This year at SHOT Show, we spent a lot of time filtering through the noise. There’s no shortage of flashy booths and bold claims, but a much smaller list of firearms that genuinely made us stop, handle them longer, and talk about them afterward. These are five that stood out to us—not in any particular order—based purely on feel, execution, and how they fit into the real-world enthusiast space.
The Zermatt Arms 9 was one of the most surprising pistols we handled all week. This is a striker-fired, Glock-magazine-fed pistol that lives squarely in the high-performance category, with pricing starting around the $5,000 mark. What immediately stood out was the trigger. It genuinely rivals many of the best 2011 triggers on the floor, which is not something we say lightly. Zermatt offers both a front-block configuration and a version with a compensator integrated directly into the barrel, letting shooters choose how they want the gun to behave without compromising the system. Everything about it feels deliberate and refined, clearly aimed at shooters who want top-tier performance without stepping into a traditional hammer-fired platform.
Uintah Precision’s bolt-action AR upper was another highlight for us. Built as a true bolt-action system that drops onto a standard AR lower, it’s available in calibers like 300 Blackout, 6 ARC, and 5.56, with a wide range of barrel lengths, twist rates, and finish options. What makes this exciting is how seamlessly it integrates with existing AR components. It uses standard AR selectors and grips, and the included trigger is excellent—light, crisp, and exactly what you’d want in a precision-oriented bolt gun. For anyone who’s been tempted by rifles like the Q Fix but wants something more modular and budget-conscious, this scratches that itch at a fraction of the price while maintaining serious build quality.
The Matador Arms MAT-9 also earned its place on this list. This is a roller-delayed, all-aluminum PCC-style upper that uses hydraulic buffers and mounts to AR-compatible lowers. The standout feature here is magazine flexibility. As long as your lower accepts the mags, the MAT-9 will run them—Colt, Glock, CZ, MP5, and more. The best comparison we can make is an all-aluminum Springfield Armory Kuna, but without the long-term magazine cracking concerns. It feels solid, smooth, and thoughtfully engineered, with recoil characteristics that reflect the benefits of the roller-delayed system.
Canik’s Mete Prime collaboration with Radian was another easy win. The Mete Prime Radian takes an already popular platform and upgrades it across the board. It ships with a 17-round capacity, a large compensator, a Radian magwell, and roughly $500 worth of premium parts included from the factory. With an MSRP around $850 on a gun that would cost significantly more to replicate aftermarket, it’s hard not to be impressed by the value proposition. Everything about it feels cohesive rather than bolted-on, and it’s clearly aimed at shooters who want a competition-ready pistol without immediately opening their parts bin.
Finally, the Mantis Raven stood out as something completely different—but just as compelling. This is a dry-fire training system that uses a projector to place shooters into structured training scenarios at home. The best way to describe it is somewhere between an Ace virtual shooting simulator and Virtua Cop 2, but built for modern firearms training. It’s an engaging way to get meaningful reps without ammo, range time, or travel, and it opens the door for practice sessions that are both useful and genuinely fun.
SHOT Show always brings a flood of new products, but these are the ones we kept coming back to in conversation. Each one does something genuinely interesting, whether that’s pushing performance, improving modularity, or rethinking how we train. We’re excited to see how these develop and where they fit into the broader market moving forward.
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TX Arms Team
