Are there any organized machine gun shoots in Texas, specifically central Texas?

I mean organized like Knob Creek or Big Sandy. With vendors and such.


I couldn't find any in Texas. I'm too busy to attend Big Sandy, but I would love to go.

Nothing that is open to the public or is similar in scope to Knob Creek or Big Sandy.

The two biggest active Central Texas shoots are the "Leona" shoot and the "YO" shoot.

Leona is held at the Allison Ranch and used to be held twice a year (New Years and 4th of July) but I believe has been reduced to the 4th of July shoot the past couple years.  

The YO Shoot is held at the YO Ranch every May.  Since the YO Ranch is being (or has been recently) sold I had heard that the shoot may go by the wayside.

Leona is a single day shoot and used to be free (I have not been in probably 6 years or so) the YO is a couple hundred bucks for the reservation and is all weekend.

Both shoots are invite only so you will need to make friends with folks who currently go and then get them to help get you an invite.

There used to also be a smaller (in comparison to Leona or YO) New Years shoot at the impact zone west of Houston. I think that came to an end after one of the participants was accidentally shot through both legs with a 1919 and almost died.   There was also a machinegun shoot held at Tiger Valley for a couple of years but fizzled out maybe 2007 or so.

I am sure there are videos on youtube of all of them in some fashion or the other.

I generally prefer to shoot with smaller groups vs. large organized shoots.  However, Big Sandy is on my bucket list one of these days but as you mention it a hike out to Wikieup.

The closest "open to the public to sign up" machinegun shoot that I know of is OFAST up in NE Oklahoma which is about an 8 hour drive from Central Texas.

west texas would be nice like the alpine/Marfa area. it clos to mountains and lot of open land. but I don't think most folks would drive that far.

The thing about machine gun ownership is that we are becoming an island unto ourselves.

The problem is that the economics don't work out. I did the math and considering the margins possible, it isn't worth it to host something like a Big Sandy type shoot. The work is too much, and the reward too small.


I'd love to be a part of a big MG shoot in central Texas.

There are a ton of logistical issue with putting on these shoots.

1. Virtually all land in Texas is private and anything central Texas is many thousands per acre at a minimum.    To host a machinegun shoot where people are bringing M2s to shoot at  large metal object (like cars) where the ricochets can go a mile or more downrange  you need a massive amount land.   Shooting into the air at RC planes requires not only a huge amount of land but also a very special type of geography (like Wikieup) to do safely.  Not many folks are willing to take on the risk associated with an event like this vs. the liability and risk to their land.

2. Insurance has got to be massive.  Especially with the more recent stories of folks getting shot or killed at these types of events.  Be it a kid shooting himself in the head with a mini-uzi or  the shoot here in Texas where a guy got shot by another attendee walking his 1919 from his truck and not realizing a round was still in the feed mech.  There was a guy and a kid killed a couple weeks back  by tank when the breach failed during a shoot/demo.

3. There is probably little to no money to be made.  A lot of folks will bring $100K worth of guns out and burn through a couple thousand in ammo in the course of an afternoon but will balk at a $250 price of entry line spot. Even if you got 100 people to show up at $250 each that's only $25,000 in revenue.  Back out insurance, targets, facility/land rental, etc. I think you would be lucky to just break even.

The best chance in my opinion for a large publically accessible machinegun shoot to be held in central Texas would probably be to try and work something out with Tiger Valley, if they would be willing to be a venue for another shoot.  

It's been awhile so my memory may be fuzzy but I believe the previous Tiger Valley shoot fizzled out because the guy/s putting it on got tired of doing it after a couple of years, not for lack of interest.  Dragging out cars, targets, binary, etc. and then cleaning up the mess afterward probably gets old real quick.  However, at least Tiger Valley is an existing large range facility in centex with Waco nearby to provide for lodging, food, used cars/appliances, etc.

If somebody wanted to put on something out in far west Texas there is always the Lajitas resort out by Big Bend.  They have a shooting/range facility onsite and seem to be perennially on the verge of bankruptcy so may be happy to entertain any new ideas for additional sources of revenue and clientel to stay there.

That said, I don't know how many takers you would get for a shoot in far west Texas when many of the folks who collect machineguns in central Texas (and who want to go to larger organized shoots)  already go to either the Leona and/or YO shoots already.

I recently had my trust reworked by Sean Cody, check out his FB page and website, looks like they organize some shoots.

http://www.texasnfatrust.com/

Check AR15.com Home town section also

Large MG shoots are usually only open to big players in the MG world (Which Machinguntony actually probably qualifies as). At Knob Creek there is no way to just sign up to be on the line, you have to know people, pay big money to be on the line, often there is a waiting list for spots and you are expected to bring dozens of MGs and crazy amounts of ammo. So unless you just want to watch people shoot their MGs or shop the vendors they arent much fun if youre looking to shoot your guns.

Your best option would be to post on the hometown forum and get to know people locally and maybe someone with some land would allow people to get together for a non-commercialized shoot.

The shoot in Flynn, what people call Leona, is has been and still is twice a year with a couple hundred attending.  The YO Ranch shoot is just once a year and reservations are limited to about three dozen people at a cost of over $500 per person.

OST

I am a regular at the Leona shoot but like others big shoots turn me off and i prefer smaller personal shoots. I have been wanting to get some land nearer to Houston for a private range for MG shooting but land is damn expensive.



There is an outdoor range in Crosby that allows MGs to shot on Tuesdays. I ahve not been there yet but need to check it out. I was going to ask them about renting out the entire range on a weekend day for some MG buddies and see what they think of that idea.

There have been some informal shoots put together at Mickeys outside Wilmer over the years where folks essentially rent out the place to allow non-members in (although normal keyholders can still come and go as they please)  Uzitalk members put together a pretty decent sized shoot there a month or two back.

Being from the Houston area, did you ever go to the semi- recurring Machinegun Shoots in the Sam Houston Forrest Range in the very early 2000s?  The handful of time I went  those shoots they were pretty well attended but felt like a bit like the wild west until the Parks Department finally shut them down and banned machineguns from the range after one patron shot himself through the hand after his M11 got away from him.

I will be happy to contribute and help. Let me know.

Yup SHSF shoots were ok given the shit range. I organized most of them.
Mickey's is basically just shooting into the river from what I have seen and its even farther from me than Leona which I can pretty much go there most weekends. Impact zone is another place to shoot MGs outside but its just as far for me as Leona so I never joined when they were taking new applications and I still know many members that I could always bum off if I needed to.
The piney woods of east Texas is close to me since I live out 59 from Houston and there is a lot of land out there but getting 50 acres seems to always be out of my reach. I want a good 300-1000yrd range I can shoot the LMGs on. I like Leona since he has steel at 300 yrd and I can get 3 rnd burst onto it.





There use to be a good MG shoot in Taos NM that was fun because you could shoot tracers in the air and pretty much had unlimited range. Some big guns would show up too but it was invite only and the land owner sold the land. It was always funny the number of UFO reports that were called in during the night shoot by the local hippies when we were sky writing with 100% tracers.





I think Orange has a private gun club that allowed machine guns to be shot and there were a few shoots there but none in recent memory.





The old Hill Country Rifle range in Austin was always fun to shoot at and long range steel to boot until the crazy guy that owned it sold it to yuppies to turn into a bike trail area.



There is also an invite only shoot around Livingston/Liberty that has recently started up by a C2/3 but I have not attended a shoot yet.



It has been kicked around many times for a LLC to be formed and buy the land but it never seems to go anywhere other than talk. If I owned the required land I would hold only small shoots to friends because liability is a real problem. The LLC would at least hopefully limit it to some extent. If you got 50 people to kick in 10-20K each then you could get the required land and range work done.
 

There has been a pretty decent amount of work put into Mickey over the past 3 or 4 years.   In addition to the river and the metal tanks/gongs down on the 500yr berm where the river bank turns the members also cut in a traditional 300ish yard  rifle range as well.    I think somebody recently added steel targets to the rifle range as well but I have not been up there since the spring.  However, I get its a hike up there if you don't live in DFW.  Its 3 hours for me door to door.

The old HCRR out on Hamilton Pool road was my go to local range from when I moved to Austin in 98 until it closed down.  Really enjoyed plinking all the metal animal sillouttes on both the main range as well as the smaller knock-down animal targets on the handgun/subgun range.  The owner (aka "Crazy" Richard) was definitely one unique individual.  Always wondered what happened to that guy.  Heard rumors he had tax issues that forced the sale and he moved to west Texas to start a cult or something.

I have had similar thoughts about starting a Corp, buying the requisite acreage, and selling stock/memberships to a limited number of folks.  The hope being that if somebody has $5 to $10K tied up in initial acquisition fees plus a couple hundred a year in dues the liability aspect will be much reduced as folks will think before they act vs. hosting a public machinegun shoot with a hundred folks showing up and blasting into the hillside at your personal ranch.  Even at Leona I remember the cops coming and temporarily shutting down the line at one of  fourth of July shoots due to ricochets/shots going over the berm.

Then reality sets in and I don't have the time to manage something like that and I don't know if you ever would realistically find 20 to 50 people to plunk down $5 to 10K each for a plot of land that isn't a 2 hour+ drive away.  So I just keep paying my lease fees to Mickeys and driving up there a couple times a year for my main machinegun trigger time fix.

I'd be up for a shoot if one were in TX.
Sounds like there is a demand.

Like others, I was a regular at Leona, Tiger Valley (Band of Brothers), as well as local shoots in NTX at Ralph's and Mickeys. This past Sept there was an Uzi shoot for instance, at Mickeys.

While Leona goes on, it seems a lot of the others have ended. I see more and more people just going about their own, usually on private land. Just among my own friends, it seems harder and harder to get everyone together at same time. Even SHOT is hard for some to make. I imagine this is similar to what others face. Here I am home (well shooting my FM-9 in my backyard) and not at the Texas Firearm Festival....

I would certainly attend a shoot at Mickeys or Greenville, etc, but do not seen anyone organizing it, for reasons discussed above.

agree, hard to get people together anymore.

Looking at the texas machine gun thread, are you from houston? I have a small range personal in Beaumont and my family has a ranch in beeville if you ever need a place to shoot. I can't hold a big shoot but we could go out there sometime

There have been a couple of Silencer Shoots in Liberty Hill, Tx, iirc.  Have they allowed other Class3 there as well?