First, let me say that I'm up so early/late because the igniter on the furnace cracked after eight years, and the house is stabilized at about 60 degrees (it's a balmy 44 outdoors right now), and I've been waiting for my 20-minute call-back from the tech for over four hours now.
What we're seeing new this year is the tendency of some companies to dribble out samples of new product, or at least literature, to select dealers. Fortunately, my LGS is one of them, and I have a real physical copy (they sent 5) of the 2014 CZ product guide in my hot little hands. Vendors need tons of reading material, along with free food and booze, to hand out at Las Vegas, so it takes a while for the leftovers to make it out to the unwashed masses. In fact, the LGS just got in a half-dozen boxes of the 2012 CZ catalog. And it's not just them, most companies are like that.
Among the good news was the arrival of several physical samples of real warez. Remington sent out five boxes of new .45ACP defensive ammo, which I scored a couple of. A very nice Ruger GP100 done up in a deep blue that externally resembles the quality finish of the S&W "Classic" series. Other new variations of existing weapons from other companies. Not a lot, but at least something physical for potential customers to look at, once all the publicity from the show makes it to the mortal realms.
I was present when the local semi-famous professional gun writer stopped in to get his evaluation copies of two new Glocks that we weren't supposed to see until Glock announced them at the show. Fortunately for everyone, another writer posted pictures and details online already, so that bit of suspense is now shot to hell. Everybody will be deluged with details and opinions (so of them informed) next week, so these are just random snippets.
A number of companies are promising a trickle of sample items that will appear in stores right after the show. Remington will release their new R51, a modernized version inspired by Pederson's Model 51, but beefed up for 9mm +P, rather than his elegant .32 and .380 blowback versions from the 1910s and 20s.
The store owner has already paid Remington for an initial order of 50, and hopes to see 5 or 6 this year, which is how things work in today's world. Further down the line in Remington's plans are to produce the R53 as the modern equivalent of their Model 53, which was a .45ACP weapon that could have provided a significant challenge to the Colt M1911.
The Marines had been on the Navy's case about getting them more M1911s, but the Army had all the productive capacity tied up in their own needs, which is was one reason the M1917 revolvers from Colt and S&W were produced as a stopgap. Remington quietly built two modified M53s for low-key, informal testing by the Navy and Marines, with one of them quietly vanishing into the mists of history, or into someone's vault. The Navy had no problem finding enough Marine volunteers to put over 6000 rounds through the other without a stoppage, and without even cleaning it. Not totally scientific, but a good indication of what it could do.
Colt and the Army were invited to an informal plinking session, and asked to bring some NIB M1911s to make it interesting. At this time in the 1911's life, there were problems with barrel bushings cracking, because World War One could be considered "advanced beta testing", with hundreds of millions of rounds still needed to be fired to make sure the deeply-hidden flaws were all flushed out.
The Marines took the filthy M53, and proceeded to shoot rings around the Colt, including turning in groups that were consistently half the size the Colt was capable of. There was an uneasy silence as everybody contemplated broken rice bowls, with a final agreement that everybody was better off swearing that this never happened.
One final anecdote to finish off my trip to the LGS today: as I walked in, a couple were being told that the AR15 they bought from the trunk of some guy in the parking lot of a gun show was not an AR15, but a commercial version of the Colt M16A1. The man insisted that the seller told him the "extra stuff", was just there for looks, but the store gunsmith took the lower half of the weapon, and gave them a crash course on what the "happy" setting on the selector really did. The two halves were wrapped up, and given back to them, and six burly and heavily-armed sales bubbas escorted them to the door, and advised to find the "nice man" from the parking lot to take back the assault rifle before BATFE or some local police started looking at their $300 "bundle of joy".
A properly-papered version of that weapon would be worth about 100x what they paid for it, so what they had was really no bargain, just a ticking time bomb. :)