The Weapons Part Of The Equation
This trip to the Gunsite Academy was Dirt Toys Magazine’s third time to experience this unique place.
We have never been disappointed when we have attended any event at Gunsite and have come to appreciate the excellent—albeit very disciplined approach—training and coaching offered by the many instructors there.
We experienced a huge variety of shooting ranges and activities—aside from riding the ATVs and side-by-sides—at Gunsite. That included the pistol range, rifle range, moving target exercises and, our particular favorite this time around, the Funhouse.
Gunsite (www.gunsite.com) offers a huge variety of courses but ours was catered to the media and others attending the Yamaha event. That means we got to do a little of many things offered at Gunsite. We started with the pistol range, which included target shooting at paper targets, then moving to metal targets that fell over when shot to a pistol competition against other media. The rifle portion of our experience included short and long range shooting but it is the oddly-enough named Funhouse that we really enjoyed, although it was the most nerve-wracking of all the things we did at Gunsite.
The Funhouse is an actual building where mostly law enforcement and military personnel are trained to enter a building safely to either rescue a hostage or clear the building of hostiles. We were given a fairly quick crash course (the normal Gunsite course usually takes days) on how to enter, defend ourselves, etc., before being given the opportunity to actually enter the building with our pistol and face different situations, i.e., hostiles, hostages and the like. An instructor was with us the entire time and coached us all through the process. It was a huge adrenaline rush, even knowing someone else was not going to shoot back at us.
It was an experience unlike any other.
Of course, there were several companies that provided us the guns (Ruger), ammunition, clothing (Champion, Blackhawk), gun slings, backpacks, goggles, clips, holsters and belts (Galco), video equipment (Garmin), scopes (Leupold) and other gear.
It was fun, educational and something we look forward to again.
