Whew! There’s a slew of shooting events in Arizona this weekend. I’d need a few clones to make it to all of them. The ‘plan’ included a road trip to the Big Sandy Shoot outside of Wikieup, AZ. The Big Sandy Shoot is the biggest machine-gun event in the United States. Spanning three days, the shoot includes flying targets, tracer rounds, pyrotechnics, and lots of automatic fire. You can check out the night shooting on YouTube. R. Lee Ermey featured the Big Sandy Shoot in his Lock ‘N Load television show on The History Channel last week. Unfortunately, a babysitter couldn’t be found for the puppies, so I’ll have to catch the shoot another time.
Another big event this weekend is the Arizona Game & Fish Department’s Outdoor Expo at Ben Avery Shooting Facility. The Outdoor Expo is designed to introduce people, young and old, to the numerous outdoor activities we have available in Arizona. Mz. VRWC was introduced to the various competitive shooting disciplines at this event last year. She’s been hooked on shooting ever since.
The Dillon Aero demonstration at the 2009 Expo
Arizona’s Game & Fish Department is operated on a “user pay, user benefit” business model and receives no Arizona tax dollars (no tax dollars are used in conducting the Expo either). AZ Game & Fish is a Government agency that’s awesome to deal with and views the public as current and future customers.
This huge event includes archery, a catch-and-release fishing tank, ATV and offroad vehicles, birds of prey, hunting field courses and education, as well
Cowboy Action Shooting Bay
as a full range of shooting disciplines that visitors can try for essentially the cost of ammo. You can try your hand at shooting sports such as, the .22 Schoolastic Steel Challenge, rimfire steel, Blackpowder, Cowboy & Cowgirl Action Shooting, youth .22 and airgun competition, practical pistol, silhouette, and you can try Glock, Ruger, and Smith & Wesson guns too. I’m sure I’ll spend way too much time there on Sunday.
The other big shooting event this weekend is the Superstition Mountain Mystery 3-Gun match Rio Solado Sportsman’s Club. This is a huge match with incredibly challenging stages. Exurban Kevin is working and shooting the match. You can check out his posts about it here and here, but the photo he posted here on Twitter really tells the story of how challenging stage nine of eleven is. 
Cowboy Blob, another gun slinging blogger, was also spotted among the competitors.
If you can’t make it to the three gun match, you’ll be able to watch part of it on Versus, since they were filming the match for their new series, 3 Gun Nation.
