doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com EPIC Game Fair vs Vintage Cup Exhibitors

As you may have seen in the sporting magazines recently, the Safari Club and Quail Unlimited are sponsoring a new event this year called the EPIC Game Fair at Foxhall Resort & Shooting Club near Atlanta, Georgia. (see www.epicgamefair.org). It is intended to be an English style game fair covering a wide range of outdoor activities including shooting, fishing, hunting, boating, etc.

It's a great idea and having gone to the CLA Game Fair in England the past two years, I'm excited to see someone organizing such an event here. Unfortunately, their first event is the same weekend as the Vintage Cup in September. Looking at the early vendors list on their website, I see a lot of past Vintage Cup vendors have already signed up for the new Game Fair including:

African Sporting Creations
Brays Island
Ermilio Clothiers
Fair Chase Books
Game Fair Ltd.
Greene's Guns
Griffin & Howe
Gulf Breeze Firearms
Guns International
Kevins Guns
Maureen Riley Studios
Robin Hollow Outfitters
Shooting Sportsman
Steve Barnett Fine Guns
SYC Sporting Adventures
Vintage Doubles
Wingshooting Adventures

A number of prominent vendors have already dropped out of the Vintage Cup in recent years and it looks like the vendor tents will be noticeably thinner again this year. That's too bad. Hopefully these events won't clash again in the future. I'd sure like to be at both of them.

DGM:
An apt observation. My agents in the field report there may be larger issues at hand than congruent dates. Presently, I attend Vintagers more for the seafood anyway. Of course, Atlanta is not that far from the coast...

Best, Kensal

I noticed reading the brochure that "steel shot only". Kinda negates my old doubles from the course. I'll be at the VC.

Joe

There is so much saturation of "Vintage" SxS events that the Vintage Cup that started it all is becoming a victim of this phenomenon. I've been to every single VC starting with the 2 in Addieville! It has peaked and is on a steady decline. The Game Fair will draw many people away and as you can see--the many of the best vendors have made their choice already! I'll go to Pintail this year, but I'm not expecting much and think this may be the last one at that venue! Nothing lasts forever!! Ask the folks that loved the Grand American in Vandallia!!

I will be at the Vintage Cup.

The British game fairs have British dealers, gunsmiths, and gunmakers. The British are also much better at obscure blood sports than we are, and demonstate them well at game fairs. An Atlanta game fair will be what most side by side events are, a gun show. I can understand why a high end gun dealer would bail out of the Vintage Cup to go to Atlanta, new checkbooks. I'm not going to Atlanta to see dealers that I see every two months at other vintage gun shoots. However, if I were a dealer with guns to sell, I would be in Atlanta.

Connecticut Shotgun/Galazan's website says they will be at EPIC and at the Orvis Cup in September, but no Vintage Cup. I wonder how many more will follow suit. I believe all of those listed above were at the Southern SXS this year.

Joe,
Glad that you raised the steel shot only issue. I hadn't paid that close attention to the details.

I raised the steel shot issue with the EPIC folks on their facebook page. Here is what I learned:

My Question:

I've been to the last two CLA Game Fairs in England, so I'm really excited to see this coming together. However, is it true that I can't shoot lead on that new sporting clays course you've all built? I shoot traditional side by side shotguns, so that would leave me out of luck and disappointed.
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Epic Outdoor Game Fair response:

Foxhall is the largest "green certified" community in Georgia, and the sporting clays course will comply with that standard. It will be a non-toxic shot course, so no lead. This is a very special place with one of the fine...st sporting clays courses in the country, so we hope you'll make an exception this time. We'll have loaner guns available for sporting clays, and in the Fine Gun area, there will be a demo area where lead shot can be used for this event only.
__________

I'm glad Blenheim Palace where the CLA Game Fair is occuring next month isn't quite so special. They're planning to place 300,000 rounds of lead in Sir Winston Churchill's old front yard. The "green" movement to ban lead at sporting clays facilities is one of the greatest threats to the sport today. I hope this fledgling event isn't locked into this anti-lead facility going forward.

300k rounds would produce over 9 TONS of lead. Surely some sort of reclamation occurs afterwards, that much material in that small of a space has to be worth something to somebody. If not, then there's no way to imagine a positive or neutral environmental impact here.

I shoot lead when allowed, and won't shoot steel in my old doubles. But if those days must come to a close, then I will shoot bismuth and move along with the times, and won't pine away for lead shot no more than I wish for the days of leaded gasoline, lead paint or lead in children's toys. We learn, we innovate, we get better.