By: Kevin
First Impressions:
First impressions matter, especially when you are hosting a massive event. Everyone who attends expects the wow factor. This is the eleventh year Adam, the owner/host of NFAReview, has put this event together. This year’s event excites me more than last year. This year, I have some knowledge under my belt. Using last year as a dry run, I know what to expect this year. I am looking forward to more in-depth conversations with people and vendors. The podcast’s producer will accompany me this year. She is very elusive and the backbone of the podcast. Hannah from The Carry Handle Podcast.
Day One:
On Friday, I arrived to pick up the media credentials and met extremely polite, professional, and friendly people. The excitement was in the air. Vendors buzzed around, setting up their booths and preparing their areas for Saturday’s Fun. After getting my credentials, I scoped out the area to see where the vendors would be. I then built a plan of attack for coverage and retired to my local hotel for some R&R. Later that evening, I met up with other members of the podcast, Bryce & Hannah, for an impromptu meeting at rube Tuesdays. To further flesh out the plan of attack.
Day Two:
Saturday started early for me, waking up around 0530 am, but there was a good reason. I was invited to breakfast with the crew from Spectrum Defense, one of the coolest kids out there, in this writer’s opinion. They were relatively new last year and have since blossomed. Based out of Lynchburg, VA, I headed to the event after a delightful pregame breakfast.
After I arrived at the event, the elusive administrator/producer of the podcast, the literal glue that helps keep everything running smoothly, met up with me none other than Hannah. We started filming right away, going around to the different booths, notably Silencer co, Sig Sauer, Spectrum Defense, and many more. Everyone was so polite and professional, especially Hannah. That was a massive win, especially since she’s newer to handling and shooting firearms. Overall, Day Two was a massive success: great footage, lots of fun, and most importantly, very sssssshhhhhh quiet, relatively speaking
Final Day:
On the last day of the event, I was flying solo; unfortunately, I did have some interesting conversations before the range went hot. Ray from Thunder Beast Armament talked about the science of suppression and how they helped develop standards to measure back pressure. I think of the weights Newton came up with to standardize weight measurements. I had a good chat with Liberty Suppressors, which has been around for two decades and is based in GA; they had a lot of knowledge of what works and what doesn’t. It was an interesting comparison: a company that has been doing this for 20 years, using the proof of the pudding, so to speak. Meaning no real frills or fancy marketing; just Here is our product. It works; we know it works. Simple to take apart to service/clean.
Range Hot:
I walked over to Rampart Range Suppression to test our 9 mm can there on my beloved platform, the MP5. Side tangent coming, the MP5 is, in this writer’s opinion, the best PDW platform ever, so much to love and the simplicity of it all. Okay, Tangent over the wow factor was shooting and not having a lot of gas blown back into my face. Also, a neat party trick was being able to touch the 9mm can since it is 9mm; it doesn’t get too terribly hot after a few rounds.
I would not try that after a few mag dumps, though; that’s just me. The next gun I was able to try was a Novesky Rifleworks platform kitted out very similarly to current Delta Force rifles in use. That gun and suppressor felt phenomenal. I spent some time connecting with people who I felt would be fun to have on the podcast. Including Magco Arms (very new to the suppressor game), Steyr Arms (Aug!), and Suppressor Supply Co.(very neat used suppressor market idea). I used the day as a means to take some Instagram pictures/videos; Talon had a fun little bolt gun in 5.56 for the life of me I can’t remember the name.
Sig Had it’s own waiver to shoot there guns
To conclude:
This year’s suppress fest was amazing, fun, and felt like a decent trip overall, and I met a lot of very interesting, fun people. It was Hannah’s first time being not only on camera but also, relatively, her first time handling some of the guns she did. The ones that got “this thing is sick” included the CZ-600 trail in 7.62×39 (Spectrum Defense booth), the SIG MCX Rattler-LT in 300 BLK (SIG booth), Everything 22LR (loved the pistols), and the Mad Pigs Customs lever action in .357/38 Special (Silencer Co. booth). It was enjoyable to see someone relatively new to shooting with the spark lit in their eyes. The big smile on their face; the equation holds: smiles = (trigger pulls)
