The 2011 Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trades (SHOT) Show is slated to begin in Las Vegas on January 17, just a week from today, and I’m about as antsy as a six year-old on Christmas Eve.  I finally got the go-ahead to take my work to Las Vegas with me, so while I’ll be spending a lot of time in the hotel room, hunched over a laptop and reviewing software configuration specs and taking screen shots of GUIs (I have a tres exciting job, huh?), I’ll also make time to get out and see the newest and hottest products… many before they even come onto the market.  It’s a killer opportunity to network with manufacturers, outdoors writers, and other folks who are involved in the shooting sports industries, including outdoor television.

In fact, one of the things I think I’ll be focused on is the outdoors TV networks.  Sportsman Channel, Pursuit, and The Outdoor Channel are always on-hand for the show, and they usually take the opportunity to unveil new programming and concepts they’ll bring to the screen for the upcoming year.  Over the past few years, I’ve been fortunate enough to attend the Outdoor Channel’s “Golden Moose” awards dinner.  This is sort of like the Oscars for outdoor programming, even if the awards candidates all come from just one network.  I believe the Sportsman Channel does a similar shindig for their programs, and I’m hoping I can swing a way (Michelle, are you reading this?) into that event as well.  Stay tuned for the outcome of some of this.  Who knows, there may even be a celebrity interview or two in the offing! 

Of course my favorite part of SHOT comes the day before the actual show opens, with the Media Range Day.  This is the opportunity to get out and shoot new firearms and ammunition, sight through various new optics, and just enjoy the smell of burning powder and the solid thump of recoil.  I haven’t really set my mind on any certain new products to see at the shoot, although I’m always interested to see what’s new in the big bore lineup.  One thing I wish we could do at these shoots is take a few minutes with some of the rifles at a private firing line, where we can actually shoot for accuracy.  On the general line, there are a handful of reactive targets at various ranges, but there’s no break that would allow you to go downrange and look at groups and such. 

Finally, while I doubt there’s going to be a ton of news on this front, I’ll also be looking around at lead-free ammo offerings.  This has been sort of a standing quest for me at SHOT since I started attending back in 2002, and while there was an initial spurt of development, it seems to have tapered off a bit.  Availability of less common calibers is still an issue, as is the high price.  I’ll find out next week if that’s likely to change any time in the near future.

With all of this in mind, I’m open to anyone who’d like me to look into specific products…whether it’s firearms, ammo, optics, or gear.  If you’ve heard about something coming out this year, it’ll probably be on display at the SHOT Show and I’ll be happy to try to get a look and gather some info.

Related Posts