SHOT Show 2018: Rimfire Challenge World Championship Announced

Michael Bane announced the dates and the location of the Rimfire Challenge Shooting Association's World Championship today at the SHOT Show. The championship will be held October 3rd through 7th at the Lucas Cattle Company Ranch in Crossed Timbers, Missouri.  The ranch is owned by Forrest Lucas who is the founder of Lucas Oil Company.

Crossed Timbers is located in the Ozark Highlands of Missouri. The Crossed Timbers Region is where the prairies of the Great Plains meet the Eastern deciduous forests. It is about a two hour drive from Kansas City and a 3 1/2 drive from St. Louis.

More information on the event will be posted as it becomes available.

Rimfire Challenge To Transition From NSSF To RCSA

Despite what Asheville's Thomas Wolfe once wrote, you can go home again.

The Ruger Rimfire Challenge was originally developed by Ken Jorgenson of Ruger, Michael Bane, and the late Nelson Dymond. In 2014, the responsibility for running the Ruger Rimfire Challenge passed to the National Shooting Sports Foundation and it became known as the NSSF Rimfire Challenge. On January 1, 2018, the Rimfire Challenge will pass to a new non-profit organization run by Jorgenson and Bane called the Rimfire Challenge Shooting Association. Thus, it will have closed the circle and returned home to its founders.

Below is the NSSF's press release, in part, on the transition:

NEWTOWN, Conn. — The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®), the trade association for the firearms industry, is proud to announce that the NSSF Rimfire Challenge will be transitioned to a new organization: the Rimfire Challenge Shooting Association. The transition takes place Jan. 1, 2018.

Originally developed by Sturm, Ruger & Co.’s Ken Jorgenson, along with author and TV personality Michael Bane and the late Nelson Dymond, a long-time and well-known shooting match director who held a strong passion for rimfire firearms, the program was first known as the Ruger Rimfire Challenge. NSSF took over the administration of the program in 2014, changing its name to the NSSF Rimfire Challenge. The new organization will be led once again by Ken Jorgensen and Michael Bane.

Designed to introduce new shooters to the shooting sports in an exciting, family-friendly format, Rimfire Challenge matches focus on competition with .22-caliber rifles and pistols. Matches are open to shooters of all ages and shooting experience levels, with events conducted at ranges nationwide and an annual World Championship taking place each October.

“It’s truly a great thing to see this program return home to the people who had this wonderful idea to begin with,” said Tisma Juett, NSSF Manager, Recruitment and Retention. “The NSSF is proud to have been a part of growing a shooting sport that has proven to be such a wonderful activity for mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, neighbors and friends in which to participate. We wish Ken and Michael much success and look forward to many more firearms owners joining the shooting sports with them.”

“I am excited to once again be involved in the day to day operation of the Rimfire Challenge events,” said Jorgenson. “The concept originally created by Nelson and implemented as part of the Ruger Rimfire Challenge is as valid today as it was in the beginning. We will work to continue that vision and grow the rimfire competition opportunities for shooters of all skill levels.”

“I could not be happier to once again be a part of the Rimfire Challenge!” Bane added. “It is a wonderful sport, a way to bring whole families into the competition. Ken and I are committed to bringing the Rimfire Challenge to the next level. It’s going to be fun!”

Michael Bane makes the announcement of the change on the video portion of his weekly podcast. You can see it at this link. As he notes, the first year will be about stability and communication. He doesn't see any major rule changes coming immediately. The existing rulebook along with examples of courses of fire can be found here.

All shooting competitions go through life cycles and I think change like this is important. New management and new ideas along with a fairly low cost of entry should help the Rimfire Challenge continue growing and bringing in new shooters. The more that we can show that the shooting sports are fun, the less likely that the gun prohibitionists will be to convince the general public that guns are "icky".

If You Get The Outdoor Channel...

If you subscribe to the Outdoor Channel (or have a friend who does), you will want to see the Best Defense tonight. It will feature their mass casualty event reenactment modeled on the Paris music hall terrorist attack. The goal was to find ways for you to survive such an event.

I don't have the Outdoor Channel but I understand that the show will eventually be rebroadcast on their new My Outdoor TV (Shooting Gallery Online) digital network.

From Michael Bane:

THE BEST DEFENSE: MASS CASUALTY EVENT TO PREMIER THIS WEDNESDAY, 28 SEPTEMBER, ON OUTDOOR CHANNEL, 8:00 PM Eastern

Link to video teaser: https://www.facebook.com/downrangetv/videos/10157497065140635/?pnref=story

Masonville, CO — The two scariest words in the English language are “what it?” There have been a dozen terror attacks in the United States in 2016; “what if” you or your family are trapped in the worst case you can imagine?

Award-winning producers of THE BEST DEFENSE, Michael Bane and Jeff Murray, decided to tackle that question head on in a compelling, and terrifying, special premiering on OUTDOOR CHANNEL at 8:00 PM ET Wednesday, September 28, encoring November 2 (Time to be announced).

“‘What if’ is a simple question with a hellish answer,” said Bane. “Literally days before the San Bernardino attacks, Jeff and I began discussing an idea to create the most realistic terrorist attack simulation possible, then use the tools we’ve developed in THE BEST DEFENSE over multiple seasons to help people survive.”   

The producers’ number one goal was to create a scenario so realistic that it was hard to turn away. Working from the basics of the Paris concert hall attacks, Bane and Murray reached out to both law enforcement and military counterterrorism experts and trainers who studied mass casualty events, THE BEST DEFENSE training team of Mike Seeklander and Michael Janich, paramedics specializing in first response and even renowned mental health experts to build the scenario and capture as much as possible the reality of being trapped in a mass casualty attack.

“We made the decision to use FX to make the scenario more realistic,” Bane said. “We were lucky enough to have the help of the Larimer County (CO) SWAT team and local paramedics. The Mass Casualty Event is certainly the most complex sim I’ve ever been involved with.”

A film team headed by award-winning documentarian Brandon Green shot the whole event in ultra-high resolution 4K. Green worked with the FX team to make every shot fired as realistic as possible.

“Essentially, this is the most ‘vetted’ scenario we could build. Every move, every action taken is based in reality and run through some of the most knowledgeable experts in the world,” Bane said. “Even the crowd reaction is based on cutting edge research from Dr. William Aprill…as each ‘extra’ arrived, that person was given a card explaining how he or she should react when the attack started. We were lucky enough to have Michael Janich’s highly trained cadre of martial arts experts to create an even more realistic sim. In fact, our main ‘terrorist’ served in the Israeli Defense Force as a sniper and Master Breacher, and is an expert in counterterrorism techniques.” 

On-screen experts, in addition to the TBD Team of Seeklander and Janich, include Ken Hackathorn, considered one of the top firearms trainers in the world; Gabe Suarez, probably the most experienced trainer in studying and dissecting mass casualty events and teaching civilian response; Dr. Dan Olesnicky, SWAT team physician, a first responder in terrorist events and one of the leading trainers of tactical medicine; Dr. William Aprill of Aprill Risk Consulting, considered the national expert on criminal and terrorist mindset; former SEAL Jimmy Graham, who also served as Lead Instructor for elite Federal Government Protective details in high risk environments and presently heads up the Active Shooter Response Training Center in the Denver area.

“Our team is tremendously proud of this effort, and we thank OUTDOOR CHANNEL for putting this information in front of so many people,” Bane said. “Since we began planning for this special, there have been 12 terrorism events in the United States and literally one a day around the world. We believe this information is critical, and we hope our viewers never have to use it.”

Well, Hillary, We've Seen How Successful Negotiations With Iran Have Been

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an interesting comment during a town hall meeting in Iowa on Wednesday. She compared the NRA to the Iranians and Communists when it comes to negotiating. All I'll say is we've all seen just how successful the Obama Administration has been in its negotiations with the mullahs in Iran. In other words, the US gets diddly-squat and the death to America chanting mullahs get "the bomb".

Frankly, if you think about it, using the negotiating techniques of mullahs and/or "Vlad the Impaler" Putin makes a lot of sense when it comes to gun rights. This is especially true when you consider the gun prohibitionists' idea of compromise is negotiating how much we will give up.




Hillary's comments prior to this remark were to encourage a "Fifth Column", my words - not hers, of gun owners. They have tried this before with false-front organizations like the American Shooters and Hunters Association. I think the average gun owner is on to their tactics by now.

As an aside, I would encourage everyone to listen to Michael Bane's rant on this week's Downrange Radio. It is 45 minutes well spent. He describes the war between those who cherish our freedom and those who would take it away in very stark terms.


H/T The Daily Caller

Clowns To The Left Of Me, Jokers To The Right

The rest of that song by Stealers Wheel goes "here I am stuck in the middle with you."

That is how I'm feeling about the whole open carry fiasco in Texas. I doubt that there are many readers of this blog that don't support the extension of open carry in Texas to include handguns. Many states including my own North Carolina have unlicensed open carry.

What is incredibly frustrating is watching Shannon Watts and her fellow gun prohibitionists at Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors making hay out of the bumbling ineptitude of groups like Open Carry Texas. Sonic, Chipotle, and god knows who's next have issued "Starbucks-style" statement asking the open carry activists to leave them out of the argument.

Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned has done yeoman's work in examining the folly of their actions. You can read some of those posts here, here, and here. There are more.

The attention whoring of these OC activists has caused such backlash that the NRA issued a statement last Thursday which said, in part,

Yet while unlicensed open carry of long guns is also typically legal in most places, it is a rare sight to see someone sidle up next to you in line for lunch with a 7.62 rifle slung across his chest, much less a whole gaggle of folks descending on the same public venue with similar arms.

Let's not mince words, not only is it rare, it's downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself. To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one's cause, it can be downright scary. It makes folks who might normally be perfectly open-minded about firearms feel uncomfortable and question the motives of pro-gun advocates.

As a result of these hijinx, two popular fast food outlets have recently requested patrons to keep guns off the premises (more information can be found here and here). In other words, the freedom and goodwill these businesses had previously extended to gun owners has been curtailed because of the actions of an attention-hungry few who thought only of themselves and not of those who might be affected by their behavior. To state the obvious, that's counterproductive for the gun owning community.

More to the point, it's just not neighborly, which is out of character for the big-hearted residents of Texas. Using guns merely to draw attention to yourself in public not only defies common sense, it shows a lack of consideration and manners. That's not the Texas way. And that's certainly not the NRA way.

Chris Cox of the NRA-ILA backed away from that statement yesterday saying it was the personal opinion of some unnamed staffer and not the NRA's official position. He apologized for any confusion it caused. Others such as Charles Cooke of National Review disagreed saying that it was what needed to be said. I think I and the majority of the gun blogging and gun podcast community would agree that it needed to said.

Bob Owens had an interesting observation on this at BearingArms.com. He noted that often in cases like this where a statement is retracted that it is the original statement which reflects the internal thinking of the organization. In other words, it was what we called back in my political science days "signalling".

As Michael Bane emphasized today in his Downrange Radio podcast, our goal in the gun rights community needs to be winning. We no more win hearts and minds with these open carry demonstrations in restaurants than the US Air Force did with carpet bombing in South Vietnam. I would send a copy of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People to everyone in the Texas open carry leadership if I could.

I can't, so in the meantime I will implore them to cut out the narcissistic displays, clean up their websites and Facebook pages, and, as Michael suggested, think before you do stupid. Those of us stuck in the middle would appreciate it.

Why Carry When Hiking?

You are out in the woods communing with nature. It is peaceful and quiet. The only man-made sounds you hear are your own footsteps on the trail. So why in the world would you need to carry a firearm?

This.

Francis "Pat" Gregory, 69, of West Tisbury, and a 76-year-old man from Manton, California, were hiking a trail north of Red Bluff on Friday when they were confronted by a gunman, said Tehama County Sheriff's Lt. Dave Greer.

The robber shot the men after taking their money and belongings, and left the victims for dead on a remote part of the trail until another hiker came upon them about three hours later.

Gregory died at the scene; the surviving victim was hospitalized with critical injuries. A doctor told investigators he was expected to pull through, Greer said.

The men were found about 100 yards from the start of a Bureau of Land Management trail that leads through grasslands, oak trees and lava rocks to an overlook above a bend in the Sacramento River.

You can find some more examples plus some good advice on keeping safe on the trail in Michael Bane's Trail Safe. You can find it here.

Comment Of The Day

This comment of the day should be more accurately be called the rant of the day - and I do so love a good rant.

The rant comes from Michael Bane in response to Hillary Clinton's comments about how she didn't believe in gun rights or, at least, gun rights as most of us in the gun culture understand them.

So, let's recap, kids...this pathetic old harridan, who was willing to stay with a sexual predator indefinitely because she so loved power, who allowed an American ambassador be killed on her watch and American heroes be left behind to die, who looked the family of a man she claimed as friend in the eyes and lied to their faces, who has the cold-blooded gall to tell Congress, "What difference does it make," who traveled a million miles as Secretary of State and accomplished nothing, who coined the phrase "nuts and sluts" to describe the women her husband sexually abused, who blamed illegalities in her former law firm on her junior associate who didn't have the power to requisition paper clips, a woman who quite literally has accomplished nothing of consequence in her entire life spent grubbing for power over other people, and she calls us unbalanced?

That is what I call an epic rant!

No Shame

I realize that the concept of shame is an old-fashioned one and that it seems out of place in the post-modern world. Thus, the attempt by the White House to shame the Congress into passing gun control comes across as both quaint and manipulative.

The latest instance is using the mother of one of the children murdered in Newtown to deliver President Obama's weekly radio and Internet address. It has been released as a YouTube video and MP3 file in addition to the transcript below.

Remarks of Francine Wheeler
The President’s Weekly Address

Hi. As you’ve probably noticed, I’m not the President. I’m just a citizen. And as a citizen, I’m here at the White House today because I want to make a difference and I hope you will join me.

My name is Francine Wheeler. My husband David is with me. We live in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

David and I have two sons. Our older son Nate, soon to be 10 years old, is a fourth grader at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Our younger son, Ben, age six, was murdered in his first-grade classroom on December 14th, exactly 4 months ago this weekend.

David and I lost our beloved son, but Nate lost his best friend. On what turned out to be the last morning of his life, Ben told me, quite out of the blue, “ I still want to be an architect, Mama, but I also want to be a paleontologist, because that’s what Nate is going to be and I want to do everything Nate does.”

Ben’s love of fun and his excitement at the wonders of life were unmatched His boundless energy kept him running across the soccer field long after the game was over. He couldn’t wait to get to school every morning. He sang with perfect pitch and had just played at his third piano recital. Irrepressibly bright and spirited, Ben experienced life at full tilt.

Until that morning. 20 of our children, and 6 of our educators – gone. Out of the blue.

I’ve heard people say that the tidal wave of anguish our country felt on 12/14 has receded. But not for us. To us, it feels as if it happened just yesterday. And in the four months since we lost our loved ones, thousands of other Americans have died at the end of a gun. Thousands of other families across the United States are also drowning in our grief.

Please help us do something before our tragedy becomes your tragedy.

Sometimes, I close my eyes and all I can remember is that awful day waiting at the Sandy Hook Volunteer Firehouse for the boy who would never come home – the same firehouse that was home to Ben’s Tiger Scout Den 6. But other times, I feel Ben’s presence filling me with courage for what I have to do – for him and all the others taken from us so violently and too soon.

We have to convince the Senate to come together and pass commonsense gun responsibility reforms that will make our communities safer and prevent more tragedies like the one we never thought would happen to us.

When I packed for Washington on Monday, it looked like the Senate might not act at all. Then, after the President spoke in Hartford, and a dozen of us met with Senators to share our stories, more than two-thirds of the Senate voted to move forward.

But that’s only the start. They haven’t yet passed any bills that will help keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. And a lot of people are fighting to make sure they never do.

Now is the time to act. Please join us. You can talk to your Senator, too. Or visit WhiteHouse.gov to find out how you can join the President and get involved.

Help this be the moment when real change begins. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

While I feel sorrow for the family, their grief at losing their son is not a reason to pass measures that are at once both ineffective in stopping another Newtown shooting and an infringement on the Second Amendment guarantees. If the White House and their fellow gun prohibitionists were really serious about trying to avert another Newtown, they would be looking at mental health issue and school security measures such as arming and training teachers.

To get a better perspective on grief and its misuse here, read Michael Bane's post entitled "Riverdance in Blood". I recommended it earlier this week and I'm doing it again. As he notes, the grief of the victims drives them to demand a solution to insoluble problems which is the case with Mrs. Wheeler above.

Quote Of The Day

Given that your tax dollars were used to fly some of the families of the victims of the shootings in Newtown down to Washington aboard Air Force One to lobby Congress for gun control, Michael Bane's post from yesterday takes on special relevance. He examines whether victims' families have any particular claim on "truth". He concludes:

Yes, the words of victims have special poignancy, but what they don't have is any special truth. Grief drives us to look toward the heavens and demand an answer from any nearby Deity. Grief drives us to demand a solution to the fundamental insoluble problem, which is that the world is as it is. Bad things happen, often to good people, and grief drives us to...do something.

Read the whole post and keep that in mind while these families and their tragedy are being used to further the political agenda of Obama, Bloomberg, and the rest of the gun prohibitionists.

The Fine Hand Of Bloomberg And Bill Drafting

The New York Post reported yesterday that sources within Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration are blaming the Brady Campaign and Bloomberg's people for all the problems with the new NY SAFE Act. That is, of course, beyond the fact that the bill was rammed through both houses of the New York State legislature with very no discussion.

A Cuomo administration source is flatly denying the governor’s claim that his new anti-gun SAFE Act was carefully drafted, saying the governor himself wasn’t even aware of some provisions when it was hastily enacted into law.

“The governor thought the limit on the size of [gun] magazines would only apply to assault-style rifles, not to handguns,’’ said the source.

“That’s why there’s the big problem now with handguns, among other things in the statute.’’

The legal sale of virtually all semiautomatic handguns will soon be impossible because Cuomo’s law limits the size of bullet-holding magazines to seven shots, virtually none of which are manufactured for sale.

“Much of what’s in the law was drafted by people connected to Mayor Bloomberg and the Brady Center, not by the governor’s staff,” the source said. “That’s why there are so many problems with it.’’

As Michael Bane has reported many times, the new gun control bills in Colorado were drafted by Bloomberg and his people and have definitions that are peculiar to New York law and not Colorado law. This especially relates to the definition of transfer of a firearm.

Meanwhile back in February, in Minnesota, Rep. Alice Hausman, the prime sponsor and ostensible author of HF 241 - the Minnesota "assault weapons" (sic) ban - left the hearings on her own bill and let Heather Martens, a lobbyist from the gun control group Protect Minnesota, explain the bill. Hausman told a reporter later that she really didn't understand her own bill. That bill also had a different definition of "transfer" as well.

As used in this section, "transfer" means a sale, gift, loan, assignment, or other delivery to another, whether or not for consideration, of an assault weapon.

When the BATFE speaks of transfer of a firearm, they mean the transfer of ownership or title. Under normal commercial law, a sales transaction or transfer of title requires an offer, an acceptance of that offer, and the offering of consideration. Consideration is the cash or other remuneration paid for the item. Without those three actions, the transaction or transfer is void and didn't occur. Notice that the Minnesota law explicitly removes the third element from their definition of transfer.

I'm sure a close examination of any of the other gun control bills involving semi-automatic firearms, magazines, and background checks that have been introduced in many state legislatures would show these same similarities. What Michael Bloomberg and his billions can't achieve on a national level might be achieved on the state level if we aren't on guard. As Michael Bane said to Tom Gresham on Sunday during his interview on Gun Talk, they were blindsided in Colorado.

UPDATE: It seems like Mayor Bloomberg isn't pleased with the reports that Cuomo is blaming the drafting of NY SAFE on him.

Asked about that criticism today, Bloomberg erupted in anger.

"What did we do, put a gun to their head, if you pardon the pun, and force them to write legislation?" he said, during a press conference in Brooklyn about helping the unemployed get jobs. "Is that the allegation? That we were up there with automatic weapons with expanded capacity magazines forcing them to write a bill?"

"That's the kind of journalism that I find troublesome," he continued. "You've got a source that isn't willing to put their name on the bill and the reporting of it wasn't in the context of, is that credible? But they were forced by guns, or a knife at their throat, to take our ideas. If they took our ideas, I'm flattered. I hope they did. And I don't know whether they did or didn't, and I don't know whether they got it accurate or not."

In a latter statement from one of Bloomberg's press spokesman, they said they wanted micro-stamping in NY SAFE but never said anything about magazines. Hmmm.

Jacob at GunpoliticsNY.com has more on this along with some analysis. Sebastian discusses this buck-passing and the reliance on polling by some politicians in a post this afternoon. I suggest reading both.

Boulder Airlift

Magpul has started what they are calling the Boulder Airlift. They are moving Colorado residents to the head of the line for 10-packs of PMags. This move to flood Colorado with standard capacity magazines was started by Suarez International's One Source Tactical a few days earlier. Michael Bane has more info on that plus Magpul's statement. He called it a classy thing to do.

If you do something classy like that you should have a classy drawing to go along with it - and they do. Using a scene reminiscent of the Berlin Airlift, Magpul is reminding Coloradans to take advantage of this offer. They also are working on similar programs for citizens in other states who are having their freedom challenged.

Federal Firearms Legislation Introduced In The Past Week

Three new firearms related bills have been introduced since the middle of last week in Congress. Two deal with gun trafficking and one is actually a decent bill dealing with amnesty for NFA war trophies.

HR 449 - Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL)
To provide an amnesty period during which veterans and their family members can register certain firearms in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, and for other purposes.
Referred to House Judiciary Committee, House Ways and Means Committee, and House Veterans Affairs Committee.

HR 452 - Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)
Co-Sponsors:
Rep Cummings, Elijah E. [D-MD] - 2/4/2013
Rep Meehan, Patrick [R-PA] - 2/4/2013
Rep Rigell, E. Scott [R-VA] - 2/4/2013
To prevent gun trafficking. 
Referred to House Judiciary Committee.

S 179 - Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
Co-Sponsor:
Sen Kirk, Mark Steven [R-IL] - 1/30/2013
To prevent gun trafficking.
Referred to Senate Judiciary Committee

Unless I am greatly mistaken, HR 452 and S 179 will be a reprise of legislation proposed by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) in the last session of Congress. The purpose of that bill was to deflect attention from Attorney General Eric Holder, the Department of Justice, and BATFE over Project Gunwalker. This time I think it is a cynical attempt to say there is bi-partisan support for gun control.

Reading the press release from Rep. Maloney on HR 452 one can't help but notice that all the supporters of the bill that she lists are known gun control backers.

Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the Police Foundation, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department, the Maryland Chiefs of Police Association, the Baltimore Police Department, Prince George’s County Sheriff’s Office, and the Petersburg Bureau of Police. Also in attendance were representatives from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the American Bar Association, CeaseFirePA, the Violence Policy Center, and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

CSGV and VPC? They are the enemies of gun rights. They have always been and always will be opposed to our gun rights. If they are in support of legislation dealing with firearms, it is prima facie suspect.

Sebastian has more on this bill here and suggests we keep our eye on it. I agree. I also think this falls under the rubric of what Michael Bane called flypaper laws in a blog post today. They are a trap for gun owners and are meant to trip us up one way or another.

2013 SHOT Show - Day 3 With Michael Bane & Ed Head

I know the SHOT Show was over last week but I just came across this report from day three by Michael Bane and Ed Head. They discuss AR pistols, Nightforce scopes, the Ruger Bearcat Shopkeeper revolver in .22LR, and the growth in reloading sales. Ed Head was saying that the manufacturers he spoke with had a 50 to 80% increase in sales. With the ammo shortage, reloading is coming back strongly as an option as well as practicing with .22s.

2013 SHOT Show - Day Two With Michael Bane And Ed Head

Michael Bane and Ed Head return to report on day two of the 2013 SHOT Show for the Outdoor Channel. Among the firearms discussed are the Armscor MIG-22 which is an AR clone in .22 LR and the Beretta Nano which will be coming out with various colored frames.

They both agreed that the overriding theme of this year's SHOT Show was fear. That is, the fear of what would be coming out of Washington. However, after Obama made his speech yesterday, they sensed a rise in optimism along with a sigh of relief.

Some SHOT Shows feature a lot of new innovative product introductions. This isn't one of them. Ed said the industry seems to be on an even keep with nothing really different. It was more about introducing different colors, sizes, and styles of existing products. Both Ed and Michael agreed that there seems to be a renewed interest in reloading all of a sudden which they attribute to the ammo shortage and proposals coming out of Washington. They will cover this in more depth tomorrow.

2013 SHOT Show - Day 1 with Michael Bane & Ed Head

Michael Bane is covering the 2013 SHOT Show for the Outdoor Channel along with his friend Ed Head of Gunsite Academy. Among the firearms they discussed were the Sig Sauer MPX, the new Ruger Guide Rifle in .375 RM, the Rock Island 1911 in .22 TCM, and the Smith and Wesson M&P 10 which is an AR in .308. They did notice a trend of a lot of red dots being made for handguns along the ammo shortage.

2013 SHOT Show Media Day - Outdoor Channel

Michael Bane gives an overview of the 2013 SHOT Show Media Day for the Outdoor Channel in the video below. I love the ending shot of the smile on a guy's face after shooting an AR-15 with a bumpfire stock (corrected).

As I find more reports from Media Day I will be posting them today.

I Know That Guy

Just got to the America's Center and was greeted by this poster.






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

More Confirmation Of The Vitality Of The Firearms Industry

Sturm, Ruger announced today that they were suspending the acceptance of new orders because they had already had orders for the first quarter of over 1 million units. If one needed more confirmation that gun sales are strong and that gun ownership is expanding, this is it. While there is no breakdown of the orders, sales of Ruger's pistols for the concealed carry market such as the LCP, LCR, and LC-9 have been strong. As Michael Bane has noted many times, these pistols are very popular with Gun Culture v. 2.0 who want a pistol for personal protection.

Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. Reports Strong First Quarter Bookings

March 21, 2012

Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (NYSE: RGR), announced today that for the first quarter 2012, the Company has received orders for more than one million units. Therefore, the Company has temporarily suspended the acceptance of new orders.

Chief Executive Officer Michael O. Fifer made the following comments:

The Company's Retailer Programs that were offered from January 1, 2012 through February 29, 2012 were very successful and generated significant orders from retailers to independent wholesale distributors for Ruger firearms.

* Year-to-date, the independent wholesale distributors placed orders with the Company for more than one million Ruger firearms.

*Despite the Company's continuing successful efforts to increase production rates, the incoming order rate exceeds our capacity to rapidly fulfill these orders. Consequently, the Company has temporarily suspended the acceptance of new orders.

*The Company expects to resume the normal acceptance of orders by the end of May 2012.

The Company will announce its results and file its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2012 on Tuesday, May 1, 2012, after the close of the stock market.

I know it borders on rudeness to keep poking the gun prohibitionists in the eye with the truth but I hope Josh Horwitz chokes on this press release.


(In the interest of full disclosure, I am a very happy shareholder in Sturm, Ruger and Company)

2012 SHOT Show - Day 3, Downrange.tv

Michael Bane has finally bought his first handgun at the SHOT Show. It is the Sig P938 which is the slightly scaled up P238 in 9mm. Other things he mentioned were the new modular Mossberg shotgun and their tactical lever-action rifle.

You can see his whole report here.

2012 SHOT Show - Day 2, Downrange TV

Michael Bane continues his video coverage of the 2012 SHOT Show. Some of the items he featured for Day 2 are the Heizer Double-Tap derringer, lasers from Crimson Trace, Windham Weaponry, the Sig 938, and a knife from Remington that uses 1911 grips.

Speaking of Heizer, when I was in St. Louis over the holidays I passed a small industrial building near Arnold that said "Heizer". I am wondering if this was where the Doube-Tap is made or some facility. I'm thinking a request for a factory tour may be in order.