2022 Texas Airgun Show
Well, the 2022 Texas Airgun Show hosted by the Arlington Sportsman Club (ASC) for the 5th year is now over and all the ASC volunteers are happy but tired! Let me tell you that preparing our club and it’s ranges for hundreds of guests, airgun shooting demos & shooting matches, and providing food and drinks for all of them is quite a task. A task made easier by all the volunteers from the club who helped, Matt Jones, Teresa Womble (4H), Sheila & Gary Swinney, Rodney Hatfield, Gina Wilson, Tammy & Paul Cefaly, Derek Jones, Jack Denham, Scott Cotton, Matt Bryant, Bill Ward, Ron & Kelli Singletary, Benny Joe, Wayne Bryant, Kenny Hafner, and the Range Officers. There may be others, and I apologize if I missed listing you above. If you would like to be involved in airguns at the club in any way, don’t hesitate to reach out to me via phone, email, or face to face. I am always willing to share the joys of airgunning with club members.
The show attendance by vendors and individuals this year was larger than our last show with 325 folks coming through the gate. The crowds seemed to clear out after lunch, but the demonstration ranges were still busy most of the day. As in past years, I continue to hear compliments on our beautiful facility, the Straight Shooter 4H refreshments, and the unique feature that show attendees can buy or sell airguns and then take a short walk outside to the ranges for demos and other shooting activities.
Inside Schaefer Pavilion, vendors and individuals filled all of the tables selling airguns of all types, airgun accessories, night vision, airgun paraphernalia, and even some knives. New airguns, old ones, rare ones, rifles, pistols, full-auto BB guns, etc. Prices ranged from $20 to as high as $2000 for multi-pump, spring, CO2, and PCP powered airguns. We had 35 vendors selling products on 48 reserved tables. Tom Gaylord, The Godfather of Airguns, a national and internationally known writer of all things airguns was in attendance yet again with a table full of interesting guns, The Godfather of Airguns t-shirts, and copies of his book. He told me that he had aggressively priced items on his table to try and reduce his collection, and after the show he mentioned that he did very well at achieving that goal.
The manufacturer demonstrations were only on Range C this year again, because a few of the manufacturers were unable to attend. But those absences didn’t stop the live demos on the range as we had folks trying out air rifles from Umarex, Airforce Airguns and RAW by shooting at silhouette and swinger targets all the way out to 100 yards. Umarex brought one of their arrow-shooting rifles for show-goers to demo. This year we also had four new manufacturers/dealers present for the show: Firebird Targets, Alco Bullets, Airguns of Arizona, and Predator International (importer of JSB pellets). Firebird CEO Dan Meeker flew to the show in his Bell 206B Jet Ranger, landed, and later in the day he put on a demonstration of his company’s exploding airgun targets with Ton Jones of AirForce. All I have to say is wow! Firebird Targets are a cool and lively addition to any airgun targets. We appreciate all the manufacturers that were present. My oft repeated request to the manufacturers that weren’t present or only brought a few guns is to
come visit and bring more next year! I am always open and flexible with ideas to promote your products and improve the experience of our show attendees.
We continue to have terrific prize giveaways at the show. I estimate that we gave away over $5000 in airguns and airgun accessories again this year. There are 2 ways to win items at the Texas Airgun Show. First, with your paid gate entry ticket good for the door prize, and second by purchasing raffle tickets for raffle items from our lovely assistants Tammy and Sheila. Many thanks to our sponsors AirForce Airguns (
http://www.airforceairguns.com/), BKL Technologies Scope Rings (
https://www.bkltech.com/), Pyramyd Air (
https://www.pyramydair.com/), Umarex (
https://www.umarexusa.com/), Hatsan USA (
https://hatsanusa.com/), Hawke Sport Optics (
https://us.hawkeoptics.com), Airguns of Arizona (
http://www.airgunsofarizona.com/), Predator International (
https://predatorpellets.com), Firebird Targets (
https://firebirdtargets.com/), Alco Bullets (
https://www.alcobullets.com/), Pellet Gage (
https://pelletgage.com), Texas Brush Hog Camo (
https://www.texasbrushhogcamo.com), Ron Stone, Chris Bassett, and their raffle prize donations. We are truly blessed by the generosity of our sponsors, and I hope that you walked away with one of our raffle prizes!
As if there weren’t enough airgun activities at the club on Saturday, we also hosted a special Texas Airgun Show Field Target match on Sunday morning on the 3D Archery lanes where we shoot on 15 of the lanes among the Mesquite and Live Oak trees on the property. There were 36 competitors in all who came from 7 nearby and far-away states (AR, OK, KS, LA, NC, TN and Texas). Almost 1/2 of the competitors attended the match because they came to the Texas Airgun Show the day before, but we also had about 15 regular shooters participate. After the 60-shot match was over, we had Jason’s Deli sandwiches and drinks, and then I announced the winners. See my FT match writeup elsewhere for results.
A happy end to another successful show. You can all of the photos from the event here (https://photos.app.goo.gl/kgKpyT4kMPw1RAQF6) Thanks again to everyone from the ASC that volunteered and to the leadership of our club that allows this show to take place at our facility, and thanks to Tom Gaylord, The Godfather of Airguns, who is our inspirational leader for airguns.
Jeff Cloud
Texas Airgun Show Director