Offerings from Accuracy International (AI) and Alexander Arms were fired  from the 600-yard line.

At the Blackwater Shoot-out

By C. Mark Brinkley
Times staff writer

MOYOCK, N.C. - There are no guards at the gate, nothing to give it all away, nothing but soybean fields and trees and farmland for as far as you can see from the fence line, but something isn't quite right about the dead end halt to Puddin Ridge Road.

If you were a tourist visiting the popular beaches of North Carolina's Outer Banks, just a short drive south from Chesapeake, Va., someone who got lost on the way to your uncle's condo, maybe you'd just turn around, head back to the highway and ask for directions. You might not think twice about it.
Until you heard machine guns crackling off in the distance. And saw the push-button numeric keypad on the gate. Then you might wonder what's in those woods.

Going to look could be a very bad idea.

Assume the gate is open, so you drive in, winding past the crops down the blacktop, passing the signs that tell you the administrative offices are just a few miles ahead. Administrative offices? For a farm? If you haven't turned around by now, it's across the river and into the trees, past the "No Trespassing" and "No Hunting" signs posted every so often on the trees that border the road. Past the snakes that crawl onto the hardball to warm up in the sun, past the wild turkeys that gobble across the road in front of you.

After a few miles, the swamp opens up into a cross between a country club and a hunting lodge, acres of well-manicured grass and clean buildings and parking lots. There's the admin building, as promised, a huge welcome center in the middle of nowhere with a circular driveway edged by man-made ponds. People are milling around out front, smoking and talking. Black Chevy Suburbans with tinted windows are parked here and there, and ground crews ride by on golf carts.

You see a logo: a bear track inside a set of red crosshairs. People are carrying guns.

Welcome to the Shootout at Blackwater.

Inside the admin offices, it's a typical trade show. People in nametags chat up other people in nametags. There's a stuffed bear in the cozy lobby. Most of the guests have arrived. On the table by the door, everything you ever needed to know about how this building got here is available in brochures.

Testosterone central

Situated on 5,200 acres of private property, Blackwater calls itself "the most comprehensive private tactical training facility in the United States." It's owned and operated by former Navy SEALs, and its instructors include a wide array of longtime military and civilian weapons and tactics experts.

There are ranges and ranges and more ranges here, things you can't find anywhere in the Defense Department. Facilities done the way true operators would design them if the sky were the limit. There are static and moving steel ranges. Carbine ranges, helicopter landing pads and drop zones. Rock climbing and rappelling walls. Live-fire, multi-level shooting houses.

There's even R.U. Ready High School, complete with moveable walls and loudspeakers, designed to give tactical teams valuable experience in Columbine-like situations.

It's testosterone central.

When it comes down to military training, there's no place quite like Blackwater. Even in this eclectic group of gun makers, bullet manufacturers, government operatives and force-protection dealers, the would-be "farm" gets points for creativity and attention to detail. And this is a tough room.

Assembled here, by invitation only, is the Armed Forces Journal's "who's who" list of the best and brightest the military and law enforcement communities have to offer. Many of them don't want you to know who they are, and they don't want to answer questions about what they do. Some of them have trained here in the past, maybe even have friends manning the machine guns you can still hear firing in the distance. These are the evaluators.

Also present are a variety of vendors from some of the top companies in the industry - the gun guys, the bullet guys, the glass guys. They make guns and bulletproof glass and armor-piercing projectiles. They represent the best products available or they aren't invited back next year.

Over two days, these groups will get together and share notes. They'll put Product A in the hands of Evaluator B, take them out to the range and ask them to give it a whirl. Thoughts and opinions will be collected and tabulated and impressions will be formed.

"The whole purpose of this gathering is so we can get the best materiel into the hands of U.S. forces," says John Roos, editor of Armed Forces Journal, speaking to the assembled group.

Everyone knows the drill, now in its fourth year. The game is on.

Taking their best shot

Evaluators examine how glass fared  during the Shoot-out.

At the far end of a 1,200-yard range, which sometimes doubles as a small-airplane runway, there's a strange array of targets.

Panels of glass, huge blocks of clay, hunks of meat - even a mailbox - await torture at the hands of the weapons and munitions dealers. The first day is all about irresistible force meeting the immovable object.

The gun guys are fondling their weapons. The bullet guys and the glass guys eye each other and try to act nonchalant.

Tony Piscitelli, head of glassmaker Team Piscitelli, an American Defense Systems company, is preparing to put on a show.

"We're the only ones in the country, possibly the world, that will take multiple shots outside of testing," Piscitelli says, readying his glass for the demonstration. Basically, the idea is to see whether some of the most powerful rounds available will penetrate the slabs of glass he's setting up in metal frames.

If you saw Fox's Iraq war coverage from its downtown New York studios on 47th Street, you're already familiar with Piscitelli's work and don't know it. The team built the windows for that studio, on the conditions that they would withstand a suicide bomber, stop a drive-by shooting from an AK-47 assault rifle and cut the noise from the street by 60 decibels.

People who live in Piscitelli glass houses can throw all the stones they want.

Such glass ranges from $80 to several thousand bucks per square foot installed, depending on the requirements. Staying alive comes with a price, and it's not available to everyone.

"It's for us and Israel, far as I'm concerned," Piscitelli says, making his final inspections. "[Screw] everyone else. We don't sell to other people for a reason."

LeMas' John Hamilton, right, talks after demonstrating  a blended metal round hitting a clay block.

Down the line, LeMas, a distributor for RBCD Ammo, is testing frangible rounds - which disintegrate on impact - ripping craters in blocks of clay but barely piercing the backstops. Large slabs of whole top round meat, suspended from hooks, melt when hit by a variety of powerful rounds - expensive chunks of beef ruined for a greater good. The bullets leave holes you could throw a rock through, and pieces of flesh fly into the crowd. The evaluators take notes.

In the distance, hundreds of rounds ping against unseen targets as a S.W.A.T. or military unit makes use of other areas of the Blackwater facility. The crowd barely notices, and even the facility representatives aren't sure who else is working today.

"This place is like a 10-ring circus most days," says Ed Behrens, a former Marine and retired sergeant from the New York Police Department, the self-described "range Nazi" here. "It's controlled bedlam. The SEALs come down here. Lots of government agencies. Every three-letter unit you can think of."

The attention turns to the mailbox, lined with a new composite material designed to contain explosions. The armor has a variety of uses, but today's demonstration is to show that mail bombs could be contained without injuring civilians walking down the street.

"Looks like they're going to blow the mailbox right here," says Behrens. "Why am I not sure this is a good thing?"

The first attempt goes off with a fizzle, and people look around wondering if that was all there was to it. The explosives guy -breaching technician - from Blackwater insists that something didn't explode properly and wants another try.

His second attempt succeeds. A surprisingly powerful explosion - which was supposed to be contained - obliterates the mailbox, sending debris and dirt flying in all directions. Not the result the liner's manufacturer wanted, to be sure, but good entertainment for the crowd.

Later, the breaching tech is unsure what happened.

"They asked me if I could come down here and blow up a mailbox," the tech says, shrugging. "Sure, I can blow up a mailbox."

One passing evaluator gives his approval.

"I just wanted you to know, that's the funniest thing I've seen all day," he says, laughing.
It's finally time for the glass challenge. The crowd is eager to see whether the .50-caliber Beowulf rifle from Alexander Arms can pierce the glass.

Alexander Arms is probably the most popular vendor here, mostly because of the novelty of their weapons. The company specializes in modifying military M-16 rifles and the civilian AR-15s, making interchangeable upper receivers so the weapons will fire a variety of calibers. All it takes to go from the 5.56mm military standard to the .50-caliber monster is the pop of a pin and the shuffle of parts. You can do it in less than a minute.

Along with the Beowulf, the most popular because of the sheer power, there's the .21-caliber Genghis and .26-caliber Grendel, a new 6.5mm option.

"Basically, if I go to the range, I have to go very early or very late," says Thomas Lintz, an Alexander Arms team member. "After the first 'pop,' people line up to see it."

Whether it will crack the Piscitelli glass is another matter. The glass guy says no. The gun guy isn't sure.

"It's not really designed for that," says Bill Alexander, the company founder. "This is for fun."

As if a .50-caliber rifle qualifies as "fun."

Ultimately, the Beowulf breaks through, with a massive slug from 20 feet piercing the inch-thick glass. Every other round fired at the windows falls far short, making it a win-win for both teams.

"It's good glass," Alexander says after the demonstration. "It did great."

Day Two

After a night in the Blackwater bunkhouse and breakfast in the buffet-style chow hall, it's time for Day Two, where the evaluators themselves take to the ranges.

It's a gun lover's dream: expensive and exotic weapons from the world's finest companies just waiting to be picked up and tested.

SIGARMS has a Blaser R93 tactical rifle set up for demonstration, just like the ones already in use by police teams in Orlando, Fla., and Columbus. A bolt-action rifle, the R93 becomes a left-handed weapon with just a simple swapping of parts.

"There isn't a person built you couldn't fit to this gun," the company rep tells an evaluator giving it the once over.

Next door, a rep from Phalanx holsters shows how the innovative carrying system automatically chambers a round into the handgun as it is pulled, and how hard it is for anyone but the wearer to free the gun from the sling.

Such a simple change can save lives, he says.

Heckler and Koch are showing off the tiny - only 15 inches long - MP7 personal defense weapon, similar to the trusty MP5 submachine gun. It fires 4.6mm rounds at semi- or full-auto at up to 950 rounds per minute.

Yep. An empty clip in less than three seconds.

At another range, FN Manufacturing, Inc., is showing off its own version, the ergonomic P90, which looks like it should shoot lasers. It has rounded grips and a top-loading magazine made of high-yield plastic, packaged into a 20-inch, 6.6-pound rectangle that pops out 5.7mm rounds in single-shot or full-auto modes. Spent shells fall from the bottom of the gun, making it perfect for left- or right-handed shooters.

Square up to the target, tuck your elbow near your chest, lean forward a little and let 'er rip. The 50-round magazine is empty in 3.3 seconds. It has almost no recoil.

"There were a few weapons that had extreme versatility," said Lt. j.g. Gary Hoar, 39, an evaluator from the Navy's Mobile Security Group-Two in Little Creek, Va., "The FNH submachine gun P90 was extremely versatile, well-engineered and provided a fast acquisition to target."

If you need something heavier, perhaps the new M60E4 is the one for you.

A tried-and-true staple of many U.S. units, the M-60 has had its share of problems over the years. The new modification from distributor U.S. Ordnance, however, seeks to eliminate those reliability doubts.

The company's promotional literature (conveniently printed in both English and Spanish for foreign markets) says the weapon is now 12 percent lighter and has a 30 percent improved belt pull, increasing reliability. To prove it, the U.S. Ordnance vendor fed hundreds of rounds through the weapon, to show that it wouldn't jam.
And it didn't.

"I liked the E4," said retired Marine Lt. Col. Bill Go, 44, an evaluator from the Naval Operations Other Then War Technical Center. "We had a lot of severe reliability problems with the M-60. This is a significant improvement over what I remember shooting."

Using the M-60 has other advantages too, Go said.

"I think that's got a lot of potential," he said. "It reduces your training cycle. People already know all the levers and buttons."

But if there was a crowd favorite, it was the Beowulf.

Imagine one guy in the fire team carries an extra receiver in his pack, mere pounds considering the punch involved. If serious holes become necessary, any standard M-16 suddenly packs a wallop.

The Beowulf comes with a standard seven-round clip and has a three-round burst option. Though it looks like it should recoil with a mule kick, the weapon is surprisingly easy to manage.

"The biggest thing is the stopping power," said Hoar. "You can shoot the M-16 at a car all day and not stop it. I can stop anything with that. Get LeMas to give you the ammo that will go through anything and get Alexander Arms to give you the weapon and you're good."

Ultimately, bringing the military elite to such conclusions is what the shootout is all about.