The shooting industry’s most consistent performer, Sturm, Ruger & Co., saw a slight downturn in sales for 2010, but earnings per share were up, according to its annual report.

Stephanie Hayden is standing by the printer. “Dad look at this,” she shouts holding up a list of rare guns, including an Uzi, from a prospective client. In a flurry of phone calls, e-mails, messages and wish lists, Owner Will Hayden pulls on a cigarette in his office. Through the vale of smoke to his left is a window that let's the boss see into his shop. Right now Vince Buckles, lead gunsmith, is welding a stock in the corner as gunsmith Glenn Fleming puts together a folding stock for a conversation kit. At the same time in the bustling lobby Kris Ford breaks out a box to show off a Desert Eagle for an upcoming “special top secret” project. The group's attention is soon gathered by a bright purple pickup in front of the building. The distinctive truck is sporting a bunch of Louisiana State University stickers and one other interesting item—a Civil War era mini cannon.

This week, the marksmen of Top Shot have the opportunity to bust out in a real-life shooting gallery, made famous years ago at carnivals around the country, using one of the most fun rifles ever made—the Ruger 10/22.

Wood. If you need one word to differentiate Europe’s shooting industry trade show from America’s counterpart, the SHOT Show, that word is wood. I don’t mean floors either. I refer to highly figured Turkish walnut, stunning pieces of marble-caked Circassian wood. The wood is not only sold in raw form, one- and two-piece blanks, but also adorns most of the higher-grade guns from the likes of Perazzi, Blaser and Krieghoff.

The opportunities to practice shooting two revolvers at once are few and far between. Competitions that require participants to engage their targets upside down after going through the equivalent of permanent press cycle can be counted on the fingers of a boxing glove, which kind of gets to the crux of the whole Top Shot philosophy. This isn't about excelling at one particular facet of the shooting sports. It's all about survival. It's about getting through the competitions where you're weakest in order to make it to the point where you can send the other guy home, be it in the first episode or the last. When the original 16 competitors were assembled in an L.A. hotel the night before we headed off to the house, we were all ushered into a room and seated opposite roughly the same number of executives, producers and other powerbrokers. The head of the production company explained in a torrent of expletives that this wasn't going to be like any competition any of us had been in before. It took most of us a while to adjust to the idea, but he was right.