BE matches in South California

I am moving to 29 Palms California for a couple years. Are there any regular 2700 bullseye matches in the south California, south NV, or AZ areas? 

I looked on the California Rifle Pistol Association website and it does not list shooting events, dates, and locations. Just talks about legal stuff and complains about gun laws. 

Thanks in advance,

-TH

The NRA publishes upcoming matches every month, with some listings covering several months in the future.

From this Link -  Competitive Shooting Programs | NRA Explore
Under the Competitions tab under the picture- choose Competitive Shooting Matches to get the page with the monthly link to a word document.


This Month's Work Doc link-
Microsoft Word - CE_2022_AUGUST.docx (nrapublications.org)

I saw something recently that Escondido Fish & Game is starting their matches up again.

In the northern part of the state, we're really ramping up again. There are matches (going roughly from south to north) at:

- Gonzales
- Cupertino
- San Mateo
- Richmond
- Sebastopol
- Sloughhouse

I hear rumors that a pistol range is going in at Coalinga, too.

Mrs. Bickar and young Miss Bickar were out of town for a few weeks recently and I was shooting a match every weekend. I barely had time to clean guns during boring work Zoom meetings during the week.

Escondido has announced they’re starting their matches.  A bit of a drive from 29 Stumps.  There isn’t much in Nevada bullseye wise.  There’s a lot in Phoenix which is 4 hours away.  Escondido is 2.5 hours.

Every November 29 holds their long range, service rifle and service pistol eic matches.
Escondido is your closest match; approx 150 miles.
Jon

Looks like Escondido is probably my best bet. Lots of other disciplines like highpower and smallbore rifle which I also participate in.

I see there is a Los Angles RGC but looks like they only shoot smallbore rifle.

Desert Marksmen, they are near Acton.  They have two more matches this year (Sept. and Oct.), on the second Saturday of the month.  They shoot a 1800 match, .22 and CF.  

The gate opens at 8:00 am, shooting usually starts around 8:30.  They do turn in the scores to NRA, that is how I got my sharpshooter card.

Unfortunately Phoenix Rod & Gun Club is about 4 1/2 hours drive, but here is a link to the Calendar.

https://phoenixrodandgun.org/calendar

There is also some casual Bullseye at Wickenburg Sportsmen's Club which is a bit closer.

rburk wrote:Desert Marksmen, they are near Acton.  They have two more matches this year (Sept. and Oct.), on the second Saturday of the month.  They shoot a 1800 match, .22 and CF.  

The gate opens at 8:00 am, shooting usually starts around 8:30.  They do turn in the scores to NRA, that is how I got my sharpshooter card.

This range is where I started shooting outdoor BE (a very long time ago and before I escaped from Kommiefornia) and good to hear that they still continue the tradition. One of the few ranges that has manned target pits for High Power Rifle and a 1000 yard range to boot.

I am not familiar with desert marksmen.
Thanks for the info. Please keep it coming.

I am not familiar with desert marksmen.
Thanks for the info. Please keep it coming.

hengehold wrote:I am not familiar with desert marksmen.
Thanks for the info. Please keep it coming.

Here is a link to their website:
http://www.desertmarksmen.org
You can contact the BE discipline lead via the webform on the site for more details.

Looks like desert marksmen only shoots a 1800 instead of a full 2700. Escondido is doing the same thing and shooting 1800s instead of a 2700. I am moving from the East coast where everyone shoots a 2700. Why is the 1800 more popular in CA?

hengehold wrote:Looks like desert marksmen only shoots a 1800 instead of a full 2700. Escondido is doing the same thing and shooting 1800s instead of a 2700. I am moving from the East coast where everyone shoots a 2700. Why is the 1800 more popular in CA?

Could be that a lot of (new) shooters don't have a 45 pistol, while most have some sort of Centerfire Pistol that would suffice. Cost of ammunition, the total time it takes to shoot a 2700 in one day and the time the Match Director has available could be other reasons.

Folks most likely live a good distance from the range, therefore not able to start match very early. It gets VERY hot by around noon. Hence, better to shoot two 900's, then retire. Phoenix has much the same situation, but even hotter than Southern CA!

I’ll probably get in trouble here, but it’s from poorly ran matches. Too much talking and not enough shooting. Treated like social event. And then marksman fighting over scores; claiming double shots when they don’t even have a group on a repair center. Need to get down to business. Show up to shoot and visit after the match is over. 
Also have had many older shooters that don’t have the stamina for full 2700, which is completely understandable.
I don’t like 1800’s, maybe if they had a 1780 Club I would be more motivated. But driving a 100 miles for an 1800 is hardly worth it.
Escondido is being ran by new match director. Hopefully he runs a tight ship.
Jon

Not on the west coast, but my club runs a 3-gun 1800 for time reasons. We can usually finish up 3 600s by noon-1 while
most 2700s would be 2-3 at best (depending on lunch break). It is an easier sell to the club for the only part of the Saturday to be given up 
for the match rather than the whole Saturday. I would rather shoot 2700s, but given the choice of an 1800 or nothing I would take the 1800. 

That said Jon does make good points about how the match is run. The social aspect is important, but shouldn’t be the dominating part of the match.

I have not been to South Bay Rod and Gun Club, but they do show a monthly 2700 match on the 4th Saturday, website says it is an NRA approved match.  It is in Dulzura, long way from 29 Palms.

There is an 1800 match in Palmdale.

I am the former match director for Escondido Fish & Game, 2011-2018. It's my match that Jon E is talking about above. He's right: it was too slow. It would take us over 2 hours to run a 90-shot course. Jon was always the first one back from scoring. It was always the same guy who was the last one back. As hard as I tried, I couldn't make it run any faster. It was like herding cats.

One of the reasons we were slower was, per club rules, we didn't allow people downrange until EVERYBODY was back behind a yellow line before declaring safe to go downrange. I stopped facing the targets until that command, to cut down on the people who wanted to stare at the targets through the spotting scope for a while.

We did run two 2700's a year: April and October. That was a really looong day. When I ran rimfire EIC's (5X a year), we would making it a 2-gun 1200.

I am in Georgia now, and the matches here do run noticeably faster.

Thanks for all the comments. It helps me to get oriented To the area. Looks like any BE pistol shooting is a minimum of 3 hr drive from me. Maybe I can get some sort of BE matches going on the 29 palms base.

Go out to the Range Office and ask for Mr. Ed Folts. Tell him I said hello. He’ll square you away on the ways of 29 Palms.
Jon

Jon Eulette wrote:I’ll probably get in trouble here, but it’s from poorly ran matches. Too much talking and not enough shooting. Treated like social event. And then marksman fighting over scores; claiming double shots when they don’t even have a group on a repair center. Need to get down to business. Show up to shoot and visit after the match is over. 
Also have had many older shooters that don’t have the stamina for full 2700, which is completely understandable.
I don’t like 1800’s, maybe if they had a 1780 Club I would be more motivated. But driving a 100 miles for an 1800 is hardly worth it.
Escondido is being ran by new match director. Hopefully he runs a tight ship.
Jon

Jon,
The marksmen have been wailing about their 5's there forever. I shot the match there in the early 2000's and they were mostly 2 gun matches. Col. Bacon would regularly win it with a 1780+ score. I scored many a 895 in 22 for him. 

I'll highlight the difference in MK and HM. I was scoring him once and he shot a 100-10x with the 45. He stapled over it as fast as a person can. I said aren't you going to keep that? He said "nope because I plan on doing it again." 

2650 mentality right there.

I will probably try to attend each club at least once if possible. I like to travel and meet new people. It is part of the fun of the sport to me.

I have shot rifles competitively for a long time and have probably shot matches at about 50 or more different ranges.