This is the first in a series of reports from the 2012 Shooting, Hunting Outdoors Trade (SHOT) Show, the largest gathering of shooting and outdoor retailers, along with associated media, in the world.

Early on Monday morning under a crystal-clear desert sky, the entire staff of WildIndiana.com headed to Boulder City, Nevada for the annual SHOT Show media day.  The Media Day event is a gathering of 1200 accredited shooting and outdoor writers who get to shoot the latest and greatest guns from dozens of manufacturers.

While standing in the registration line and gazing upon the assembled mass of outdoor writers, photographers, editors, publishers, TV hosts, producers and production crews, I mentioned to my partner in crime, Ken,  that “if a bomb went off right now, 95% of the worlds supply of B*** S**** would be destroyed.”

The most interesting item of the morning was the Springfield Armory XDs subcompact .45 acp.  A small, polymer framed automatic not much larger than many 9mm subcompacts, the gun packs a lot of firepower into a a lightweight, easily concealable package.

After shooting the pistol through several magazines, the gun performed flawlessly though we didn’t pop enough primers to call the test anywhere near conclusive.  The double-action trigger was fair-to-middling while the ergonomics were also fair.

Due to recoil of the heavy round coupled with the lightweight frame, this is not a pleasant gun to shoot for an extended period of time but that is not the point of the XDs.  If you are searching for a gun that packs a serious punch into a minuscule platform, you should give serious consideration to this new offering from Springfield.

There were several other interesting moments during the morning.

One was the .50 caliber big-bore airgun (the manufacturers name escapes us at the moment).  Utilizing a scuba tank as a source of power, the gun fires a lead slug that is comparable in ballistics to a pistol-caliber carbine.  At $600 this piece ain’t cheap but standing around afterward we brainstormed several semi-questionable yet entertaining usages for the weapon.

We also fired several guns from Doublestar Firearms, based in Winchester, Kentucky.  We played around with their value-priced full-sized .45 pistols and AR-15/M4 platforms and came away impressed.   The totally American-made weapons offer outstanding quality in price category usually populated by inferior weapons.  We foresee one of their .223 carbines in our gun safe in the near future.  It also sounds like a good subject for a magazine article…

There were two other memorable moments.  One was firing a real-live Gatling Gun.  For the non-shooting reader (assuming you’ve made it this far into the story), this gun was one of the first successful rapid-fire weapons (it is technically not an automatic weapon)  It was designed and first used during the American Civil War by Dr. Richard J. Gatling.

We had the opportunity to fire 20 rounds out of the weapon at a steel target 100 yards downrange.  After the last .45-70 round had raised a puff of red dust on the backstop, it would have been impossible to wipe the smile off our face.  Actually the entire assembled crowd was grinning ear-to-ear.  To a non-shooting observer, the whole scene would appear rather absurd: grown men and women smiling like toddlers who had just scored a chocolate Easter bunny.

The other high point was spending a few moments with R. Lee Ermy.  If you aren’t familiar, R. Lee is “Gunny” from the Discovery Channel series “Mail Call.”  He also played Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in the movie Full Metal Jacket.  He is currently a spokesman for several shooting products, notably Glock firearms.  During our brief interlude he was extremely gracious and accommodating.  Sadly, our picture together appears as if Yours Truly is suffering some type of terminal constipation.  In my defense, it was really bright after removing our sunglasses.

Tomorrow, the SHOT Show actually starts.  Check back tomorrow for updates.

Photos from Media Day: 

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