Here are the practical long-gun events we have scheduled this month at Rio Salado:

3-Gun (Multi-Gun) Match: Saturday February 11th
Sign-in runs 8am-9:30am, with first shots at 8am. New shooters should come in time to attend the New Shooter Orientation at 8:30am before they shoot. To get a feel for what to expect, check out these videos from our previous matches. Our usual format is 3 short-range rifle, shotgun and/or pistol stages, plus 1 long-range rifle stage. Bring 150 rounds of rifle ammo, 50 shotgun birdshot (#6 or smaller), and 50 rounds of pistol ammo. Pre-registration is highly recommended, and opens at 3pm on the Tuesday before the match at the Practiscore website.

We are fortunate to have four very generous sponsors for our monthly match: Carbon Arms provides "loaner" shotshell caddies for competitors to try, and they donate a $100 gift certificate. VLTOR donates two of their excellent AR15 rifle stock kits. LUTH-AR send us one of their fine MBA-series rifle stocks. KE Arms provides a gift certificate each month. All prizes are distributed by random draw from the list of competitor who finish the match. With typical attendance around 75 shooters, your odds of winning something nice are pretty good.

Tactical .22 Rifle Match: Tuesday February 14th & 28th
Registration opens at 4pm, with first shots shortly thereafter. Location is the Smallbore Range right behind the Activity Center. The rules are simple: Targets are reactive steel - shoot them per the stage briefing, fastest combined time (+penalties for misses) wins. Pretty much any .22 rimfire rifle is OK - the most popular guns are AR15-clones and Ruger 10/22s. We have two divisions: iron sight and optical sight. Now that .22 ammo is more available, this is a match you won't want to miss.  Scoring is done on paper, so no pre-registration is required.

Tactical Shotgun and Pistol Caliber Carbine Match: Thursday February 16th
Registration starts at 4pm, with a new shooter orientation shortly thereafter. The match format is four practical scenario-based stages similar to what you would encounter at a 3-Gun match, except that you only need to bring one gun - you choose either shotgun or pistol caliber carbine. There will be separate divisions for shotgun (Open, Limited and Pump), centerfire carbine (Optic and Iron) and .22 rimfire carbine (Optic and Iron). Any tactical shotgun suitable for 3-gun competition will work well in this match, or you can shoot a pistol caliber carbine (straight walled pistol calibers only please) or even a .22LR rifle. Scoring is done on paper, so no pre-registration is required.

Red Mountain Action Rifle Match: Sunday February 19th
Registration opens at 12:30pm. This is a rifle-only match run over the same course of fire as the morning pistol match; maximum 60 yards, high-speed/low-drag, four run-n-gun stages. To see what a typical match setup looks like, view this YouTube video. The equipment divisions accommodate iron and optical sights, rimfire rifle, centerfire rifle and pistol caliber carbine. Bring 150 rounds of ammo. Scoring is done on paper, so no pre-registration is required.

Thanks to everyone who came out for yesterday's match - we had an awesome 93-shooter turnout. Results are up on PractiScore. Thanks to our generous sponsors: Carbon Arms, VLTOR, LUTH-AR and KE Arms; the random draw prize winners have been notified. The match video is up on YouTube .