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When Shooting Sportsman asked me to do a blog, it seemed to be a great chance to chat a little bit about some favorite micro-subjects. You know, the kind of topics that don’t quite rate full articles but are definitely of interest.

To start things off, let’s talk about the Safari Club International (SCI) Convention (http://www.showsci.com/), held each winter in Reno. It’s so much more manageable than the mammoth SHOT Show, in Las Vegas. SSM sends a full crew to both, but we have a booth at SCI. That means chairs where you can actually sit down for a moment. At SHOT we are damned to eternally stalk the endless aisles like some out-of-favor Greek demigod.

SCI draws an interesting crowd. It is definitely high-end. I see a lot of older uncles escorting their “nieces.” The show sort of caters to that too. Sandwiched in between the African safari outfitters and “best”-gun makers are furriers and jewelry vendors. When she’s happy, he’s very happy.

The booths offer mostly big-game hunting trips in Africa and North America, but bird hunting outfitters have become very popular in the past few years. One of the biggest and busiest displays this year was Miguel Medus’s Argentina Wild Wing Shooting (http://www.argentinawildwingshooting.com) Miguel covers all the bases with big game, doves and ducks. His duck hunting is something to dream about.

Shotgun makers seemed just as prevalent as riflemakers. The big plus to the SCI Show isn’t just that a lot of the top gunmakers are there (Purdey, H&H, Fabbri, Famars and many others), but that things are actually calm enough that you can chat a bit with Tulio Fabbri, Nigel Beaumont, Dieter Krieghoff, Tony Galazan and the like. SSM’s booth was right next to Austrian gunmaker Philipp Ollendorff (http://www.jagdwaffen-ollendorff.com), who was showing some utterly exquisite sidelever side-by-side guns. It’s amazing what you can learn when you talk to the man who actually puts the guns together.

For example, I asked Philipp why the sidelever was on the right side. As a right-hander, it felt more comfortable to me on the left. He said he’d be happy to build it on either side as the customer requested but that tradition had them on the right. Ivano Tanfoglio, ex of Ferlib and now of Rizzini & Tanfoglio (http://www.rizzinietanfoglio.it), had an interesting explanation. He felt that the sidelever was usually on the right side so that it could be more easily opened by one’s loader, who had to work left-handed to keep the muzzles outward as he stood on the shooter’s right side.

Tony Galazan (http://www.connecticutshotgun.com) had a fabulous display showing not only his high-end guns plus M-21s and Foxes, but also the new and yet-to-be-released RBL 28-gauge $3,500 side-by-side. Since I ordered one sight-unseen for my Gun Review column, I was anxious to at least hold one. Not to worry. Tony had all the iterations there. There were RBL 28s with 26”, 28” and 30” barrels, English and pistol-grip stocks, beavertail and splinter forends, assisted-openers, single and double triggers. I went back each day to wave all of them around to try to decide which one sang the sweetest siren song.

One thing that most high-end shotguns have in common is fancy engraving. A hundred years ago the engraving on a gun was something of an afterthought. Today it’s a big deal. Do you know how long it actually takes to engrave a best gun? I sure didn’t. At one of the booths I met an engraver who used to work for one of the major fine-gun makers. He said that he was allotted only 70 hours to do the standard rose & scroll pattern. Obviously, some types of engraving take more time than that, but I thought the number was interesting in light of the incremental cost that can be added by etchings of naked ladies consorting with gargoyles.

And speaking of which (engraving, not gargoyles), the American Custom Gunmakers Guild (ACGG) held its convention in Reno at the same time as SCI. SSM’s own David Trevallion received special recognition and an honorary membership in the organization. It was nice to be able to go to both shows during the same visit. Another of SSM’s columnists, Steven Dodd Hughes, had a long line of supplicants in front of his table waiting for sage advice and autographed copies of his new book Double Guns and Custom Gunsmithing (https://secure.downeast.com/store/home.php?cat=702).

Next year’s SCI convention is January 21 to 24 in Reno. It’s a neat show, especially with the ACGG twofer. Your niece will love it.

Posted on Friday, March 21, 2008 in Permalink