Debriefing The Knife Connection’s First Ever Appearance at The SHOT Show

The Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade Show, better known as The SHOT Show, is one of the industry’s biggest trade shows. Sponsored by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), every year, The SHOT Show attracts thousands of exhibitors, buyers, and industry experts, along with countless of thousands of other attendees who want to see the latest and greatest in the shooting, hunting, and outdoor sports industries.

This past year The SHOT Show was hosted in Las Vegas at the end of January and spread across two venues totaling over 830,000 square feet, with more than 14 miles of aisles.

It is one of the most influential annual gatherings in the outdoor industry, and is the place to visit to learn about industry releases, including but not limited to new firearms platforms, new firearm cartridges, and shooting, hunting, and all outdoor-adjacent products, accessories, and pursuits.

Naturally, knives and outdoor sports go hand-in-hand, no pun intended. This past year, 2025, was also The Knife Connection’s first-ever SHOT Show appearance, and we have some potential news to share regarding our attendance.

Key Takeaways

Considering our respect in, and for, the outdoor industry, it’s amazing that The Knife Connection never visited The SHOT Show before, but nonetheless, this was a great opportunity for us to get to know some of our brand partners even better than before.

Since we are in the business not only of selling knives, but of making and selling custom accessories such as scales and sheaths for popular brands, this was a great chance for us to get to know some of our partners better, and some fruitful developments may be in the works.

For one, we got to meet the ESEE folks, and that was a big development, because there are some exciting new potential opportunities on that front. Nothing is set in stone yet, but here are some possible items for the (relatively) near future.

One is that we’re (probably) going to be able to buy ESEE blanks again. This is huge because it’s going to let us refill our Knife Builder. That’s big news for anyone that’s wanted to spec out a custom ESEE, with scales and other accessories. As soon as we get blanks in again, we should be able to get that aspect of the Knife Builder off the ground once more.

Another is that we might be working closely with ESEE to develop some custom, exclusive knife handle scales for. We don’t have the solid details yet, but we’ll be seeing what we can put together. Keep close to our socials and news feeds, because as soon as we know more, we’ll let you know, but we might soon be coming up with some custom scales for a few ESEE models that you’ll only be able to get here.

Nothing’s finalized on that front, but for those of you that like to personalize your ESEE Knives, we might be developing some handle scales for knives that have some glow in the dark functionality. This isn’t just cool, but it could potentially even help prevent you from losing your knife when you’re using it at night. Again, nothing is written in stone here but this is what we may be able to put together.

We also got to meet the TOPS Knives folks, and that was great too, since some of the more popular knives we sell here are TOPS Knives, like the TOPS Tom Brown Tracker.

Nothing is written in stone here either, but the meeting with TOPS got the ball (potentially) rolling on something else new and exciting: there’s a chance that we may get to work with TOPS in the (relatively) near future to pick a few models to make with MagnaCut blades, instead of the 1095 that they usually use.

If you’re not familiar, many popular TOPS Knives (like ESEE Knives) are made with 1095 steel. This is a great knife steel, and it’s very tough. When properly hardened, it also remains soft enough to easily retouch in the field, with nothing more than a stone.

That said, 1095 has its shortcomings. It doesn’t hold an edge long, and worse, it’s a magnet for rust. MagnaCut, considered by many knife enthusiasts to be a super steel, is not hobbled by these shortcomings of 1095.

MagnaCut steel is a true workhorse, with over 1% of carbon, and with 4% vanadium and 2% molybdenum. These three elements result in a steel that can take an excellent heat treatment and which is remarkably tough, as tough as 1095, and in all honestly, considerably tougher.

But, the great thing about MagnaCut when compared to 1095 is that MagnaCut has more than 10% chromium, which makes it rust-resistant. Many would even call it outright stainless steel. But, whether you call it that or not, it is far more resistant to rust than 1095. There is no comparison.

Lastly, MagnaCut has a smidge of niobium at 2% and nitrogen at .2%. The former enhances wear resistance and refines grain structure (giving MagnaCut steel even better edge retention characteristics) and the latter, in trace amounts, enhances corrosion resistance

So, in other words, you get the best of the best with MagnaCut steel, since it is not only corrosion-resistant, but it is also impressively tough and will hold an edge for a long time. If it gets any detractors, it would be that it is a bit harder to sharpen than 1095, but that’s basically it.

Again, not to hype this up too much, because none of these things are certain yet, but they are a few glimpses into what we are working on here at The Knife Connection and what might be coming down the pipeline. It would be great to see some of these things come to fruition!

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