By JIM MATTHEWS
www.OutdoorNewsService.com
LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Evolution rather than revolution was the theme of the 2012 Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOW) Show held here last week, stuffing the Sands Convention Center to capacity with the latest products from the shooting industry.
One of the most innovate new hunting products was an interchangeable barreled bolt action rifle from Thompson/Center, allowing a single gun to be used for a wide variety of cartridges from the 223 Remington to the 300 Winchester magnum, changing out only the barrel, bolt and magazine. Called the Dimension rifle, it will allow hunters on a budget to have a single, familiar gun to hunt everything from ground squirrels to elk on a single platform.
T/C pioneered this concept with its break-open Contender and Encore single shot firearms that have been popular with hunters and shooters for decades, but this is really the first affordable interchangeable bolt action rifle ever produced, something that will likely be well-received in this economy. (But it also will be a familiar concept for the new crowd of younger shooters who like AR-type rifle. More on this below.)
Hornady expanded its lineup of new cartridges by introducing an old wildcat, the 17 Hornet for varmint hunters, riding on the huge success of the 17 Hornady Magnum Rimfire (HMR), introduced several years ago. The 17 Hornet pushes a 20 grain bullet at 3,650 feet per second with a trajectory that mirrors the popular .223 with a 55 grain bullet with almost no recoil and modest noise output. The new cartridge will be chambered in bolt action rifles from Savage and Ruger initially.
Outside of some other modest line extensions in the traditional rifle, shotgun and ammunition categories, most of the news was elsewhere at SHOT.
The show has evolved from a hunting and sport shooting show filled with new products for these traditional activities, into an event rapidly being dominated by products for the “black gun” recreational market. The market is following demand. Firearm sales are predominately in the tactical, paramilitary, and home defense product lines, and old-school hunting and sport shooting products aren’t creating the buzz or getting the product development research that is being generated by and for what the Outdoor Channel’s Michael Bane calls the new “gun culture version 2.0.” These are the new, young entrants into the shooting sports who are simply finding out how much fun can be derived from recreational shooting.
Kevin Creighton, of TeamGunBlogger.com, patiently explained to me that the V2.0 crowd is the new generation of shooters who grew up with firearm-based video games, and now they are transitioning their youthful interest into a world of real firearms fun. They like Glocks and Smith & Wesson M&P (Military and Police)-style guns. They like everything AR. (Which really should be sAR for semi-Automatic Rifle to be accurate.) They like, well, Zombies. More on that in a moment.
Those of you who read this column on the Internet probably fall into that version 2.0 category, but those of you who still read it in a newspaper are more like me. We’re gun culture version 0.1, dinosaurs who still like to hunt and shoot traditional trap, or maybe sporting clays if we’re feeling adventurous. So I started with the news about the new T/C rifle and the 17 Hornet for you (and me), the V0.1 crowd.
The real news is on the AR front. How big and important is this category? Mossberg realized that ARs are so important to the new V2.0 crowd that it has introduced a spiffy version of its bolt-action rifle as a tactical-style varmint/sniping/target rifle that accepts AR-15-style magazines. Naturally, the gun is chambered for the 5.56 NATO round (that’s a .223 Remington for us V0.1 guys).
Young shooters who already have an AR-platform rifle probably also have a couple of “uppers” either chambered in another caliber or with heavier barrels for match shooting (see, the T/C interchangeable concept is nothing innovative to these guys). The idea of being able to add a long-range bolt rifle that uses the same magazines and caliber will make sense and sell guns.
The new AR crowd, besides driving the shooting industry, is also doing something else. Shelby Murdock, a writer for Shooting Sports Retailer magazine, pointed out in the most recent issue of the magazine that for the first time there is greater opposition than support for a ban on semi-automatic firearms in this county (according to Gallup, the new numbers are 53 percent against a ban versus 43 percent supporting a ban). That’s because of these new, young AR shooters flooding into the shooting sports.
While spokespeople within the industry say the absolutely insane sales of these AR-15 styled firearms has finally leveled off a little, it is still the fastest growing part of the shooting industry. It is still growing rapidly because these newer AR shooters are expanding their horizons.
In the past couple of years, there have been a wide range of cartridge developments for AR-style rifles as these younger shooters decide they want to hunt with their beloved ARs. For a long time, these shooters were pretty much restricted to the .223, I mean 5.56 NATO, round. Remington came out with the 6.8 SPC a few years ago (almost ahead of the trend), and this year companies are chambering for an even greater array of new, AR-specialty cartridges — the 30 Remington AR, the 300 AAC Blackout, the 300 Whisper (in Smith and Wesson’s M&P 15 with a hunting configuration with a camouflage stock). These rounds are all really designed for hunting.
Even if it is hunting for Zombies.
While I have been unable to find any listing for Zombie hunting seasons in any state, nor any information on their shoot-on-sight status, apparently the younger members of our hunting and shooting community have a burning passion for Zombie hunting, and you could not walk around on the crowded SHOT Show floor without seeing optic green Zombie branding on everything from ammunition to firearm accessories to clothing and hats. I’m fairly certain Real Tree or Mossy Oak will have a new Zombie camouflage out before long. The dealers who were ordering this stuff were convinced it would fly off their shelves. Really?
Will some of you Gun Culture V2.0 guys please explain this one to me?
