Machine gun ranges give patrons an exotic experience

Prices to shoot weapons typically start at $20

Photos by Dale Dombrowski/ViewClockwise from top left, Jason Beard steadies Craig Brygidyr of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, as he shoots an M3A1 "Grease Gun" at The Gun Store, 2900 E. Tropicana Ave. Many gun ranges allow patrons to shoot exotic weapons, such as assault rifles, machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. Spent cartridges fly from an MPS HK 9mm as Nanette Alkhas of Modesto, Calif. takes aim at the downrange target at The Gun Store. Richard Dawson, left, and Rob Salter, both from London, examine the choices of weapons to fire. Advertisement

Everyone knows Las Vegas is a town where you can see a Broadway show, enjoy a five-star dinner or play craps at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday. Not as many folks are aware that you also can fire a machine gun at several locations in the valley.

"When the people come in here, they're just renting them (guns), so it's like kids going to Disneyland," said Chris Irwin, who, with his father, owns The Gun Store & Indoor Range at 2900 E. Tropicana Ave. "People are fascinated with the fact that they can shoot a real machine gun like they've seen in the movies and take their shot-up (Osama) bin Laden target as a souvenir, and they think it's just the greatest thing in the world."

Nevada is one of the most gun-friendly states in the country, which may explain why it's also one of the few places that has machine gun ranges.

There currently are five machine gun ranges in the valley, with a sixth one under construction, and they're usually full of gun enthusiasts.

"People come here from all over because they can experience something that they couldn't experience hardly anywhere else in the country," John Lawrey of Discount Firearms, 3084 Highland Ave., said.

Prices typically start in the $20 range and go up depending on the type of gun one wants to shoot and the amount of ammunition expended.

"The average customer spends about $60," Irwin said.

Most of the valley's ranges have automatic weapons, ranging from modern military rifles to the classic Thompson submachine gun, Hollywood's weapon of choice for Depression-era gangsters.

Ron Montoya, owner of the two American Shooters Supply stores at 3440 Arville St. and 1212 Boulder Highway, is particularly proud of his store's arsenal.

"We have rifle-caliber machine guns and fully-automatic pistols," he said.

The store also boasts a belt-fed squad automatic weapon, the tripod-mounted gun that Sylvester Stallone improbably fires one-handed in the "Rambo" movies.

Discount Firearms notes that its clientele includes a lot more tourists since it moved to its current location from Boulder Highway four years ago, but it still gets quite a few locals and regulars. Because of the high percentage of repeat business, The Gun Store rotates the firearms and targets it uses in its range.

A pink machine gun stands out among the wall of black and silver weapons.

"We get a slightly higher percentage of male than female customers, but not as much as you'd think," Irwin said. "The women are truly fascinated. We get bachelorette parties. People come in with pictures of their exes and ask if they can put them on the target, crazy things like that."

Montoya agrees that the gun range isn't just a boys' club.

"It's fully a family activity," he said. "Parents bring their kids down here to fire a machine gun for their birthday."

Safety is obviously the utmost concern at the ranges. Customers must practice gun safety at all times, never loading their weapon until they are in place on the range.

They are forbidden from crossing into the range itself, from shooting while under the influence and from smoking while on the range.

"At the end of the day, we sweep all the brass out of the range, and there's still a lot of unburned powder out there," Lawrey said. "It would be a bad place to drop a cigarette."

The ranges have a number of different methods to stop the bullets at the wall behind the targets.

For instance, at The Gun Store, the bullets are deflected down by metal plates at a 45-degree angle behind granulated rubber that also helps to keep the sound down, while Discount Firearms uses 14 to 15 feet of cut-up rubber backed with 3/4-inch thick steel armor plate.

According to Irwin, there are much more complicated methods using channels that send bullets through a spiral tube or into water, but those are primarily designed to keep airborne lead powder down. The Gun Store isn't concerned with that because it only allows frangible ammunition at the range, which mostly is copper and flattens on impact instead of fragmenting into dust. Discount Firearms uses an airtight range with all the air being cycled toward the targets and away from the shooters. Standing behind them, one can't even smell the gunpowder.

Gun ranges in general have become more popular in the years as the population of the valley increases and the open areas fill in.

"You used to be able to just drive out to the edge of the desert to shoot," Irwin said. Most of the places that were used previously as unofficial ranges are under new homes now, he added.

There are a phenomenal number of exotic guns on display at the ranges. In the waiting area of The Gun Store, there is a display of unusual and prop guns on the walls to entertain people in the queue on a busy day.

"Our wall will stop a .50-caliber easily," Lawrey said, referring to the military sniper rifle on display behind the counter, which U.S. forces use to take out the engine block of suicide bombers vehicles. "The light bulbs in the ceiling can't handle it because the concussion coming out of the muzzle itself blows the light bulbs out of the ceiling. So, we don't have one of those to rent, or it would be rented every day. Everyone wants to shoot that thing."