3-Gun Nation

3GN was founded by Pete Brown and Chad Adams with a straightforward goal: take a sport that had existed in informal and "outlaw" match formats for years, formalize it, and get it in front of a national audience. Before 3GN, 3-gun competition was fragmented — local clubs ran their own matches under their own rules, there was no unified ranking system, and the sport had essentially zero mainstream media presence.

The organization structured itself as the National 3-Gun Association and began operating under the 3-Gun Nation brand.

Television Launch

The television component launched July 31, 2011, initially on NBC Sports and later expanding to Sportsman Channel, MAV TV, The Blaze, and other syndicated networks. That broadcast run continued until 2018 — nearly a decade of putting scoped AR-15s, tube-fed shotguns, and race-gun pistols in front of audiences who'd never seen competitive shooting done at that pace.

Key milestones in 3GN's operational history

End of Operations

Operations wound down in 2019, and 3GN was formally shut down in 2021.