The “Vegas Adventure” continues for Boycie, Li’l Stu, Steve and John P, and what a time they’re having! Today’s post is a bit of a mammoth, but ultimately it just reinforces why AIRSOFT ACTION makes a HUGE effort to attend major shows.
Yes, it’s most definitely about the shiny new products that we all want to see and hear about, but it’s also a massive opportunity for us to interact with the industry face to face as A PART of things, and not APART just looking in.
We don’t stand back and sensationalise what we see for “clickbait” online, we put in the hard work to report fully and properly on everything that we see and learn, shedding light on the many, many positives that we find!
There’s a wealth of experience present at any major show, and to us it’s as much about the handshakes, man-hugs, and smiles shared and exchanged with friends old and new, and thus far SHOT Show 2025 is creating A LOT of smiles!
So, over to Boycie…
“Well what an exhausting day!
The usual 0800 RV for breakfast prior to hitting the floor for DAY 2 of Shot Show. Today we spent a good part of the day over in the Caesar’s part of the show. As with yesterday we spent most of our time travelling the halls looking for people to go back and see again. Someone once told me “time spent in recce is seldom wasted” and this is why we spend time walking round to find the new innovations and also to arrange extra meetings so we can get more information on products.
This morning started with a trip to Fedex; strange you may think but I went to ship out a package to our good friend ‘Bingo’ who couldn’t make the trip this year. We usually bring some small gifts for our US team members and as Bingo couldn’t be here I wasn’t going to let him miss out on his care package.
Just as we were heading out of Fedex our first meeting of the day, Sarah from Amarok messaged me to ask if we could shift our meeting to 0900 instead of the 1100am slot. This wasn’t a problem for us and so we headed off to meet up with her. The meeting was really good and we discussed several <REDACTED> products. Yes guys, sorry to say we cannot give any info on those products yet but keep an eye out in future issues of Airsoft Action and all will become clear.
As we were walking over to the Sky Bridge between the Venetian and Ceasars we visited Timber Creek who were giving out free AR pistol grips; these are designed for real steel but will also fit airsoft GBBR so it was well worth getting and is likely to be fitted to a future build. I left the guys at the Timber Creek booth and headed over to see Mani at Tacticon Armament. Mani, last year, gave both Steve and myself a fully equipped trauma med pack and mine has proved very useful a couple of times already. Whilst there I spotted a couple of guys creating some video content and as the presenter turned round I realised that it was Doug Marcaida of Forged in Fire fame. I bided my time until they had finished and asked Doug if he minded having a picture which he graciously granted. Before we went our own ways I gave Doug a small bag of the chocolate and ‘candy’ that we’d brought over from the UK to give away. He seemed really pleased to receive it and I walked away to enjoy my fanboi moment.
Next was the trip over to the Caesar’s Forum and a lot of walking the aisles to find the booths we wanted to visit in more detail tomorrow and on Friday. We found a few booths we will be heading back to including KWA. As we walked around I took the opportunity to talk with the guys at Axon who make the Taser products and was really pleased to be invited to deploy a Taser using their training cartridges. Now this wouldn’t be legal in the UK but I jumped at the offer as in the US Tasers are available to civilians in many states and I could enjoy that freedom here in the US.
It was not long after this that I had to break off from the team and go to meet with Charlie Cook, of Riding Shotgun with Charlie, for an interview. Bit strange for me as I was the interviewee not the interviewer. Around 2 hours later I got back to the Venetian Center having been for a drive up and down the Las Vegas Strip and we also stopped at the world famous “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign for a photo opportunity. Then I again linked up with the guys for a final half hour ending up at the Hogue booth where we had a long chat with Josh about airsoft.
We also had a chance to hook up with Georg and the IWA team at their booth; suffice to say it was a very warm reception! As Airsoft Action is a Media Partner to IWA now, Bill is working closely with Georg and his lovely team, and I can totally see why; they have such great enthusiasm both for their own show in Germany and for shooting sports in general!
On to our picks of the day.
Boycie leads off with not a product but his meeting with Doug Marcaida. “Being a huge fan of the Forged in Fire TV show, I really hadn’t expected to bump into Doug. Getting to shake his hand and get a selfie with him was great and is a highlight of my trip to Shot Show 25.”
For Steve’s pick he picked a real steel product. “After having had the pleasure of running their K11 on the range at Industry day, I was keen to visit the Kimber stand. Today was that day and I was not disappointed: the Rapide Dawn LCI really caught my eye! My kind of pistol – classic with that little bit of something else, but not ostentatious. The gold match grade barrel is a beautiful contrast against the stainless frame and slide, finished with a grey/black laminate grip. If only they would make a 6mm…”
John P’s choice today was the Spyderco booth. “It’s always been incredible to me that there are so many knives around that look the same but David from Spyderco took some considerable time to tell me about the various corrosion protection levels and materials in their range. Those which looked like the same knife but with different metallurgy and treatment could have a price point ranging from $75 up to $400. He also explained to me why some materials are used to give better edge retention, or durability when the end user may sometimes use the knife for something other than it’s normal intended use, ie for prying open a box or tin.
L’il Stu rounds off today with his pick and when I asked him what it was he just said “ the Kimber stand, the whole Kimber stand and nothing but the Kimber stand”. Quite understandable as he really enjoyed firing the Kimber 2K11 on the Industry Day at The Range.
Today we achieved a step count of around 14000 each and we’re still nowhere near seeing it all. Oh well, let’s see what tomorrow brings!”
So, another day done, and more to come… tune in tomorrow to find out what path their adventure takes as “Da Bois” move ever onward…