While attending the NSSF's inaugural Fantasy Sports Shooting Camp last weekend, I had the opportunity to talk with several of my fellow campers about their own shooting sports experiences. What I heard convinced me that maybe some of the things we as an industry accept as truths-especially when it comes to the shooting sports- might be wrong.

For instance, it's absolutely incorrect to presume that everyone who considers themselves a "shooter" has given shooting sports- especially practical disciplines- a try. My fellow fantasy campers were fairly shooters. But more than one shooter had never drawn a gun from a holster.

That was eye-opening for me. And it pointed out the fact that "shooter" is a label that covers a lot of territory. Territory that we as an industry, might be treating as "flyover country" to use a political description.

That's a pretty compelling reason for bringing in fresh eyes when we talk about outreach to consumers. It's very compelling when you learn that many of those fresh eyes say the industry is falling well short of the mark at "in-reach" - you know, encouraging people who are already gun owners to get more involved.

In today's news section, you'll see that Sig Sauer has made some significant additions to its marketing team. Those additions include veterans from inside the industry along with a new VP of Marketing who's never been in the shooting industry.

But he's certainly been in an affinity market. Sean Salter headed the "Global Retail Marketing Environment" for Harley Davidson. Yes, that Harley Davidson. The company that has an unfailingly faithful and dedicated group of die-hard users, despite the fact their bikes aren't the biggest, fastest, most reliable or even most pleasant bikes to ride.

Harley owners are brand loyalists of in the extreme - and the company that figures out how to create those kinds of "brand evangelists" in the gun industry will certainly become a force going forward. Especially if those evangelists are recruited through what I call "industry inreach" rather than new shooter "outreach".'

The prospects have Sig's Tom Taylor, Chief Marketing Officer and Executive VP of Commercial Sales enthused. Yesterday afternoon, Taylor told me about SIG's expansion strategy.

That strategy, Taylor says, centers on bringing in very experienced people along with a PR agency (longtime S&W agency Blue Heron is also named as Sig's new agency in today's news) from inside the industry along with a brand veteran from a "significant non-endemic company" -like Harley Davidson.

Going to be interesting to watch.

It's not often I give a shout-out to other services, but I wanted to give one today to Gear Junkie and their checking out a company that claimed a new innovation that the Junkie experts found to be, frankly, impossible.

Last month, after Triton company announced a Indiegogo campaign to raise money for their "artificial gills rebreather" Gear Junkie started looking at the technology- and deduced that their claim was, frankly, impossible. They reached out to Triton and Indiegogo for clarification.

They didn't get a direct response from Triton and Indiegogo started a review process.

Now, Triton has refunded the entire $900,000 raised in the Indiegogo campaign and re-launched with what Junkie calls "more honest information." Turns out their product is a tiny compressed air container and delivery system.

Triton has released additional details on their "liquid oxygen" based system- and only a short time into their new campaign has raised $47,000.

Shout-out to Gear Junkie for going after a claim they felt was unrealistic- and Triton for taking the correct approach to addressing those valid concerns.

As always, we're working to keep you posted.

—Jim Shepherd