I’m Lance Rankin, gunsmith and owner of Western Sport in Roanoke, Texas, and I have a well-documented weakness for clone builds. Customers bring me parts lists for M16A4 and Mk18 clones the way other people collect vinyl. So when reports came back from the FAST Retro Rifle Match in Buckeye, Arizona, a 2-Gun competition from Firearms Action Shooting Trials built entirely around Global War on Terror era rifles, I read every word. I wasn’t on the ground for this one, so the stage details below come from participants’ accounts; the opinions are mine.
The premise
The match restricted rifles to the post-9/11 through 2014 window and encouraged clone builds and surplus guns. Think M16A4 clones with carry-handle optics in the GWOT division, and period-appropriate custom ARs in the Red Dot division. Four stages, each with a four-minute par time, and shooters reportedly burned around 300 rounds per day. That’s not a typo. Most local 2-Gun matches won’t feed you 300 rounds in a month of club nights.
The stages
The course design is what makes this worth writing about:
- Stage 1 opened with a full-auto machine gun engagement from inside a minivan, then moved to rifle work from multiple positions, with a spinner target that cost you a penalty if you couldn’t flip it.
- Stage 2 was mid-distance work across several positions with a bonus mover, built to spike your heart rate and test how fast you pick up targets.
- Stage 3 ran from a Conex box tower, shooting through ports at varied distances, scored by time deducted per hit, with negative scores actually possible.
- Stage 4 stretched shooters from 200 to 400 yards from the tower and prone, where wind calls decided the leaderboard.
Targets were almost all steel, which keeps a big match moving. Total distance spread ran 50 to 400 yards, which is honest work for a red dot or a fixed-carry-handle A4 clone.
Why I like this format
Modern 2-Gun has drifted toward an arms race: the lightest build, the newest LPVO, the fastest gamer gear. Nothing wrong with that, but it prices out the shooter who just has a rifle. A retro division flips the equation. Your 2005-spec clone isn’t obsolete equipment; it’s the required equipment. That gets a whole shelf of safe queens back out in the sunlight, and it rewards fundamentals over gear budget, especially at 400 yards with period glass.
One gear note from the match reports that rings true from my own range time: a simple chest rig, like the G-CODE Sync 4Zero shooters ran there, carries rifle mags just fine without a full battle belt. For a long-stage format where you’re mostly feeding a rifle, simpler is better.
FAST has more on the calendar, including a West Virginia 2-Gun match and a 1-Gun event they’re calling the Intergalactic Small Arms Championship. If the format spreads east toward Texas, I’ll be there with an A4 clone and unjustified confidence.
Building your own retro rifle
Clone-correct builds are half research, half machine work, and I genuinely enjoy both halves. If you want to put one together, start with my guide on how to build an AR-15, and if you’re weighing a factory rifle as a base, my Daniel Defense vs BCM comparison covers the two names that come up most. I do custom builds, period-correct parts sourcing, and Cerakote in-house at my shop north of Fort Worth. Call 817-393-4000 or email [email protected] and tell me what era you’re cloning.
Lance Rankin is the owner and Chief Gunsmith of Western Sport, a family-run Type 07 FFL and Class 3/SOT dealer in Roanoke, Texas, serving shooters since 2007. Born and raised in Texas with over 50 years of experience handling firearms, Lance purchased Western Sport in 2017 and turned his lifelong passion into his profession. He specializes in AR-15 and AR-10 platform rifles, manufactures Western Sport’s own AR-15 line under the Rankin Industries brand, and runs the shop’s in-house Cerakote coating operation. When he’s not behind the counter or the workbench, you’ll find him on his ranch deep into the night, hunting coyotes with an AR-15 and thermal optics. Lance holds an MBA and personally shoots and tests the products Western Sport sells.
