On the last day of SHOT Show, my friends from Malaysia invited me to go shoot with them. They hired a local outfit called Shoot Las Vegas. We were picked up in an H2 Hummer from the Venetian lobby/pick up area.

We were driven out about 30 minutes to the Las Vegas Pro Gun Club where a trailer was waiting for us at one of the 50 yard shooting bays. The Shoot Las Vegas trailer is actually their mobile firing line.

The left side of the trailer opens up as an awning and shooting bench. There were three stations. Each station has a laptop and webcamera for shooting video and taking still pics of the shooter.

Each laptop is connected, wirelessly, to this master laptop which is connected to the internet via wireless hub/hotspot in the trailer. From this laptop you can view the images and videos captured by all the shooting stations and you can share them via social media or simply email them to yourself. All the images and videos are available on their website under “photo gallery”

Along the right side the trailer, where your back is turned when you are shooting, there is a gallery of weapons. Shoot Las Vegas’ core demographic are tourists who want to try firing a gun. For most of these people, they only know firearms from movies. So these weapon descriptions reference what films or tv shows they are most famous for. Such as the Kel-Tec Shotgun seen in the movie John Wick. The reference cards also have a number next to the image of the weapon, that is a recoil scale. The higher the number the more recoil it will have.

There were two range officers. Even though the guys of Shoot Las Vegas said that we are probably the most experienced group they have had, they wanted us to follow their safety protocols. Such as letting them load and chamber rounds for us. As well as solve any malfunctions. We let them handle everything just to make things easier. Why bother when you have people paid to do it for you? Below is the RO showing my friend Rith the golden Desert Eagle in .50AE.

While the ROs gave their safety briefing, I noticed someone had a negligent discharge. They told us that happened just last week.

Edit: The only time they had a recoil induced discharge was due to the S&W 500. They have never had a machine gun climb. Due to the revolver incident they now stagger chambers to prevent that from happening again.

Part of the shooting package is the “sniper station” where you shoot an Accuracy International “Arctic Warefare”  at bags of tannerite. This was the highlight for my friends. They do not have the ability to shoot binary explosives back in Malayasia. A bit of overkill when shooting 1/2 lb tannerite bags at less than 50 yards, but remember this is for a novice shooter not seasoned firearms enthusiasts.

After shooting the small bags of tannerite and shooting the guns we had chosen, Shoot Las Vegas brought out large bag of tannerite! At just 50 yards, I was feeling hesitant that this was a safe thing to do. They assured me they do 5lb bags all the time. Yes, but this is more than 5 lbs and I do not think it would be wise to do so. Hubris is a pain in the butt when you are wrong and I did not feel like getting hurt by rocks flying at me that day.

Thanks to cool heads and general consensus, they cut the bag into thirds. Giving my three Malaysian friends each an opportunity to shoot a lot of tannerite and do so safely. 1/3 of 8lbs is plenty of fun.

They had a small safe in the corner just for handguns.

The only gun I cared about was the “93R”

I don’t know about you, but Beretta 93R are rare for me. This one has been modified. They switched it to full auto rather than 3 round burst. The welded metal on the slide is not from a broken slide but to reinforce the slide as that is a weak point in 93Rs, according to one of the ROs.

I did not know what to expect when shooting the 93R. Shoving my thumb into the trigger guard and shouldering the stock did not feel solid to me. Later when you watch the video, you can see the gun jumps a bit. This is purely due to my ignorance of how the muzzle climb on this gun behaves. But after a short burst I got the gun under control. Sadly I only had 25 rounds to play with. I should have asked for multiple mags and really play with it. The 93R was an interesting weapon and I am happy that I got a chance to try one out.

I only chose three guns to play with. Partially I did not want to have my friends spend too much on me and the fact that most of the firearms at Shoot Las Vegas are somewhat common and I have access to many of them already.  I did shoot this full auto MP5K with suppressor just as a guilty pleasure. They are so much fun to shoot. It did manage to stove pipe on me though. That could be attributed to the fact it is a rental gun.

My third choice was their “full auto Glock”. At first I thought it was a modified Glock 17 with full auto sear. How wrong I was. It was a Glock 18C inside a Roni chassis. Since we showed competent firearm skills, they let me take the Glock 18C out of the Roni and shoot it as intended.

The muzzle blast residue is from being contained in the Roni.

Shooting the Glock 18C was AMAZING! Having shot my FFL’s auto seared Glock 17, it is not the same. The compensated barrel/slide of the 18C made a big difference. One aspect of a full auto Glock 17 is the recoil. Shooting a burst would always push me back on my heels. The 18C was easy to control while shooting it. Apparently the frame/slide of the 18C is not compatible with a 17.

Toward the front of the trailer is where all the long guns are kept.  As you can see from the pictures, there is a wide range of firearms. Providing a novice shooter a well rounded experience and options if they so desire.

Part of the Shoot Las Vegas experience is the option to shoot a .50bmg Barret. Shoot Las Vegas has a partnership with the Pro Gun Club so they use the Pro Gun Club’s Barret. My friends shot it up and into the mountain behind the berm. (that is where they are supposed to shoot it)

Here is Meng shooting a M249 on full auto.

Shooting a full auto HK416. My friend Irfan pointed out that it is not a real HK416 as the upper is different and it is direct impingement rather than piston driven.

EDIT: Eric Brashear, owner of Shoot Las Vegas clarified that Robert is not an owner of Shoot Las Vegas. He is not even an employee of Shoot Las Vegas. He occasionally repairs the machine guns for them. Due to the false information he gave me, Robert has been banned from the range.

A big thanks to my friends Meng, Irfan, and Rith for a great shooting experience.

Edit: Owner of Battlefield Vegas sent me an email to set the record straight.

Just want to make you aware of an error in your article Full Auto With Shoot Las Vegas.

While I do know Robert and we speak, Robert has never had any of his weapons leased, loaned, borrowed or used at Battlefield Vegas. We met when through a mutual friend soon after we first opened Battlefield Vegas and discussed him coming aboard but it never went any further than that.

I just want to set the record straight. It was a tough road for my wife and I to get where we are at (other ranges tried their hardest to keep us from opening), Robert played NO part in any of the operations of Battlefield Vegas at any time.

V/R

Ron M Cheney

Battlefield Vegas