The challenge of a trade show with 2600-plus exhibitors isn’t finding something to talk about. It’s deciding what you can leave out until another day. After all, if you visited all the booths at SHOT Show 2020 over the course of the four long days, you could get to all of them-but you’d only have 22 seconds at each. I can hardly move across the boots in 22 seconds, so someone gets left out.

Here’s some of what I’m picking up in the burbles of conversation:

• there’s an undercurrent of excitement,
• there are loads of exciting new products

And maybe most importantly, there’s more than cautious optimism from the dealers and buyers in attendance. It’s partially because they’re realizing that a good economy is creating potential customers and that, coupled with new products, is creating a potential for increasing sales.

And they’re begrudgingly accepting the fact that technology is increasingly a part of their lives. Not just their back-office systems, their front-line sales. As our gear learns to talk to each other, we’re finding lots of old ways of doing things are like navigating via map and compass: nice skill to have, but not necessarily the best way of doing things.

That having been said, there’s a lot of new technology out there this week. Here’s a peek at some of it:

Steiner’s newest Military/LE optic, the Close Quarters Thermal (CQT) brings together the red dot optic and the thermal optic -in a single unit. At around $12,000, it’s not designed for the civilian market, but the enthusiasm from the current market likely means there’s a civilian model somewhere in our not too-distant futures.

For “the rest of us” who suffer from places to practice and look for alternatives to range treks, here’s a compact solution: practice with one of today’s exact replica air pistols with the Bada Bing Airgun Target. The $99.99 Bada Bing system pairs via Bluetooth to your smart phone to give you game options, or use it as-is as a compact shooting system. Yes, I would recommend frangible BBs or airsoft, but the fun potential’s terrific.

If you’re a competition shooter, you know the name Daniel Horner. You also know want any shooting tip he offers. Coming soon, you’ll be able to have something identical to Daniel’s: his new DH5 drop in AR-trigger from Timney. With Timney’s quality, Daniel’s input and a flat trigger (OK, that’s My favorite) you’ll find your pulling adjustable to your particular preference.

Technology’s always played a big role in ammunition development, and the newest iteration of ammo True Velocity and Sierra Bullets is pushing the envelope. They’ve collaborated on a new civilian round that’s the first offshoot of True Velocity’s military product. They tell me the new ammunition is 30% lighter, offers the same performance as brass-cased ammunition. We’ll be testing it when it’s available, and we’ll let you know how that turns out.

There are 2600 more companies with stories to tell. We can’t tell all of them, but we’ll do our best to keep you posted.

-- Jim Shepherd