Shot Show 2025 Editor's Picks: Day One

What caught our attention during the opening day of SHOT Show 2025.

by
posted on January 22, 2025
Gold Rifle

As we do every year at SHOT Show, we roam the expansive convention-center floor looking for items that catch our attention. Some of them aren’t exactly practical (okay, most of them…) but all of them stood out for one reason or another. Here’s the first look at interesting items from SHOT Show 2025:

Cheytac M200 Intervention bolt-action rifle with Radical Defense suppressor. Okay, so it wasn’t the rifle or suppressor alone that caught our attention; it was the extremely Vegas-appropriate gold-coating. Chambered in the potent .408 Cheytac, this removable-magazine bolt-action rifle will make quite the statement whether up close or far away.

shovel gun

BurrisHi-Point 995P Large-format pistol. The same people that brought you the “Yeet Cannon” have come up with another eye-catching firearm to commemorate the release of the large-format version of its popular 995 carbine. This particular model, equipped with the “garden shovel” brace, is not for sale. Yet.

Burris FastFire E enclosed-emitter gree-dot sight. Using the popular Acro footprint for its enclosed emitter FastFire E, Burris claims the sight can remain on, constantly, for 60,000 hours. That’s 6.8 years. That definitely caught our attention. A 3.5-MOA green dot has eight brightness settings and two night-vision-compatible settings, and the unit is powered by a single, side-mounted CR2032 battery.

CRKTColumbia River Knife & Tool Provoke X. Not gonna lie here, the idea of a pocket axe jumped out and grabbed our attention.  With the blade and spike on a pivot, when unlocked the axe can be opened with a flick of the wrist. Closed, it can fit in a pocket. Admittedly, it has to be a very large pocket, but a pocket nonetheless. Conversation piece? Useful kit for camping? No matter which side you might be on, this is an interesting piece of gear. Expected to be available in Q2.

Nighthawk Custom Single-Stack Sand Hawk. In an interesting turn of events, Nighthawk Custom took its popular double-stack Sand Hawk pistol and slimmed it down to a single stack. Available in 9 mm, 10 mm and .45 ACP, the Single-Stack Sand Hawk has a squared trigger guard, full-length dustcover and integral compensator. It’s also achingly beautiful.

Nighthawk

Again, these are hardly the only items that caught our attention; we’ll be posting many roundups as SHOT Show 2025 progresses. This is also a quick snapshot of each item; please visit the manufacturer’s website to learn more about these items as well as stay tuned here at Shooting Illustrated for more coverage of SHOT Show 2025.

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