Welcome back to another blog, this will be a little different from my other posts.
A little info for people that don't know about this event, The British shooting show is for 3 full days hosted at the NEC in Birmingham every February. This is the UK`s biggest show for everything shooting-related.
My first time at BSS.
We decided to go on Saturday and like all trips up to the NEC, My day started with a can of red bull and a 2-hour drive. At first look, there's definitely a wide range of stalls and plenty to look at.
I of course made a B-line for the Arena where a Dog Display was on. A guy was showing how
important it is to train your dogs. Alfie was a brilliant example following every command the guy asked. He was talking about hunting when we arrived and that training your dogs not to go straight for the kill to keep them safe on a live firing range could save their life.
After the show we went for a walk around, and we came across a stall with some awesome knives.. unfortunately, I forgot to go back and get the one I was looking at.
I don't like buying straight away in case something else catches my eye.
After walking around we found the Flash Bang Smoke stall, very friendly guys, and they had a great display. They had their mortars out on display that looked so cool, would have been awesome to see a smoke display but of course due to health and safety that would not have been possible.
They have a large variety of smoke colours to choose from with both friction and rig pull available.
They also sell a huge selection of other pyrotechnics from multi-bang grenades to your typical dry pea or bb grenades.
There was a long strip of firing ranges. they had a large variety of air rifles you could try shooting. At the end of the ranges was a Target practice and kill house with airsoft guns which we missed out on as we wanted to check all the stalls before getting carried away shooting.. however, we got carried away talking to people on the stalls and didn't get to have a go 🤣
We of course had to stop by Vortex Optics to check out their scopes. They had an awesome way to test the scopes and red dots, a wooden "gun" with a magnetic strip to hold the scopes so you could try everything they had with the correct eye relief, that was so cool! What a fantastic idea! Along with another which you could clip scopes too. My Favorite scope had to be the Razor HD Gen 3 1-10x24 and for red dots, it had to be the Spitfire HD Gen 2 range both the 3x and 5x look amazing not that we expect anything less from Vortex. The only real difference was with the ability to add an additional micro red dot to the top of the 5x sight.
Next was the Accuracy International stall, incredible people! All The guns looked amazing and they had small statues of the guns you could buy!
My partner found it amusing that one of the tripods was taller than me. (I'm 4ft 11)
We found a lovely little stall of gin called "Withers Gin." They are a family-run business. I myself am not an alcohol drinker however my Partner said they tasted nice. So I decided to buy my sister-in-law a bottle. Each bottle has artwork designed on the back by the owner's mum.
Smith & Wesson had a stall. It amused me seeing 2 guns that caught my eye. Then I read their name of them. "Muddy Girl" and if I remember correctly the other was "Girly Camo."
I asked the staff if I could hold a gun, he asked which one and I couldn't help but laugh. "Not to sound typical but the pink one" At the time I hadn't seen the name 🤣 the guy laughed and said "Why am I not surprised" in a Friendly joking manner. I know they're air rifles, but I wasn't expecting it to be so light.
Before the guy passed it to me he made sure that it was clear and secure and safe for me to hold which I thought was a very responsible thing for the stall to do, some of the stalls would let you hold the guns as they were. I didn't try to cock any of them to be safe but I like the added thought of making sure.
On one of our trips around the event, we stumbled across a booth called Caltta. They had some really cool-looking radios. Some of the latest models had GPS tracking with a map view I believe! How cool would that be during milsims or big events. If I remember correctly they also linked with each other so you can see your combat buddies on the map too!
They also have Man Down protection so if you or other radio users have fallen down and have not moved in a while it will alert the other radio users. They are Waterproof, compact & lightweight perfect for airsoft! The Best part, you don't need a license!
Of course, had to stop by the Umarex booth and check out all of the goodies they had on offer. They also had Land Warrior on their booth so it was nice to actually see some airsoft guns, We had a chat with the Land Warrior guys for a little while discussing airsoft and the sites where they play at. It's always nice to talk to other airsofters.
We decided we were going to head back to Accuracy International, However on the way we stumbled across a stall called Astor Defence.
They had military-grade containers for storing ammunition, grenades, smokes, batteries and anything you'd like! There were many different sizes, colours and materials. The other cool part that caught my eye? LASER ENGRAVING! They offer laser engraving so you could get each container labelled and not have to hunt around working out what's in each box or even get your logo engraved!
When we got back to Accuracy International, my partner noticed that Dave Walls was there. We found out he was signing books. We were the only people on the stall and we got to talk to Dave Walls for a little while. I brought his book and he signed it. As the event ended we were still at the stall talking to him and the team. I had to give my partner a nudge to go. Dave shook our hands and didn't like how cold my hand was and held it for a little while then swapped hands. Very sweet of him. It was a pleasure to meet him!
And that was the end of the day, my first ever time attending The Great British Shooting Show, left it on a high note by meeting Dave Walls. We left for our long drive home, of course stopping for McDonald's on the way!