Buzz

SHOT Show 2018 has just under 2,000 vendors on site this year, so there’s lots of new long-range shooting gear to see. Better yet, the Range Day outing Monday before the show opens has a 1,000-yard range where some vendors provide the opportunity to try new guns, ammo, and gear. Here are some of the interesting long-range shooting products we found this year.

Over the years I’ve learned exactly how to find all the cool stuff at SHOT Show. Level One is where most of the new companies get space, so it’s where you find all the latest new inventions, guns, and gear. When the bell rings on opening Tuesday, I head straight there, where I spend the entire day wandering the aisles of the basement. Yes, it takes a whole day because the show as a whole is the same size as the Pyramid at Giza and you’ll walk over 12 miles just passing by every booth. Here are some of the cool things I ran across at SHOT Show 2018.

Burris Signature rings are available in both hunting (Signature) and tactical (XTR Signature) models. The awesome thing about them is that they are able to precisely compensate for misaligned bases, or, to set your scope up with built-in cant (the XTR’s are capable of 0 to 40 moa), for long-range shooting.

The wares at our local gun emporia are beginning to look a bit repetitive, my friends. There are AR15 variants for every taste, proclivity, and budget. The counters are awash to their gunwales in plastic pistols. There’s the obligatory smattering of scatterguns, precision rifles, and wheelguns, but that really is about it.

At this time of year, many of us are taking to the field for hunting. Unfortunately, hungry predators are also gearing up for winter, which always leads us to a discussion of bear and mountain lion guns. Archery hunting is fun and all, but a bow is not what anyone wants to be holding when we find ourselves between a momma and cubs. The problem with most guns of caliber big enough to stop a bear is that they are heavy and unwieldy.  Smith and Wesson, always innovating in revolver design, has stepped in to fix that with the Combat Magnum Model 69.

“Trying to stop a bad-guy with a nine mm is like trying to stop a charging buffalo with a twenty-two. Might as well use a fly-swatter”.

Such statements were common when I was a kid, and at the time there was some truth to them. Many experienced shooters, veterans, and L.E. officers still preferred the hard-hitting .45 ACP, (Automatic Colt Pistol) to the 9mm with its smaller, lighter and more streamlined projectile.

We hunters, especially those of you – who like me – enjoy carrying a bolt-action rifle for big game, owe a helluva lot to a German gentleman named Mauser. Peter Paul von Mauser, to be specific. A brilliant designer, Herr Mauser gave us not only the 7×57 and 8×57 cartridges, but the Gewehr 98 rifle, which would set the standard for bolt-action rifle reliability that stands to this day. The Mauser name – synonymous in the firearms world with the reputation that German engineering has secured – is one that hunters have come to rely on for a century and a quarter.

American Tactical’s new mag-well adapter converts your standard .223/.5.56 AR lower to 9mm with no gunsmithing required. The adapter takes standard Glock-style magazines.

Several weeks ago I was walking around my favorite gun store, BMC Tactical in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when I saw a fancy looking Glock lower frame sitting in a plastic jig. “What is that?” I inquired. [one_half] [/one_half][one_half_last] [/one_half_last] The clerk working the gun counter pulled the assembly out of the case and explained that [...]