2011 SHOT Show Positive, Enthusiastic & Exciting – Frank Talk About Guns

2011 SHOT Show Positive, Enthusiastic & Exciting – Frank Talk About Guns
Our industry seems to be full of self-starters, folks who love their guns and their constitutional rights to self protection and making an honest living.

Frank Brownell
Frank Brownell - Brownells.com

Des Moines, Iowa – -(Ammoland.com)- Our Gang just got back from the SHOT Show – goodness want a bash!

I’ve talked with a number of our folks that went and we’ve got some comments for you.

Kinda disconnected in some places maybe, so I’ll just start off and run until I run out of things to pass along.

We were somewhat apprehensive going in, because nobody knew how the year was going to shape up.

Coming off the last two years of economic stress and an “odd” SHOT Show in ’10 – we all were very surprised how upbeat and productive it really was. The SHOT Show is a bellwether for the year. The words I kept hearing from our folks were “positive”, “enthusiastic”, “exciting.” The anxieties for 2011 seemed to slide to the backs of peoples’ minds, as they were caught up in the huge crowds and the huge wave of “optimistic vibes” flowing through the place. This show left all of us really charged up and raring to get back home and put the things we found and ideas we heard into place.

Each of our group commented on the really big group of new products we found – for all of our divisions.

For the Gunsmithing Group, what we saw were not so many new shooting platforms as we did lots and lots of neat little accessories to go on already existing accessories. Many or most for the AR-15 platform. Huge number of these items still coming. We saw lots of clever ideas and developing products from inventors looking for investors/developers. We saw huge interest in flashlights and the Glock and 1911 .22-cal conversion kits. Also the AR-15 in the .308 platform, and the very new .300 Black Out ammo from Hornady, which takes only a new barrel to be able to shoot. Also conceal carry is showing huge growth with lots of factory interest in this market. The factories were very open to suggestions about existing products, new products, modifications, service. And our key vendors were exceedingly positive about this 2011 year and the potential it has.

The Sinclair Group saw lots and lots of new products. Plus many new accessories to already existing products – again nothing astonishing so much as tweaks and refinements. Some new lines of ammo came out, more bullets, more cartridges. Ammo market’s big boom is “defense rounds” for all the guns coming out for that group of shooters. The market is still very strong and vibrant. New young blood coming into the reloading industry with some great new ideas. Overall, ammo delivery problems seem to be going away, and primers are becoming more widely available. Of course we’re all watching Hornady – waiting for their next amazing introduction. They’ve teamed up with Hodgdon Powder to make a “Su-performance” ammo, which the new Hodgdon Powder gives super velocity. Again, very positive feed-back from customers and factories.

From our Law Enforcement Group, there was tremendous positive reaction to our getting more involved in a full line of duty gear. Our guys and gals found an amazing number of new products to go into the LE catalog. Departmental customers commented that even with some of the Fed money running out, causing lots of conservation in the departments, it is beginning to look like it might not be as bad as they once thought. Our booth in the LE area of the show was very busy with many, many departments, customers and factories swinging by to catch up and see what was new and exciting – and to work with us to make the division even that much more successful. Our gang working that booth was totally delighted with how the show went for them.

We did something “progressive” this year and took pictures and video of as much as the show as we could fit in. You can find all of this on our Facebook site. Sign-up and take a look. We are doing more and more of this “Social Thing” my kids and grandkids keep talking about. Frankly it’s fun, informative and seems useful. Oh, keep checking back on the Facebook site for specials and other neat stuff we’re going to be introducing to you there.

Final wrap – all levels of the industry we interacted with seem positive, and it seems the industry is stabilized or stabilizing, catching its breath and really getting ready to embrace the future. While a lot of those in other industries around us are feeling the effects of the generally bad economy, the unemployment and the under-employment, the growth in the emerging economies with the U.S. Dollar losing value in the world market – our industry seems to be full of self-starters, folks who love their guns and their constitutional rights to self protection and making an honest living. They’re buckling down and doing it.

We saw deals still settled with a simple handshake. We saw a big push for that label “Made in America”. (By the Way, a major issue with Pete and me personally, and one we push with all our people here. We ALWAYS try to find a US made product first. Look for the American flag next to products we know are MADE in the good old USA – both on the web and in our catalogs. It’s important to support our own workers, factories and companies. These are our people we’re talking about.)

At the 2011 SHOT Show, we saw a bustling, active, energized, committed crowd of displayers and attendees connecting, interacting and working together to make it a growing, better industry.

Frankly, we’ve got great expectations for the potential of 2011. Keep checking back to the New Products sections of Browenlls.com, SinclairIntl.com and PoliceStore.com for all the new products we found at SHOT 2011 and will be getting on line just as fast as we can get inventory here.

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John Hornby, the sender of so many great jokes, sent me the article that follows. I’d never looked at our beloved sport/vocation/avocation/hobby like this before. Makes you stop and think – and thank the good Lord that what we love to do and enjoy so much can also be so very important to our continued freedom.

The World’s Largest Army

I bet you didn’t know this. . .

In WWII, Japan’s highest-ranking naval officer was Isoruku Yamamoto. Although he was Japanese, and his loyalties were unquestionably with The Empire, he studied for many years in America, graduating from Harvard University. There is an oft-repeated (and sometimes disputed) quote attributed to him regarding the possibility of any nation taking a war to American soil:

“You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.”

Here is why he was correct:

America’s Hunters. The World’s Largest Army.

The state of Wisconsin has gone an entire deer hunting season without someone getting killed. That’s great, considering there were over 600,000 hunters that got permits this year.

Allow me to restate that number: 600,000

Over the last two months, the eighth largest army in the world – more men under arms than Iran; more than France and Germany combined – deployed to the woods of a single American state to keep the deer population under control.

But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of Pennsylvania this week. Michigan’s 700,000 hunters have now returned home. Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia, and it is literally the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world.

And that is just FOUR states.

The total population of registered hunters in America today ranges from 23 million to 43.7 million individuals. (Based on annual data provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.) As long as the American Hunter retains his right to Bear Arms, America will forever be safe from foreign invasion of troops.

Hunting – it’s not just a way to fill the freezer. It’s a matter of National Security.

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