The fiftieth edition of the National Association of Sporting Goods Wholesalers (NASGW) Exhibits and Annual Meeting is in full swing here in Kansas City. And while there’s a palpable sense of uneasiness about what 2025 holds for all of us, it’s for certain there won’t be a shortage of new products rolling out in 2025.
New products, I’ve been told my virtually everyone, continue to be the driver that makes even slowing years (like 2024) better than those before Covid drove the market into a frenzy.
We can’t give away much of what we’ve seen (lots of the new stuff won’t officially roll out until SHOT Show 2025), but there will certainly be plenty of things worth talking about.
Rumors, as usual, were also flying, along with whispers of class action lawsuits against a manufacturer and the retirement of a respected executives. There were also the usual “has anyone seen…..” that are common to trade shows where it seems everyone really does know everyone. NASGW is a hotbed of catchup conversations.
But NASGW’s real effectiveness won’t be determined in those talks. For the past half-century, NASGW’s success has been determined via closed-door meetings where manufacturers and distributors meet and talk about two things that drive every year: new products and pricing.
Relationships are critical in the outdoor industry, but
While our editors walked the aisles, we all found products that we thought interesting. I’ll let each of them relate the products that resonated with their areas of expertise. But for a generalist like me, it’s the products that have cross applications into a number of outdoor activities that get most of my attention.
From GSM’s Muddy lines of clothing to Rock Ridge Outdoors newest Telum Tactical pocket knife, I saw products that would make either make outdoor activities more comfortable or the equipment you carry more comforting, but a company called revolvetecusa.com had the single product that not only got my attention, it got a lot of my time.
Revolver Tec is a UK company that’s actually well known in the military community. They’ve been supplying rollable composite products to military units worldwide for some time. But the idea of rollable composites isn’t one I’d seen before.
What are rollable composites? The simple version, as explained to me by Revolve’s Daniel Duncan, are robust, multi-layer composites that can be stored in a roll, then unrolled into a strong tubular structure.
Those strong tubular structures can then be used for anything from handles for boat hooks and or deck brushes to legs for ultra-lightweight (two pound) tripods capable of supporting up to 45 pounds of weight.
As a photographer, the idea of a tripod that’s 60-inches tall, weighs nearly nothing and can be stored -completely- in a small duffel role, it’s another way to shave pounds off the equipment load carried for wildlife or landscape photography.
As a shooter, it’s a quick process to swap the tripod head for a rifle rest and imagine their ultra compact tripod as a lightweight adjustable rest for a PRS or sniper-type match or part of a magnum caliber hunting rig. According to Revolve’s Daniel Duncan, the “rollable tripod” has been tested using “hundreds of rounds of .50 BMG.”
Revolve’s Tactical Tripod is also useful as a low-mount for photography situations where you’d normally use a “high-hat” or as a prone rifle rest.
There are plenty of other neat pieces of gear packed into the compact NASGW show, but those are for another time and our other editors to tell you about.
As always, we’ll keep you posted.
— Jim Shepherd