TargetTalk

Good Evening – My wife and I are going to be house hunting in Phoenix next week and while there I would like to check out places to shoot. I shoot Bullseye, Trap, and ICORE. The ideal club would have all three disciplines. The clubs/places to shoot that I’m aware of are Rio Salado, Phoenix Rod & Gun, and Ben Avery. The club I currently belong to in Missouri, has an active seniors program for lack of a better term, i.e., retired guys who get together during the week during the day and have informal Bullseye and IDPA competitions. Every club has its cliques, however, I’m looking for a club to get together with a group of guys who enjoy competing with one another, but don’t take life or themselves too seriously. Would appreciate your comments about these and other clubs, contact names would be great. Thanks, Tom

Screw you old farts. At PRGC you will be cut no slack. Either you shoot or suck hind tit. In the past couple of years over thirty new National Records have been set here by some of our "old timers".

We have shooting at night for those who want some pistol range time. That may be more what you're looking for. I know another club has a weekly air pistol shoot for some of the non-competitive guys.

This is the best place in the state for Bullseye and International. We have no trap at all, but mucho "spray and pray." If you're in town, come by for the Desert Midwinter.

C'mon by and say "hi".

That is true and, filtering through Rover's BS, the important thing is that PRGC has facilities unmatched in quality. They even have a dedicated 25 yd international rapid fire range. Old farts there are quite good too. Of course by the standards of Moscow or Beijing they are still journeymen, but in this country, a traditional Cinderella of serious Olympic pistol shooting, they are the ones you want to learn from.

Appreciate the comments. No slack expected, just looking for a friendly group of guys to shoot with, learn from, and hopefully improve. Tom

See us at www.arizonapistol.com we are most happy to have you shoot with us.

Rio Salado Sportsmans Club gets my vote (and dues) for its many different venues.

Go to the website and look at what is offered, it pretty much covers the whole gamut except for International Pistol (PRGC is the king in that arena).
Take a look at the calendar and you will see that it is extremely varied and active.

http://www.riosaladosportsmans.com/

I just moved away from PHX.

I belonged at Rio Salado. They have a bullseye league monday night, and they were working on getting turning targets. This was shot at 25yds with reduced slowfire targets. They could run out to 50yds, but the lights weren't great at that range. Very friendly group of shooters. They have also been having an air pistol league, given the .22lr shortage.

PRGC is awesome, but I would only shoot matches there, so no need to belong.

Rio Salado is better for rifle. The rifle range faces North, but at PRGC it faces south, which is a pain with the low sun in the midwinter.

They have an active shotgun program at Rio Salado, but I never ventured over to that range.

Rio is tough for bullseye practice, though. I would practice on one end of the highpower range. You could also practice in one of the pistol bays. The public range is also a possibility, but target changes are a pain, and the place is a zoo on weekends. The smallbore range, where they do the monday matches, would only allow .22 outside of the matches because of the ricochet risk of centerfire ammo landing on the highpower range next door.

Ben Avery doesn't have membership, and no bullseye matches that I'm aware of. Awesome facility, but it is tailored to either public shooters or organized clubs that rent the other ranges.

Overall, Phoenix is a shooting mecca. Join the club closest to your house.

-J.