by 
LAST CALL
The SHOT Show begins in Las Vegas in less than a month 3 days and I will be there!
Normally, SHOT is scheduled when I would be teaching. I usually teach my class on Monday nights. However this year, it is the week that includes Martin Luther King Day which means no class for me. I am really excited to be able to go as this will be the first SHOT Show I’ve attended in 19 years. The last one I attended was in Dallas and was a fraction of what it has since become.
To say that the SHOT Show is huge is to understate it. The show will utilize 630,000 net square feet of display space within the Sands Expo Center. There will be 1,676 vendors displaying their wares. And you have only four days to see it all. If I went non-stop from the moment the doors opened until they closed and visited each and every booth, I would have barely one minute to devote to each booth.
That just isn’t going to make it.
Thus, I’m asking you to make suggestions about what you’d like me to cover. Are there certain vendors that you’d like me to make sure that I don’t miss? Are there product areas that you’d like to see covered? Moreover, are there questions that you’d like me to ask? For example, I could ask Remington just when they expect to have the R-51 pistol fix available. Another example is that I could ask Glock when we can expect a single stack 9mm now that the Glock 42 seems to be a success. You get the idea.
You can make suggestions in the comments below. You can also email me directly at jpr9 AT earthlink DOT net.
I really do want to hear from you. I think it will take a good deal of advance planning to make my trek to the SHOT Show a success. Your suggestions will make this more doable. The SHOT Show website is here and the list of vendors is here.
One final thing – if you are going to be attending the SHOT Show, let me know by email and we may be able to meet in person.
UPDATE: This is a last call for items you want me to check out. Email is above. I have a short list and will do my best to check everything out.
Find out if anything's happening with Rhino Arms' 12 gauge AR10 shotgun they announced at last year's SHOT. They haven't said anything about it since March. http://www.rhinoarms.com/news/new-12-gauge-shotgun/
I'll add that to my list. Interesting that you can just switch the upper to convert from a shotgun to a 7.62 rifle.
Can you pester the Winchester/FN folks about if they ever plan on releasing the "new" Model 70 with iron sights?
I'll be glad to add that to my list. That's an interesting thought. I haven't looked at the Winchester 70 in a while and didn't realize they were scope only.
Ask Sig Sauer when they'll release the P320 in 45 ACP, and the subcompact versions, and when they plan to release in 10mm (or 460 Rowland).
I suspect the answer to the first few will be, "soon" or, "We announced that yesterday", and the third will be never (fourth will probably be met with laughter).
Keep an eye out for the Unimag from Ross Zheng Engineering, especially if you make it out to range day. It's an AR magazine that claims it works with the majority of calibers without modification. They don't seem to be a vendor, but I know the main guy's planning on being there.
Anon: Will do – not sure if Sig would take me as as "serious (citizen) journalist" if I asked about 10mm or . 460 Rowland.
When you first wrote, Unimag, I saw it as Unimog. Is Mercedes-Benz going to be at Show, I said to myself. That magazine sounds interesting esp. if it is reliable. BTW, I just added 10 eLander steel AR mags to my collection because the price had fallen so much. I'm with Michael Bane on this one – steel mags will be around long after the aluminum ones have been toseed.
First of all, have loads of fun. When you're tired and sore, remember that there are many who would willingly swap places with you. I'm most interested in new stuff. Anyone who makes AR and/or high-cap mags hasn't had the manufacturing capacity (generally speaking) to release anything new in the last couple of years, so I'm hoping to see the release of some pent-up R&D.
Honest question–Does anyone care about the R-51? I couldn't care less, but that may be a minority viewpoint.
Have a great trip!
That's a good question about the R-51. I think a lot of us wanted it to be good, even great. I'll be asking the Remington people when they expect to ship out the replacements. The whole saga illustrates the difficulty in moving from prototype to actual production firearms.
I hope to meet up with Reed Snyder of the AR15 Podcast this week. I'm sure he'll have a better eye for what the new AR products that are being shown.
Sorry but I'm not willing to trade places. The last SHOT I went to was in 1996 and it was a fragment of what this one will be. The teaching calendar worked out for me for once.
Sent you an email. Thanks for being "our" guy at SHOT Show.