Presentation of Czechoslovak Group at SHOT Show 2024
Guns, ammo, holsters, accessories and much more. From 23 to 26 January 2024, the annual show aptly named SHOT Show took place in Las Vegas, USA. The SHOT Show acronym here represents the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show. It is the largest and most comprehensive gun, outdoor and hunting trade show in the world, where tens of thousands of people from all over the world head each year. At this year's fair, which our editorial staff attended, we could see various models of guns with modifications for more comfortable and accurate shooting, ammunition presentation, optical systems that combine night vision with thermal imaging and much more. At this year's SHOT Show, over 2,600 companies from all over the world presented themselves in a space of an impressive 76,000 m2.
Among the exhibitors were several major Czech companies such as Czechoslovak Group (CSG), Česká zbrojovka, Meopta, etc. The aforementioned CSG holding focuses on the long-term sustainable growth of its companies, which is also demonstrated by the results of Fiocchi, whose majority owner Czechoslovak Group holding became in 2022. During our visit to the SHOT Show, where Fiocchi presented itself, we had the opportunity to talk with David Stepan, who is responsible for the Ammo+ division belonging to CSG. He reviewed the past year and told us what the Ammo+ division will focus on in the future. Find out more in the following video report.
Video: Czechoslovak Group presentation at SHOT Show 2024 / DEFENSE MAGAZINE
We also managed to catch David Blanker, CEO of Fiocchi USA, at the Fiocchi presentation booth. We asked him how he evaluates his first year under the leadership of CSG. David Blanker also commented on the state of the ammunition business with the armed forces and Fiocchi USA's future plans.
CSG also announced last year that it signed an agreement to buy out part of Vista Outdoor, which includes world-renowned ammunition manufacturers such as Federal, CCI, Spear, Remington and others under its Sporting Products division. The acquisition was valued at $1.9 billion, making it not only CSG's largest investment in the U.S., but also the largest ever by a Czech company. With the addition of the Sporting Products division, or The Kinetic Group - as the division was recently renamed - CSG will become the largest manufacturer of small-caliber ammunition and primers in the Western world. We asked The Kinetic Group's division director Jason Vanderbrink about the whole thing. He expressed high ambitions about the merger with CSG, or rather the Ammo+ division, where The Kinetic Group will be incorporated in the future (if everything goes smoothly). In the interview, Vanderbrink also revealed the company's future plans.
Jason Vanderbrink's words were confirmed by David Stepan, Managing Director of Ammo+, and we also learned about the intertwined cooperation between Fiocchi and The Kinetic Group and their future collaboration.
Although the distribution of the ammunition of these foreign companies falls under different entities than CSG, it can be assumed that the availability of their world-famous ammunition in our country will increase significantly as a result of the acquisitions of Fiocchi and Sporting Products.
This year's SHOT Show has once again shown that it is not only about presenting existing and new products of various global companies, but it is also about joint meetings, new opportunities and future collaborations. If you want to learn more about this trade fair, check out our report at the beginning of this article.
