At SHOT Show one demographic was drawn to the Sapphire Ultra II. You guessed it: women. And how could we not be? A shiny blue 1911? Sign me up!

I’ve never been a big fan of the Ultra. Difficult to control and easy to limp wrist, the Ultra is not a gun suited for novice shooters. While putting the shiny blue coating on it certainly makes it pretty and kind of makes me want one, I wish they could have pimped a cool gun. For example, if they’d put the same coating on a Custom Eclipse II in 10mm I would buy it in a heartbeat, and then I would own the only one because no one else would be that ridiculous.

In all seriousness, opting to put the blue PVD coating on something like Kimber’s new Micro CDP would have made a lot more sense. The .380 pocket guns are already frequently targeted toward the female demographic, and with the success of Sig Sauer’s many P238 models (including the rainbow titanium) it would seem that something like the Sapphire would fit well into the market.

Instead they put the shiny blue PVD coating on a lightweight 3″ .45. While there are plenty of women out there who can handle a firearm such as the Kimber Ultra with extreme skill, these more experienced shooters are less likely to purchase a shiny blue 1911 than inexperienced shooters who have been told .45 ACP has great “stopping power” and that they need a small gun with slim grips because they have small hands. (Hint: Next time get a Glock 34 Cerakoted.)

I appreciate gun companies recognizing women as a target demographic, but I wish they would be smart about it.

Photos by JP Visual Design.

Shooting the Colt Mustang

The Colt Mustang

The Mustang is a throwback to the original 1911-style pocket gun that was made popular by Colt in the late 1980′s, the little pistol was produced until 1997 and has now made a come back. Similar to the now-popular Sig Sauer P238, the Mustang has a single action trigger, a manual safety and a 1911-style look and feel. One of the guns I was eager to shoot at Media Day, the little Mustang is easy to handle and a fun little pocket gun.

The Kimber Micro CDP

The Kimber Micro CDP

The Kimber Pro CDP II was my very first handgun, but the lightweight .45 is relatively large and quite a handful. The new Micro CDP is the scaled down version of the popular CDP model, complete with single action trigger, manual safety and available with rosewood or Crimson Trace grips this little gun is sure to be popular among Kimber owners. The Kimber Micro CDP is designed after the CDP platform, and is not comparable to the Kimber Solo.

The Sig Sauer P250 in .380

The Sig Sauer P250

The Sig Sauer P250 now has a .380 configuration available. The unique modular pistol has been designed to exchange frame sizes and calibers using a serialized trigger kit so that multiple firearm purchases don’t have to be made to fulfill a shooter’s needs. In .380, the P250 is a double stack, making it wider that its competitors, but has a 15+1 round capacity in the full-size and 12+1 in the subcompact, either significantly higher than other .380s. Since the Sig Sauer P250 is still recoil operated, a lightening cut had to be made so that there was still enough recoil to run the gun with the low-pressure .380 rounds.

Photos by JP Visual Design.

As a side note, whenever I see the new “Internet” press badges, I can’t but help think of this image. That notwithstanding, NSSF does recognize the importance of online media creators for SHOT, and issues press badges accordingly. This year I’ll be there with a whole team – myself, Shelley, and Jeremy of JP Visual Design. That’s right, this year I’ve actually hired a real photographer to take pictures for the blog! So we want to know what you’d like to see from SHOT 2012. While I certainly have assignments for myself and the team, the things you’re interested in are what drive this blog, so let me know in comments what goodies you’d like to see from SHOT 2012.

The show itself is something I’ll probably choose to pass on.  I watched an episode online this morning and as someone who is neither a thug nor a turkey hunter I have determined that I am blatantly uninterested. (Also note: there are no cute guys.)  I will stick with Justified and Spartacus.

Mossberg’s shotguns though?  Those I care about.  I realized upon googling “Turkey Thug” that I am not the only one with this sentiment: the search results are mostly articles and blogs about Mossberg joining up with this show.  All that aside, let’s take a look at their guns:

The first model I have here is a 535 with a 13″ length of pull, a 20″ barrel, 5+1 capacity and a normal adjustable fiber optic sight.  Note that the 535s are light guns weighing in at only 6.75 lbs.

Then they have the same thing available, but with a scope.  I guess it makes sense for hunting, but I’m a skeet shooter and that just seems weird.

The next firearm is an 835, also with a scope but this time without the pistol grip.  I think if you need a scope you need a pistol grip but I have no logical explanation why.  It just seems that way.  The 835 has a 14.5″ length of pull and weighs a good half a pound more and is longer (not in barrel length, but in its entirety.)

Okay, now this one is cool.  This is a good ol’ fashioned 500 with no scope, just a set of fiber optic sights as shotguns should have, a set of full chokes, a 14.5″ length of pull and a 24″ ported barrel.  What’s funny to me is that this gun’s MSRP is a good $200 less than the others and it’s the one I’m the most excited about.  It’s simple and therefore effective and I’m a sucker for standard black finish.  If I could get this with the 535′s 13″ LOP and a pistol grip I would want one pretty badly.

At the end of it all I’m just not a hunter and I should probably go buy one of their Blackwater guns instead.

For those that are wondering, yes I also got “cut” by the knife, but we didn’t film that because who wants to see that?

The FN 303 Launcher, calibered in .68, comes in both a stand-alone system and an undercarriage mount.  The stand-alone launcher weighs just 8 pounds with a fully charged air bottle and can hold up to 15 projectiles in a mag.  The undercarriage mount for the M16 with the same magazine capacity weighs just 7oz.  The stand-alone 303 launcher is displayed here.

The FN 303P is a six-shot capacity less lethal pistol.  The FN 303P is actually a Tiberius Arms Tac-8.1 branded by FN, they had both on display at SHOT but the Tiberius had the awesome blue slide.

The different projectiles FN has available are pretty interesting as well.  Their two paint capsules: indelible paint and washable paint are designed for training and so that people involved in the situation law enforcement officials might be mitigating are marked for later questioning or arresting or whatever it is that law enforcement officials do with cheerfully painted people.  Then there’s the PAVA capsule, this is designed to bug just one person.  Apparently, PAVA is worth than CS, which means I am now wonder when my coworkers will decide I should test this projectile to compare to the CS grenade they sprang on me.   They then have their clear impact projectile, which as far as I can tell just hits someone, and their inert powder projectile, which as far as I can tell has fake PAVA in it for training purposes.

A little more on the Kel-Tec KSG - after we detailed a dangerous malfunction in the gun’s design, a lot of people have asked a couple of questions, so I want to clear those up.  First off, the gun does not slamfire, and it SHOULD NOT slamfire.  The Remington 870 and Mossberg 500 operate in such a way that if you hold the trigger to the rear while running the slide, it will chamber another round and the trigger will reset when you let it go.  If you do that with the Kel-Tec KSG, the trigger goes dead.  This is bad.  However, the really, really hilariously bad part is that when asked about this, Kel-Tec reps have said that the “LEO Models” (which are presently vaporware) will slamfire and the “civilian” models are the ones at the show.  So, yes you read that correctly: Kel-Tec is saying that a slamfiring shotgun is a “feature” that will be marketed to LEOs.  Meanwhile, the “civilian” version will apparently retain its functionally broken trigger.

We’ve gotten a ton of questions about the Kel-Tec shotgun since we published that video.  I cannot in its present form recommend it for any sort of serious defensive or competition use.  The trigger issue is troubleing, the fact that you have to break your firing grip to change mag tubes is also a problem.  If you are in the market for a defensive shotgun, we live in a wonderful world of Mossbergs and Remingtons that are tried and proven in battlefield and law enforcement use.  You might even want to get a Saiga, since there’s a chance the ATF is going to make them go away.