#ShotShow

Remember our backpack magazine dispenser post from a while back? Well here’s another magazine for your magazines, this time around it’s from the folks over at Mag Storage Solutions. They have a cool giant wall-mounted Pez dispenser for AR-15 magazines that they are debuting at SHOT Show 2021 On Demand.

Benelli have announced a couple of additions to their ETHOS line of semi-auto shotguns. The new guns were introduced at this year’s virtual SHOT Show. The ETHOS SuperSport is aimed at the competitive shotgun shooter market while the ETHOS Cordoba BE.S.T utilises Benelli’s BE.S.T. finish technology for rust and corrosion protection. Check out Benelli’s announcements below for more information.

Kansas-based SmartGunz have announced that their Sentry 9mm pistol, the company’s first product, will begin shipping in the 2nd quarter of 2021. Physically the SmartGunz Sentry is a 9x19mm 1911 pistol, but it utilises RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology to enable the gun to be used by its designated user.

When the Gen5 Glocks were announced, reactions were a mixed bag. Some people welcomed changes like the flared magwell, while others either didn’t want it or thought it wasn’t enough. Well, for the people who wanted more flare in their lives, a new option now exists. True to themselves, Strike Industries has released a sharp, minimalistic magwell for Gen5 Glock 19/23 frames. This is the Strike Industries GEN5 Magwell.

A few SHOT Shows back I stumbled upon the DryFireMag and gave it a try at their booth. I liked it so much I went out and bought one for myself.  Back then it was only available for Glock pistols. Well, they now have training mags available for the Springfield XD, S&W M&P and SIG Sauer P320 pistols, with M&P Shield mags coming soon as well.

This year’s SHOT Show may be a little different, ok that’s an understatement but as usual, there’s a healthy range of new shotguns being released. Maryland-based Stoeger have announced the addition of a synthetic stocked version of their Condor over/under. The new synthetic Stoeger Condor comes in at $349 (MSRP) making it an interesting option for a slick, robust, affordable over/under.

For the first time in many years, the TFB staff are not on location in the Nevada desert for the third week of January. With all the work, logistics, headaches and potential disasters that come along with each SHOT Show, it really is a great time and we enjoy bringing you comprehensive coverage of all the industry’s newest releases. Because the dumpster fire that was the year 2020 spilled over into 2021, in-person attendance for SHOT was cancelled, opening the door for a virtual platform.

By now I guess everyone knows that SHOT Show 2021 has been cancelled, and we can now only look forward to 2022 for the next possibility. The  NSSF statement on the cancellation can be found here. Of course, no show means a lot less money for NSSF. Mossberg has now have announced that they will support NSSF with a donation of $75,000.

By now most SHOT Show attendees and other interested parties are aware that SHOT 2021 has sadly been cancelled. Although the NSSF tried their best to find a way to carry on in spite of the ‘Rona and its related responses, unfortunately as of October 30th, there was no viable choice left but to call it. We’ll now have to wait an extra year for the firearms industry’s next top convention and trade show, but some upcoming alternatives have begun to surface, in an attempt to help fill the void in the interim and provide companies with a way to showcase new product offerings. Many of these are online events, like TFB and TFB TV’s own Gun Fest, which has already garnered a great response and is sure to be a great way to tide us over.

List of things COVID-19 has taken from me, personally:

We were all hoping this headline wouldn’t come, but as of the morning of Friday, October 30th, it’s official. the 2021 SHOT Show is Cancelled according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, after previous indications that the event would go on with some modifications such as more exits and entrances, masks, and social distancing. Unfortunately, many in the industry suspected that the writing was on the wall for this cancellation. The massive and ever-growing list of dropped events that have plagued 2020 had already begun extending into next year. The full text of the NSSF’s announcement is posted below.

In January of this year, SHOT Show 2020 went on just as so many had before. Throngs of industry professionals milled about, discussing the next big things for firearms, ammo, optics, shooting accessories, and more. As the months of Coronavirus precautions have continued to extend well beyond the initial expected timeframe, it has lead some people to wonder about SHOT Show 2021. Would it require reduced capacity? Would it involve adjustments to the venue to spread people out more? Would it even happen at all, or might it be cancelled outright like the 2020 NRA Annual Meeting in Nashville was, just a few short months after SHOT Show 2020? Fortunately – at least for now – it appears that we are still green-lit for Vegas in January 2021. SHOT Show’s organizing body, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) is taking measures to assuage people’s Covid fears but still carry on with the industry’s largest (and arguably most important) convention this coming January. To this end, they have announced that the gun cleaning and maintenance mavens at Otis Technologies have agreed to supply SHOT 2021 attendees with a veritable ocean of hand sanitizer. The NSSF’s press release detailing this new specialty sponsorship reads as follows.

What was the best gear from SHOT 2020? In this episode of TFBTV, James Reeves talks about the five best bits of kit that he liked at SHOT Show 2020. There was a LOT there – did you see anything you liked? Let us know in the comments.

At SHOT Show most of the hype is in the main hall. That’s where you’ll find Glock, Sig Sauer, Magpul, Mossberg, Smith & Wesson, Brownells and the rest of the big boys. Off to the sides and under the main hall are where the small and medium sized companies are found. That’s where you find some of the interesting products at SHOT Show. It could be interesting in a good way, and sometimes in a not so good way. And some products make you wonder why they even spent the money to attend.

When reflecting back on my time at Shot Show this year, there were a few big reveals but for the most part it was mainly smaller quality of life innovations at the show this year. One of the more interesting smaller pieces of the show was the collaboration between Modlite and Unity Tactical. Modlite and Unity Tactical came out with one of the first offset light mounts with an integral pressure switch built into the mount. This creates a single contained system that streamlines the overall mounting system.