SHOT Show Predictions

Time and tide have worked against me going to the show this year, but that doesn’t mean I can’t put a finger to the wind of the industry and take a guess or two at what we’ll see rolled out on the show floor this year.

• Remington will put the R51 out of our misery and roll out a subcompact 9mm to compete with the P365 / Shield / new Glock
• And I wouldn’t be surprised to see Remington reboot the RP9 line as well
• SIG Sauer will come out with a competitor to the M&P380 Shield EZ based on the P365 platform
• Smith and Wesson with come out with M&Ps with built-in Crimson Trace red dot sights
• CZ will continue to deny the existence of the concealed carry market
• Speaking of which, I’d like to see CZ come out with a competitor to the Ruger Precision .22 this year, but with CZ being CZ, they won’t do it until the market is oversaturated
• Beretta will reboot the Nano and Pico
• Mossberg will roll out a “firearm” version of the 930 to compete with the Remington Tac14, but won’t have one available to shoot on media day for, um, reasons
• Something I’m not expecting but something I’d like to see is an XD-E from Springfield with a decocker OR a safety, not both. I’d switch my daily carry to the gun in a friggin’ heartbeat
• More precision rifle stuff from Savage and Ruger
• And it wouldn’t shock me if Ruger tweaks their American pistols a bit to boost sales, maybe with a red-dot ready version
• If Smith&Wesson doesn’t release a 4″ 9mm Shield at SHOT, they’ll release it at NRA

The M&P / Crimson Trace team up seems like a no-brainer to me. What will be interesting, if they do it, is what price point the pistols will have. Smith&Wesson bought out Crimson Trace awhile back, and if they can take advantage of the vertical integration between the two companies and come up with something that sets a new price floor on pistols with red dot sights. Cost of the sight itself is the biggest obstacle to consumer acceptance of the red dots on pistols, and someone who drops the price of a RDS pistol by even $100 will take a dominant market position.

Minor note: The success of the SIG Sauer “Tread” AR-15 is interesting to me, because it shows that if you build a lifestyle around your product, people will buy your product.

Huh. Nice to see the stuff I’ve been talking about for five years is finally starting to take hold in the industry.