Let me start this off with a short, relatively pointless rant. 

For the first time, the Las Vegas SHOT Show is not at the Las Vegas Convention Center.  Instead, they’re running it at the Sands Convention Center.  No biggie, right?  The Sands knows how to put on a big show.  They can handle this. 

But lord have mercy, this is nuts!  The layout is insane.  It took me a half hour just to find the pressroom, and even longer to find the first vendor I wanted to speak to.  The exhibit halls are scattered around on three floors, with some set off in side rooms that I don’t think I’d ever have found if  hadn’t been so lost in the first place.  In short, it really sucks.  It could probably be improved with better signage, and some better communication of the logic behind the layout and placement.  Hopefully they’ll get it together, because it looks like we’re here again next year, and possibly afterward.

OK… that’s out of my system for now.  The upside?  The place was PACKED!  Any concerns I may have had about turnout after the range day were put aside as it was literally shoulder to shoulder just to get down the main hall. 

So what did I learn today?  What new things did I see, or hear about?  I’ll beg off with an excuse… I spent so much time and energy just trying to find my way around, I wasn’t able to implement a plan of attack.  Instead, I ended up pretty much wandering aimlessly, just looking at stuff.   

I did get a couple of pretty cool ideas.  For one, there are some innovative ideas in gun safes.  Since my own safe sort of runs over, I’ve been thinking about how to replace it.  I didn’t go to the show to focus on gun safes, but after seeing what some folks are doing out there, I was pretty impressed. 

The first thing I saw was a new safe from Pendleton Safes.  Inside, instead of the standard rows of racks, Pendleton installs a “lazy susan” rotating rack.  If you have a bunch of guns, you simply spin it to the one you want and go!  My safe is a cluttered mess right now, and to access some of my guns I have to pull several others out of the way. 

There’s another potential solution to my own problem, that may not require the purchase of a whole new safe.  Gun Storage Solutions makes a really innovative set of rods that attach to the roof of your safe with velcro (provided in the kit).  You put the rod down the muzzle of each gun, then stack them neatly in the safe.  This utilizes all of the open space, instead of just lining the guns up along the back and sides.  I’d seen this on TV commercials a time or two, but seeing it in person really sold me on the idea. 

I also noticed several new compact gun safes.  I currently own a GunVault, which holds two handguns in a safe, secure place.  I really like that these safes allow you to store guns (or valuables) in convenient places, without taking up all the space of a bigger safe. 

Most of the compact safes I looked at today were fairly similar.  Some are biometric, while others use the old-fashioned numeric code.  I think I’ll look more into these this week. 

I’m pretty whupped right about now, and haven’t even eaten dinner.  I hope this holds everyone for the evening… I’ll try to have a more focused approach tomorrow, and possibly more updates from the pressroom during the day.

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