The T.Rex Team navigated 14 miles of aisles between 2,600 booths alongside 55,000 other SHOT Show attendees this past week, and we're talking about what we saw, who we talked to, and a bit about what we expect for the rest of the year.
For our 200th episode, we'll go over significant civilian-focused products from companies like PSA and Holosun, advancements in high-level drone and RF tech, and a massive trend towards thermal imaging. Brandon gives us his expertise in valuing product refinements and innovation, and Caleb explains the logistics behind-the-scenes.
It's impossible to ignore how your direct input and feedback into this industry is shaping the future of gun innovation, the industry's growing respect for civilian users, and the increasingly common idea that military-grade tech is not just for the armed forces but every responsible citizen.
The Citizen's Defense Industry is developing right in front of us.
The T.Rex Team navigated 14 miles of aisles between 2,600 booths alongside 55,000 other SHOT Show attendees this past week, and we're talking about what we saw, who we talked to, and a bit about what we expect for the rest of the year.
For our 200th episode, we'll go over significant civilian-focused products from companies like PSA and Holosun, advancements in high-level drone and RF tech, and a massive trend towards thermal imaging. Brandon gives us his expertise in valuing product refinements and innovation, and Caleb explains the logistics behind-the-scenes.
It's impossible to ignore how your direct input and feedback into this industry is shaping the future of gun innovation, the industry's growing respect for civilian users, and the increasingly common idea that military-grade tech is not just for the armed forces but every responsible citizen.
The Citizen's Defense Industry is developing right in front of us.
Chacho is over. Welcome back to another episode of TRX Talk. A few weeks ago, we talked about some of the observations from last year at Chacho, some of the things we wanted to talk about this year, and now we are going to go over some of the things that we learned over the last week at Chacho Many meetings, both planned and spontaneous, many new products some of which were not very surprising, because, well, that's just kind of how gun industry innovation goes sometimes Some of which are a bit more surprising. So, as usual, a fairly large contingent of TRX guys went out and let's see what Brandon thought. Brandon, this is your second time at Chacho, so how was it?
Brandon:It was good. Chacho last year was kind of a shock just to see all of this stuff. You don't really expect people to bring two-story buildings as a booth oh absolutely, it's kind of amazing.
Isaac:Yeah, it is.
Brandon:I actually don't even know how they do it, to be honest. But this year got past all of that, past the sensory overload, and get to focus a little bit more on work. So overall I would say it's a lot better, yeah.
Isaac:Oh, I'm glad to hear that. So I think our Glock had a brand new booth and I don't think they had any new guns. Oh, they had a Gen 5 version of the Glock 29.
Brandon:Oh, cool yeah.
Isaac:So they built a giant new booth to show off one of their smallest guns.
Brandon:Yeah, I didn't even stop by, I just took a video of it and kind of joked about it.
Isaac:That's about all I did. So the Glock 29 was a little underwhelming. What was cool? And there's two things really. There's stuff that you were looking at for T-Rex and then there's stuff that you thought was cool and there's probably a lot of overlap, but not necessarily right.
Brandon:Yeah, there's a ton of overlap. I actually said that. Okay, I'll talk about the personal stuff. That's cool first. So you know Flu Drone's in the military through Aerovirement. So AV has a booth and one of the coolest I think the coolest thing I saw was they had a very large helicopter drone that had a payload that could carry up to 40 pounds, I believe, but they had switch blades mounted on it so they extended the range of switch blade quite a bit. Switch blade is a kamikaze drone and so being able to see that was actually pretty cool.
Brandon:And the fact that they had that on display as all the other stuff they do. They brought, you know, missiles on display was kind of cool.
Isaac:That is very cool. I didn't get any footage of that Flir Teledyne. They had a cool booth but they told me not to take pictures of it. Zenith Firearms has a drone division and they had a tethered drone downstairs. And then I looked at the Brink lemur, which is a law enforcement drone, and I talked to them. They seemed like a very cool company. They were very willing to sell us drones even though we weren't law enforcement willing to sell drones to like fire and rescue. But their drone is very specifically a law enforcement drone. Like it has a speaker for talking to people in hostage situations. It has a glass breaker. It has a little thing to push doors open Like it is a explore. The indoor of it automatically creates a floor plan as you fly around Like it's an indoor drone.
Isaac:And I was like what should we do? We went for a fire department. He was like no offense. But like how big is Centerville, tennessee? And I was like it's very small, we do everything outside. And I was like what should we do? And I was like what should we do, yeah, no, yeah.
Brandon:Huh. So yeah, I should stop by there. I didn't kind of get stuck up with the work stuff. To be honest, I did spend about half a day walking around and to see stuff with unplanned, but other than that, the cool stuff is to me is the companies that are continuing to put the customer version innovate towards the customer ones. That's PSA and Hollison.
Isaac:Yeah, and I was trying to figure out why that is because there are high tech companies, like all the drone folks we just mentioned, and then there are, like I trust, Glocks. No matter how cool a thing I see at Shashu is, I'm still going to put my Glock on.
Brandon:Yeah, for sure.
Isaac:But I do really. I think that is the thing that separates PSA and Hollison is the listening to customers.
Brandon:Yep, absolutely and it's not. It's that and also the their focus on the civilian and not driving their innovation towards government contracts. Which one it's nice because we're getting what we want, but two, it's also respectable as a you know, as a civilian yeah yeah, so that's very cool.
Isaac:So PSA had a bunch of new stuff. They had a bunch of new jackals. They had a new shotgun. I actually kind of love the shotgun. It's not anything new really, it's not anything super fancy, but I like some things about the Mossberg 500 and I like some things about the Remington 870. And they put all my favorite stuff from each into the shotgun, plus some and some extra stuff. So yeah, so that little little small product refinement. In some ways I like that bigger better than like the bigger paradigm busting, groundbreaking innovation. But ground busting innovation is also super cool to see.
Brandon:Yeah, yeah, the shotgun, having the RMR cut on the receiver just a little bit better user friendly, like pump relief I forget what that's called and then being able to take glock front sights, yeah, and an adjustable tube length and something that they patent, some kind of design, very cool, and it's probably gonna be like 400 bucks. Yeah, you know, that's yeah.
Isaac:Hard to beat. I somewhere have my Maverick 500 and somewhere I have my Storty 870 and I am very likely gonna get a third shotgun. I can't even remember the last time I shot either of those and I'm probably getting a third shotgun.
Brandon:Yeah, I don't need a shotgun, but I want one now.
Isaac:Yeah, so the main thing that everyone was talking about at PSA was their MP7.
Brandon:Yep, so pretty interesting. You know it's takes 5.7 ammo. All they had was 3D printed models there. There's like four in existence, I believe, right now.
Isaac:Well, they've only been working on it for four months. Four weeks, Sorry, four weeks. Yeah, that is kind of mind boggling to me that you'd be an engineer at PSA soon to come up to you and be like, hey, you know how a shot show is next month. Yeah, can you build a gun from the ground up To make it slightly more accessible? They do have a solid, complete 5.7 pistol to build on, but that is still nevertheless like those are working prototypes. That's kind of crazy.
Brandon:Yeah, that was wild and there's a lot of people complaining that you know it wasn't exactly like an MP7, but when I kind of dreamed up a civilian MP7, I said 5.7 ammo, you can actually get it, yep.
Isaac:PSA actually makes it.
Brandon:Yeah, I'm not a ballistician or whatever you know you call us people, but 5.7 is pretty similar to 4.7, in a sense. But yeah, no, that was super cool, it was smaller than I expected. I think the disappointing part of it is for people you know aesthetically is a group angle, but that's stuff that you know I don't care about and I think most people that we're gonna buy won't care about.
Isaac:Were you able? You had a lot of scheduled meetings and then you had a lot of stuff just kind of on your to-do list. Were you able to do everything? And I mean, on the one hand it feels like we've been here forever, but on the other hand we barely scratched the surface of the gazillion booths.
Brandon:Yeah. So I guess and know the plan that I made here was kind of anticipating a little being a little bit busier, so I did get through everything. I got through the whole floor by Wednesday. So there's definitely some stuff I could have free roamed and found probably there was like, for example, steiner. Steiner had some new stuff and I wasn't expecting, didn't even plan on stopping there.
Brandon:So, I'm sure there's other booths that I didn't get to that had new stuff that I was just still not aware of. But yeah, the plan was achieved for sure.
Isaac:Very good, yeah so. So the main two differences I guess between this year and last year you knew what to expect. And Insane size of shot. Show the spectacle. You were kind of over that. What are some of the other? Did you notice any other changes? Changes like Companies, changes in oh yeah, audience people on the floor like what did you notice?
Brandon:tons of changes actually. So you know, shot show had, I think they said, 13,000 more people this year. That doesn't sound like much more people when you know. There's normally the 50 in the 50 range, but we couldn't walk anywhere, so there's constantly people everywhere. We were getting stopped way more often for pictures and for greetings. I know every second. I was with Lucas, we were getting stopped, I I got stopped by 30 to 40 people for pictures and to say hi, which is Very surprising, and then what I was doing was very different. Lucas was in the majority of the meetings, I was doing the majority of the filming and, yeah, that was definitely the. The biggest difference is also the way the companies handled us. I think people, companies, value the way we market in our marketing, reach a lot more and essentially we're asking us to market for them.
Isaac:So there is more desire for T-rex involvement and yeah, and just I feel like I've been coming for I Can't remember how many shots shows now, but I feel like that is just kind of steadily grown. We are a little better known every year and, I Think, a little more appreciated every year by some of the bigger companies and even some of the non-firearm companies. Like when I showed up at the Garmin booth they were excited, they knew who we were, were excited to see us and, yeah, I was Interesting to spend some time talking to them about how shot show was going.
Brandon:So, yeah, yeah, there's like some companies that I'm surprised to know us yeah, because we don't work with them at all and we don't sell anything. And there's companies like Sort in, who we are their biggest commercial retailer and they, the guys of the booth that know who we were. So it's like there's a there's a strange mix and you go to some booths expecting To not have to start a conversation from ground up, basically, and then there's companies that You've never heard of and they're like hey, what's going on? Yeah, so it's.
Isaac:Yeah, I walked by the Christiansen booth and I was just thinking their booth is very outdoorsy, hunting lodge Esk has stuffed stuffed trophies in it, like it's very. It's one of the few non tactical booths at Shashow. Yeah, the other booths have gotten more tactical over the years. Christiansen arms is very much a hunting rifle place. As walking by their booth thing and like well, this is one booth that hasn't changed, like this is one company that doesn't know who we are. The guy behind the booth I was like, hey, isaac Botkin, keep up the good work.
Brandon:Yeah, hilarious yeah, it was cool to it was. It was cool to see a lot of that. I think a lot of the the continued growth and appreciation is just people saying that T-Rex is overall successful, continuously successful. We're not really well. We're not at all dropping with you know, market trends.
Isaac:We're continuously climbing and I think a lot of that is Stuff that we are doing, but I also think that we are riding a wave that other people are contributing to. So I talked to some other holster makers, I talked to some other people who sell armor. Like there are very distinct. The citizen defense industry is a thing that is happening. Oh, yeah, and we are. We're pushing that wave as hard as we can, for sure, yeah, but we're not the only ones pushing it, and we are also riding that wave. So I feel like we're getting a considerable boost from a lot of other companies with similar values, similar ideas. Yeah, I think the tide is raising a lot of people. Yeah, and we're gonna do all we can, obviously, but it is fun to see other people coming alongside and, yeah, I think people I think there's a lot of people don't even realize that are part of that wave.
Brandon:Yeah, at the same, at the same time, there's a lot of people that think that you know they're just getting another gun or another holster, but the more that you know, you see lasers and suppressors and night vision and thermals, all of these things that weren't really common five years ago. These are the things that are really pushing the wave in that.
Isaac:That's a million defense industry. Yeah, so what do you think we're gonna see next year?
Brandon:Well, I'll tell you what I hope to see. I'm not really sure, but what I? What I hope to see is again more companies, bigger name companies I know PSA is a massive name, but I would say more trusted and renowned names, focusing on civilians more, I think. I think that builds there was an inherent trust in these bigger names because they had Government contracts as and they made a good product of people trusted a good product.
Brandon:But now people, the type of trust that people want is, I think, companies investing in civilians. That's. That's more trustworthy to people now than if an optic is 2% more reliable than another companies.
Isaac:That is a really good observation, and I sig was not a shot show this year. I think last year was the first year that they pulled out correct.
Isaac:They're at the range, david, that was it right, yeah, and and so they're obviously a great example of a company that has a huge civilian market, which they have bolstered by like the p3 20 is probably the best example the MCX to they, those, those guns, those platforms are popular amongst civilians partly because of their defense contracts, that they were chosen Yep out of the pistol trials and the MCX is widely used, etc. And I don't know they have a lot of good will that they could, they could build because they they definitely have some military only products, like the smart shooter scope. Yeah, if they made that available to regular folks they probably wouldn't sell a ton more because it is a very expensive, complicated system with. That's a niche sort of application and yet I bet you're just making that available to order would have a significant PR Impact it increased sales of work to.
Isaac:I mentioned that to them like two or three years ago, but hopefully we'll just continue to mention in position.
Brandon:Yeah, yeah, it is. It's coming from our side. You know, it is somewhat frustrating seeing products come out that are geared towards a contract or a specific request that just aren't really there. They're like 90% there and there's like man. If there's just this one change, it would be the product Mm-hmm, yeah, and I just I do strongly think that if Companies approached, you know, end users like us or other companies that have people going out and shooting them way more professionally I'm gonna put quotes around the professionally and regularly than military uses, though They'll have better products, yeah, and they'll sell better right.
Isaac:I think there's a better, more healthy competition now than they used to be like. In the old days it was Mossberg and Remington, both had shotguns and they would fiercely compete for these particular you know, getting into this particular store, getting this particular law enforcement contract, getting in this year's catalog, whatever, but not so much on the features. And I feel like that's a little bit different now, not not across the board, not with every company now with every category, but like vortex has a very cool laser rangefinder, ballistic calculator scope Solution, moztech has one that Magpul is carrying. There's multiple people doing stuff that is a little more bleeding edge and I feel like that competition drives those companies. The products are improving Because of that direct competition in a really clear, interesting, fun way.
Brandon:Yeah, speaking on just the laser rangefinders, I mean that's, that's a huge gap in this million market right now. This is just a good example. Vortex hit it first, you know, with something that's not ten thousand dollars, yeah, and they prove that they can provide a solution. I don't know, I'm not too well versed in laser ray friends. I have used the vortex, in fact. Four thousand, something that is doing the same stuff at a literal fraction of the cost, like a fifth or a sixth of the cost. And there those opportunities are everywhere. They're not just laser rangefinders with their laser illuminators, they're with flashlights, all of a sudden attacking that like pretty. They attacked it this year with their rifle light and pixel laser. It's Honestly an optics to yeah, yeah.
Isaac:So I think there's lots of room for innovation. I think there's lots of room for I mean, not even innovation, but just laser rangefinders that have ballistic calculators built in are a Obvious gap for the civilian market, and at a lower civilian price range. I'm really excited about the Moz tech one. I'm really eager to see how that develops, and the fact that they're going straight for the civilian market is huge. The fact that they're competing directly with vortex means, I think, the price is going to be very competitive. So I'm, yeah, I'm really encouraged by some of the trends that we're seeing and I'm, you know, actually kind of looking forward to next year already. We're not even home yet.
Brandon:Yeah, there, yeah, I am too there. I will say another thing I'm hopeful for is I don't want this to sound bad, but there's there was a lot of companies kind of stepping out of their lane to create something, and that's cool, you know.
Caleb:I definitely appreciate that during.
Brandon:I would say I would prefer some of these companies I'm not gonna name them to put that time and innovation into what they're currently making. Yeah, you know, continue to improve what they have definitely always welcome to new stuff, but it's sometimes that, like drastic step out of lane is Shocking, yeah, and it's kind of behind the curve of what people are doing in that lane already.
Isaac:So, yeah, I have mixed feelings about it. If people have neglected area a, I Am a little disappointed when they're pouring a ton of resources into B, but Overall I'm excited when I see people stretch and try new stuff. Yeah, and actually PSA is kind of insane how widely they are attacking stuff. So they obviously make a ton of guns. They're also an online retail. They also have brick and mortars where they carry tons of products that they make and tons of products that they don't make. They launched a knife company, a shot show. They have concealed carry insurance. They have. They're starting a bank. They started an ammunition factory and then they bought another ammunition factory. I guess they they are trying to do all the things and and Any other company trying to do that many of all the things I would probably be a little worried, but PSA, I think, has demonstrated that they can Manage a pretty wide swath of stuff.
Brandon:Yeah, it's interesting. It comes back to the same thing, though, that PSA is doing with the customer. Once they're listening to the customer, they're literally putting polls on their website what do you guys want? They're not designing what the engineers want. They're not designing what's going to make them more money. They're designing what the customer wants and guess what that's going to make them money. And now they're able to do all these things and they're becoming the complete package. People can say whatever they want about PSA's quality or their quality control, but there's definitely really good stuff PSA is making, so yeah yeah, I had another conversation.
Isaac:well, this will be private. We'll talk about this later. I'll let it disperse out. Did you have fun in Vegas, despite Vegas being Vegas?
Brandon:Okay, despite Vegas being Vegas. Yes, the only cool thing about Vegas is the lights. It's like I don't know, like a cat or something. That's cool. You get to look and see some cool stuff, but other than that, the fun comes from just running into people. I run into a lot of friends that are in the industry. I've run into some regular customers at the gun shop I used to work at people that I've served with. It is that's pretty cool.
Isaac:Right, I believe that Shacho feels more friendly, but it could just be because I am making more friends at Shacho. But, that being said, I've talked to other people who have been coming to Shacho for a while and they say it feels friendlier now than the olden days.
Brandon:Yeah, that's actually a good point, because you know there's definitely people out there that don't agree with T-Rex entirely. But at the same time, I think people are starting to focus less on those small differences and realize that there is a bigger fight outside, outside of our walls, as in the 2A community, and more people are focusing towards that, which is great, and I think that's where a lot of that friendliness is coming from.
Isaac:And there's always interesting people at Shacho. Did you see the liver king?
Brandon:I did not. I saw Donald Trump Jr, though, yeah.
Isaac:I saw the liver king and you are quite a bit bigger than he is, like taller, like taller, and you are wider and you're probably heavier and you're probably stronger.
Brandon:That's crazy, and I'm not on steroids.
Isaac:Yeah, I was a little taken aback Anyway.
Brandon:I did not know he was there.
Isaac:So, yeah, well, I had a very enjoyable week. I lost my voice. It's partly back. I talk to people constantly and, yeah, like I said, we're not home yet. I'm already kind of excited for last year, but I'm also glad that it's 12 months away.
Brandon:Yeah, I'm definitely ready to go home see my wife and my kids.
Isaac:For sure. And then, yeah, now I'm gonna go cut in the part of the podcast where I talk to Caleb about the logistics.
Caleb:Doors will be closing in three minutes.
Isaac:Can you get rid of the background noise? It's fine we're in an airport. So, first time shot, show experience. So is it like gut reaction, go this is a final point.
Caleb:It's a lot to take in. I attempted to try and take it all in. That is impossible.
Isaac:If you visited every booth week, I think you would have had one minute, not carrying traveling time.
Caleb:So not really doable. That makes sense, because impossible.
Isaac:Yeah, so isn't it time that you did have, which feels now like many, many, many days. What did you see that you can talk about?
Caleb:Yeah.
Isaac:We had some meetings we probably shouldn't talk about yet. That's very true.
Caleb:I gotta be careful of that. There is some really cool stuff coming that we can't talk about, but the stuff that we did see Hollison obviously had some cool stuff this year Getting into the rifle light gang and the rifle lasers. Didn't really get to see the thermal pistol sight Not a hundred percent sure on case use for that, though.
Isaac:Oh well, it's obviously for, like firefighters who need to shoot people inside of a structure fire.
Caleb:Yep, when that fire starts firing back at you.
Isaac:Yeah, I think that's probably most practical.
Caleb:Yes, no, aside from that, my biggest goal for this trip was to try and catch up with as many vendors as we can. Yep Only been on the VR team for a little bit, so just trying to see faces and let them know what my face looks like.
Isaac:Yeah, I think that there's sort of three main things that people do at Shot Show, depending on what their job is. There are people who represent businesses and they're there to have meetings with the different companies on the floor and look for a new product and sort of get some hands on time with it. And then there are people who are like more in the influencer game and for them it's also meeting people, but I felt like a lot of those guys kind of skipped the show floor and just did the events. And then the third group of people is I don't know exactly who they are, but they just sort of mill around.
Caleb:Yeah, there's plenty of that.
Isaac:In the old days it was simple. It was just people who owned brick and mortar gun stores coming to sign deals with the people who gave them the product for their brick and mortar gun stores. But now it's a little bit different. There was a spike of huge influencers with their entourages like probably five years ago. I think that's mostly gone away, like I feel like the supplier showcase and a more direct I don't know kind of business focus that has emerged has made the shot show a little bit less of that.
Caleb:Yeah, definitely a lot fewer influencers than I would have expected to see. They were probably just in their own meetings and stuff. But definitely you walk around and you see people and you're like, yeah, I've been following them for years or you've known them for years, that type of thing. For me it was more or less trying to catch up and make sure where the meetings were. Yes, make sure you weren't late.
Isaac:There's a, first of all, a huge distance to cover, but then also on top of that, it's very easy to get lost.
Caleb:Yes, I definitely did not walk in the incorrect direction for 10 minutes. That did not happen.
Isaac:I have told myself to bring a compass multiple times and I have continued to not use a compass on the main floor, which would be super handy.
Caleb:Yep, yeah, the key for next year is definitely gonna be plan ahead. Use the app the best that you can and just mark down the people you wanna go see. That's the only way to get anything done.
Isaac:Yeah, so what I really enjoyed was having a big team, big-ish team, here at Shot Show this year. You guys hit a bunch of meetings. I only had a few scheduled meetings. So I felt really freed up to kind of roam around and look for new small companies and meet new people, and I think that we found some guys who can solve some of the problems we're wrestling with with T-Rex that have nothing to do with product, that have nothing to do with tactical stuff, technology, just by bumping into people and chatting.
Isaac:So thank you for doing the scheduled meeting thing so hard, being there to talk directly to the vendors that we knew we had to talk to. I mean, I enjoy seeing our friends, the people that we already know, the people that have a relationship, for sure, but meeting new people at Shot Show is always interesting. Shot Show is attracting very interesting people at the moment.
Isaac:They're not the old guard of like Remington and Ruger and they're not the old guard of like brick and mortar gun stores. I talked to a guy who's been coming to Shot Show for well over a decade and he said way more young people now, much more diverse crowd.
Caleb:Yeah, I can see it.
Isaac:Types of businesses being represented. It is a much more interesting space to meet new people in, for sure.
Caleb:I'd say that was definitely one of the perks was just being able to walk around and see the other companies. Obviously, our customer service team is up and up on a lot of the up and coming companies and what they do, but being able to walk around and see names and faces and product was a huge asset. Even just visiting the vendors that we do have, just walking through, not necessarily talking to them, but just being able to get hands on with all of their product. You can see it online, but being able to handle it and actually see the size, the scales and how the optics, windows and stuff like that are Super helpful.
Isaac:What was the coolest thing that you saw from a product perspective? Forget about T-Rex. You the shooter. What did you like the most?
Caleb:I'm gonna have to say, like a lot of other people, like the PSA MP7 clone, that's gonna be a hot one this year If they can get that going.
Isaac:I think that they can get it going. I think it'll hold up. However, if and this is a very real possibility for once if there are contract cool guy operations who can't get the real MP7, and they wanna use this thing in austere environments, I don't know about that. I don't know if that'll happen, I don't know how that will go. But and as long as people like me are buying it, I think it's gonna be fine. I think it's gonna do fine, I think it's gonna be great, I think they can knock it out of the park. But we have yet to see PSA make something that is like rock solid, bomb proof, ready to go to the sandbox kind of stuff.
Caleb:It's definitely more of a range item at this point.
Isaac:And it fits into PSA's goal. Psa's goal is not to equip America's tip of the spear. Their goal is to equip all of America's people who are you know I don't know if you've done the math recently 99.9 of us are not the tip of the spear.
Caleb:Yep, yeah it's. I can definitely back that. Mission of theirs is get as many of them out there as possible and make it as hard as possible to round any of them up.
Isaac:Yeah, and it is interesting. I like the MP7 at home, but this year also felt like a year of many PDWs. The Flux guys have had a few years of getting the Raider out there. There's a bunch of Raider clones, strike One has a whole bunch of little PDW chassis. There's a new Flux Raider type chassis for a P365, which is hilariously tiny.
Isaac:Now we have the MP7 at home from PSA, like. I feel like PDWs are a pretty hot item right now. And then B&T has the professional ones. They had a bunch of new teeny tiny platform PDWs for those professional users, and H&K had a booth. H&k's booth looked exactly the same as H&K's booth always looks. Jam-packed with stuff that you can't buy but want, and several things that you can buy but don't want Yep.
Caleb:So the the new Daniel PCC's actually looked pretty cool to me. Yeah, the Super Short Boy is not the 16 inches, but yeah, so that might be one in the future. We'll see.
Isaac:Yeah, I am intrigued by the Kel-Tec Sub 2000, the Gen 3, that makes it really easy to support optics.
Caleb:Yep, I saw that.
Isaac:It's a cool addition. Mm-hmm. Every two people in this staff room.
Caleb:And then this year was obviously the year of the lever actions. Every seemed, every booth I went by, somebody had a lever action.
Isaac:now, I can't tell if there's a demand for lever actions or if there's a desire to make lever actions happen. Yep, there's definitely a demand for PDWs and there's definitely a kind of maturing is the wrong word. But there is a proliferation of cheap thermals out there. I don't know that they're mature, but they're common. Actually the fuds are ahead of us. Deer hunters and hog hunters and other fud type people got way ahead of the night vision folks buying their thermals and now a shot show is catching up and the thermals are in the cool tactical booths with the PDWs. So I felt like a year of thermal and the year of thermal. It made a little more sense to me than this being the year of lever actions.
Caleb:Yeah, there's also a lot of new. Well, I don't know if they were new, but new to me the VR programs and trainers. It seemed like every other aisle had one or two.
Isaac:So next year, next year, we're going to do a lot more planning. We're going to use the app better. We're going to have our travel times figured out between our actual meetings. We're going to try to schedule things based on geographic location.
Caleb:What else? Foot care is going to be a big one. Just making sure that you can actually keep walking, that's a big one.
Isaac:Yeah, we walked fewer miles this year than last year, but it is still a lot of miles from one side of the expo floor to the other, across the bridge to Caesar's Forum, then back, because you weren't supposed to go there yet, etc.
Caleb:Yep, yeah, I feel like teamwork next year is going to be the big thing. Yeah, so like we were trying to keep it to a five to six team and we ended up coming out with about 10. Maybe divvying up who goes to what rooms and make sure we cover as much ground as possible, yes, would be beneficial. We had weekly meetings leading up to this to make sure, like the coordination side because that was more or less my job this time was make sure the flights are there, the hotels are there, everybody knows what the schedules are.
Isaac:You did a great job, by the way. Appreciate it. Nobody got lost outside of the floor.
Caleb:Yes, as long as you were lost inside the munition, it was fine. Yeah, yep, yep, yeah, but yeah, just more prep ahead of time is going to be the big thing.
Isaac:Yeah, what do you think we're going to see from other people?
Caleb:So hopefully, you know we've got a crazy year coming up, we've got an election, we've got some stuff going on in Texas right now. This very moment yeah, it is really up in the air what could happen next year. Yeah, yeah, hopefully we see more cohesion, more companies working together to benefit the customer and the community. You know, infighting is always going to be there, but hopefully we come together a little bit more this year.
Isaac:Yeah, I think there's a good chance of that. I think everybody that I talked to mentioned pretty much the same thing. We had a pretty slow 2023 right up until the end. Last few months of 2023 were much busier in terms of sales as people began to think about an upcoming election year and various other armed conflicts around the world, and that yeah, that definitely had a positive effect on sales. Almost everybody saw that. Almost everybody was that weird combination of optimistic and pessimistic about 2024 and what the election year might mean.
Isaac:So yeah, it'll be interesting to see next shot show how people did what it looked like. But we haven't had much time to think about and digest this. But this is one of the first times. I'm actually kind of looking forward to next year.
Caleb:Same. I wasn't really looking forward to coming this year, but after I've been here, gone through it, I'm actually looking forward to next year and already thinking about preparations for that. Yeah, yeah, and how we can make it better.
Isaac:You loved being in Vegas right.
Caleb:Oh, absolutely. This is definitely not my town.
Isaac:Hating on Vegas is pretty trendy and even cliche at this point. But yeah, we are at the airport and I see more slot machines than I can count.
Caleb:There's also more people in this airport than Centerville.
Isaac:Well, that is true. Yeah, we're not really city people, but Vegas is a special kind of city, very special.
Caleb:Yeah, we'll go with that.
Isaac:So there you have it. It was a pretty large event Over 55,000 people attended and, as usual, there were many, many exhibitors, over 2,600 individual booths. I think I walked over six miles every single day, although a lot of that is just the fact that the Venetian is the second largest hotel complex in the world. Quite a bit of walking inside of the casino and inside of the hotel, and then multiple elevators to get to the place where you sleep for a few hours before you head back to the show floor. But now we are home and everything is going to get back to normal, even though it is, of course, 2024.
Isaac:Now you have my apologies for not getting you a T-Rex podcast episode last week, but we are making a few minor changes to the way that we do content, and that's going to mean that there's more of it. These are the plans and this is something that you should keep an eye out for. The other thing to mention somewhat notably is that this is episode number 200 of the T-Rex podcast, t-rex talk. We had planned well, planned is kind of a strong word. We had assumed that we would do something special and something notable and something more noteworthy for the 200th episode, because we knew that it was coming up, but then it just kind of snuck up on us somehow. So here you go, episode number 200. Hopefully it was an interesting discussion and keep an eye out for those changes that are coming soon, and thanks for listening for so long. Thanks for listening to so many episodes. We appreciate your support and your input as we roll out. Just a couple of new things.