Washington County Tactical Range is located in Southwest Pennsylvania. They are just over 40 miles south west of Pittsburgh, near the West Virginia/Pennsylvania border.  I discovered them through a Facebook group: TGTC – The Shooter’s Group. TGTC (The Green Tips Connection) had a get together shoot/mini contest at the Washington County Tactical Range back in April which I attended.

Here is a short video clip from that group shoot.

Washington County Tactical Range had a contest on Facebook last month. Share their video and get entered to win a chance to shoot a full auto Glock. Here is that video.

Well, I won the contest.

I already had the pleasure of shooting a full auto Glock. My FFL friend has a converted Gen2 Glock 17 and I got to shoot a real deal Glock 18C in Vegas with ShootLasVegas.com during Shot Show 2016. Click here to read that article. The Washington County Tactical Range “Glock 18” is a converted Glock 17 with auto sear. So I spoke to Tredd Barton to see if I could use a different machine gun. I asked to shoot his M60 and even offered to supply the ammo to feed it. He told me that it only runs on Nato Spec ammo. Not a problem since the ammo I have was left over from shooting the full auto FAL and FN Model D. The ammo was provided by ZQI Ammunition and it is Nato Spec 7.62×51.

I brought some new steel targets that I am testing down with me. Once Tredd saw that I was doing some scientific tests of shooting lots of bullets at steel, he graciously let me shoot some of his other fun guns. For science. We all know good science needs large sample sizes and no better way to lots of data than with full auto.

After shooting the M60 I got to try the H&K G36K. It was acquired used from a police department. It has the HK Hensoldt Dual Optic which is a 3x scope on the bottom which you look through the carry handle. It also has an integrated red dot sight on top. You just lift your head up a bit to aim with the red dot. You can see in the photo below my cheek is sitting high on the stock so I can aim with the red dot.

My all time favorite gun, the SCAR 17S. Tredd had this one modified to shoot full auto. As you saw in the video above, I had shot this before at Washington County Tactical Range. However that last time, the barrel was cut short to just 10 inches with a muzzle brake. It was extremely obnoxious and the recoil was mildly unpleasant. Tredd had some repairs done and changed the barrel to a 14″ bbl with the FN ECP flash hider. If you listen carefully to the video below, you can hear a subtle tuning fork like ringing sound when I chamber a round and after I shoot the SCAR17S. This gun pushed me back a bit as I did not brace myself for the recoil.

For dessert Tredd let me try using his Armalite AR-50A1 bolt gun in .50BMG.

Thanks to Tredd Barton and Washington County Range for letting me use their machine guns and range. If you are local you can follow them on Facebook or check out their website www.washingtoncountyguns.com

Photo of Tredd Barton, myself and The Pig