Hi!

Somewhat long introduction about myself:

I'm 30 yo, no wife, no kids that I'm aware of. My family is South Vietnamese and we settled in Virginia since the late '80s. I served 5 years in the Marines Infantry and got out in 2016. I've always dislike Virginia and the East Coast in general especially with Virginia increasingly becoming more commie/tyrannical I've been trying to get away from it (which is the main reason why my family is here in the US).

I've wanted to get out of Virginia since I got out of the Marines in 2016 but because of personal circumstances I couldn't make it happens so instead I stay in Virginia, got a job in the armor/gun industry, and from what I learned at work and what I like to do I went to and finished Precision Machining School earlier this year.

I had plans to move to Arizona the last 4 years and I was commit to do it after I graduated school but chinese virus happens and derailed my plan to move.. I wanted to apply for machinist jobs at Boeing or Northrop in Mesa but not much job listings since chinese virus.

Which brings me to today. I've been back at my old armor/gun manufacturing job since I graduated school because the old boss needed extra helps and I need money for the move. I'm also waiting on clearance to go work overseas for DoS (I applied in July 2020 and should get it in a month or two) and that job will helps tremendously with relocating to Arizona.

This is the part where I need y'all helps:

I've been out in Arizona a few times (total of about 6 months worth) and I love it. I have a lot of friends there and they have given me a lot of insights on where to buy my first house but I really want to be sure which is why I'm here asking y'all. I've been told that Chandler or Gilbert is a great place to settle down and from researches they seem so. Which part of Gilbert or Chandler should I be looking at? Is there any other parts of Phoenix AO should I be considering?

Here are factors for finding the right location:

- Conservative area
- Good schools (for future kids)
- Not too far of a commute to Boeing or Northrop (I'm still planning on working at those places after the DoS job)
- Friendly Police Department and Sheriff Office in case shtf
- From what I learned at my current work and from machining school I will also want to open a small Cerakote/machining shop for side money and I want this to be in a great/safe location
- Anything else y'all could think of?

I greatly appreciated any insights or helps that y'all can offer and I promise to bring another conservative vote to Arizona to cancel out a liberal vote cause y'all really do need it!

Edit to add: here are some pics of some personal stuffs that I recently cerakoted and put together so y'all don't get bored with the wall of texts:

Before


After




And one of my cans that I freshened up this week cause it was really beat up


Left can is the one from above that's freshly cerakoted and the right is a new factory one I use for color matching

Your requirements are pointing you towards Gilbert, it really is a nice area. If I could afford it, it’s where I would be.

Gilbert, chandler, Mesa is near where a lot of industry is.

Folks often post questions about Shooting in AZ on forums, I often reply, I finally saved my replies so I won't have to retype everything each time. This probably gives more info than you asked for but its easy to copy/paste. latest update in June 2020.

Websites:
http://www.arizonashooting.org/ web group
http://www.azshootingzone.com/forums/ web group
https://arizonagunowners.com/ web group
https://www.ar15.com/forums/hometown/Arizona/13/ another web group
http://www.phoenixrodandgun.org/ A club with a range in south phoenix
http://www.rsscaz.com/ A club with a range in east Mesa
https://www.azgfd.com/shooting/basf/ A range with clubs in north phoenix.
all 3 have public ranges and competition ranges and active competition groups
http://arizona-rifleshooting.com/ my website about competition

orgs:
http://www.asrpa.com/ our state association they do: competition, training, education, run a range west of phoenx and civil rights advocacy.
http://www.azcdl.org/ is 100% civil rights

AZ has open carry and constitutional carry. Take the AZ CCW class anyway, its useful info and the permit is your proof of background check so you don't have to go thru NICS when you buy.


There are 4 or 5 nice outdoor shooting ranges in the Phoenix area. See below. (As well as several indoor ranges I don't know much about.)

I've been a member of both PRGC & RSSC for over 20 years, (and have been a volunteer, match director, coach or club officer in those years).

Both RSSC & PRGC are true member-run clubs, both lease their dirt (RSSC from AZGFD, PRGC from PHX city park).

Ben Avery is a AZGFD owned and run facility, landless clubs reserve  the various ranges and run shoots there.

A smaller range, Joe Foss range in Buckeye, an hour west of Phoenix, is run by ASRPA.

All 3 larger ranges have a public range, the 2 clubs offer membership. All 3 have lots of competition style events. Every scheduled competition or practice style event at the 2 clubs and the clubs that use Avery are open to everyone, most by walk-on, some shoots take advanced entry reservations.

Both PRGC and RSSC cost about the same to join. Each has a main range and 6 or 8 specialty ranges. RSSC faces north, PRGC faces south (low winter sun is unpleasant to shoot in) PRGC High Power range is configured properly with 1 pits and 3 firing lines, Rio is backwards, 1 firing line and 2 pits.

RSSC tries to run itself like a business, all members have to leave when the last RO clocks out, even if there are still 3 hours of sunlight remaining. All the specialty ranges (except shotgun) require a lengthy approval process to gain access. On top of that, there is a tedious process to get the after-hours pass that allows weekday shooting till 9.  RSSC has the best sporting clays field in the state, perhaps all the states. But they don't allow carry.

PRGC is much more member-friendly. members can use most (but not all) ranges without a special qual process. PRGC is very friendly for members bringing guests and allows carry.

BASF has about 80 firing points on the public range and 15 or 20 trap/skeet/clays fields and a huge archery area. The facility also has about 15 other ranges reserved by clubs for shoots including 100 firing points to 1000yds on high power, 2 silhouette ranges and about a dozen practical bays.

PRS-style shooting is monthly at a private shooting site called "Cowtown" in the west part of the valley not far from Ben Avery. And a monthly shoot at RSSC.

BLM is opening some formal maintained shooting sites in the west valley desert.

There are some nice outdoor ranges in Tucson, also near Casa Grande, Flagstaff, Payson, Kingman, Yuma and other parts of the state.

As to shooting in the Desert, BLM and National forest permit shooting most of the year. State Trust Land permits hunting but NOT target shooting.  Indian reservations do not permit anything. Check the national forest websites, Tonto NF, the one closest to phoenix, has closed off shooting on hundreds of square miles nearest town due to dirt bike infestation and bans water jugs. Steel and paper are still OK, but plan on an hour drive to find a safe legal place. During hot weather fire seasons all the NFs ban shooting, camp fires and smoking.

Hunting is by drawing for tags to hunt anything larger than a quail or coyote. But lots of public land to hunt on.
https://www.azgfd.com/



Shopping in the Phoenix area:
BassPro in Mesa
Cabela's in northwest valley
2 or 3 Sportsman's Warehouse stores
lots of Local gun Shops.

Hope this helps, welcome to AZ, shoot good!

Poole

@billpoole,

Thank you Sir for all the great info!

This is nice.. we truthfully need two stickies at the top of the AZHTF.. "so you wanna move here" and "what to see while I am visiting"

Visited Prescott yesterday and saw a NOW HIRING sign outside Sturm Ruger - I don't know how well they pay but it's a nice area to live in.

Prescott is nice! I've shot up there.

Negative on working at Ruger haha. I hate the current Ruger and my plan is to live in either Chandler or Gilbert and work at Northrop in Mesa making 30mm autocannon for the AH64. If that doesn't work out I'll just stick with the DoS job I'm getting soon since the pay is pretty decent.

Gilbert has been a wonderful place for me to build a family and a career.

Any place in Gilbert or Chandler will be a fine place for relocation.

We had a midpoint census in 2015 which showed Gilbert has the highest family income of any city in AZ (PV had higher established wealth, yet not income).

When planning for future family, a strong case exists for getting a small place now, and finding an ideal place for a wife and 2.2 children over the next 5 year period.

Rental prices are high right now and a mortgage straight away will be beneficial of that is an option (VA mortgage, etc).

The residents of Gilbert are so rational that when the street lights are inoperable, the 4 way stop progression works faster and more efficient via man than machine.

We own 4 properties of various sizes in Gilbert.  Considering a home location in Gilbert @ Chandler for the single fellow, I will recommend South of Guadalupe, North of Pecos, West of Recker, and East of Kyrene which is Chandler / Tempe.
Adjacent to this zone there are additional solid locations, yet this should make your search effort more fruitful and finite.  Also, there are zones with very large homes and expansive properties (south Gilbert) that really aren't a good fit for a single guy with a commute north each morning.

There is a lot of demand for good machinists in AZ.  I have sent a lot of work to a monolith south of Sky Harbor airport, as well as a two man shop in Chandler.  Both outfits needed young and motivated talent.  That may not be where you want your career to be pointed, yet it may show a demand for a more exclusive part of your skillset for after hours work.

@MattM_Gilbert,

Thank you Sir! That was very insightful and to the point to what I want to know.

Honestly,  "da valley" ie the Phoenix metro area has gone to total shit in the last 20 years, and the last decade has been exponentially worse.
Overcrowded, overpriced, and too many transient residents bringing liberal mindset with them.

Best of luck to you, and I'll always welcome another conservative, but AZ is getting worse by the year.

I’ve been warned about that. The thing is, with the way the US is currently heading, where ever I go will ended up being liberal (or total shit like you elegantly put it) if not this decade then the next one or the one after. So my thinking is: do I want to stay in Virginia which I hate and fight, or move to a place which I actually like and fight like hell for it? I don’t know about you but if shtf I’d rather fight in Arizona.

As I told all my old NY friends, you need to know when to fall back to a more defensible position and for Arizona is it.
I live in the Prescott region ( we just elected a conservative pro 2a Vietnamese man to our state assembly btw)
And there are opportunities in Prescott for jobs and is much less crowded -at least for now- than the valley with less extreme weather. Certainly we don’t have the big employers like Phoenix. Might want to do a more in depth scouting trip.

Definitely move to a place you want to be and fight.

That being said, fighting during shtf in 115 degree heat will fucking suck,A LOT, just a heads up!

Haha been there done that so I’m ready. The more important question is: can the redcoats and domestic commies fight in the 115 degree heat better than I can when shtf

You are much welcome to move here and be among brothers.

Lots of awesome advice here. Mr. Poole has even more. Don't discount the clays at Ben Avery though. They might even have a couple more stations than rio salado.  
Tucson trap and skeet and northern az shooting facility have more, but a 2 hour drive from the phx valley. Northern az requires a higher clearance vehicle. A 2wd truck would easily make it as long as no mud from recent rain or snow.

A tip is go to the circle k gas station, walmart and frys (grocery store) nearest the area you want to move in. The customers are likely your neighbors unless you check in at rush hour. Do what you want with this info.


Politics aside, our state is extremely diverse in geographic zones. Tucson is 2k feet and cooler than phx. Sierra vista in se az is higher. Prescott and Payson are ~5k feet and Flagstaff is 7kish. Figure 5 degrees for every 1k feet. We have TONS of blm land. Hot as hell in summer at lower elevations, but a 2-3 hour drive and you're in a foreign climate.

Before all this scarcity horse crap, I would leave the house with a buddy at 430am in the summer to a desert shooting spot and bring tons of water. Sun is up at 530 and you have the entire desert to yourself. Leave by 8 or 9 when it's almost 100 degrees.

There's a Vietnamese restaurant called Da Vang at 19th ave and Camelback in Phoenix. The area is somewhat sporty, but the 1st gen immigrants I used to work with swore by it. I loved the mixed seafood soup with squid, crab, shrimp and translucent noodles from there. I have no idea what it's called.

Avery has I think 4 sporting clays fields probably totalling 50 or 60 stations and about 20 trap and skeet fields

Rio has 1 trap/combo fields and 1 clays field of 16 stations I think

so Avery is much much bigger in every dimension.

but its built on dirt that is flat as a pool table, except for the impact berms its flat for the 1100 yards from carefree highway to the mountain (and the 1000 yard range pretty much goes from one end to the other)

the sporting clays range at Rio has terrain, some shots are up, some are down, you gotta walk up and down as you go thru the course. Avery does have some firing points on top of one of the artificial berms but its just not the same as natural terrain.

I shoot rifle at both (avery is better) and on the rare occasions that I shoot shotguns (and this year is the year) I shoot at both ranges. I also shoot rifle and pistol at PRGC, best bullseye club in the western US... lots of opportunities for formal shooting here in Phoenix.

shoot good!

Poole

Any realtor/ARFcommer here can tell me which part of Chandler or Gilbert I should be looking at? Price range between $300k to $400k.

In that price range, good luck! It’s a tough market out here for buyers

The only area i would try and avoid is around downtown chandler.. there are some areas of older smaller lower income homes within the 4 sq mi around it.  I mean dont count it all out, but know there are some areas in there that might not be desirable.

I haven’t really look but are we talking more? I think I can only do $500k max since I’m planning on a 25% down payment. If I save up for another 18 months I will be able to increase the price range. What’s the average price for 3 beds, 2 baths, and 1 garage in those areas?

for a 3-2 with garage.. 300-400k

You should be fine under 500k. I am in Chandler and my 4 bdrm 1900 square ft home just appraised at 400k.

Raytheon down in Tucson is always looking for precision machinists and they pay well.  It's a good place to make a career.

If you have to wait to get in at Raytheon, you could practically walk onto a machinist job at Sargeant Aerospace and Defense while you wait for something better to come along.

Your budget will go a lot farther in Tucson than the Phoenix Valley.  I dislike both because they are big cities but Tucson is a big city that tries to be small whereas the Phoenix area is like LA.  Even though I don't particularly like Tucson propper, it is much better than the Phoenix area.  And when I say Phoenix, I'm talking about all the surrounding cities as well.  

As mentioned, Tucson is a little cooler than Phoenix and gets a little more rain.  One advantage to Phoenix is a river that actually has water in it and several man made lakes that aren't too far of a drive.  Tucson has some smaller lakes that are within an hour and a half drive.  One big advantage for Tucson is there are mountain ranges (sky islands) in every direction that are relatively close and good places to recreate.  You could go from 2000 to 9000 feet in 30-45 minutes and be in a totally different environment.

Tucson has several shooting ranges if you like the membership route, or you can just find a place that's not State Trust Land out in the desert.  One of the other nice things about Tucson is that you can pretty much get to most places in the area within 45 minutes.  If I want to go to Benson, it's 45 minutes.  Catalina, 45 minutes.  Redington Pass, 45 minutes.  Mt. Lemon, 45 minutes.

I'll just add to this that if you want a friendly sheriff during SHTF, you probably want to consider being in either Pinal or Cochise county and commuting into Tucson (Cochise) or the SE Valley of Phoenix (Pinal).  The Pima and Maricopa county sheriffs are both leftists.

Everyone here recommending Tucson, not that I’m thinking about Tucson because future wifey and her fam are from and live in Scottsdale, but isn’t Tucson super liberal from what I’ve heard?

Big cities in general are liberal.  Pima County is disappointing politically but Maricopa seems to have caught up anyway so what's the difference?

As far a guns go, state law prevents the cities from enacting their own gun control so that's in check.  Personally, I would live outside of the city limits if you have a choice anyway.  Hell, you could even live in Pinal County and still be close enough to work in Tucson.  Ditto for Cochise County.

With your budget, I would be looking at Cochise or Pinal anyway for land.

In Tucson it's not that big of a deal to live on one extreme end of the metro area and work on the other.  Doing that in the Phoenix Valley would be a nightmare.

The city of Tucson is definitely run by far lefties.  Some of the surrounding areas though are very conservative (Vail, Marana, many of the unincorporated parts of Pima County).  Tucson Metro is generally much cheaper than the Phoenix Metro, couple of the school districts are tops in the state.  You could definitely live pretty far out of Tucson proper and commute to Raytheon though and your money would go pretty damn far.  If the future Mrs. is in Scottsdale and wants to be close though, I'd say your stuck sticking with Maricopa County.

Five options are posted below.  This tracks closely to the zone which I described earlier.  In this case I examined 20 properties in 4 minutes or less and filtered out 15 for various reasons, such as: exposed to city park, rear property garage access, too close to neighbors (less than 8'), and detached garages.

Example properties in your defined price range:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1325-E-Heather-Ave-Gilbert-AZ-85234/8235982_zpid/

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3284-E-Morning-Star-Ln-Gilbert-AZ-85298/81956654_zpid/


https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2297-E-Stottler-Dr-Gilbert-AZ-85296/8241993_zpid/


https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/625-E-Colt-Ct-Chandler-AZ-85225/52430730_zpid/


https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1925-E-Hawken-Pl-Chandler-AZ-85286/61629980_zpid/

@Corporal_Chaos
@MattM_Gilbert

Awesome! Thank you both of you gentlemen so much!

Dunno if it has been mentioned yet, but Vltor is in Tucson too.

Interesting, I did not know that.

So is GG&G and Spartan Armor Systems.

I live in  Chandler and my wife is a realtor.   <$400k in Chandler will be  tough.  Think about if you want a single family home,  condo, etc and size and number of bedrooms.  If you are  handy, you might be able to find an older home that needs some TLC.  The market is nuts right now so you will need to be aggressive.  Good luck!

Roger. Sounds like Gilbert will be more within my price range? I still gotta do a couple rotations overseas first before moving so hopefully a right house will pops up by the end of the year.

Gilbert is nice and  growing  rapidly with prices increasing.  $350 to $400k in Chandler,  Gilbert,  Mesa tend to last less than a week  on the market.

Chandler  has good  schools by AZ standards

Lots of good neighborhoods that are a bit  older.  The Mcmansion construction rate is high.  I would expect  real estate market to pull back in the next year or so,  but who really knows.

If you know what you want  (size, lot size,  # bedrooms,  pool or not) I can peek at MLS and see what is available

Bump for more info about Chandler/Gilbert/Mesa.

Chandler and Gilbert are nicer then Mesa.
However all 3 have pockets of shitty neighborhoods.  Mesa just has a lot more of them.
If I had to buy a house sight unseen I'd concentrate on Gilbert, Chandler 2nd and Mesa a distant 3rd.

Yes.

I prefer the east side of town but always get stuck in Phoenix proper.  Currently living in way north Phoenix, but it's nice up here too so I can't complain.  I'm 10 minutes from the actual desert and 15 to my favorite out-door range so that's also a bonus; and 30 minutes to down town if needed.

Just saw this thread, live in West Chandler near I-10 and the 202.
I like the area as it is <30 minutes to the airport and another 15 to downtown Phoenix, lots of good places to eat.
School district is supposed to be good but I have no kids so no firsthand accounts.
Home prices are rising sharply, people from CA and OR bought the last couple of homes near me.
The only practical advise that I can give is to rent if at all possible, I have been through a few housing bubbles and this looks to be another one.
If you do buy, get the smallest house that you need and not the biggest that you can afford. can't tell you how many people I have seen lose it all because they were way overextended financially.  
There is an indoor range, C2 Tactical, close and an outdoor range, Rio Salado, maybe 30 minutes away.

Sir, thank you for this. I have about till May 2022 to look for the house so hopefully thing wont be too crazy by then. I'll keep what you said in mind.