other products for self defense. My goal is to bring some new and useful products into the catalogue for my customers to make their lives safer and their sport shooting more fun.

While I’ve taken many pictures, below are just a few. This is a great industry with a lot of very friendly people all looking to enjoy their 2nd Amendment Rights, safely, legally and for the protection of themselves and their families.

I’m off to find a place to get a new and comfortable pair of sneakers… then a thick steak for dinner. Vegas, guns, steak. Does it get any better than this? Right now I’m thinking hell no!

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Mossberg
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Barret
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