Update: The Small Arms Review Convention (SARCON) has been cancelled.  

The gun business generates all sorts of shows and conventions: distributor shows for wholesalers, trade shows for gun shop owners, an annual NRA convention for members and of course the most ubiquitous of them all, the weekend gun show. Under the radar, however, skims another kind of gathering. These get-togethers cater to a fascinating subset of the overall gun business, the NFA crowd.

The NFA crowd—those who buy, sell, collect and shoot machine guns and other firearms that fall under the National Firearms Act of 1934—are a mix of military history buffs, scholarly type collectors and guys like me, thrill-seekers who just plain enjoy shooting a machine gun. There are a number of gatherings for the NFA crowd, the foremost being the biannual Knob Creek extravaganza in Knob Creek, Ky. in which the general public can ogle, admire, discuss, learn about and shoot machine guns.

For NFA aficionados (and anyone with an interest in military small arms) there’s a show coming up this Sept. 15-17 in Las Vegas that mixes educational seminars with touch-and-feel exhibits and a 3-gun match using NFA firearms. It’s called SARCON, the Small Arms Review Convention.

Small Arms Review is a monthly periodical that caters to military firearms enthusiasts, most of whom are part of the NFA crowd. One of the magazine’s most voracious readers is American Rifleman editor-in-chief Mark Keefe who once told me that he’ll begrudge his staff pinching his gun magazines with one exception. “They don’t touch my copy of Small Arms Review on pain of death.”

The magazine—and the SARCON show—takes a cerebral look at military small arms. Seminars for the September show include:

• M16 Gas & Piston Operation by Dan Shea
• Primary Heavy Machine guns of World War II by Robert Segel
• The Basics of Silencers by Phil Dater, MD
• AK-47 by Frank Iannamico
• MG-42 and MG-34 Problems & Cures by Greg Souchik
• Bren Gun by Peter Laidler
• MAC by Frank Iannamico
• M240 & M249 Operator’s Course by Matt Babb

In case you’re not familiar with the seminar presenters, this is a who’s who of small arms authorities and experts. It would be like going to baseball card show with Tony Gwynn giving batting lessons, Ricky Henderson teaching base stealing and Sandy Koufax giving tips on pitching a no-hitter. These SARCON guys are NFA hall-of-famers.

The registration price is $595 and includes a tour of the famed “working collection” machine guns of Long Mountain Outfitters, dinner at LMO, a BBQ Saturday night during a machine gun demo, an embroidered polo, cap, challenge coin, portfolio, pen and access to any and all seminars plus the exhibit floor. For more information, e-mail editorial@smallarmsreview.com, call (702) 585-2926 or go online to www.smallarmsreview.com.

I’ll see you there. I’ll be the guy at the NFA 3-gun match with an original World War II era M1A1 Thompson .45 ACP.