A lot of our SHOT Show pictures have already made it to the Interwebs along with stories we ran, but we took a TON of pictures that we have almost no use for. Other than their  aesthetic value, of course. I’ve decided to dump the best of these useless pictures here in one post, hoping to give you guys a flavor of what SHOT is like. BTW, the photographer for every picture I’m in is Flanker from SA (pictured at top in my bed – don’t ask). The man did an amazing job. Taking pictures.

There’s a guy (yogi89) on Reddit that used his time in shop class more productively than most. Instead of building a coffee table or a chair, he decided to make a SCAR-L out of wood, and he did it remarkably well. There are more pictures here. He says he sought and received permission to build it in school (high school) – and we’re amazed it was granted. Anyway, it took him three months to finish and the magazine is removable. Simply amazing.

[h/t everydaynodaysoff.com]

Farago and I met her over some very greasy hamburgers in the lunch tent at Media Day At The Range. We knew instantly she was the real deal. So genuine that we’re working hard to put a sniper rifle (to die for) into her expert hands for testing: Remington, AI, McMillan, Blaser, whatever we can find.

As an added bonus for me (and my neighbor Joe Grine) Anette and several other gun bloggers live in the Seattle area, which is now a prime destination for a TTAG Road Trip. But enough prose: here’s 30calgal’s SHOT show wrapup, in verse:

Twas the night after Shot Show and all through The Sands
Not an exhibitor or attendee with a gun in their hands.
All 60,000 people home and tucked in their beds
with overloads of thoughts of cool toys in their heads.
Bloggers like me don’t know where to begin
to promote all the vendors we cherish from within.
My fellow GunUp.com network walking miles and miles
to interview and promote new products with smiles.
On Blade-Tech, On Browning, On Sig Sauer and Smith & Wesson,
On Glock and Kahr Arms and HK and Crimson (Trace)
Kudos to Kimber and Ruger, CZ and Colt
We owe you shout outs on The Net for a promotional jolt.
From Flash Bangs to designer concealment purses for ladies with guns
there are cool new carry pistols to make concealment very fun.
The Kimber Micro CDP and the beautiful Ultra II Saphhire
The revived Colt Mustang and CZ ProTek
and the Sig P938 gives us all much to desire.
Now for my own personal bragging I have much to be proud
of the awesome sponsors I received that will surely draw a crowd.
My ESS Suppressor Eyeshields will protect me from blindness
Bullets from Nosler will win me long range matches. What kindness!
Thank you to PNW Arms for having faith in my skills
your ammo will surge me ahead in pistol and 3 Gun thrills.
I mostly wait impatiently for my new rifle to be built
This could only be done by the greatJP Enterprises
And asking for the best I have no guilt.
To all of the other vendors and people I met for the first time
I hardly have enough space to add you to my rhyme.
It does not mean I don’t love you or think you are not worthy
that would be absurdly. (I know, pushing it there)
I thank NSSF for a Shot Show to be remembered
Until next year to you all, may success be tendered.

30calgal
“Shoot Like A Girl! If You Can………..”

There’s a right way and a wrong way to do everything. The Gun Store in Las Vegas is the embodiment of “the wrong way,” as we’ve shown. Thankfully there’s a better option out there for those in Las Vegas who want to try out a machine gun: Discount Firearms + Ammo. . .

Located a convenient 10 minute walk from the Imperial Palace hotel on the north end of the strip (or about a $5 cab ride), Discount Firearms + Ammo (hereafter referred to as DFA because I’m lazy) runs a combination gun store and range. I got a chance to sit down with J. Chapin, one of the head guys at the store to discuss their operation.

According to J, DFA’s focus is on customer service instead of simply cranking people through and making the most money. While The Gun Store (hereafter referred to as TGS because I’m lazy) simply hands someone a gun and points them downrange, DFA takes the time to explain the concepts behind firearms safety and how guns work. They educate their customers on safe firearms handling instead of simply letting them check the box of firing a machine gun, giving them the tools to handle firearms in a responsible manner in the future.

That distinction holds true for a number of things DFA does differently than TGS, starting with the shop. Instead of a cramped bus stop, DFA’s front room looks like one of the nicest gun stores I’ve ever been in. It’s well lit, clean, and staffed by friendly and knowledgeable salespeople. With TGS the machine gun rental is a separate room from the main show floor, but for DFA machine gun rentals occupy just one section of their main counter. As J said, their focus was to make the experience just as good for the tourists looking to rent machine guns as it is for the locals to come in and buy guns.

That was another interesting thing that we talked about. According to J, most of the customers that come in the store to rent guns are tourists that are prohibited from buying guns or ammo for one reason or another, whether they’re foreign visitors who can’t own guns in their home countries or they’re out of state visitors who can’t buy guns across state lines. And while a good portion of their business comes from these foreign visitors, the owners of DFA wanted to make sure they didn’t forget about their local customers who buy guns and take concealed carry classes.

They had considering moving to a “take a number” system that allowed rental customers to tour the store while waiting to shoot. But as a measure designed to allow the salespeople to talk to those who actually are there to buy guns instead of those who just want to play with them, they opted to go with the serpentine line. However, the entire time I was there I didn’t see a single person in line.

Speaking of concealed carry classes, DFA holds classes for civilian CCW licenses twice a month (moving to weekly soon) for a packed room of 20 new shooters each class. In addition, they serve as a facility that trains and re-qualifies all of the armed security guards for the local businesses. So they’re big on training and safety, and partner with local suicide prevention groups to help prevent firearms related suicides.

In terms of variety, DFA has many of the same guns that you’d see at TGS — AKs, Thompsons, MP5s, but not too many of the “exotic” machine guns (if such a thing exists). They do have a pretty rocking belt fed m1919, but other than that what you see is more or less what you get. Which still isn’t bad, as these represent some of the most fun machine guns I’ve ever had the chance to fire. The big benefit comes when you realize that these guns are in service grade condition, that is they’re bright and shiny, well oiled, well maintained and above all clean. Much better than TGS’ offerings.

In terms of price there’s no one close. Instead of the ridiculous price gouging going on at TGS, according to J the prices at DFA let the customers experience the guns for more than just a few seconds of joy. It’s still not as cheap as if you owned the guns yourself, but it’s damned close.

How about the range? Well for starters it doesn’t feel like a dark alley. The range is well lit, uses digital target holders (which place the targets exactly where you tell them), and it’s big enough to accommodate 14 shooters at a time — more than TGS could. The range is longer too, pushing out to around 25 or 30 yards.

In short, I have no idea why anyone would ever go to The Gun Store over this place. Discount Firearms + Ammo has a better range, better employees, nicer guns, better prices, and is much closer to the strip. In short, it’s perfect.

The Gun Store in Las Vegas, Nevada is an institution. In a city where anything goes and you can fulfill any dream with the sufficient application of cash, it’s no wonder that there are a couple places in the city where you can rent and fire machine guns. And the most advertised of these stores is The Gun Store. . .

As soon as you walk into the store you can instantly tell that its the most popular store, and the results aren’t good. As RF described it, it was a bus station.

The waiting room for the shooting range was an extremely crowded, sparsely decorated room that smelled faintly of bleach and human urine. It featured a long line of people waiting to shoot that snaked its way through the room and out the door. So I guess “bus station” is a pretty apt description. According to the representative, the standard wait time from the minute you walk in the door until you actually get to shoot is 1-2 hours.

That’s 1-2 hours of waiting time for about 20 seconds of trigger time.

The selection of firearms available to shoot is actually fairly good. The standard firearms are available to shoot — MP5, Uzi, Thompson, M-16… — but they also include a couple belt fed guns and some more unusual, full auto firearms like the grease gun and a Suomi. But the condition of those firearms is somewhat questionable. Any rental gun is going to be a little worse for wear compared to a fresh out of the box version. Machine guns even more so. But The Gun Store guns just look like they’re in terrible condition.

Once you wait your hour or two, you are quickly shuffled into their range which is just as small and cramped as it looks here. I took this picture with my back against the rear wall — there was just enough room for two people to pass each other and not much more. The range itself was remarkably short as well, perhaps 15 yards tops.

But the most frightening thing that I saw was the complete and total disregard for safety in favor of cranking the shooters through.

Sure, the standard range rules were posted in the waiting room (and the HOURS of waiting almost guaranteed that you’d read them at least once) but no one explained firearms safety, how the gun you’re renting works or anything like that. I sat through about three people getting the safety brief and it simply consisted of “point this at the target and pull the trigger, don’t point it behind you.”

The employees apparently see their business as nothing more than allowing people to check off one of the items on their bucket list. As their owner said, “people aren’t coming in because they’re gun nuts; they’re coming to go on a ride.” And that’s exactly how it’s treated.

The effect of that mentality is one of the most unsafe firing lines I’ve ever seen. Despite a range employee standing behind every shooter I was muzzle swept by at least two loaded machine guns and one Desert Eagle handgun as the shooter showed it off to his friend. I needed to get out of there before I caught a round to the face — I had a SHOT Show to cover.

What do I think of The Gun Store? It’s terrible.

The store is too far from the strip, the prices are massively inflated (compared to some other ranges in town), the guns are in poor condition, the wait is too long, the building is cramped and smells like pee and the range is unsafe. Why you would ever spend your money there is beyond me, especially when there are better places much closer to the strip. Like this place.

This is the lens cover from Leupold’s VX-R Zombie Patrol 1.25-4 scope. It’s the same scope I reviewed last year, with a green FireDot reticle which I actually like, and also with a slime-dripping ‘Zombie’ graphic on the eyepiece bell and the cranially-fixated scope cover shown here. Which I hate.

Eotech is also gearing up for the Global War On Zombies with their XPS-2Z holosight. I dig Eotech gear, but like all ‘Zombie’ gun gear this scope’s ‘cool factor’ will have a shelf-life shorter than raw oysters.

I have to give Eotech a grudging hat-tip, because they designed a whole new (and extremely cluttered) ‘Biohazard’ reticle for it instead of just giving it a new name and a day-glo green ‘Zombie’ logo. But I’m not sure they’re going to recoup their costs, once the zombie hype quiets down.

We’ve all heard of Hornady’s Z-Max bullet line, but answer me this: if you really wanted to penetrate an undead skull with a .380, wouldn’t you want FMJ bullets instead?

Zombie Industries treated us to a Rogue’s Gallery of paper, 3-D, and slime-filled bleeding zombie targets.  Several of them were downrange at Media Day…

And they showed why I’m disappointed at the marksmanship skills of most of my fellow journalists. Everybody knows that Zeke only goes down for good if you scramble his brains, so why are we looking at so many torso hits?

I don’t wish ill on any of these manufacturers, but I don’t predict a long life (or living death) for this gun/zombie fad. It may linger as a socially-acceptable (or at least tongue-in-cheek) excuse to stock up on guns and ammunition, and to practice firing at simulated human(oid) targets.

But I hope next year’s SHOT Show is as zombie-free as Will Smith’s New York safehouse at the beginning of I Am Legend. Let’s pray for sunlight, and let’s bring plenty of bleach.

UPDATE: Shooting Gallery gun guru Michael has taken responsibility for the Zombie trend, and apologized.