Inside the World's Biggest Machine Gun Festival

The Big Sandy Shoot, “the largest machine-gun shoot in the world . . . a uniquely American event,” is held two weekends a year, in March and October, outside Wikieup, Arizona, a remote census-designated place halfway between Vegas and Phoenix on the edge of the Mojave Desert. Shooters pay $325 for a spot on the firing line; observers who aren’t local pay thirty-five dollars at the gate. Shooters, staff, and observers come here from all over the world. At the fall shoot, I talked with folks from Belgium, Russia, Mexico, the UK, and Australia, to name just a few countries, and nearly every part of America. Many have come for decades; at least one guy I talked to had been to every single event over the shoot’s thirty-five-year history. Like many Americans, I’ve seen machine guns shot onscreen a lot, but I’ve never shot a machine gun myself. I was here to close the distance and try to understand those who shoot and stockpile these guns. [View in Browser]( [Esquire]( [SHOP]( EXCLUSIVE [SUBSCRIBE]( [On the Ground at the Biggest Machine Gun Shoot in the World]( [On the Ground at the Biggest Machine Gun Shoot in the World]( The Big Sandy Shoot, “the largest machine-gun shoot in the world . . . a uniquely American event,” is held two weekends a year, in March and October, outside Wikieup, Arizona, a remote census-designated place halfway between Vegas and Phoenix on the edge of the Mojave Desert. Shooters pay $325 for a spot on the firing line; observers who aren’t local pay thirty-five dollars at the gate. Shooters, staff, and observers come here from all over the world. At the fall shoot, I talked with folks from Belgium, Russia, Mexico, the UK, and Australia, to name just a few countries, and nearly every part of America. Many have come for decades; at least one guy I talked to had been to every single event over the shoot’s thirty-five-year history. 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