rlauferblog

Covering SHOT Show 2020 a few weeks ago was a lot of fun although I left with some sadness knowing some of those great products will never make it to Canada.

No need to worry about that with the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association (CSAAA) 2020 National Trade Show as it is dedicated to showcasing the newest firearms, archery, ammunition and shooting accessories hitting the Canadian market this year.

By way of background, the CSAAA supports and promotes hunting and sport shooting both as socially beneficial sporting activities and as business contributors to our economy. Ultimately, they promote and protect the legal rights of manufacturers, importers, resellers and stakeholders in the Canadian shooting sports industry. You may have seen their foundational research last year on the economic impact of the shooting industry.

The CSAAA also hosts two trade shows annually, one in Calgary and one in Toronto. As trade shows, these events are not open to the public but I was fortunate to obtain a media pass. Thank you again to CSAAA.

Ok on to the show…some aerial shots

my first stop was to check in with my good friend Gilles at Mossberg.

I am pleased to report that the Jerry Miculek / Lena Miculek re-designed 940 Pro will be coming to Canada. The new model is a considerable re-design and intended for 3 gun competition right out of the box. For example, based on Lena’s input, both the forened and magwell have been completely redesigned to allow for quad reloads. The semi-auto shotgun also now has an adjustable length of pull and a cleaner running gas recoil management system that can go 1500 rounds before cleaning.

This is the previous generation model for comparison.

I also like the 500 with the ATI Tactical kit including 6 position adjustable stock, Halo free floating heatshield, and the Add-a-Shell system side saddle.

Love the Kuiu Camo on the 590 Thunder Ranch…btw, that “tri-rail” will be replaced with M-lock.

The Flex has a quick change system to easily swap out the stock

Removable panel reveals Velcro to attach a pressure switch

The 590A1 Retrograde is a real beauty

Shockwave with corn on the cob forend

Lots of novelties at Trigger Wholesale including Lithgow black powder rifles

And .22lr precision rifles

More variations of the mag fed Typhon F12 (I think there are now 40 colour options!)

As well as the bullpup FD2

The Benelli M4 clone is now available in an elite package with two stocks and extra chokes

This shotgun uses Saiga mags! (limited to 5 rounds). I would buy it for that alone lol

Trigger Wholesale is also expanding into archery with Martin bows.

Precision .22LR, mag fed, and bullpup shotguns were also the theme at O’Dell Engineering….including the incredibly popular Derya.

The Spectre..i remember seeing the prototype of this at the first TACCOM show in 2018

Bergera

Including the new .22

North Sylva’s display focused on non-restricteds such as the Kriss Vector (which is indeed coming to Canada in .22lr), the BCL, now in burnt bronze, M+M, CZ Skorpion EVO

The new Charles Daly bullpup shotgun

And my personal favourite, the Tavor, including the 7

For those who prefer the more traditional, the FN competition bolt action gun, Norinco tranch gun, Chiappa mare’s leg, and a North Sylva exclusive Marlin.

Two new versions of the Ruger PC-9 have arrived at Big Rock, one with floating handguard and a second that also has an adjustable stock

Shown here next to the Hi-Point PCC…the Hi-Point is much lighter but limited to 5 round mags.

Another beauty at Big Rock, the 125th Anniversary Savage Model 110

As I reported in my SHOT Show review, Cadex has A LOT of new introductions including an R7 for hunting, new finishes, new two stage trigger, new bi-pod, new shotgun accessories etc. etc. As a Canadian company, it should be no surprise that all of these will be available locally.

New CDX-R7 SPTR

Compared to the R7 Sheepdog

And next to the chassis systems for which Cadex is so well known

New finishes such as Robin’s egg blue

The Bell outdoors booth

Their new airguns immediately caught my eye…fyi, these are over the 450 fps limit so they do require a PAL

Hatsan Shotguns

The SD12 mag fed…comes with a complete kit including mags, extra chokes, etc.

New at the Stoger booth, the Benelli Lupo (Italian for wolf), the first bolt-action from the company. The design focuses on ergonomics and recoil reduction and features seven exclusive Benelli patents.

Also new from Benelli, the B.E.S.T. surface treatment, a new proprietary finishing technology developed by Benelli to coat and protect steel with a tough, impenetrable armor that stops rust and corrosion.

The latest swag

Canik TP8SFX with lightening cuts on slide to reduce muzzle rise

The Elite Combat variant with a threaded barrel designed by Salient Arms International

Next some great optics at the Vortex booth

Binoculars…the second from the left is the top of the line Razor UHD

Monoculars

Laser range finders, the top of which is now capable of ranging out to 4000 yards

And of course scopes

Including the new Razor HD Gen III 1-10×24 FFP…a first focal plane with an illuminated red dot at 1X that turns into a reticle at higher magnifications

Also at the Vortex booth, Kershaw knives

including the Natrix copper

The Kershaw Emerson CQC-11k based on the Emerson Rendezvous

And my favourite knife of the show, the Kershaw Emerson cqc-6k in small (3.25” blade) and large (3.9”)

Dividend with composite blade made of CPM D2 and Bohler N690

Camp knife

More knives from Ruko…

Now available with an ultra robust coating…in custom patterns or text

Ruko’s own camo pattern

Ruko also imports Muela from Spain

Hydra-X Outdoor Adventure set with exchangeable blade system

Back to guns…lightweight hunters seemed to be the theme…such as this very fine Weatherby Mark V Ti, which uses titanium to keep it below the 5 pound mark!

Available with three stock designs (two of which are shown here…the third has more adjustability)

The 3D HEX reoil reducing stock was designed by a former NASA engineer who works at the company

There are many built in safety features such as the gas venting ports in the bolt and the shroud on the back of the action that were developed 50 years ago!

More fine guns from Weatherby…note the Vanguard First Lite camo one in the front…it is used by the hosts of a popular hunting TV show.

Winchester is my favourite ammo maker…I especially like their Ranger and Defender lines. Now they have introduced the USA Ready series, every box of which includes a lot number that allows you to look up your ballistics data online, including velocity, pressure and accuracy ratings — all related to your box’s lot.

I would like to meet the gun that fits that round!

Not only do you have to feed guns, you need to keep them clean too and for that, Gunzilla is a great option. This organic cleaner is safe to use on all guns and based on testimonials, has dramatically reduced weapon malfunctions in theatre, especially in desert / sandy conditions.

And to feed yourself, Code of Arms Coffee!

Last but not least, AmChar, where I ran into Adam, who you all know formerly from FOC and TACCOM.

AmChar is the top distributor for Glock pistols

And gear

AmChar is also the distributor for American Tactical Omni polymer AR15s…these are lined with steel and fully compatible with AR15 uppers and parts.

As well as Mossberg

So to recap, the main themes around new firearms were lightweight hunters as well as mag fed and bullpup shotguns.

I should point out that there was lots of archery equipment again but I did not really cover those booths simply because I don’t know much about archery…although I would like to learn!

Ultimately as a trade show, it was great to connect with members of the firearms industry. I had long conversations about the current political climate and I am happy to report that retailers are enthusiastic. I know of a few store and product line expansions (some have already been made public), showing that the industry is optimistic….and so am I!

RL

Note: My new photo hosting site allows me to post only 200 photos at a time. Please follow the links at the bottom for a lot more coverage of SHOT Show 2020!

Ahhhh it is so great to be back in Vegas…and even greater to be back at SHOT Show!!! I had such an amazing time at SHOT Show 2018 that it will be hard to beat but I am confident that I can do it!

As in the case of 2018, I have done an enormous amount of planning, even though I am more familiar with the layout. Why all the planning? Well, the main show is 690,000 square feet or 12 squares miles (the same as the base of the Grand Pyramid in Giza). It now extends to secondary venues and includes over 1,600 exhibitors on the show floor but that increases to over 2,400 if you include the Supplier Showcase and Pop-Up Preview. Access to SHOT is limited to 65,000 industry folk and 2,500 media members.

To put the size in perspective, consider that if you spend just 10 minutes at a booth (to take pics, handle guns, wait for your turn to handle them, talk to reps, get swag etc.), you could cover 6 per hour or 48 per 8 hour shift. That means in three days you would cover roughly 150 booths. But of course, you have to factor in walking time, breaks etc. so maybe 75 is more realistic. Per SHOT Show’s fact sheet, if you wanted to visit all booths, you could only spend 22 seconds at each!

Thankfully I have a co-author this year and collectively Tom and I plan to cover at least 100 booths. If we post just 10 pics per booth, that would result in a review with 1000 pics (our goal) that covers only 100/2400 or 4% of the show!!!! SHOT is BIG!

In preparation for SHOT, I picked up some cool gear such as this Otte Patrol Parka…thanks to Chris Costa for providing feedback on jacket options and to Parabellum Prime for the super speedy delivery!

I got some shirts made too…gotta look professional!

Along with a few other things that may show up during my review.

Monday Industry Day at the Range

Apart from being able to take pics, one of the greatest benefits of a Media Pass is that you get to attend Industry Day at the Range and shoot everything from super compacts to full auto to suppressed with no limits on ammo.

And the amount of ammo consumed is staggering! Consider that there are 2,500 media folks and if each one shoots 20 guns with 10 rounds each, that would be half a million rounds! I can’t remember the exact round count but from what I recall, it was even higher than that.

Here is an aerial view of the incredibly beautiful range, courtesy of SHOT. I will have more of my own range shots below.

Industry day was awesome! We shot a ton of guns and many exceeded our expectations. Tom and I took about 400 pics and shot lots of vids. I suspect you are anxious to see them so I will start with some of my pics and let Tom chime in with his.

We started at the Geissele booth expecting to see some AR15s fitted with their legendary triggers…we were half right! I was not aware that Geissele soft launched their own in-house made AR15 last year and is fully launching the lineup at this year’s SHOT show. Needless to say, the triggers on them were great.

Next, OSS suppressors…I opted for one mounted on an AK and it was one of my favourite guns of the day.

It was great to get an explanation of the internals of the OSS suppressors. I dare say that I enjoy shooting suppressed firearms more than full auto!

My absolute favourite of the day though was the B&T USW-A1 with its collapsible stock and platform specific Aimpoint site. It made such a difference to shoot it with the stock extended! I will definitely get one of these!

The Alien was certainly the most unique gun of the day…it has the lowest bore axis on the market with the fixed barrel and the interchangeable slide top allows you to swap optics in a breeze (with 90% zeroing)…it can also reliably fire any load of 9mm with its piston system. It is an expensive gun for sure but a lot of thought went into the unique features.

I was quite anxious to try the re-introduced Colt Python…it was available with 4” and 6” barrels and I opted for the longer while Tom shot both. It was nice but not something I would buy.

Another re-release high on our “must try” list was the HK SP5…available in several configurations, Tom and I opted for the traditional profile with iron sights….so satisfying to do that HK slap lol…and it shot great!

No surprise that the Glock booth was all about the new 44 in .22lr…now I have shot Glocks with .22 conversion kits so I kind of had an idea of what it would be like but I have to say the 44 exceeded my expectations! It was lighter than I expected while the trigger was better…I would not hesitate to buy one.

We also ran into Glock shooter Michelle Viscusi

I have read a lot of good things about the sub-compact Springfield Hellcat…it offers the largest mag capacity (13+1) in the smallest package. I tried variations with red-dot and iron sights and I actually shot better with the irons. I really like micro-compacts like the Glock 26 and the Hellcat felt just as good.

It was great to meet Rob Leatham at the Springfield booth

During the course of my research for SHOT, I came across the Rock Island Armory TCM22…a very intriguing round! It is essentially a .22 that moves at 2000 fps!

Here are some 1911s chambered in this round

It creates quite the fireball with no felt recoil!

Next we visited the long range section where I was happy to meet Rob Furlong, who has EXCELLENT taste in jackets lol

He must have given me some good luck as I hit both of my shots on target at 1090 yards out of a Cadex in 300 Norma Magnum…three times longer than I have ever shot before! That Cadex is quite something…and thanks to the Cadex team.

Tom and I were both impressed with Ruger’s latest offerings. First, the 5.7…it is much thinner and easier to hold / control than the FN

Next the Wrangler revolver…an aluminum (very light) frame .22 single action at a very affordable price (under $300 I believe)

Speaking of .22s, how about those long barrels!

More nice Rugers

By now you must have heard of the new Kriss Vector in .22LR…it does not use the Vector recoil mitigating system, rather a more conventional design. However, with a .22 you really don’t need it as there is no recoil anyway. Also, the quad rail allows a light to be mounted on top without obstructing the sight. It costs about a 1/3rd of a centre-fire Kriss.

Vs. the centre-fires in 9mm, 10mm, and 45acp

Just next to Kriss at Maxim Defense I ran into Kris “Tanto” Paronto

Pics of the spectacular range

SHOT Show 2020 – Industry Day at the Range

SHOT Show 2020 – Industry Day at the Range

SHOT Show 2020 – Day 1 Coverage

SHOT Show 2020 – Day 1 Coverage

SHOT Show 2020 – Day 2 Coverage

SHOT Show 2020 – Day 2 Coverage

SHOT Show 2020 – Day 3 Coverage

SHOT Show 2020 – Day 3 Coverage

I am so glad that Select Shooting decided to stay with Oxford Fish and Game club as the venue for their Annual Range Day as I really like the open layout of this range.

We arrived to a decent lineup of people and as we will see later on, it did get quite busy.

Select Shooting’s display with the raffle prize Canuck shotguns donated by O’Dell

And raffle cases generously donated by Nanuk

Returning exhibitors Black Rifle Coffee and the CSSA

And great to see my colleagues at High Capacity have a table this year…I picked up several copies of the two editions with my articles.

I also sampled Code of Arms new coffee. While Black Rifle Coffee uses proceeds to support veterans, Code of Arms Coffee supports competitive shooters…and they offered to sponsor 17 year old IPSC Grand Master Ryan Dobbs at the Code of Arms Golden Bullet Awards dinner at TACCOM.

The Code of Arms guys doing what they do best…filming an interview with Dean for CCFR Downrange Season 2 TV show

Canadian Historical Arms Museum is also a returning exhibitor although this year we were not allowed to handle the guns. Still, after seeing Canadian Gun Vaults prohibition kit at TACCOM it was great to see a real Tommy Gun for comparison.

Other hardware on display

Last year I focused on precision rifles so this year I decided to start with handguns.

Lineup for the handgun range…

At least we had some cool scenery to admire while we were waiting

Quite busy inside!

I have skipped Smith and Wesson in my previous reviews so wanted to show them some love this time around lol. First up, the SD9, S&W’s entry level offering

Shoots pretty well…a good bargain for under $500

Next the Victory Performance Centre .22LR…

being a .22 it was super easy to shoot, as shown by this young lady (thanks to her father for permission to take the pic)

Smokey ammo…looks good in pics imho lol

I really liked the super bright sights and I would say this gun had the best sights of all the ones I tried in the day.

Meanwhile Tom shot the M&P and .357 revolver

Next, the North Sylva booth for one of my favourites, the X95..in 9mm…I definitely want one of these and to take a course with Lovie, who I had the pleasure of meeting at TACCOM

Yup, definitely my favourite of the day.

As I mentioned in my TACCOM review, I intended to try the FN 509 here as I knew it would be on the
line. It shoots well but I would mount a red dot on it…those suppressor sights would take some getting used to.

Also from North Sylva, Girsan

And Walther.

I have heard so many positive things about the Q5 Match that I had to give it a try.

It was definitely nice but it did not “wow” me.

By contrast, Tom shot the P99 and it was his favourite gun of the day…said he would “look up pricing” when he gets home lol

The P1 was super fun but it would take me some practice to do speedy reloads with that heel mag release.

Next up, Grand Power….

i tried the Q100, which now has a flat trigger with a 3.5# release weight and a shorter reset than the original version.

And the X-Calibur Match, also a next generation model featuring a heavier steel dustcover for even greater muzzle rise reduction. …and I MUCH preferred this one. In fact, I liked this one much better than the Walther Q5 Match.

The fluted rotary barrel helps with recoil management and it feels great to shoot.

At the end of TACCOM, Wolverine Supplies generously provided some demo guns for today’s event, one of which was a Bruger & Thomet GHM-9….this one was near the top of my list to try. Too bad I embarrassed myself by hitting the mag release instead of the bolt release lol (apparently I was not the only one to do so)…the bigger issue was the small size of the aperature on the rear sight. I would definitely need to mount a red-dot on this.

Next my biggest surprise of the show, the Freedom Ordnance FX-9! Zero recoil and super accurate (the great Vortex glass helped too), plus it uses Glock mags…next to the Tavor this was my favourite gun of the day..i would definitely buy one of these!

Last but not least in terms of handguns, Glock!

The G19X was the most popular gun at their booth…while I have shot it before, I thought I would give it another try.

I must say that I liked it more than in previous outings…perhaps because I have been shooting my Glock lately so am more accustomed to the trigger.

Other Glocks on the line (note the American Tactical Omni AR with polymer frame that I covered in my TACCOM review)

All done with handguns, we headed to the rifle range….which was also super busy

Some of the guns available for us to try

Again I wanted to start with Smith & Wesson.

I watched Colion Noir’s video on the M&P 15-22 .22LR last night as I knew Select would have one on the line (thanks for putting out the list Select!)…he concluded that while an AR in .22 may seem silly, it is super fun to shoot and a great training tool…I concur! Once again, another gun I would buy!

As for the standard M&P AR, I wanted to try the one with classic furniture…while I like the look, I have really gotten used to shooting ARs with quad rails so I think I will stick to those.

Of course, S&W offers those as well..shown here with Tom and another guest.

I wasn’t planning to shoot precision rifles this time but they had the new Daniel Defense Delta so had to give it a try. Unfortunately, there were some issues with the gun, either it was over-heated of didn’t like the available ammo but the bolt had to be forced open after every shot so I only got one round out of it.

Fortunately the Daniel Defense AR was functioning flawlessly and I really liked it!

Finally, the trap range featuring shotguns by Mossberg

Browning

From O’Dell, Derya and Canuck

And Benelli / Beretta (sorry no pics)

Tom (not shown in these pics) got 3 out of 4 (or was it 3 out of 5? Lol…who is counting)

Select graciously invited us to stay for the RSO shoot after the event closed to the public and I brought out my John Wick guns for the team to try…

Here is our host, Dean, shooting my JW3 TTI STI

I have another 70 pics of the after-shoot and will perhaps post those later.

For now that sums up my great day at Select Shooting Annual Range Day 4…kudos to Dean and team for putting on another great event just one week after the craziness of TACCOM..we are all still recovering lol.

RL