SHOT Show Archives

The .380, otherwise known as the 9mm Kurtz, will always be a popular cartridge for concealed carry. Guns are just less snappy than with the 9mm, and a less powerful gun that you will shoot and will carry is always better than a more powerful gun that you won’t shoot and carry. That was the thinking with the new SCCY doublestack .380. They already make a small doublestack 9mm that has gained a decent name for itself, especially when you factor in cost. So it was a natural addition to add the lower powered, and less intimidating .380 to the line.

I don’t think anyone has yet improved over the reliability of Benelli shotguns, including Benelli. So unfortunately, we didn’t see some crazy new operating system this year that would make even the impressive and capable Inertia Driven system look stone age by comparison. There is always next year, though. We did see some serious improvements on the comfort side of the house though, with the new Super Black Eagle 3.

Thompson/Center has long been synonymous with muzzle loading firearms. Last month at a Smith and Wesson event, we got to go hands-on with all the new options from Thompson/Center. In fact, I pulled the trigger on my first ever muzzleloader at that event. At SHOT Show 2017, we got chance to spend some more time with them and get the latest scoop. Some of the big stories this year are the Strike, the Impact, and the T/C color scheme updates.

Bipods are a very important part of precision rifle, and I wouldn’t dream of running a sniper rifle without them. The average consumer or sportsman might not appreciate that, but they make life a lot easier when you are talking about long range shooting. I have been running they same brand and style since about 2005, but I am always on the look out for better. Accu-Tac may finally be able to deliver that.

The Dieback Thigh Rig minimalist hunting pack is for when your pockets aren’t big enough — and a fanny pack isn’t happening.

By far the most exciting product from Burris is the new spotting scope. The most interesting features include modular eyepieces and the integrated mount for a red dot. Burris will offer different eyepieces that are marked for MIL, MOA and with Burris’ SCR competition reticle.

Falkor Defense has come out swinging with a couple of different products this year. Falkor is most famous for magnum cartridge AR-style rifles, notably in .300 Winchester Magnum. That is a lot of cartidge to get in semi auto, but apparently Falkor fears no challenge.

When you make great stuff that everyone loves, eventually you have to decide to make some new and different stuff. I think that is the case with Coonan Inc., makers of the famous .357 Magnum 1911. It may seem like a digression to move from a truly novel product to a very common product, a regular old .45ACP 1911, but why not? T

From the makers of the now famous DP-12, double barrel shotgun, comes a new gas gun on the familiar AR-15 looking platform. It will be called the SKO, and it takes what are now fairly common 1919 mags.

This new gun from Pedersoli, called the Howdah, is an almost exact looking replica of the Ithaca Auto & Burglar Gun, but the barrels are of course rifled, to comply with those same NFA regulations. It has a 3″ chamber, to accommodate magnum .410 shells, and it will also shoot .45 Colt.

STI made their name on competition pistols, and this year was no different. In addition to providing the base kit on which probably 95% of the custom race guns are made, STI has their own out of the box ready to go model available now. As the name implies, this year’s model was made with the 3-Gunner in mind.

The new M249S Para from FN is big, unwieldy and expensive—and lots of fun. With a price tag that is not for the faint of heart, the M249S Para brings a lot of fun semi-auto, belt-fed firepower to the range.

The Glock booth became a clash of titans briefly on SHOT Show range day. An immovable force met an unstoppable object, lightning crashed like a phalanx colliding, and the sea ran red with the blood of heroes. Or something like that. At the very least, two old smokers, one with Glock inc, one with GunsAmerica and a camera crew of misfits, had a pretty kick-ass shoot off.

The Maxim 9 from SilencerCo offers shooters an all-in-one system of a 9mm pistol with an integral suppressor.

Motorcycle enthusiast and reality TV star Jesse James makes firearms. Turns out, they’re pretty rad.

I reviewed the first AK bump stock back in 2013, and I never got it to the point where I was comfortable, like with an AR. I found that the trigger pull is longer with an AK, and scratchy, and it just isn’t a fine tuned machine like even the worst AR trigger. This year SlideFire Solutions, the inventor of the slide stock, came up with a solution. They made the block out of aluminum, and included a buffer system inside.

The Witness Limited Custom from EAA is a top-end competitive pistol for a surprisingly reasonable price.

New from Ruger this year is the exciting 6mm Creedmoor chambering in the American Predator Rifle as well as the popular Ruger Precision Rifle.

Liberty Safe offers shooters and collections great options for safe gun storage from standing large gun safes all the way down to quick-access handgun safes. Take a look at what is new for 2017.

AirForce is launching a suppressed .45-caliber airgun that can make 400 foot-pounds at the muzzle for target shooting and small and medium game.

It would be easy to dismiss this gun as novelty. With a standard capacity of 25 rounds — 40+1 with mini-shells — the KSG-25 is a beast.

The concept of the Handi-Racker is to assist the shooter in racking the slide, realizing the power of body weight, rather than hand and arm strength. You hold the Handi-Racker against the back of the slide and push down on the pistol, using a table or wall as a brace.

Most burglars aren’t that sophisticated, and many of them think that they can just drive a truck through the front door. That is why the first test on this case was to run at it with a 26,000 pound box truck. Then they continued with sledge hammers, cutting wheels, and when they brought it into the shop, dropped it from the top of a fork lift, all on video.

Rio Grande has stock grips, semi-custom and fully customizable grips at very affordable prices.

At first I was unsure as to how I was supposed to take seriously an optics company named Rudolph that had a reindeer on their SHOT Show booth. I mean really? But then I looked down the glass and was surprised to find that the scopes are nice. Poking and prodding, I discovered that Rudolph Optics are made in the same factory as a very popular Japanese scope manufacturer that I will not say here, and they sell for 20-30% less for about the same thing.

I love novelty guns as much as the next guy, but things seem to be changing for Heizer with this new PKO 45, and later this year, the PKO 9. Both guns have the standard Heizer look and feel, but instead of novelty, the stress seems to be on ergonomics and shootability.

A $600 butterfly knife? Doesn’t that contradict the storied history of these much-maligned self-defense knives?

To be honest, I suspect most people do not think of Remington when it comes to the topic of handguns. Rifles? The Model 700? Of course. Shotguns? How about the Model 870, right? But this is unfair as the company has a long history of producing popular handguns. From the 1858 New Army blackpowder revolver to the .41 rimfire double derringer to the Model 51 in .32 and .380 ACP to the 1911s it produced for the United States government, Remington is a company that knows its way around a handgun. So, with the introduction of the new RP9, the company is both building on tradition as well as blazing a new path.

One of my tasks for this year’s SHOT Show was to find interesting products that our GunsAmerica Stocking Dealers could carry in the store, or things to make their store more accessible and/or secure.
On the former, I found Lucky Shot USA. Several of the big box chains carry them already, and I think it is a slam dunk for anyone who has a retail establishment full of gun nuts.