Intro
SHOT Show year 3 is now officially in the books for Bulletn. Our crew spent five full days and put in about 40 miles of walking to scour the SHOT Show 2025 show floor, looking for the most important information we could find relevant to the training community.
Let’s face it, there is so much noise and clutter in the gun industry. There are literally thousands of products created each year to fit an over-emphasized, or sometimes just straight-up fabricated, ‘need’. We can spend the time and focus on some of the more ridiculous items (such as a holster that goes in your car’s cupholder, or a pistol that only loads by top-feeding stripper clips), but that can perhaps be discussed another time.
Instead, we hope to give you what we think was THE MOST important information relevant to the people who focus on and value training.
While it’s all too true that “gear talk” can be too much of a focus within training circles, there is a flip side to that coin. Gear can enhance the training journey. Sometimes, a company offers a product that can help a student progress faster, a trainer to teach concepts more effectively, or just generally increase someone’s capability to defend themselves and their loved ones.
Those are the things we look for at SHOT show.
Accompanying YouTube Video
BEST IN SHOW
Winner – Mantis Titan
It’s no secret that we’re big fans of Mantis here at Bulletn. They have single-handedly revolutionized the training community by offering affordable laser simulators (i.e. Blackbeard) and motion capture devices (i.e. Mantis X and Blackbeard X) that just simply work. As a matter of fact, the Blackbeard works so well as a safe and reliable simulator conversion for a student’s existing AR-15, that we’ve seen several forward-thinking firearms trainers throughout the community start integrating them into their CQB classes such as Orion Training Group and Tremis Dynamics.
However, there was a notable pistol-shaped hole in the market. A reliable and convenient side-arm sidekick to Blackbeard didn’t exist… until now.
Enter the Titan.
A true pistol simulator (releasing with Glock G19, G17, and G45 sizes) that will finally give a pistol laser simulator that doesn’t require the user to rack the slide each time, will have a momentary laser beam to show where the gun was pointed at the trigger break AND features a nearly identical trigger press to a real gun. And did we mention that it will ALSO include the X motion capture capability inside the trainer? Oh… and it’s roughly $200. SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY.
Stay tuned for more information on the Mantis Titan. We’ll be using it. A LOT.
Runner up – Unit Solutions Pistol
Unit Solutions has been making some serious waves in the Force-on-Force (FOF) space for a few years now with their CO2-powered UNIT4 training rifles. Much like Mantis, Unit Solutions has now introduced their own training pistol sized at, you guessed it, a double stack 9mm Glock. This is a game-changer in the training world, as it allows for a new solution to hold FOF classes and training without being reliant on restrictive systems run by companies that don’t really care about the civilian market (aka UTM).
It was an incredibly close call this year between the Mantis and the Unit Solutions pistols. Both pistols represent incredible training value and innovative design. The only reason the Unit Solutions pistol didn’t take the top spot was because its use case is just more limited and best utilized in a structured class environment.
BEST NON-SHOOTY THING
Winner – Snakestaff Systems ETQ v2
Every member of the Bulletn team gets issued a Snakestaff tourniquet (TQ). For us, carrying some sort of TQ is an absolute bare minimum requirement for anyone that we would consider to be a part of our organization. Snakestaff really did a huge good deed when they developed the original ETQ, as it allowed people to carry a windlass TQ with them a lot more often.
At SHOT show this year, they were telling everyone about the latest updates to their line of tourniquets. Each model would have stronger and higher performing materials, and they removed unnecessary features such as the tiny glow stick (which would usually get activated by accident way before it was needed). But, one of the things that struck us most was that they would now be offering the TQs in blue! The universal color of training tools. (Random trivia time: that’s also why Bulletn’s branding colors are blue)
Does a training TQ need to be blue? No. But the dedication to expanding a product line and making that investment to allow for more efficient and safe training is HUGE. That commitment to training is why we are awarding them one of the top spots on our list.
If you ever want to see a Snakestaff in person… all you ever have to do is ask someone on the Bulletn staff. There likely is at least one in their pocket.
Runner Up – Boker Knives Thicker Clipper
When you walk through the SHOT Show floor, you’re constantly bombarded with highly produced images featuring all of the guns and gadgets you can possibly imagine. Usually, those images fall into the din of all the lights and glitter, but sometimes they jump out at you and show you something you’ve never noticed before.
That’s what happened to me for the Thicker Clipper from Boker Knives. The image on the booth drew us in, and seeing it in person really sealed the deal. It did not win this category because it really doesn’t have any particular training value, even though it’s one of the coolest-looking non-shooty things we saw throughout the week.
BEST BANG FOR THE BUCK
Winner – Glock + Aimpoint COA
OK, so let’s get this out of the way first… Yes, $800 for a pistol + optic is probably not the best “deal” you can get for running a red dot. Sure, you can probably throw a no-name optic on a Hi-Point Yeet Cannon and be well on your way to putting holes in paper for less than half the cost. But, a Glock is certainly not a Hi-Point, and Aimpoint is certainly not a “no-name” brand.
Putting some recent quality issues aside with moisture in pistol optics like the Acro, Aimpoint has been a name that is generally synonymous with the very idea of quality high-end red dots. Glock, easily one of the most prolific pistol brands in the world, is of course associated with its trademark of unremarkable reliability. The idea of marrying these two powerhouses together to offer an “out of the box” enclosed optic solution that sits low enough on the slide to have useable standard-height backup iron sights is, quite frankly, pretty dang awesome.
Add to that the compatibility of using that same optic across thicker and thinner guns, and that makes things even more versatile. You can swap the same COA optic onto the G48 or a G19, which would have previously required 2 separate mounting standards and optic choices for an RMR or RMSc pattern.
However, the wildcard here is that new A-CUT mounting pattern. It looks smart, solid, and incredibly useful if it will start allowing common optic solutions across single and double-stacked guns. But, will Glock and Aimpoint allow it to take off and proliferate throughout the industry? Or will they hold on to it as a “proprietary” offering that only they get to use? If it’s the latter, it deserves to fail. There are already far too many mounting options out there, but if there’s any partnership that can change an entire market into widespread adoption of a new standard, it’s the combination of Glock and Aimpoint.
If the Aimpoint COA lives up to being a durable enclosed pistol optic AND Glock doesn’t cling on to the A-CUT as some exclusive marketing tool, $800 is well worth the money to not have to burn your way through every other pistol optic brand to find one that doesn’t suck. Also, it’d be great if Aimpoint had a circle dot… just saying.
Runner Up – Primary Arms HTX-1 Enclosed Pistol Red Dot
A lot of people are talking about the HTX-1. By all accounts it seems to hit on all cylinders; It’s “enclosed” so it doesn’t get all gunked up from using it on a carry gun; It’s made in America, so we can keep our dollars here where they belong; and It has an innovative reticle (in the Vulcan version) that allows the shooter to more easily find the dot. There’s only one problem… It’s super expensive.
The HTX-1 absolutely belongs in this category simply because of the fact that it’s from Primary Arms. However, the jury is out on whether the optic lives up to its nearly $700 price tag. We’d love to get our hands on one and use the hell out of it, simply because we have not yet found an enclosed pistol optic that truly stands tough in training. If it does, it might just wind up overtaking the Glock Aimpoint combo as the true value of SHOT Show 2025.
MOST-EXCITING HORSE RACE
Winner – Civilian Laser Aiming Modules
Anyone who plays around in the night vision space knows just how impossible it is/was to find the right Laser Aiming Module (LAM) that 1) doesn’t have some sort of anemic IR illuminator, 2) has some level of legitimate warranty support, and 3) doesn’t require you to mortgage your house to obtain one.
Before a couple years ago, the options for us civilians were pretty much limited to A) Obtaining a risky and expensive “gray market” full-power device that had no after-market support, B) Taking a chance on some sort of Chinese clone or other foreign solution of questionable pedigree, or C) Paying out the nose for a “civilian legal” version of a LAM with a nerfed laser output. But the last few years have seen A LOT of changes and solutions coming into the market.
The most exciting of these solutions are the offerings from Z-Bolt, Holosun, and CTF Photonics. All of these are primed to hit (or have already hit) the market and offer just what civilians have been looking for; affordable, supported, and effective LAMs.
Holosun has the early lead and is likely to take up a huge share of the market due to its brand presence and marketing budget. Also, the fact that it’s already expanding its IRIS line to include multiple different models with varying capabilities and price points makes it a slam dunk.
Z-Bolt is likely to be the top “performer” in this group with its ACAL. Based on their proven track record of quality and insanely effective IR and visible illuminators, there’s no doubt Z-Bolt will deliver on the specs in a super slick and well-thought-out package. However, the issue of “when” is going to be a factor. They’ll be last to market in this group but seem to have an incredibly solid offering that has the potential to overcome that hurdle.
CTF Photonics is without a doubt the dark horse here. This is strange because this brand pretty much pioneered this category years ago in 2021 with the CTF-1. Since then, the company has evolved the CTF line into a whole modular system that allows the end user to customize the output by adding 2 separate illuminator heads of their choosing. Then the user can attach them to a housing unit that has a great button layout. If you’re a tinkerer and are into getting the exact performance you want with specific hardware, the CTF-3 is really the solution to look out for.
Authors Note: It’ll be really interesting to see how all of these play out in the coming months. Personally, I’ll be heavily rooting for Z-Bolt and CTF Photonics to succeed. Nothing against Holosun, but I’ve met the owners of both Z-Bolt and CTF Photonics and I will always root for awesome people who do good work and make things in America.
Runner Up – Nice looking bags
We saw oodles of nice-looking bags throughout SHOT Show. Big, small, camouflage, discreet, you name it. It’s hard to hang around the training community and not become a bag hoarder, and there were quite a few that caught our eye.
Go Dark – Not only does Go Dark make really aesthetically pleasing bags, but they’re ALSO faraday bags! That’s a huge bonus on our list. We love the idea of protecting our electronics and our identities through that technology. We’ll 100% be getting one of their bags this year to test it out.
Eagle Industries – Sometimes a simple bag with a nice camo pattern is all you really need to get a man’s attention. This one from Eagle truly turned our heads while we were walking through the show floor with it’s Multicam Alpine “drip”. (We think that’s what the kids are calling it these days)
Magpul Industries – Magpul has something every year that just manages to impress the hell out of us. This year, their EDC bags are offering a solid mix of utility and sharp design.
Sandpiper of California – Written on this bag is an inscription that hardly anyone could read. When exposed to fire, it glowed and revealed the following message in Black Speech… One Bag to rule them all, One Bag to find them, One Bag to carry them all, and on the show floor find them.
