Mark, I think you're right. There are a couple of things that are going against us. The tactical stuff currently has the full attention of gun manufacturers, entertainment industry, etc. I may be wrong but my perception is that there is a group of people out there who have been heavily promoting the use of tactical guns for hunting, in some measure, to justify why we should be allowed to have them. This is where the new term Modern Sporting Rifle has come from. It was invented to get away from the term AR, which the media thinks means assault rifle. I also think it's to combat the mainstream media claims that these rifles have no purpose other than for killing people and to affect the non-gun public's perceptions.

The two sports that have seen an explosion in my lifetime are bow hunting (first) and blackpowder hunting (second). I believe the main reason for this is that they have enjoyed special seasons which created a huge demand for products and innovation.

I fully agree with silly goose that one of the other problems is that learning to shoot a handgun well enough to hunt with it is a lot of work and the average hunter just isn't looking for that much of a challenge regardless of what they say. Just think about your buddies who hunt with rifles. How many rounds do they send downrange every year before they go hunting. On average across the country I bet it's less than 30 rounds of rifle ammunition per year of deliberate practice (not counting taking their AR out and banging away at the dirt).

I have a serious concern that Mark eluded to, and that's a shrinking supply of hunting handguns. I've just about written off T/C as a handgun company. If you have one you'd better hang on to it. Ruger still makes a few but they aren't doing anything to expand their product line and they basically can't keep up with production demand for anything right now. If they can drop big bore guns to make more AR's and Scout rifles what do you think they'll do? FA, Magnum Research, and the custom guys are so small they don't really even matter much and Ruger is making their frames anyway.

I think handgun hunting is growing but very slowly. By the way I would stack up any of you guys hunting/shooting abilities with the majority of rifle hunters out there and we'd kick their butts.