TGO David

I honestly believe the SIG 1911 is one of the more under appreciated things that SIG has produced. They seem to be really well built, and if there's one thing that SIG knows how to do, it's make an external extractor work.

Joe @ Hero Gear has been trying to hunt him down lately too. It was posted on his Facebook page.

Holster manufacturers, ammo guys, reloading guys, gear vendors, gear companies, training companies, other manufacturers, hunting oriented vendors & manufacturers, black powder rifle manufacturers, archery vendors and manufacturers, etc. Pretty much anyone within any of those categories that either has a presence in AR, TN, MO, AL, MS, KY, GA, NC, SC, FL or has vendor reps in these areas.

Makin' my list... checkin' it twice...

You're clearly not being part of the solution here.

Stuff it. He handed my wife $35 for the fee and then told me personally that it was no rush. Two days later he's asking where his Benefactor status is. This is the sort of thing that could have been asked by PM instead of starting a thread about it, especially since the curt wording made it sound like I was slacking or something. Anyone want to buy a gun forum?

I guess I'm still a little burnt out from the show and everything leading up to it, so this is going to sound grouchy... but who says we didn't invite these people? Some of you guys really have no idea how much work we put into this show to get the vendors who did show up. Georgia Arms, Atlanta Arms and a few other ammo vendors were invited. We had another vendor (of reloading supplies) stringing me along for months only to never come through with their registration.

Dude... seriously??? Yeah, you gave my wife the payment. It's Tuesday. Can a guy not get a day of rest before he has to get back to satisfying everyone on TGO??? I guess I believed you when you said it was no rush.

I don't understand why the OP is complaining. He's a registered member.

East Side Gunshop.

Random points worth mentioning... We had two excellent vendors that we were excited to have present who had to cancel because of health reasons. Health reasons aren't "BS" and I know that Joe did not mean to imply that either of those two were guilty of that. A person cannot help it when illness throws them a curve. That said, it did screw us badly when Guns & Leather had to pull out, but take that as a compliment if you will. We had anchored a large part of the show floor on G&L because we knew they'd bring the noise. Losing them when Daniel got sick caused a lot of panic. But we love Daniel and wish him the speediest of recoveries as he continues to fight syphilis. I understand that his nose looks almost normal now. Ben @ Israeli Combat has a reason to be upset. Sorta. I did tell him we'd do everything we could to make people aware that he would be available for training sessions. I personally dropped the ball on that. The only excuse I can give is that if anyone saw me at the show, they saw me running my ass off taking care of things all over the show, pretty much every second of it. Joe and I also forgot to do the FREE handgun raffle that we had intended. The plan was just to have people register for the drawing, and I didn't even think about it until about 1pm on Sunday. We had a pretty good plan for the show. It lasted until about 9am on Thursday, December 10th and then went completely out the window when we started doing serious triage to the show format. Anyway... I f'ed a few things up. I'll try to do better next time.

My free time lately just hasn't existed. Period. My "day job" keeps me insanely busy and does not provide for Internet access to fun sites like TGO for security reasons. Also because of the construction of the facility and how deep into it my office is, I can't get a good wireless signal to use an air-card on my laptop at lunch. So my ability to get on TGO and participate is limited to 30 mins in the morning and a few hours in the evening. I say all of that just to illustrate that I could not have pulled off my part of the Guns & Gear Expo this past weekend without the help of a lot of folks here on TGO (my wife included). Several of our members were present as workers both days. A few more were present either on Saturday or Sunday. These guys worked hard to make sure that firearms for sale or trade were checked in and secured, that vendors were taken care of, and that those attending had a warm shuttle bus to ferry them from their cars to the front door and back. These guys roughed it out in the cold and wind on Saturday and sucked it up when the rain started on Sunday. I also want to thank all of the TGO members who came out and made the show a success in the eyes of our vendors. I know Winchester is a bit of a haul for most of us (1.5hrs for me + hotel stay) but for various logistical reasons it made the most sense to use that facility for our show. We'll be back there again in March but we will be looking at the possibility of a Nashville-area show subsequent to the March event. This thing will get bigger. Many of our vendors were impressed with the concept and understood the need to reinvent the "gun show" industry. They are going to join us on our crusade against sucky-ass gun shows so you will see these guys again. You're also going to see others, and more diversity. We learned a lot this weekend. Neither Joe or I had ever done a gun show prior to this so the learning curve was essentially a 90-degree climb. We're going to take what we learned, refine our theory of operation and make the next event even better. I hope you'll all come back.

Funny (i.e. frickin SAD) story about this: The lighting in the adjacent chamber occupied by the rock climbing wall was much better. Unfortunately that room has not yet been wired for electrical drops to every vendor spot. The lighting in the room that we had used to be almost as good. However, the scumbag who was leasing the other half of the building to use as a flea market robbed our exhibit hall for $100 light bulbs to use in his flea market next door. The lights in our hall were pieced together out of spit and duct tape to make the room functional a week before the event kicked off. Talk about panic, right? The flea market guy ended up skipping town with a lot of debt owed to a lot of people, and essentially bilked the entire flea market contingent next door to us out of thousands of dollars. You're probably thinking "Sucks to be them" but it actually sucks to be Joe @ Hero Gear because he's stepped up and assumed the lease on the place rather than seeing all of the vendors get shoved out into the cold two weeks before Christmas. I'm not President of the Joe Fan Club, but that really should say something about his character and should make folks wonder what the motive is when a select few are always ready and willing to heap sand on his face.

We're definitely interested in constructive feedback.

So... tired... must... sleep.

I don't mind criticism but I do mind liars. 1.5 firearms vendors? You either didn't actually attend or you walked in the door and right back out it. The rock wall has been entertaining the children all morning. It's provided free of charge by the United States Army and the kids are eating it up. If you've got a problem with duck calls being at a firearms exposition, you probably are really pissed every time you walk out of every other gun show in the area. Frankly, you sound like you're probably on another organizer's payroll.

I'm not here to defend the event; if people think it sucks we'll just take that on the chin and try to make it better next time. But... those of you complaining about quantity of vendors: Did you actually look at the tables that our vendors have, and check the prices... or are you pissed because there weren't more to window-shop at. I know for a fact that several of these vendors are selling firearms at extremely reasonable prices. And by reasonable I mean $200 off in some cases. If you want us to put on a show next time with a room full of the same overpriced vendors that are at most of the local shows, we'll make an adjustment in our theory of operation and stop trying to innovate and just give you guys another show to complain about.

Mags. Lots of mags.

Ninja, plz.

PS: Part of the reason no gun show organizers post the list of what vendors will be present is because that list is in a constant state of flux all the way up until the day the doors open. I've learned that lesson the hard way by handling the bulk of the vendor logistics for this event. We've had several big vendors remain stable throughout the entire planning process but we have also had a few smaller guys drag their feet on submitting their booth rental and subsequently lose their spaces to other vendors. I added two more vendors just last night. So... any list I post would be outdated by tomorrow. It's literally like herding cats.

I'll attend the show you're producing this weekend since it will obviously be closer, right? Oh wait... you aren't producing one. You're just complaining. The bottom line is that you can make most of the people happy some of the time, and some of the people happy most of the time, but never make everyone happy all the time. We all should have learned this in grade school but for some reason a few people on TGO have perpetually agitated gender organs and just have to share their negative outlook on life every single time they post. Winchester is equally distant from Nashville, Chattanooga and Huntsville and it has a massive building that we were able to obtain for a reasonable sum. Those two factors alone made it an easy decision. It's not like Joe isn't willing to drive to Nashville, and I'm driving almost as far as you would be if you were attending, Mr. Robocop, and I have a lot more at stake than an $8 admission if the show, against incredible odds, ends up sucking. I keep reminding myself that there is a quiet majority of people who are glad we're doing this. If I were to listen to the bunch of complaining and griping going on in this thread, I'd probably just cancel the thing entirely and stay home with my family instead. No good deed goes unpunished!

It was deleted when the account of the person who started the thread was deleted. Your good buddy Spuds was kicked off of the site months ago but keeps signing up under duplicate accounts.

Nobody ever pays me in gum.

Those had nothing to do with the intent of this thread. That guy was just on his period about every single firearm/cartridge in popular culture. This thread is about all of the stupid things you've ever heard or read about a firearm.

9mm is just .45ACP set on stun You need to carry a caliber that starts with the number 4 (.45, .40, .44, etc.) I only carry a revolver because semi-automatics are failure-prone A person shot with a .45ACP will spin completely around / lose an arm / disintegrate The sound of a shotgun pump being racked will scare a burglar right out of your house You need a shotgun for home defense because you don't even have to aim it, just point it in their general direction