People interested in all-terrain vehicles, campers, paintball, Western art, elkhorn chandeliers, military veterans issues and trucks can draw a target on their calendar for the upcoming Cortez Gun Show.

Oh — gun enthusiasts can show up, too.

Slated for June 1-3 at the Montezuma County Fairgrounds, the 2012 Cortez Gun Show isn’t just, well, a gun show.

“It’s going to be like a mini sportsmen’s expo,” said Steve Blackwell, the gun show’s manager. “It’s going to be one of the biggest sportsmen’s expos Cortez has put on in a long time — if not forever.”

Sponsored by the Four Corners Rifle & Pistol Club, the gun show is in its fourth year, Blackwell said. Previous shows were held at the old Walmart building on East Main Street and featured items people would expect to find at a traditional gun show. This year, organizers had something much bigger in mind.

“We thought the city of Cortez needed a jolt to start the tourist season, so we’ve made the venue bigger,” Blackwell said. “We’ve rented the fairgrounds.”

With more than 100 vendors anticipated, this year’s Cortez Gun Show will feature much more than the gun dealers, guns and accessories that the three previous gun shows featured, Blackwell said.

“We’ve got a guy who’s going to set up a table with paintballs,” he said. “We’ve got an archery dealer. We’ve got Western art. We’ve got a guy who sells gun cabinets. We’ve got a little something for everybody, and that’s the goal.

“It ought to be a great day for family entertainment,” Blackwell added.

Moving the Cortez Gun Show from the old Walmart building to the fairgrounds and expanding the event into a sportsmen’s expo is a good idea, said Larry Chandler, who co-owns Cortez’s Summit Shooting Center along with his wife, Darlene.

“I think this is going to do very good,” Chandler said. “I really do. It’s going to be an outdoor expo, and my goodness, they’re going to have so many items for the outdoor people to use. Hunters, fishermen, sightseers — like the ATVs (all-terrain vehicles); there’s going to be ATVs out there on display.”

Vendors from all over Colorado, and from as far as Florida and Oregon, are interested in showing their wares at the Cortez Gun Show, Blackwell said. Gun enthusiasts can browse through a broad range of merchandise.

“We’ll have modern firearms as well as the black powder and the primitive firearms,” he said. “We’ll have all kinds of pistols, all kinds of accessories, reloading equipment, powder — that kind of accessories.”

Summit Shooting Center plans to offer a variety of items, including guns and accessories, Chandler said.

“We’ll have firearms at our table,” he said. “There will be new and used guns, possibly antique guns. … There will be ball caps. We’ll have probably a Smith & Wesson .22 pistol — sort of a new one. We’ll have some Ruger … a little compact pistol in 9 mm.”

The Cortez Gun Show will help vendors by connecting them with people interested in guns and accessories, Blackwell said.

“It gives them exposure,” he said. “We do all the advertisement out here to bring a group of folks into one location, so we put buyers in front of them. That’s how we help the vendors.”

With numerous vendors in one site competing for gun collectors’ dollars, shoppers can bargain for deals in a way that in-store and online shopping doesn’t offer, Blackwell said.

“Basically the gun dealers will offer not only variety, but you’ve got the opportunity to wheel and deal,” he said.

The gun show helps vendors like Summit Shooting Center by giving them exposure to people who might become new customers, Chandler said. Offering access to so many vendors in one location also helps customers, he said.

“It gives them (customers) such a broad spectrum of everything,” Chandler said. “Some of us (vendors) have different firearms that the other one doesn’t have. You can do it as a one-stop shop. You don’t have to drive all over the country. You see so many things in one location.”

In addition to gun vendors, 4H members plan to set up a shooting booth with BB or pellet guns that participants can test their marksmanship on, and Montezuma-Cortez High School will run concessions, Blackwell said.

“We want to try to get the community involved in this,” he said. “We want them to have as much fun as we have.”

Gates will be open to the public from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, June 1; from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, June 2; and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, June 3.

Admission is $5 per day. Children under 12 years old get in free when accompanied by an adult.

The Montezuma County Fairgrounds are located at 30100 U.S. Highway 160, several miles east of Cortez.

Vendors can enter the Cortez Gun Show for $50 per table. Blackwell didn’t set a deadline for vendors to apply; he said he’ll work to facilitate all vendors interested in the show.

The gun show will provide 24-hour security through the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office posse.

For more information about the Cortez Gun Show, contact Steve Blackwell at (cell) 749-9772 or (home) 565-8300.



Reach Russell Smyth at [email protected] or 564-6030.