I was there today.
I had a great time.
I went by myself, as the family is going with me to Salzburg.
My thoughts:
Show was pretty packed, I didn't feel like it was as bad as other years.
I was able to talk to most of the people I wanted to talk to. So it wasn't that packed, or at least it didn't feel so bad. Last year I was there on Friday, year 2024 I was there on Saturday. Saturday still sucks, but if that is what you have then that is what you have. Work got into the way of going earlier in the week.
There were some I had forgot about until I was on my drive home. Baily Sipple I missed you guys, I will catch you in Salzburg. I looked at Rigby, but didn't talk to anyone.
Shows change, and there were a lot of old friends or at least industry acquaintances that I did not see. I didn't see as many Canadian outfitters, only 1 British guy from Scotland. No Greenland, no Iceland, not so many African outfitters.
No Krosny Bór, not as many Russian outfitters as last year.
Spanish Agents were playing the same price game as the American shows. German agents were selling Spain for half or 1/3rd of what the Spanish agents prices were. I had never seen the two Spanish agents at this show, maybe I never noticed them before.
Agree with Charlie a lot of Chinese crap.
The Pakistan knife thing is growing, and there was more of that than last year.
Way more female hunters. Never seen the volume that I saw this year. Every age, not just 20 year old insta-Barbies.
I spoke to Willy and Kai from K and K premium jagd about driven hunts for 2026. I want to do more hunts closer to the house in 2026. They have some hunts in neighboring states like Hessen, Baden Wrutenburg and Saarland, I will do that in 2026. They are going to try to get a female ibex for me in Austria.
I spoke to Mortiz from FBT and gave him my end of year update on the rifle they built for me. Blaser R8 with the FBT stock and they did some work to my 8x57 barrel.
I tried to handle the Jakele rifle and the Walther and the Roessler titan. The Walther is fine for what it is, a big heavy bullpen. Jakele was not happy that FBT was building stocks for their rifle.
The Jakele has some cool features, but it has a lot of stupid ones. I am not sure about the ergo or ortho of having to hold down a 2nd trigger with your middle finger to shoot.
Roessler titan seems more refined over previous editions.
Steyr had a nice booth in corner with some interesting rifles. But the most interesting one was Mortiz FBT version of the Steyr called the Gams. I think I am going to order one over K95 success I have been lusting after. Mortiz and I probably talked for 30 minutes, was really great to see them.
I also got to handle a sniper rifle type chassis for the R8, really nice. Grinko Solutions. 1600 Euros, but it has a really nice feel to it. They also do them in 700 clones and Tikkas like everyone else does.
In the same booth was a guy making take down falling block rifles for $15,000.
I spoke to Herbert Scheming very briefly and Oswald Prinz. Not in their price point, but it is wonderful to know that things like this exist. There were 3 or 4 other very high end custom builders there. Oswald and his sons always have a huge booth in the Outfitter area. Herbert Schierring is usually on a side wall or in a corner. Their booth was buzzing.
I had plans to buy a Rascher wool hunting jacket, I have a green one and they make a blaze orange one. They were 600 Euros. A lot of money for something that is regularly on sale at Frankonia for 375.
I was dissapointed by the cost of clothing this year. Usually there were some show deals, but I did not find that to be the case.
Spent 100 Euros on salami, cheese and that type of thing. I must have at 30 euros worth on the drive home. I should have put it in the trunk.
There were mostly Namibia guys there, I didn't see many from South Africa. There were a few from Tanzania, a couple from Botswana.
Interesting that the Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia governments all had booths representing African hunting opportunities.
Similar but slightly different show than in 2025.
Another kind of nice thing, was that people don't seem to bring as many dogs as in years past.
I also saw more young families.
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