So SHOT is an absolute grind. I'm not alone in that for anyone actually looking to cover the show - I had breakfast with the TFB TV guys and the Pew Pew Tactical guys so my experience is not unique to what I was doing.
Day 1 - went to Beretta media day and they really stepped up their game - they broke media into 5 squads so it was very much like a non-scored match. The problem - is that 1 station was rifles, 3 stations were shotguns, and one station was pistols. The rotation they put me into was starting with Rifles - which means I would shoot pistols last. Womp Womp. The Beretta tactical shotguns are neat but what am I going to do with them. The Premium Beretta shotguns are super awesome - but I'm not going to buy a $40k shotgun with Stellium+ barrel.
Starting at rifles with the Sako rifles - mostly in 6.5 creed - everything was suppressed which was nice. I shot at 500 yards. I used the Burris Eliminator scope which is neat. You aim at what you want. You hit a button. It range finds it for you and then it lights up a dot that you offset your aim with and then you hit. They had a 1000 yard shot you could attempt but I lost interest in rifles pretty quick - I'm not a long range guy. It was neat but not my bag.
They had a station where you started shooting a Silver Pigeon, then stepped up to some $16k shotguns, then a $27k shotgun then the $40k shotgun. The $27k was my favorite. You can feel the recoil reduction of how they have engineered the barrel - it was notable going up from the $16k to the $27k model in how much easier it shot. The $40k was supposed to be a step up again but the balance was different and I didn't prefer it - but it was a gorgeous gun.
Then 5 stand - they had the American made A300 shotguns - which are every bit as nice as the Italian A400 shotguns. I liked the color patterns better on the A400s - but the A300 for $600-700 less is a deal.
The Pistols - they had their current offerings - I got to meet Ernest & Aimee Langdon - they're cool people. Aimee is a very warm person - lights up the range. Ernest is exactly like you'd imagine him to be. They're fired up about the new PX4G-SD - and they do shoot really nicely. The Beretta Squalo was a surprise. That gun shoots fantastic from the factory - but the LTT optimized one is a very fine weapon - great trigger job and low down optic. This could be a competitive Limited Optics gun for not a lot of money. The 30X Tomcat was neat but I mean what do I need one of those for? The 92G-TS - the frame mounted decoder version of the 92 was my favorite gun they had out there. In the process of developing the Twin Sear they optimized the trigger just shy of what an LTT 92 feels like - if I could only buy one gun from their lineup this year - that would be it - followed close behind by the PX4 Storm.
Day 2 - I went to the media day. It was a bit of a process getting into the gate - I picked up my media credential at the hotel - but it didn't have my range day endorsement - so I waited in a line for about 30 minutes then stood in front of the counter for 30 minutes while we got the invited media for range day applied. At that point the cold drizzle started. I was with Tony and Jaki Salis from the Laugh n Load podcast/YT Channel - they're good people.
Said hi to Glock team shooter Thy who is local to me and she was my camera man for my Glock piece - the new guns are gen 5 Glocks - not a lot more to say about them.
Went to Walther and hung out with Jay Beal for a bit - who held my camera for that piece. The PDP4SF and PDP4.5SF are nice shooting guns - I think I favor them to the 5" version. The 22 magnum gun was silly and the PD380 was really nice as well.
Shadow Systems had their XR920P and MR920P - their factory compensated glonk clones. They both shoot really well to be as light weight as they are. The triggers aren't any better - but the gun looks really mean with how they set it up.
Kimber - the KDS9c RL was there - that's a better gun than gets credit for being. I have been carrying my KDS9C prior to the H9 showing up because I found a holster that fit it and it's a really great carry gun - the lack of grip texture on the side makes it really comfortable. In talking to the guys there - they swear it's a completely tool steel gun - so I got curious when I got home and pulled my ambi safety and slide plate. I didn't pull hammer/sear - but none of those or the slide stop are mim - sure enough. It sounds like they're doing some atypical Kimber stuff this year that I think will expand the brand beyond just the Cabellas/Bass Pro brand. Since carrying the KDS9C my opinion of it went up - the RL version would be my preferred configuration - but it's a lot more money - like $400 more.
Oracle Arms 2311 Pro Compact - those are cool guns - they're really well thought out but the hype seems to be dying down on that - I'm getting ready to film my studio piece and begin the edit for the 5" version I have - which had to go back to the factory because it had a messed up crown causing accuracy issues - it was good enough inside 15 yards - but irritating at 15 and beyond - the polished crown tightened the groups up to what you'd expect a gun of that caliber to do. And their CS is amazing. Anyway - those guns are really awesome set ups for lights. And the 4" upper with the full size grip is pretty magical shooting. The ports do dumb down the slide energy a bit and are nice - if you're into that. It's definitely an intelligent SAO option - but I think it just lacks sex appeal to really take over the space.
The Laugo Alien Creator Evolution Limited Optics is awesome. I want to get my hands on a T&E one and shoot it in a match - which sounds like it will be happening. I'm really curious to see how that gun performs in match settings.
Everyone was running out of ammo because a lot of ammo deliveries showed up in part - not full.
From the show - the brand that impressed me the most was Live Free Armory. They're running 115 CNC machines and doing a ton of OEM machining for other brands you've heard of. I spoke with Colby - their owner - and they were super humble and sweet people. They asked for my gun back when they saw the issues I had with it - then in the time since that video went live - they managed to fix ALL of the issues I had with it. They in sourced everything except springs sights and trigger - and they're looking at Trigger since Red Dirt is having a hard time keeping up. Their commander Apollo 11 is a click nicer in hand than the 5" early Apollo 11 that I have. I spoke with them and we're going to do stuff together on their new guns to check out. They invited me out to the factory to come tour it - which I may end up doing. Their booth was HIGH DOLLAR - they aren't som fly by night outfit - they were on the main level of the Venetian - near the middle. Insanely well designed. That booth had to be very expensive to set up. So they've got cash to splash and they want to do a good job and they're small enough to be agile still. I expect big things from this brand into the future. If the new guns are squared away - I may approach them about collaborating on a "signature" model that could be a competition 2011 for not a lot of money with appointments I like.
From the show I didn't really get "wowed" by anything - the only thing I didn't get to see was the Watchtower Firearms Apache Unlimited -which is the same as the PewView version but cheaper and not limited.
So there's it happening - it was a good stage up until that point . You can actually see the issue starting as the gun hangs out of batter entering the position which forced me to rack a round out to get it back into battery - which I handled well. This sequence was paper, mini popper, mini popper activator, distant open target, bobber (didn't engage), partial (didn't engage) - so I ate 4 mikes and 2 procedurals right there. And it still was a 3.44 hit factor.
The good news so now the guns working I look forward to two days of mayhem!
Below - you can see a shock buff - it's a washer, basically that threads onto the guide rod. The theory of what a shock buff does is it alleviates some of the impact when the slide opens all the way - they're usually made out of Delrin or rubber or whatever but this one is aluminum and was supposed to be maintenance free. It kind of compresses the spring a bit more since you don't trim the spring so it makes lighter springs work more like a higher poundage ...
I got this pretty epic slow motion in the range of the Deagle going off. that gun is silly fun to shoot. The fireball is massive - I started to chrono the ammo I have for it - it's not as impressive as the fireball would suggest. It's about 1200 FPS with a 300 grain projectile. For comparison - the 6" 10mm with a 180 grain Blazer Brass was doing 180 grains at 1200 FPS.
The 10mm 1911 is pretty tame to shoot - not wildly different form a 45.
I was going to do a video on 10mm ammo and then shoot water jugs and slow motion of them popping - but then the sky opened up on me.
Just wanted to share this with you guys as an option you might not have heard of. Good quality, good execution, good designs. I don't have any sort of business relationship with them nor have interacted with them beyond giving them my credit card information. Pretty legit.
So sorry for this being posted so last minute - I had this edited like 2-3 weeks ago - conversations were with OAD that it would go live for SHOT - but then they announced it way earlier and I never connected the fact it wasn't attempting to be embargo'd. So I never uploaded it - like an idiot. I finished that drill this morning and never got you guys a preview of it when I DID realize that there wasn't any sort of embargo violation. So yeah. Sorry about that. That all said - I don't know what is about this gun. They - kind of like the Daniel Defense H9 - failed to kind of build on the momentum they started at SHOT 2023 and the conversation seems to have moved past this gun. The early 2311s were not as impressive as this is now - side by side - this is a MUCH better gun than what they were making last year. It's much better fit and the resultant accuracy is improved despite having the ports. My 2311 is production gun - like $600 service pistol accurate - but not 2011 accurate. ...
So in making the 2011 evolving video I was trying to get Todd Jarrett to come on. For those unfamiliar - he's been shooting USPSA since nearly the beginning - he was at the forefront of the sport in the 90's while open was coming into it's own and even has his own specialized cartridge - 38 TJ - for Todd Jarret - it's 38 super brass with a modified extractor groove that allows for full size resizing. So I'm really excited about this - it will take place at some point after SHOT but I wanted to put it out there to you guys - what do you want to know about TJ and the history of 2011 development?
