A slurry of snow and sleet was battering the Nevada Firearms Academy and Range, a rugged expanse of dry soil and sagebrush about 25 miles outside downtown Reno. It’s rarely so cold in this part of the high desert basin — hovering in the high 30s just past dawn on a Saturday morning — and it almost never snows in April. But for the roughly 200 men and women arriving for the weekend’s Tactical Games, the inhospitable weather only added to the experience.
A brawny man decked out in camo fatigues and body armor laughed as he wiped mud from his AR-15-style rifle, saying he could not tell if it had become colder or if he’d just gotten wetter.
The Tactical Games is a multiday competition that tests fitness and marksmanship, often simultaneously. Competitors, outfitted in military gear and wearing 15-pound weighted tactical vests, spend two days sprinting, climbing, jumping, lifting barbells and shooting, all while enduring the elements — usually the extreme heat and humidity of Texas, Arizona or South Carolina, but sometimes, as on this weekend in Nevada, a wet desert squall.
One event finds the competitors heaving 80-pound sandbags over obstacles and clambering over a 6-foot wall. Another has them burning calories on stationary bikes before throwing themselves to the ground and taking precision shots at targets on a distant hill. It’s part “American Gladiators,” part Call of Duty.
Contestants like Ryan Morrison, left, and Tim Hilborn wear weighted tactical vests during the two-day competition.
Josiah Ness tossed a weighted bag over his head in one of the events.
The vests of participants like Prince Fajardo were decorated with various slogans and patches that are meaningful to them.