I've just come back from spending the week at my first SHOT show. I looked selectively through the show for all four days, and explored a lot of booths. Maybe I hit as many as 30% of the booths, and I'll tell you if you've never been to the Sands Expo center, that's a hell of a lot of territory.
Three or four new items stood out for me:
1) Nivisys UTAM-32. I'm a believer in thermal night vision, and was hunting the show for thermal weapon sights. The UTAM-32 is small, and quite clear, with a surprisingly good field of view. There was a similar offering from OASYS that Steve Gibbons had at the US Night Vision booth, and while I was not able to compare the two side-by-side, I believe the UTAM-32 gave a better picture with a wider FOV. Too bad Nivisys won't sell to anyone but LE/Mil.
2) T.A.S. pistol sight. This little gem was tucked away in a basement booth that I happened upon by accident. It's a very innovative rear sight, that to me was reminiscent of the Guttersnipe sight on the ASP -- except the TAS is obviously a much better design. It's very intuitive to use, should make for very accurate shooting, and comes in both fiber-optic and Tritium-impregnated versions. It eliminates the need for a front sight entirely, and would be great for use with a silencer, or for a concealed weapon. Unfortunately, I don't think there's much hope of understanding the sight without seeing it in person. Their website is http://www.t-a-s.co.il
3) EMA RONi. This is one that I openly mocked when I first heard about it; when I saw it in the New Products section I thought "there's no need for such a thing", but when I visited their booth and got my hands on it I have to admit I decided I that I simply must have one. Don't think of it as a carbine conversion kit for a handgun -- which is something for which no practical purpose really exists (with the notable exception of the FAB Defense buttstock for the Glock, which has found extensive practical use in Israel). Instead, think of it as a PDW manufactured by a company that sped up development time by simply building a chassis around another manufacturer's action. I happen to have a Glock that's registered as an SBR, so I already qualify for legal ownership. It'll end up in my collection of oddities, and I'm guessing it probably won't be too commercially successful because it really only makes sense if you can drop a Glock 18 inside of it. Now I bet that would be fun!
A few vendors are worth an honorable mention:
The PistolCam is bound to give us much more interesting YouTube videos, and possibly also substantially shorten trials involving police shootings.
Hats off to Airtronic, who are manufacturing an RPG in the good ol' US of A! Most interestingly, they are working on a carbon-fiber version that will weigh six pounds. That will make my A-list when it comes out.
I was a little disappointed in LMT's new 308. I was hoping for a piston system like the one in HK's new 308 (which is bad-ass, by the way). But everyone's probably already discussed these two offerings ad-nauseum.
Finally there is an outfit out of Germany called Armatix, which I mention it because it horrifies me. It's a "smart gun" system. It includes a wrist-watch that you wear on your shooting hand that, provided you've entered the correct PIN, will allow the pistol to fire. If the watch is more than a few inches away, the firing pin is disabled. The Germans manning the booth seemed very proud, and also seemed to have no idea that everyone talking to them not-so-secretly wanted them dead. It's a clunky, impractical piece of shit that would never work in real-world life-or-death situations, but it will look good to the press and the propagandists in the Brady Campaign. Plus I believe that there's a law on the books in New Jersey that states something to the effect that if NJ Attorney General learns about the existence of a system like the Armatix, all traditional firearms will be banned throughout the state and only this new thing will be allowed.
So, sorry if you live in New Jersey.
Three or four new items stood out for me:
1) Nivisys UTAM-32. I'm a believer in thermal night vision, and was hunting the show for thermal weapon sights. The UTAM-32 is small, and quite clear, with a surprisingly good field of view. There was a similar offering from OASYS that Steve Gibbons had at the US Night Vision booth, and while I was not able to compare the two side-by-side, I believe the UTAM-32 gave a better picture with a wider FOV. Too bad Nivisys won't sell to anyone but LE/Mil.
2) T.A.S. pistol sight. This little gem was tucked away in a basement booth that I happened upon by accident. It's a very innovative rear sight, that to me was reminiscent of the Guttersnipe sight on the ASP -- except the TAS is obviously a much better design. It's very intuitive to use, should make for very accurate shooting, and comes in both fiber-optic and Tritium-impregnated versions. It eliminates the need for a front sight entirely, and would be great for use with a silencer, or for a concealed weapon. Unfortunately, I don't think there's much hope of understanding the sight without seeing it in person. Their website is http://www.t-a-s.co.il
3) EMA RONi. This is one that I openly mocked when I first heard about it; when I saw it in the New Products section I thought "there's no need for such a thing", but when I visited their booth and got my hands on it I have to admit I decided I that I simply must have one. Don't think of it as a carbine conversion kit for a handgun -- which is something for which no practical purpose really exists (with the notable exception of the FAB Defense buttstock for the Glock, which has found extensive practical use in Israel). Instead, think of it as a PDW manufactured by a company that sped up development time by simply building a chassis around another manufacturer's action. I happen to have a Glock that's registered as an SBR, so I already qualify for legal ownership. It'll end up in my collection of oddities, and I'm guessing it probably won't be too commercially successful because it really only makes sense if you can drop a Glock 18 inside of it. Now I bet that would be fun!
A few vendors are worth an honorable mention:
The PistolCam is bound to give us much more interesting YouTube videos, and possibly also substantially shorten trials involving police shootings.
Hats off to Airtronic, who are manufacturing an RPG in the good ol' US of A! Most interestingly, they are working on a carbon-fiber version that will weigh six pounds. That will make my A-list when it comes out.
I was a little disappointed in LMT's new 308. I was hoping for a piston system like the one in HK's new 308 (which is bad-ass, by the way). But everyone's probably already discussed these two offerings ad-nauseum.
Finally there is an outfit out of Germany called Armatix, which I mention it because it horrifies me. It's a "smart gun" system. It includes a wrist-watch that you wear on your shooting hand that, provided you've entered the correct PIN, will allow the pistol to fire. If the watch is more than a few inches away, the firing pin is disabled. The Germans manning the booth seemed very proud, and also seemed to have no idea that everyone talking to them not-so-secretly wanted them dead. It's a clunky, impractical piece of shit that would never work in real-world life-or-death situations, but it will look good to the press and the propagandists in the Brady Campaign. Plus I believe that there's a law on the books in New Jersey that states something to the effect that if NJ Attorney General learns about the existence of a system like the Armatix, all traditional firearms will be banned throughout the state and only this new thing will be allowed.
So, sorry if you live in New Jersey.
