Mountains, Desert And Guns

Pro Gun Club Mountain View — Sweet Mountain!

This was scheduled to be posted a couple Friday’s ago but with sensitivity to the incident in Connecticut I decided to put this on hold. Donate to Sandy Hook School Support Fund.

I visited Pro Gun Club (Formerly named Desert Hills Shooting Club) a couple of weeks ago to see what a Las Vegas shooting range was like. This was a new experience and something I’ve talked about doing in for years.

Pro Gun Club is about 25 minutes off the strip near an area called McCullough Mountains. I’ve only been in this area once before on my only trip to Laughlin last year. Pro Gun Club is located in the beautiful but vast openness of the desert for a city guy like me almost intimidating.

Pro Gun Club is more than a gun range its multiple shooting spaces outdoors in the mountains and desert with plenty of shooting options. Most of the shooting ranges in Las Vegas are indoors and allow you to only shoot guns short distances. Few Las Vegas shooting ranges are outdoors and even less that are as large as Pro Gun Club. The smaller shooting ranges are fine if you just want to spend 10 minutes shooting guns but that’s different from an outing that can last much of the day.

After spending a few hours rotating through the various shooting ranges at Pro Gun Club I felt like I’d experienced a world of shooting. Shooting a Glock is not the same as shooting a semi automatic machine gun which is not the same as shooting at skeet (skeet skeet) with a shotgun.

The outing at Pro Gun Club began on a beautiful and incredibly picturesque mountain. The majority of my shooting was done here with a shotgun and skeet as the target. The set up was similar to a golf course where there were over 20 shooting centers up and down a mountain each with different skeet shooting options. I think even hit a couple skeet(s)! It was really cool and if this was all that Pro Gun Club offered I would have been happy. Fortunately this was just the beginning and we went back to the clubhouse for more guns and ammo!

We grabbed a few different guns and headed over to the rifle range. Here we were shooting into targets on open land and another in the distance on the mountain behind our pit. This is where my shooting went downhill. I couldn’t hit the broad side of a mountain. Literally.

The instructor noticed that I was using my left eye to focus while shooting right-handed. Evidently this isn’t right and may explain why I was so bad shooting skeet. I can’t close my left eye for whatever reason so he had me switch to shooting left-handed. My body went into shock and I was shooting even worse now.

Strange enough, even though I couldn’t hit anything shooting left-handed, I was having more fun shooting with the pistol and semi automatic rifle then I was with the shotgun. Whatever, I was having fun. Then it was time…

Looking back at my time at Pro Gun Club everything up until this point was child’s play. It was time for the big boy – The Barrett sniper rifle. These are the kind of guns you see in movies when snipers are trying to shoot a person a mile away. They’re also the kind of gun you may see atop a Hummer in a war. This is serious fire power and rounds to shoot the Barrett sniper rifle are $5 each, alone.

I was shell shocked from shooting so poorly as a lefty that I didn’t even want to get behind this gun. I passed my opportunity to shoot the Barrett onto someone else. The power from this gun is so loud and intense that I’m glad I didn’t shoot it. My shot may have gone over the mountain and back toward the Vegas strip. Nobody needs that.

One of the cool things about Pro Gun Club is that the experience doesn’t end when you’re done shooting. They have a giant clubhouse with a full bar. If you’re with a large group you can grab drinks and head to the lounge. If you’re only a couple of people you can grab a beer at the full bar and recap the day. Looking back on the experience having the opportunity to unwind before driving back to the strip was perfect.

Note: There’s no more shooting for you once you have a sip of booze. The wristband you’re given for the shooting range is removed at the bar when you place your order.

The round of shooting at Pro Gun Club lasted a couple of hours and an ice-cold Stella Artois made the entire experience a great day. All-in my time at Pro Gun Club was about 3.5 hours and that included plenty of instruction on how to shoot.

My trips to Las Vegas are simple. I eat, drink and gamble. That said, I would definitely recommend a day at Pro Gun Club as something to do when you’re in the mood to change-up the routine get some fresh air.

Note: My outing was paid for but my opinions weren’t.