SHOT Show 2023
I’m looking forward to attending SHOT Show 2023 (Las Vegas, 17-20 January). It’s the biggest convention for the shooting, hunting, and outdoor trades — in excess of 50000 attendees and 1600 exhibitors. The event is restricted to members of the trade, not the public, but as investor/partner in a small retail gun shop in Nevada, I have access, and attended for the first time last year.
Main things I’m excited about are:
Products and distribution for my store (I’m not very actively involved in it, but there have been some changes, so we’re probably going to move to electronic bound book and some other stuff.)
Replacement stickers — the Pelican case I used which had previously gotten most of my SHOT Show, etc. stickers (on the inner lid) got broken into on Stanford’s campus last year, so I bought a new one; replacing all the stickers is a challenge.
Is ammo going to be cheaper? Starting to see 9mm at deep discount retail online around $250/1000 rounds sometimes, vs. $500-1000 at the peaks in 2020 and 2021, and $180-200 in 2019. Hopefully more supply continues to enter the market. 5.56mm is still pretty expensive, though, and 6.5 creedmoor and 300 blackout are still very expensive. For stupid Puerto Rico law reasons, you can’t reload ammo here. High ammo prices are major deterrent to actual enjoyment of shooting sports, training, etc., especially for new shooters.
Continued progress in digital night vision — SiOnyx has done some amazing stuff here. Last year they’d pre-announced some digital tools which were for many applications comparable to analog tubes.
Seeing some friends, especially the folks from Weapon Outfitters.
Continued progress in additive manufacturing/3d printing. This is already the gold standard for suppressors.
Sushi and xiao long bao at some of the amazing Las Vegas restaurants.
Not getting Covid or other respiratory ailment (I’ve managed to avoid it for the entire duration; even before Covid, getting “con crud” at events like this, some kind of non-specific respiratory ailment, was common. Sleeping 8h/night, not getting drunk, vitamins and hydration, etc. seem to help. Last year it was still masks-required at the venue (and I picked up a bunch of awesome Geissele surgical masks), but politically unpopular.
I’m noticing that actual firearms are pretty low on the list of interesting new things for me. There are a few guns I’d like to buy personally (a Taiwanese military T91 rifle, maybe a Colt Python revolver, an MP5 of some type, probably Turkish clone, and a good Italian side by side shotgun), but I have “enough” guns for now.
There’s a possibility this trip will involve 5 more cities in North America, Tokyo, Sapporo, Tel Aviv, and possibly Europe, but not currently known. I haven’t left Puerto Rico since arriving on 5 December, and this is the best time of the year to be home (weather, people visiting, etc.), so all things being equal I’d rather just stay here.