2026 NRA Show and Convention, Second Day
Brian Hoffner, maker of wonderful Hoffner Knives, tells me he didn’t bring nearly enough inventory to the Show. As a result, he is already nearly sold-out! This indicates to me that attendance this year is over the top. The vendor area was indeed busy today. Vendors at the NRA Show are permitted to sell product directly to attendees (unlike the SHOT Show), and much stuff changes hands during the three-day event!
With regard to internal NRA politics, friends tell me that the ILA (NRA’s “Institute for Legislative Action”) needs to be more active and more directly involved in combating anti-gun (mostly unconstitutional) legislation being proposed and voted-on by Democrat/Marxist governors, mayors. However, acrimonious public statements going back and forth between ILA’s and NRA’s “movers and shakers” is not helpful. DJT did not make an appearance at the Conference this year, as he has in the past, maybe a sign that NRA is not seen as formidable/influential as in past political seasons. In any event, there is much sympathy among NRA members toward a new emphasis on unity within the organization!
Back on the floor, I asked friends at the Glock booth about the mysterious GR115 (Glock’s version of the M4), expecting them to politely ask me to not bring-up that subject again, as we’ve been hearing rumors about this for at least a decade.
I was wrong! The GR115 is now freely acknowledged and discussed, although no copies were on display at the Show. Worldwide sales are currently being restricted to military and law enforcement. I’m told it will be at least another year before commercial sales of the GR115 happen, and maybe not even then. However, many companies are currently making perfectly-acceptable M4s, so when the GR115 does become generally available, it may not make much of a splash.
Lots of suppressors/silencers. I lost track of the number of companies now making and aggressively marketing these, even though they are all still NFA items.
Most are constructed from Inconel (a steel alloy that lends itself to 3D printing) and are one-piece, non-disassemblable (3D printed). Only one I saw, Silent Steel, is made via conventional machining processes (from stainless steel) and can be taken apart.
When installed on M4s, or on any autoloading rifle, “silencers” all have an issue with gas blow-back. The more “sound suppression” the silencer provides, the worse the gas blow-back problem, and most M4s and AKs do not come with integral gas-regulators.
So, all of them represent a compromise. Less sound-suppression, less gas blow-back. More sound-suppression, more gas blow-back. They’ll be compromises, either way!
I attended a Class this afternoon, “Gun Control Myths,” with John Lott. John is an extremely knowledgeable and aboveboard academic, and his lecture is wonderful! He has all the facts, and he showed us all the way sleazy Marxists try to manufacture a dubious statistical case for additional gun restrictions on American citizens, where facts don’t support their conclusions.
There is no degree of willful deceit that is beneath Marxists!
I spent time today with Kent Brown of CCW Safe, and I am really impressed with Kent’s uncompromising devotion to the welfare of his organization’s membership! CCW Safe has several big criminal cases going right now, all involving CCW Safe members, and Kent is right on top of them and personally involved.
We all know, “The ‘process’ is the punishment,” and leftist prosecutors, looking to enforce their personal political agendas, know and understand they have the arbitrary power to bankrupt nearly any citizen, sometimes as a method of punishing them purely for political views leftists don’t like, and the financial and emotional “punishment” goes on, with or without a conviction!
The foregoing is the reason CCW Safe, and similar organizations, exist and are so necessary!
Tomorrow is the last day.
/John
