Y-man here – writing a post on Shot Show Day 2, 24th January 2018, and I am actually HERE!

Here in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It has been an experience, with each additional day being even further exciting… Eye-watering, hair-raising excitement…

I feel very honoured to be at my very first Shot Show: Shot 2018… I plan to report on the awe-inspiring firearms, shooting sport and security products and ideas that I come across and I hope you all like the reports.
You may notice three inter-related things about my next few posts –
1. My excitement about what I am seeing…
2. Some level of refreshing “naivety” in some of my insights
3. A ‘tinge’ of reporting from a perspective of what the products could mean for extremely firearm restricted cultures worldwide.

I have come across so many new products for the firearm market, new accessories, new hunting and outdoor related products.
And oh, the people! So many visitors and exhibitors – the hubbub here could give agoraphobic people sensory overload and panic attacks… And for all there: a great, fun, efficiently arranged and managed event.

This is a simple round-up of experiences and products that we came across today.

WARNING: PICTURE HEAVY…

A visit to Tristar, importers historically of Turkish firearms, now importing very high quality Austrian firearms; rifles, shotguns and pistols.

Tristar has a few new .22 rifles, which they were kind to show us… The Straight-Pull cocking system on the lower two rifles in the picture below is slickly sweet.

Next visit was to the Winchester stand, where a rifle of major historical significance caught our eyes. A chrome-plated M1 Garand that had been manufactured as a commemorative present for General Patton, who unfortunately passed away in 1945 before he received this honor.

We met Danny Michael who is Assistant Curator, Cody Firearms Museum, Cody Wyoming… [centerofthewest.org]. He told showed us round these important artifacts including a commemorative [and obviously authentically USED] M1 Garand from the Second World War…

And a 1911 Pistol from same period…

Finally, Danny showed us a Winchester Hotchkiss Shotgun “Trench-gun” of World War 2.

We had visits with Nikon, and saw their new Tactical Spur Reflex Sight…

Others visited were: Leupold; who have new scopes of the VX Freedom family for rimfire, muzzleloaders and centre-rire rifles, which have major advances in weight savings, ergonomics, vision, and good controls.

The stop at Browning was good – bringing one to finally see legendary firearms that have contributed immensely to the development of various platforms.

The venerable A5, with the new variants, was surprisingly light, and obviously solidly made… A truly good shotgun… A great original platform for almost all the current semi-auto shotgun platforms today.

A detour to Chiappa, and a look at the famous Rhino Revolvers could simply not be avoided…

Sig Sauer was visited, and it was good to meet up with the very professional reps there. I came across the slickest cocking .22 Pistol I have ever come across. The rep confirmed it is an aluminium [Yeah, I went there!] construction – both slide and the lower… so this reduces weight, and makes for very slick sliding, especially when well lubed.

Also, I got to see and handle the new choice of the US Army, which has already been deployed operationally in the Airborne Corps – the M17 pistol…

I finally got to meet the all-important De-cocker button! I can feel how safe this is compared to using the trigger to do this…

Being a Shotgun person, I gravitated a lot to shotguns… Danny Michael of the Cody Firearms Museum had showed us the M12 Trench Gun…

And we got to see some highest quality, hand-crafted Italian-made Caeser Guerini Shotguns: looking at the recommended retail pricing of each, it is almost shocking to realise the prices could purchase multiples of other types of firearms…

I definitely could not close the day without going to the O. F. Mossberg booth. They practically seem to have the most produced and distributed shotguns…worldwide…. At least from my part of the world…

I will be posting further later on their new Mossberg 590M; a new magazine-fed pump-action shotgun platform – which is creating waves at the moment, especially for the 3-gun sport…

On my way out of the exhibition floor, I could not help but capture this for your viewing pleasure… I present the Yamaha Tiger ATV…

I have several other in-depth posts on my experiences at 2018 Shot Show coming up: especially in some of the kinds of items that are more readily unrestricted, acceptable and useful for my own original environment in Africa, where I come from. This is related to the Airguns and Crossbow I experienced at Shot 2018.

This has been a tremendous experience for me and could be the start of a possible deeper commitment along these lines…

One of the most amazing things about this experience is the awesome progress we are making as the human race with technology! I just achieved this entire post; typing, picture editing and composing all ON A HANDHELD MOBILE PHONE!

Wow…