Find images and more at "A Tour of SHOT Show 2020," Officer.com/21125340.
It seems like SHOT Show gets longer every year. It’s no longer just Tuesday through Friday (didn’t it use to span a weekend?) but now runs from Saturday through Friday. Our involvement started on Sunday evening with an event hosted by 5.11 Tactical at their Las Vegas Outlet. It was a near perfect media event. The only thing missing was range time… but since they don’t manufacture guns, we’ll let that slide. For the news products that they were displaying, they had the design teams on hand to answer questions. Perhaps the most forward thinking and coolest thing they did was build “SHOT Show Survival Kits” containing Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier, Emergenc-C, Blistex, some pain killers and other tidbits. Some of that proved to be quite the life-saver through the week.
Range Day
Monday brought Range Day and you could tell what the “hot topics” were by which booths were near impossible to approach simply due to the crowds. People were stacked 20 deep waiting to approach the Glock booth to get their hands on the new Glock Model 44 chambered for .22lr. Competing with that was the crowd at the Ruger booth and all the folks waiting to shoot the new Ruger 5.7mm handgun. Bypassing the lines, almost more “fun” was found at the LWRC booth where Matt Jacques of Victory First was coaching shooters on LWRC’s new .45ACP subgun. With fully ambidextrous controls, easy optics and a plethora of targets to engage, it was easy to feel competent and the gun was certainly enjoyable to shoot. For the agencies / shooters looking for such a weapon, the LWRC .45 subgun is going to prove quite popular and a great investment.
On the floor
The rest of the week at SHOT Show itself proved to be enjoyable work. Propper had a four-panel soft armor set on display that one of our editors tried on and then promptly did a series of calisthenics in. The construction of the armor was such that it stayed in place, even while nearly inverted, and provided comfortable coverage beyond the normal two panel systems most of us are familiar with. We look forward to wear testing the armor (and shooting a panel or two) in the near future.
Also brought to our attention was a great accessory for the Glock 48. Shield Arms of Montana, while not having a booth, visited us and showed off their 15-round magazines for the weapon. By replacing the magazine catch and getting rid of the polymer wrap, the flush-fit 15-round magazines make the Glock 48 a 16-round (15+1) 9mm weapon. The same overall length and height of a Glock 19, it’s nearly a full quarter inch thinner which adds to comfort in the hand and some measure of concealability as well. Shield Arms has an EDC Kit available on their website that includes the mag catch, three magazines and two +5 floor plate extensions with the requisite replacement magazine springs. We can only imagine that this is going to be a hugely popular accessory for Glock 48 owners.
As with SHOT Show every year, hand sanitizer, lots of vitamin C and courtesy while coughing or sneezing is mandatory. Comfortable shoes and a bag you can carry comfortably make the show much more pleasant.
Will we see you next year?
Lt. Frank Borelli (ret), Editorial Director | Editorial Director
Lt. Frank Borelli is the Editorial Director for the Officer Media Group. Frank brings 20+ years of writing and editing experience in addition to 40 years of law enforcement operations, administration and training experience to the team.
Frank has had numerous books published which are available on Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, and other major retail outlets.
If you have any comments or questions, you can contact him via email at [email protected].
