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How to approach a gun club about putting on an airgun shoot?

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luckybuckeye

luckybuckeye

Member
Mar 9, 2021
268
152
Ohio, United States
I belong to a gun club and they are pretty open about putting on different firearm competitions. Currently they only do Steel Challenge and cowboy shooting. They also do some Appleseed shooting thing. They have a 135 yard rifle range and a 50 yard rimfire/pistol range among other shorter ranges. I have chatted with range officers about my springers and others have brought up rimfire competitions to them and they seem receptive. Would anyone be open to a rimfire/air rifle exhibition or air rifle only type thing if I can talk them into it? The range is located 30 minutes north of Dayton, Ohio a few miles outside of Piqua, Ohio. If there is interest how would I approach the range committee about organizing an event. Their website is http://www.piquafishandgame.com/ranges.html And there are two hotels 15 minutes from the range. They could probably accommodate parking for 50-75 cars. 
 
I started doing to Steel Challenge this year with a .22 rimfire pistol optics and I absolutely love it. So much so that I bought a dedicated gun. If ammo was more available I would do a second gun rifle or pistol iron sight for the competitions. I am not interested in anything other than the rimfires. I am not comfortable drawing from a holster. 
 
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I’m just trying to think of a way to showcase air rifles locally. I think there is interest but there are not many avid air gun shooters here. There are plenty of gun guys locally and with the ammo shortage it could be a good way to grow the air gun sport. There is a ton of people into firearms here that don’t blink an eye at spending money. Since I got into springers I look at it as extra trigger time. I do plan on taking my springers to the range a lot this year and when I do there is interest among the other shooters. If I had a pcp I think it would turn some heads. 
 
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luckybuckeye,

I agree that if you could get other shooters to see what quality airguns are about you would see more people intetested. To many firearms folks think of air guns as the cheap junk you find at walmart. A lot of them have never handled a good quality airgun.

Bringing your air guns to the shooting range is a great way to get other shooters to see what it is all about. I need to start doing the same thing too.
 
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elh0102,

I think an informal “fun” shoot would the best way to get started and gage local interest. Honestly I don’t know anything about air gun competition formats. I should probably do my homework, maybe I’m just brainstorming. Probably only anything involving paper targets would work at this range. Although they did buy the steel challenge targets because of the potential to generate revenue. 
 
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Usually with a lot of clubs, the problem is finding someone willing to put in the time to make it work. Planning, setup, cleanup, actually running the match. And then as you assume there needs to be enough interest or revenue generated to justify closing the range for an organized match.



You mention you dont know much about the different air gun competitions. You need to research and know what you want to do before going to the club and asking. If you know what you are asking for, and are willing to show you will do the work, then the club would probably let you try it out a few times.

Good luck with this, and as you have already started, take part in other club activities to show that you are serious, and also that you care about promoting the club, not just your personal interests. Attend a few club meetings to see how things are run, and it wont be long before you will at least know how to approach the club for a new event.

Take care,

BAM86
 
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Back in the '90's, I was doing a lot of rim fire BR shooting, and wanted to have some informal BR-50 competition in my club. I obtained board approval easily, and I provided the targets and served as range officer also, as well as participating. Range safety rules today might require more supervision, and could preclude being both a shooter and match official, I really don't know. I mention this only to say, you should probably be prepared to provide everything needed for the match. In my BR-50 matches, I charged $5 to shoot, and the money was divided 50/30/20 among the top 3 scores. My experience and equipment was deeper than the other participants, so I won enough money to cover the targets. The club got nothing, but neither did it spend anything. A lot would have changed had it proven to be a popular event with a lot of participation. A group of us had fun with it a couple of seasons, and then I just let it die. I didn't want to continue to commit the time to the matches, which sometimes conflicted with the demands of a young family. Now I'm retired and have the time, but not the energy! Air rifle shooting has a lot going for it, and if you can generate enough interest, it should be fun, good luck. 
 
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I belong to a local outdoor private gun club, about 30 minutes drive from my house. I have been shooting here twice weekly for a bit over two years. I am the ONLY air gun shooter at the rifle ranges. I shoot exclusively at the 50/100 yard sight-in range at paper targets. Everyone else shooting RF & Center fire rifles. 

I did casually consider having some local AG buddies shoot in a friendly BR competition, but in NC the Five or Six people I have seen on the AGN or GTA forums are spread out within the state. I do have a good friend nearby and we go to each other’s clubs often, but it would be difficult to round up the rest of the geographically dispersed AG shooters and coordinate a date/time. I do promote and encourage conversations with many about my AGs and the hobby.

Personally, the AG matches I typically see on AGN are on someone’s land, or an AG sponsored event, typically not part of a gun club which is targeted at RF, pistols or CF guns. The owner of my range is a bit too feisty, and I don’t want the responsibility of hosting any AG match given his personality. 

You have a good idea, best of luck.



 
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My gun club is pretty maxed out on events. They are being pushed hard to start a precision .22LR type event and a Glock only event and that would probably be all the competitions they could handle. I will continue to let anyone who wants to shoot my air rifles moving forward and enjoy the club for what it is. I’m sure in the future more people will explore air rifles locally but there is not that many people locally into adult airgunning. Most view them as toys including local law enforcement. A coworker is very interested so I am going to gift him my Walther terrus and some of its preferred pellets that I no longer shoot. He has a ton of shooting buddies so maybe he can pass the bug to them. Anyway thanks everyone for all the ideas and input. For now it’s on the back burner.
 
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The proper way to approach it is to attend a monthly meeting and bring it up under “new business” topic discussions. After its discussed in the meeting then you make a motion to have a match and the attending members vote on it. If approved at the vote, then it’s likely up to you to run the match. The club will want some proceeds from the match in order to close the range for the match. Our matches usually take 50% of the entry fee to go directly to the club. The other 50% is usually divided up for the class winners. Some clubs don’t have any payout so there is some flexibility on how the match is run.
 
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