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November is here. It can be said with reasonable authority that the contiguous United States is experiencing the first really cool month. In some places, it might be getting downright cold, but here in the south, the HVAC unit is officially kicked over to the heat side for the next 4-5 months. November is a month that represents, at least to my feeble mind, high school football games and hot chocolate, early mornings in the tree stand, getting together with the family for thanksgiving, and the frenzy of Christmas shopping that begins seconds after the plates are cleared and the turkey-induced coma starts.

Nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news, but unfortunately, someone has to do it. OK, this isn’t really bad news, per se, just news you are not expecting in October. The Christmas shopping season is still a turn of the calendar page away from its usual start. But this is a brave new world and nothing is happening as it usually does. As you might be aware there is a bit of a hold-up with shipping and transportation these days. This is simply a fact of life for the brave new world we’ve been thrust into. Here’s what we do know: We are expecting replenishment shipments of many items to come in from now until the very tail end of the Christmas shopping season. Yes, we do plan on offering some killer deals around the Black Friday--Cyber Monday time frame, but there are some items in the inventory right now that will not wait around for a month or more and they won’t be replenished before Christmas.

Arkansas outdoorsman and outdoors advocate, Howard Robinson, has passed away. He slipped into eternity doing one of the things he loved so dearly, sitting in his tree stand waiting for a buck on the opening day of muzzleloading season. Of note for the airgun industry, Howard was absolutely crucial in bringing big bore airgunning advocates and Arkansas State Game & Fish officials together to legalize big bore airgun hunting here in the Natural State. We thought it appropriate to re-share this blog entry which chronicles this feat in Howard’s honor.

Umarex has made a GLOCK 17 Gen 5 paintball gun, you have no idea how excited I am! Just to start off, the GLOCK 17 is the original GLOCK. The model 17 was named the 17 after GLOCK had 17 different patents made for the first pistol. It was not well received in the beginning, who wants a polymer gun? The answer now, EVERYONE. It is one of the most popular pistols and the GLOCK fan base continues to grow every day, me being one of them.

Seasons come and go. You know this to be true just by virtue of living in a temperate zone on this earth, assuming, of course, that you are reading this from either North America or Europe... Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and back around again. But the metaphor is not a perfect one, as in our lives we transition from one season to another never to return to the previous season. Having kids is a good example of this. They are babies, then toddlers, the school-aged… and so on. Once that season is done, the kids move on and we parents do too, into the next thing that is coming around the bend.

Playas, the Elite Force crew wants to thank you for being there for us. Sincerely, you are the reason we exist, and are very grateful for your support. Furthermore, know that we are working hard at getting the warehouse stocked back up-- it just seems like it’s taking forever. That’s one of the reasons this email is so important. When we get restocked we can let you know here, first. Share this email with your friends-- after you’ve picked up what you need! Thank you, again! Team EF.

Hey Umarex Fans, we’ve got an October Surprise for you and we think you will love it. No, this is an off-year so we don’t have any political dirt to dump, but we do have a limited number of the nittiest and grittiest airgun magazine out there, Airgun Hobbyist’s October Issue. The surprise is that we are stuffing a copy of this issue in every order made from our website while supplies last.

This isn’t just marketing fluff-- don’t wait around this year to get your holiday shopping started. For one, there is a decent chance you have a few extra clams in the pocketbook, but the real reason is there are still on-going issues in the retail shopping space. Inventories are for some things are fine, but for other things it is bad. Some items are in stock, but only in limited quantities. And then there is the unknown factor: will a lock-down shut shipping down completely? Will manufacturing shut down? Will demand spike unexpectedly? Will inflation kick into overdrive?

Late summer is generally a slow and boring time for the outdoors industry. The ramp-up for the holiday shopping season has not yet begun and shoppers are getting their children outfitted for the just-days-away start of school. While it may be slow, we’ve typically got a full plate as we are continually looking ahead to the challenges the coming months will bring. Nevertheless, it’s never a good time to “blink” or miss a day because you never know just who might show up.

It’s currently hotter than ol’ Lucifer’s musty armpit outside as I write this. Never in my life did I think it would be pertinent to advise folks to begin getting their holiday shopping tasks started at such a warm time of the year, yet here I am. While perusing our website this afternoon, product after product is still out of stock. We are expecting stuff to come in… but some products are in such high demand that they are almost guaranteed to be sold out within days of their arrival. So the purpose of this blog entry is to help you get a sound shopping strategy in place for this year’s crazy holiday shopping season.