Shotshow 2026

To be fair, I wasn’t expecting to be blown away by this year’s shotshow. I’m broke, money is tight, ammo is still expensive, and there is no gun panic buying so of course the industry is at a low for the time being. That’s perfectly fine. Infinite growth in economics is a retarded belief for any business and it should be essential for any major company or business to have savings for a rainy day instead of just blowing their load and betting on market speculation as if it were a casino. But before I go off topic, I’m spilling one out for the homies that didn’t survive to make it to showshow like Anderson Firearms (RIP), Aero Precision whom I’m not sure is dead yet but is severely on their way out, Remington Firearms has been dead since 2005 and has gone bankrupt so many times I don’t even know if I can count them on one hand, Is Kalashnikov USA still around? Windhelm Amory? Those are the ones I can name on the top of my head atm. Anyways.

If my vote has to go to someone for “Best in show” this year, it’ll have to go to Keltec. That 380 Pocket pistol (PR 3AT) that takes stripper clips and won two whore wars seems kind of neat. They also did some updates to their KS7 which is a bullpup shotgun, and the sub2000 pistol caliber carbine which I believe is on generation 3 at this point. Apart from the PR 3AT, there’s not much else to talk about from Keltec. It was probably the safest way to spark interest for their products imo. I don’t have any experience with Keltec firearms other than some people love them and some people think they are cheap shit. I can say that their firearms are probably some of the most unique out there.

PSA didn’t have much to show for either. Frankly, I don’t believe any of the products are ever going to come out. They are better off being that company that designs budget AR-15 parts and nothing more. Their attempt at producing cheap ammo (AAC) backfired no pun intended and their ammo facilities got shut down a while ago. Not to mention the severe quality control issues that caused malfunctions in firearms at best or out of battery detonations at worst! I don’t have any hopes for any “new” products they announce from here on out. The STG 44 clone was killed, the poverty 50 cal rifle was killed, the PSA MP5 was killed, and pretty much anything that isn’t an AK, AR-15, Retro AR-15, or Daggerline special is guaranteed to be vaporware. The big announcement for them this year is the chassis system which is something that has already been done by Ruger, Beretta, and SIG. Basically, you can buy the fire control unit and put it into a compact pistol, a full size one, or a Personal Defense Weapon chassis similar to the SIG P320 Flux Raider. There was also talks of having this chassis fit into frames that could take P320 magazines for those who were suckered into buying a SIG grenade for conceal carry. I don’t recall any PSA handguns going off unintentionally as far as I’m aware so maybe it’ll at least be safer to carry than a P320 but again, PSA is not exactly the top of the line when it comes to quality control either.

Something that does seem really neat but not unheard of is a company taking AUG parts from South East Asia and 3D printing (Probably CF Nylon) and selling complete AUGs for the MSRP of $900! That’s pretty sick because real AUGs are between $1500-$3000 so at the cost of not being able to quick swap a barrel, you can have an AUG for less than a gucci AR. This concept is not new if you’ve been into the 3D printing space for sometime. There’s a project called the Nylaug where you can buy your own Steyr AUG parts kit which are reasonably affordable compared to something like an AK parts kit and you can print your own receiver in CF Nylon filament to put the gun together. I assume this new project is more or less that but with the extra costs of parts and labor and without worrying about building a machine gun since most of the AUG parts out there are from full auto parts kits as far as I’m aware. Still neat and it makes me wish someone could make a poverty FS2000 clone.

Last but certainly not least is an “updated” product from one of my favorite niche gun companies from Argentina. Bersa updated the BP9CC into a gen 2 model. The original was a single stack 9mm pistol that was incredibly slim, had a really good trigger for a concealed carry pistol, and I almost bought one but I settled for the Walther PPS M2 because that one had a trigger safety and a reasonably good trigger. This new Gen 2 is going to be double stacked with a capacity of 10, 13, and an optional 15 round magazine which already blows the Walther PPS M2 out of the water. It’ll have an optics cut for RMSC mounts which is cool and on par with most modern carry handguns. It still has that great trigger from the Gen 1 but with an added trigger safety so my major concern with the original is finally addressed. Honestly, I’m baffled Walther never made their own double stack upgrade to the PPS line. The Bersa BP9CC Gen 2 has an MSRP of under $450 which is reasonably in line with what I’m willing to spend. This is the one announcement from Shotshow where if I had the money, I would absolutely buy one, no questions asked.