By Dan Shea
This issue is being handed out at the SHOT Show, and we are very pleased to present it to you. As always, your issue of Small Arms Review is something we’re proud of: a whole lot of people worked for a long time to bring you this issue. This is one of the reasons we decided to include an article on, “Who brings you your SAR.” We’ve also had a lot of fun and want to peak the interest of longtime readers who may have suspected hidden meanings here and there, so we included a short guide to some of the fun things we’ve done in the past.
Since this is being handed out at SHOT Show in January, the idea of having a pull out map for firearms friendly things to do in Las Vegas area seemed like a winner. We covered everyone we knew with a range and/or gun store, and hope we didn’t leave anyone out. There were a couple we see advertised or mentioned, but never got response by phone or email, and we couldn’t find them to stop in and visit, so, we hope this is inclusive. If you’re coming to SHOT show, just look that map over and plan your visits, everyone’s website is included so you can check their hours and details. There are several new ranges in town with machine guns, as well as the long-time shops. We suggest getting to Vegas a few days early, or stay a few days later, to explore this unique local phenomena.
Shameless Plug: if you stop in at “LMO: The Store,” in Henderson, it’s a great place to pick up back issues of SAR as well as books we publish and binders. Everyone knows that Debbie and I own LMO, I just wanted the readers to know that if they come to The Store, there’s a full rack of SAR there to browse through along with all the other Class 3 related items.
In this issue, we managed to cover the spectrum of our reader’s interests pretty well. Personally, I’m torn between the Swedish m/36 water-cooled Brownings that Robert wrote about - beautiful guns - and Maxim’s article on the Spetsnaz CQB rifles, the cornucopia of next generation Russian fighting weapons. The amazing Swedish twins that Robert scored are in excellent condition, and this might be the first time I have ever seen these covered in English, and certainly the best photos. On the other hand, the 9x39mm cartridge has really caught my interest, since firing it many years ago overseas. We have some to test thoroughly now (overseas), and will bring you those reports, but at LMO we’re also trying to replicate the cartridge stateside, so watch for that.
I’m just talking about my favorites in this issue, it’s all good. One thing that we should all be grateful for is the new NRA of the last decades. Our reports show just how NFA friendly the NRA has become at the Conventions. There are consistently important awards given to historical displays on machine guns and designers. This acceptance has run through much of the NRA leadership and the Board, and we should all continue to try to bring our concerns to them, and support the NRA in these types of endeavors. I think Robert Segel’s “The Machine Gun Designs of John Browning” display was outstanding, and several other SAR “Usual Suspects” have won awards for their displays in the past.
In that spirit, we should try and start the display section at the Small Arms Review show again. It was for lack of volunteers to run this that we had to stop doing it: there needs to be a consortium, and MLPLLC has always been a small company without the ability to overextend at a show. Our group could certainly have some interesting displays. Remember, displays do a number of things for the community; invite more interest in NFA, bring people out of the woodwork who have similar interests, and educate people (especially the young people) in general on the historical and technical importance of military firearms. For the person doing the display, there’s the satisfaction of sharing their collection and interest, and the chance that someone walking by will have the Holy Grail they need to top off a section of their collection.
-Dan
This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V15N5 (February 2012) |
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