Neanderpundit

I arrived on a wednesday night and saw the show for the first time thursday morning.

This is my second shot show and as such, I’m less wowed by the awesomeness of it all, all those pretty things that go bang all in one place, it’s mind boggling. Second time around, you can get down to some actual study of what’s going on.

The feeling I got was that the Black Rifle Boom is dead. Yeah, there were a bunch of them there, and yeah, they all looked nice, and now that I’m getting in the mood for an AR of my own I got to see a lot and learn a lot about what makes them tick. I have a pretty good idea what i want in an AR now, and it looks like I can do it for fairly short cash. I will be narrowing my search soon, and pruning the gun cabinet for the purpose.

I saw a LOT more wood than last time, and there seems to be more of an emphasis on fine firearms than there is on black rifles, which is a good sign, to me. The conventional wisdom is that when the inhabitant of the Oval Office has a D after his name, the black rifles fly off the shelves, whereas when it’s an R, the hunting rifles and shotguns sell. It seems we’ve loaded up on ammo and black rifles and the market is saturated. I like that, a lot.

The new Smith “bodyguard” pistols are fine. They’re small, too. Too damned small for my hands, and my hands arent’ that big. While I wouldn’t mind either as a backup I wouldn’t use either as a carry pistol. I want a second Colt Government model, dammit! And every one I see is $700! THe Smith people- after the weapons entrapment bust, were subdued and the only schwag I could lay my hands on were some notepads and pens, sorry Tam. I’ll try harder next year.

I liked the variety of fine rifles and shotguns, and the relative quality therof. One of the high points for me is always the CZ booth, because they make such damned fine largebore rifles. The CZ safari magnums may be the very finest rifles for that money in the world. I just wish they’d get rid of the stupid damned pinstamper they use to mark the barrels; take a hint from the old makers, hell, even Mossberg, who still use a legible and attractive rollstamp.

The mishmash of Italian makers was a bit odd, and finding the Sabatti doubles mixedin with Benelli autos was a bit of a whiplash- but it was still fine to hold them in my hands. Speaking of Benelli, the video I got of Tom Knapp at the Benelli booth is a total hoot. You can watch it online now too, man can that guy shoot! And not just scatterguns, he blasts aspirin out of the air with a 22!!

More later. It was a good show, but as Frank James says, run by idiots. More on that later too.

A full-on retard has been leaving snide comments at Tam’s place. Hopefully he’ll have the cojones to come here and spout, I haven’t had a good troll to fillet in a while. Dick, you can swat at him all you like too, just make sure you save some meaty bits for me. I’ll be around this evening to do more just in case he does show. Why not spout off here, Al? Oh, yeah, we’ve established, you’re a pustule.