But was it the weather or the economy?

If there was a question ringing in my head at the media shoots today, it wasn’t about the number of AR-styled hunting rifles, or the relative dearth of proprietary cartridges and calibers.  It was about the perceived lack of exhibitors. 

Now, granted, the weather was fairly abysmal today.  A chilly rain greeted us as we rolled out to begin the shooting, and at a couple of points it became a relative downpour (relative to the fact that we were in the Nevada desert).  Weather reports had been echoing the threat of serious rain for several days in the area.  When the rain lifted, a biting wind kicked up… at one point so strong that I had to hold my Stetson on with one hand while I was shooting.  It wasn’t a good day to set up and manage a shooting booth.

I participated in two shoot events today.  The first, organized by Howard Communications, the firm representing Browning/Winchester firearms, Bushnell Optics, and several others.  This event is generally fairly contained, and really, with the exception of the shotgun range (which wasn’t covered), things seemed pretty much normal.  The rifle line was about as well represented as usual.  However, new offerings generally seemed a little shy, besides a slight expansion of Browning’s X-bolt offerings and some new ammo from Winchester.

So what about ammo?  I’ll offer more on this in a later, more focused post, but for now suffice it to say that the biggest news for me was the release of a new lead-free bullet in the .22 centerfires… the Ballistic Silvertip LF.  It’s an extremely devastating, fragmenting round.  Of course, on the firing line it’s pretty tough to get a good idea of accuracy (you can’t check your targets… there are no target check periods), but I was rocking bowling pins at 200 yards. 

The other news, or non-news if you prefer, is that Winchester may have finally resolved the issues with their .22lr, lead-free bullets.  I had the chance to shoot a few of them in the fairly new, T-bolt rifle.  We were shooting at spinners at 25 yards, and they seemed pretty consistent. I’m still hoping to get some of these to try out before the year is out.  No word from Winchester on a .17hmr yet. 

Back to the shoots…

The second shoot is organized by Bass Pro Shops.  Typically, this shoot features the majority of gun and ammo makers who aren’t represented at the Howard Communications shoot.  Ordinarily, I’ll see booths for Ruger, Savage, Sako, and many others, along with muzzleloaders.  Beretta is usually there with a large selection of shotguns.  But this time, things really seemed slimmed down.  There were a few tactical weapons booths from companies like Steyr, Sig-Sauer, and the like, but when it came to “traditional” hunting rifles and shotguns, there simply wasn’t much to see.  Where was everybody?

I raised the question a couple of times to some of the exhibitors, but I didn’t really get any solid answers.  Many thought it was due to the cold, rainy weather.  But I wonder how much impact the fallen economy had to do with it. 

I didn’t spend too much time pondering, though… it was more of a background thought while I had a blast (literally) with the exhibitors who were there.

The highlight of the show was actually something I must have missed last year (how I missed it, I have no idea).  I popped in to check out the Federal Ammo booth, hoping to hear more about their lead-free loads.  For the record, they’re currently sticking with Barnes for bullets, and their non-toxic shot offerings seem to be headlined by the Black Cloud and Prairie Cloud shotshells.  They also offer a “softer-than-lead”,  high-density, non-tox shotload, which should be great for waterfowlers who, like me, shoot older scatterguns.  But that wasn’t it…

The thing that really tripped my trigger was the discovery of the CCI, TNT Green ammo for the .17hmr!  That’s right folks… maybe some of you already knew about this, but it was a revelation to me!  Finally, I can use my .17 in the Condor Zone again!  Not only that, but I shot this ammo at 100 yards, with a pretty good wind blowing, and was still able to spin the reactive targets with every shot.   

In addition to the .17hmr, they also have a lead-free .22lr!  This one comes with a caveat…  they call it a “short range” load, and that’s for a reason.  The super-light (21 gr) bullets tend to lose accuracy rapidly as they pass the 50 yard mark.  CCI labels these as “plinking and target” loads, but at close range they seem like they’d be OK for small stuff, like ground squirrels, rats, or starlings.  I hope to find out fairly soon, since they gave me a box of each to try out. 

The only drawback to this new ammo, as I learned from one of the marketing team, is that it’s practically impossible to make enough of these rounds to keep up with demand.  As I mentioned, the .17hmr has been on the market since last year, but I have yet to see it on any shelves.  If you can find it, grab it up.  Otherwise, you may have to put it on backorder and be patient. 

I’ll be delving deeper into the lead-free ammo options later this week. 

One other thing got my attention today.  I’ve been hearing a lot about these “range-compensating” scopes… you know, the ones with multiple reticules that are supposed to represent different distances.  In theory, once you’ve zeroed in, you can just find your target at a known range, and then put the appropriate reticule on it and make the shot.  I’ll be honest and say that I’ve never put much stock in this technology.  I figured it as another gimmick, but I think I got my comeuppance today. 

First of all, I had the chance to shoot the new Bushnell DOA scope.  The deal was, you were supposed to shoot at three targets, from 100, 200, and 300 yards.  If you could hit all three, you put your card in a box for a drawing to win one of these scopes.  What the heck, right?  I know I can shoot 100 and 200 yards, and feel fairly confident on targets at 300… even with my regular scopes. 

I sat down at the bench and made one, two, three good shots… and then tried my luck on a swinging bowling pin at 400 yards.  The 15-20 knot wind carried my shot a few inches to the right, but the elevation was perfect.  All I had to do was select the corresponding line in the scope, and align the crosshairs.  It was amazingly simple! 

My next opportunity was with the Nikon BDC on the new Ithaca M-37 slug guns (I really like these slug guns too… although they’re a little heavy).  Once I found out that the scopes were zeroed at 50 yards instead of 100, I was able to actually shoot bullseye accuracy with a 12 ga slug!  Again, all I had to do was align the proper crosshair. 

But the real deal-closer was with Zeiss’s new scope (I’ll have to get more info on this scope later).  Once I adjusted for the solid 25 knot crosswind (the reticule is marked in 10mph increments), I was able to centerpunch a steel target at 900 yards on my second shot with this rifle.   And this wasn’t using some crazy-hot, mega-magnum round…  I was shooting nothing more phenomenal than the old .308 Winchester.  And yeah, this scope was mounted on a kick-ass Blaser rifle, which accounts for the accuracy… but it was the perfect performance of the scope that blew my mind. 

Just goes to show that sometimes I really need to set aside my pre-conceived notions about some of the gadgets on today’s hunting and shooting market.  I’ll try to keep that in mind as I roll out to the first full day of the actual Show tomorrow morning.  The halls should be full of gadgets, geegaws, and gimmicks.

Until then…

Related Posts