You got a whole bunch of guns, many full-auto, along with the newest gear available, all on the Las Vegas strip. What could be better? The 2006 Shot Show was the biggest firearms/outdoor/law enforcement/military/sporting convention ever. Located in the Las Vegas Convention Center there were 1,846 booths, and close to 40,000 people in attendance. Not bad considering this expo is not open to the public, you need to be part of a business to register and attend.

What’s so special about the Shot Show? This is the one place where you can see EVERYTHING related to firearms and outdoor sports. This included the newest guns, holsters and scopes, but also camping equipment, camouflage, grills and smokers, decoys, kayaks, knives, and for the first time ever paintball and airsoft. This is also the chance to see things many might not get the chance to, such as machine guns, night vision, and .50 BMG rifles.

FNH SCAR

FNH Civilian F2000

Coolest things we got to see…
The FNH booth was my favorite. FNH, or Fabrique Nationale Herstal, is a Belgian firearms company of the highest quality. They make the popular P90, M240B, and M249 along with the F2000 and the new SCAR rifles which are being evaluated by Navy SeALs. In addition to their military weapons they also showed off their civilian P90 and civilian F2000.

Bushmaster

Olympic Arms

Both Bushmaster and Olympic Arms had pistol versions of AR-15’s and M4’s. They are similar to what airsofters know as Patiot Kits (made popular by PDI).

Barrett had a nice booth showing off their popular .50BMG rifles and the new .416 rifles for states that do not allow .50BMG (like California and Hawaii). Barrett wins in my opinion for best promo handouts. Most companies made a flier or a 16 page catalog, Barrett was giving everyone a whole magazine about Barrett rifles (it looks like a Guns & Ammo mag).

Steyr AUG

Steyr SSG

Steyr had some very nice AUG’s. Rail fronts like I’ve never seen. These guns easily make a Cyber AUG look generic. They also had an assortment of their SSG rifles. The SSG is what the APS-2 is based on. They also had their own .50 rifle.

Kel-Tec had a nice selection of their composite .223 rifles and very compact .380 pistols. Kel-Tec is one of those companies airsofters don’t know about because Marui never made a Kel-Tec gun. But now that I wrote about them every airsoft person is going to pretend they knew all about Kel-Tec. Anyways, their guns are lightweight composite bodies (similar to Glock material) that use M16 mags and feature under folding stocks and fore-grips that turn into bipods.

JP also had a very nice selection of ultra custom M16 type rifles. ASH referee (and ARMS Magazines favorite Hawaii airsoft tech) Blake uses a lot of JP parts in his rifles. They are known for their slotted free float tube style fore-grips where you can attach rails and accessories into the slots. Much more versatile than any RAS or SIR style front. Also much more expensive, but you get what you pay for. They also had one of the coolest guns at the show.

Speaking of cool guns STI was definitely the place for cool pistols. Their main showpiece was a 24k gold double stacked .45, in their 2011 style. They also had a variety of 1911 style guns with C-More sights, compensators, silencers and even a bayonet!

So did you find any good airsoft stuff up there?
Honestly I wasn’t going there to look at airsoft guns. For that we send Tyler to Gekishin. But there were a few cool airsoft guns there.

Spartan Imports, the Classic Army distributor for the US, had a very nice booth. This was the first time I ever met with Emory Sung, the head guy of Spartan. He showed me an unreleased prototype of the AR-10, an M16 based rifle similar to the SR-25. Very nice body and style.

PDI had their booth showing off the Patriot kits along with M16 kits and the M24 fluted barrel upper. The M24 upper is a whole receiver, bolt, and barrel already assembled. You just drop it into the stock of your CA M24 and it’s ready to go. They also showed off their double-barreled paintball launcher that the Japanese police have been mounting on their pursuit cars and bikes to mark racers and other criminals.

JAG and Madbull were together showing the very popular and very affordable UTG guns and gear along with Madbull grenades. Madbull had their solid head and rocket style grenades and prototype models for their landmine.

In addition to the guns there was a wide assortment of holsters, cases, scopes, sights, and camo. Lots of new rigs from Uncle Mikes, Galco, Safariland, and on and on. There were a lot of knives too, Benchmade, Cold Steel, Kershaw, Al Mar, and my favorite Spyderco where I met the son of the designer of my favorite knife, the Spyderco Viele.

So what was the coolest gun at the show? Well the gold STI and the green JP rifle were very nice. But the coolest looking gun was the Viper from Bluegrass Armory in Kentucky. First of all it was a .50BMG, which is cool enough. But I've never seen a .50 with blue flaming skulls painted on the sides. Definitely a cool gun.

But the coolest thing in the whole show wasn't a gun, or a scope, or a laser, or any single piece of equipment. The best thing about the Shot Show that made the trip worth it all? The Gunny! R. Lee Ermley from Full Metal Jacket and Mail Call was at the Glock booth signing autographs. Right after the Shot Show he came down to Hawaii to do some filming on the Arizona, Missouri, and other aspects of Pearl Harbor.

Overall the show was awesome. We got to meet lots of people, see lots of stuff, and make new friends. Outside of the show we got to shoot full auto MP5's and eat lots and lots of prime rib. Only bad things about the Shot Show, it was so huge we didn't get to see everything. On 2 out of the 4 days the only meal I ate all day was dinner. And we were so tired we didn't get to do any cool Vegas stuff. I think out of the 5 days we were there I only gambled $60.00. My feet still hurt from all the walking. But after all that it was still worth the trip.