Geoshooting: An Addition to Defense Firearm Training and Sport Shooting

GunSite Academy photo

Geoshooting is a new outdoor sport that combines skills in navigating with a GPS and target practice. Someone gives you a set of coordinates, which you plug in to your GPS and go to each of the coordinates to find a target which your fire at and hit. It is an offshoot of a navigation sport called geocaching, where coordinates are given to find “treasure” or significant landmarks. Inside a waterproof box there is a logbook that each seeker signs into when found.

GunSite is a 2,000-acre firearm training academy near Paulden, Arizona, where geoshooters participate using firearms (Ruger) and Yamaha four wheelers to complete their task and as part of the many-facet training offered a the unique academy.

Geoshooting can be performed on foot, a hike in the woods or an endurance test in rough terrain. Using an ATV/UTV provides the ability to cover more ground, sometimes timed to test driving skills. Long term geoshooting puts the participants on a two-day trek with backpack, carrying everything over rugged terrain like foothills and mountains. For places like southern Georgia and Louisiana, geoshooting takes place using watercraft, like a canoe. Winter snipers utilize the method of military training in winter conditions with the use of cross-country skis and/or snowshoes or even snowmobile in a biathlon course that covers many miles and where the targets are scattered through a frozen forest. In the open West, geoshooting can be performed by horseback, either a multi-day trail ride or a quick shoot practicing target skills while mounted. Targets are not always readily seen from the trail, so you must be sharp. It is a lot like the navigation course that infantry soldiers performed in different climates and terrain; but includes target practice like the quick-fire infantry training course in the US Army.

Katie Pavlich, a Fox News contributor and news editor for Townhall, was sent to investigate, report, and participate at the GunSite Academy, where recently there has been an increase in women trainees to learn safety and defense techniques.

The following promotion video provides a little more insight on the training curriculum at GunSite Academy, founded by Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper.

Amateur shoots a tour of GunSite Academy ...

Another training center is located in North Carolina – Blackwater Training Center. Some of the information in the video is outdated, since it was made in 2008.