It hit 99 degrees on Friday. It hit 99 again on Saturday. By Sunday it “cooled off” to 94, though that Sunday was rather overcast and that made it feel like a big relief compared to Friday and Saturday.
That was the backdrop for the sixth annual Guardian Conference, held September 18 through 20, 2026, at the Oklahoma City Gun Club. Every year after the event, I sit down with the attendee lists, the class schedule, and far too many spreadsheets to figure out what actually happened out there. This year some of those numbers surprised even me, so I’m sharing them.
The 2026 Guardian Conference at a Glance
- 121 people onsite for the event
- At least 28 states represented
- 14 instructors teaching 61 class sessions of 31 different courses
- 591 class seats filled
- About 1,940 student training hours, roughly 24 hours per student
- About 78,000 rounds fired over the weekend (estimate)
- 67 shooters took on the HK Challenge
- About 2,100 bottles of water, roughly 280 gallons
- 310 different people have now attended at least one Guardian Conference since 2021
Now for the stories behind them.
Where Everyone Came From
This was the most local crowd in the event’s history. The typical attendee lived about 340 miles from the range in a straight line, which works out to roughly 400 miles by road. From 2022 through 2025, that number ran between 470 and 640 miles.
A quarter of ticket buyers were Oklahomans, up from about 1 in 10 in 2022 through 2024. Oklahoma led the way, followed by Texas, and then Nebraska and Arkansas.
That isn’t to say there weren’t some who came from afar. About 18% of attendees traveled more than 1,000 miles, the same share as every year since 2022. The growth came from folks within a few hours’ drive who finally decided to make the trip.
The farthest travelers this year came from Alaska, about 2,870 miles away as the crow flies. That’s commitment.
And somebody from northwest Montana (about 1,200 miles out) has bought tickets every single year from 2022 through 2026. Add it all up and this year’s attendees covered roughly 80,000 miles round trip, and that’s straight-line math. The actual driving was worse.
The People Who Keep Coming Back
Of the attendees, 39% were there for the first time. Six people have attended all six Guardian Conferences since we started in 2021. Another seven have made five of six. When people keep spending a weekend of their year (and their vacation days, and their ammo budget) with you, it means something. We don’t take it lightly.
People also bring people. Nearly half of attendees (46%) came as part of a group of two or more. The largest was a party of six, and seven families or couples trained together.
Women made up about 17% of attendees this year, which is right around our six-year average of 18%. The high mark was 22.5% in 2023. That’s a number I’d like to see go up, and if you’re a woman who has been on the fence about this event, I’d genuinely love to see you out there.
What the Training Actually Looked Like
The Guardian Conference isn’t a trade show. It’s three days of mostly live-fire training, rotating from bay to bay on a schedule built around you.
This year, 14 instructors taught 61 sessions of 31 different courses across 15 ranges and classrooms. Fifty-one of those sessions were live fire. Students filled 591 seats, about 73% of total capacity, and 7 sessions ran completely full.
The Instructors
The 2026 cadre included Riley Bowman, Dan Brady, Cecil Burch, Zach Cox, Wayne Dobbs, Bryan Eastridge, Chuck Haggard, Brian Hill, Brian McLaughlin, Tyler Tharp, and Adam Winch, plus Don West, and Shawn Vincent of CCW Safe, our title sponsor.
A few of them put in serious time on the line. Riley taught about 24 hours of classes, Chuck Haggard about 23, and Adam Winch about 22. In 99-degree heat. These three and the rest of the instructors are solid people and good sports despite the unforgiving weather we had this year.
What Got Taught
- Pistol skills (36 sessions): Grip, Sights, Trigger; Movement & Shooting; Pistol Optics and Vision; That Others May Live; Combat Jukebox; Close Quarter Handgun; Drag Racing With A Gun; and 10 more
- Combatives and close contact (6 sessions): Just Enough Jits; Winning the Clinch; Street Encounter Skills
- Medical (4 sessions): Hostile Trauma Medicine; The 5 Essentials of Emergency Management
- Low light (3 sessions): Low-Light Fundamentals; Low Light Defensive Considerations
- Carbine (3 sessions): Operator 2-Gun; Precision Carbine
- Vehicle defense (3 sessions): Vehicle Defensive Considerations
- Shotgun (2 sessions): Shotgun Guardian
- Revolver (2 sessions): Revolvers for Revolver Curious Folks; Why a Revolver
- Legal (2 sessions): Brandishing, Road Rage, and Front Door Encounters, taught by CCW Safe
We have always set out to provide an event where you can get training in various aspects of self defense and I feel that we did that this year more than any year prior.
Low light classes took place in an indoor gun range. Stole this little image from a recap video one of the attendees posted here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CD6toJU7Qo
Your Schedule, Built From Your Picks
Every attendee ranks the classes they want, and we build individual schedules from those rankings. This year, 94% of four-hour class assignments came from a person’s top five choices, and nobody got anything worse than their 7th pick. Every attendee had an assigned class, from their top picks, during every training block.
78,000 Rounds, Give or Take
Students fired an estimated 73,000 rounds in class, or about 900 per person. Add instructor demonstrations and the HK Challenge and the weekend total lands somewhere around 78,000.
- Pistol: 66,000 to 67,000 rounds
- Rifle (Operator 2-Gun, Precision Carbine): about 4,000
- Shotgun (Shotgun Guardian): about 2,500 shells
- Revolver (Why a Revolver): about 400
- Instructor demonstrations: about 3,100
- HK Challenge: about 1,700
The HK Challenge
About 2/3 of people shot the HK Challenge this year. The HK Challenge is a USPSA style stage which gives everyone a chance to test their skills. The Guardian Conference is not a competition focused event. It is about defensive preparedness but a stage such as this does test some gun handling and pistol performance capabilities and is also a whole lot of fun.
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The top attendee was Jon Plyler. Well done Jon.
What the Numbers Don’t Show
Spreadsheets can tell you how many rounds went downrange. They can’t capture the conversations over meals, the instructors hanging around after class to answer one more question, or what it feels like to train alongside people who drove 1,000 miles because they take this as seriously as you do.
That’s the part people talk about when they come back. The training is top-tier, but the community is the reason. If you want a fuller picture of how the event works, read What Is The Guardian Conference?
Guardian Conference 2027: Early Bird Pricing Is Open
The dates for next year are locked in. The 2027 Guardian Conference will take place the third weekend of September at the Oklahoma City Gun Club, and early bird pricing is available right now.
If you were there this year, you already know why you should come back. If you weren’t, here’s what you get: three days of hands-on training built from your own class picks, instruction from some of the most respected trainers in the country, and a room full of people who take the guardian mindset as seriously as you do.
Guardian Nation members save $150 on admission, which often makes membership worth it on its own.
Grab your early bird ticket for the 2027 Guardian Conference before the price goes up.
Bring water. We’ll bring more.
