A buddy and I drove down to the NRA show in Indy today. It was my first time going, and it was a pretty cool experience. We left at 5:00 and got there around 8:00. We were there when the doors opened at 9:00, and got to hear the national anthem being sung directly prior. Everybody waiting outside stopped what they were doing, and showed respect. It was a cool experience.

The show itself was incredible. We don't have any huge gun stores locally, so it was a great opportunity to check out some stuff that I've been considering buying. Some completely random observations based off of my personal interests:

- Everybody makes an AR now. So much so that it's almost boring. I get that each company has their own unique feature set, but it's still pretty much just an AR. And they're in every booth.

- The new Marlin lever actions are looking pretty nice. I got to handle several, and the fit and finish was good. I even saw a couple of 39As, which I hadn't realized were even in production anymore.

- The Colt Competition that I've been drooling over was underwhelming to actually hold in my hand. It may have been just that it was a display model, but the safety was mushy, and the action was so-so.

- The Dan Wesson 1911s I handled we're fantastic, and the Springfield RO Elite and TRP were pretty decent as well. Definitely nicer than the Colt.

- The Ruger Redhawk in .45 Colt/.45 ACP is a nice revolver. Large but well balanced, with a decent trigger for a DA revolver. The Kimber K6S DA/SA is also a fantastic feeling little gun. I might have to part with my J-Frame and SP-101 in order to acquire one.

- The Sig P320 x-carry and x-compact grip modules, as well as the straight triggers, and even the X5 itself were underwhelming. I'd been considering ordering the grip modules and straight trigger for my "carry" model, but while they weren't bad feeling, I didn't feel like either really gave me much that I don't already have with my standard model. I was really excited to try both going in, but they didn't live up to the hype.

Trump and Pence were over at Lucas Oil Stadium while we were there, but we didn't have tickets. There was a small group of protesters (maybe 15-20) out front, but IMPD had almost an equal number of officers"escorting" them, so they didn't do much. It seemed important to them to keep both cops and guns out of schools...which begs the question when someone does try to take a gun into a school, who's going to stop them if the cops aren't allowed in???

Overall it was a good show, I got some questions answered and scored some cool swag. Definitely worth the night I had to take off work in order to go! Anybody else making it out to the show this weekend?