Myself and several friends have recently joined a local gun club, OR shuold I say...SPORTSMAN's club.

The club has a 100 yard rifle range and also has different areas that support trap shoots, archery shoots, and recently paintball wars. The entire property is about 30-33 acres of hills/woods and grass.

The rifle range is situated in a small valley all by itself.
Up till now the rifle range had very little activity, except for around deer season when hunters would sight in their deer guns...
My friends and I all have "sport utility weapons" and visit the range quite often.
Most of the time we are the only ones at the range shooting.
The only rule at the range is, NO FULL AUTO guns.
This is a rule we can live with, since none of us have the $$$ for FA.
After seeing how the rifle range was neglected and not maintained at all, my friends and I expressed an interest in running the range at the last meeting.
Since the current caretaker is in the process of stepping down, our timing was excellent...
We offered to clean up and maintain the range if we could host a few "shoots" there.
Since the current club membership is down and money is tight, we figured this could generate some much needed funds for the club.
Right now the trap,archery,and paintball shoots are turning a small profit. (enough to keep them going basically)
After we voiced our interest at the last meeting, several other members thought it was a great idea and supported us...

THEN.....
My buddy asks:  "Just curious, but... WHY NO AUTOMATIC WEAPONS ?"

Well, needless to say, that got a few of the "good ole boys" a little upset and concerned. They said: "THIS IS A SPORTSMANS CLUB" and... "WE DON'T WANT ANY BAD PUBLICITY"
Well,after the negative feedback, we didn't think we should mention anything about AR-15's or AK-47's just yet...

What we'd like to do is have a few small "rimfire only", or "smallbore rifle" or whatever shoots, just to start making some money for the club.

I think after putting on an event and making money for the club, we will eventually have more say about what types of guns we can shoot there...   Right now we are just testing the waters a little.
Some members didn't even like the idea of shooting SEMI-AUTO rifles at the range!!!
I'm sure most of these guys only shoot there once a year anyway...

The club officers are definately influenced by results that will financially benefit the club so...

Some of my questions are....


WERE DO WE START ????

How can we make a little $$$ for the club ?   (not for ourselves)

Any info available online ?

What about contacting the NRA ?

How do we earn the respect of the "anti-assault rifle good ole boys" ?

I've got many people that will contribute their time and labor and even a little $$$.
So manpower and money are not an issue.

Any help would be great !!!

                         ART

There is a version of metallic silhuette shooting built around .22 guns on a 100 yard range that gets a lot of attention some places.  Also lots of games that can be played to raise money.  Start going through some of the target catalogs and range guides and you can get some interesting ideas. I'd also get a couple of people to become NRA certified Range Safety Officers.

.22 rimfire silhouette matches are a lot of fun, and young and old can partcipate and be competitive.

You could set up targets at 50, 75 and 100 yards like my club does. There will be some start up expenses though. Silhouettes, rails to set them on, etc, but if my area is any indication, you'll be seeing a lot of shooters coming down, and you'll recoup that investment in short order.

Spread the word that on a certain day you will hold a "show and share" event. Giving some shooters a chance to shoot other peoples guns. You might make some converts or at the least the good ole boys may not be so intimidated with ARs and AKs. [you provide the ammo ofcourse]

.22s are fun to shoot and they are cool too!  I like shooting trap also it is  a lot of fun!

since nobody has a fully automatic rifle ,id let that subject die.unfortunatly the damage may already have been done.why did you bud feel the need to even bring it up.those good ol boy old times will remeber..

since nobody has a fully automatic rifle ,id let that subject die.unfortunatly the damage may already have been done.why did you bud feel the need to even bring it up.those good ol boy old times will remeber..

Actually, I don't think these guys are good ole boys at all. All of us good ole boys have machineguns. I think the people you are talking about are just ole boys.

Michael
Good Ole Boy from Texas

Your club sounds a lot like the one I am involved in. If you spend much time there at all, and go to a few of the meetings it won't be long and you will be on the board. That is what happened to me. If your buds are active also, it won't be long and the more enlightened shall we say will have the votes and presto no more rules that say NFA weapons are bad. I have also noticed that if you have some guy who is anti fun guns, he will give a smile when he dumps a mag out of my 1928 TSMG.
Good Luck,
Tuco
p.s. I have also stupified some of the same when I totally blew there theory out of the water that an AR style firearm is just a blaster when my AR Varmint turns in a group off the bags that is just a little clover leaf cluster.

The NRA has books and brochures on International shooting rules. I'm sure the various organizations that hold competitions could send you info. Check with the Civilian Marksmanship Program at [url]www.odcmp.com[/url]They have ammo, and other stuff a range/club can get cheap or free. It's government run to help train our citizens to shoot. While you are at it, think about having an airgun shoot. My local club is interested so I hope to get something started this summer. You could have a kid's airgun shoot followed by the parent's shoot. You may get help on this from the Scouts, or the Rotary club. The NRA also has a good deal of info on airguns, as well as the site: [url]www.airguns.net[/url]

Hi Art -
 CMP is an EXCELLEMT idea, few ranges offer it & nobody in your area has it.  Also contact the NRA, highpower rifle, and for the GOB, Highpower Sporting Rifle would generate revenue and give them an oppurtunity to partucupate.  .22 silhoutte is good, as is handgun silhouette.  You'll end up on the board, and you & co. will be running the show in a few years.  With 30 acrs, you should be able to find a location for a 300 yard range and have a fee for shooting day for the general public 3 or 5 time a year.  Man, this is almost better than a 100 yd. range in the backyard............
(pardin the spelling, I just woke up)

Now I'm a little more awake, think about a 3-gun tactical match. (rifle, shotgun/subgun, and pistol)  These go for $20 per run, will make you several hundred bucks a pop.

Range is in Reading, East of the city in Mount Penn.
...."Daniel Boone Rod & Gun Club"
....$15 a year membership dues, PLUS
a one time charge of $10 when you first sign up.($25 total sign-up cost)
Meetings are on the 2nd Monday of each month, at 8:00 PM.
Drop me an E-mail if you're interested....

[red][url][email protected][/url][/red]

This may get kind of long so just skip if you want.
I've had two ranges shot out from under me, so I've got some ideas and watch-outs.

First, contact the NRA.  They know more about running ranges than anybody.

Some ideas to generate money:
Have open to the public sighting-in days just before hunting seasons.  Have spotting scopes and hearing protection on hand.  Charge a small fee, and have membership applications on hand.

Gun raffles are money makers.

Have a club gun dealer who will sell guns and ammo at a small markup, profit to the club, or a 50-50 split.

Have open to the public shoots.  Self defense guns, blackpowder, bow, shotgun, etc.  Charge small entry fees, and have membership info present.  

For all matches, use the Lewis award system.  In most matches, the first 3 people always get the awards, everyone else looses interest.
In the Lewis system, the top shooter gets an award, and the other shooters are split into two other classes, divided by thirds. Top shooter in each class gets an award. In this way, EVERYONE and anyone, can win an award. It's decided by how many people are shooting.

Instead of trophys, give shooting supplies.  Sometimes gunshops will donate goodies.

Offer reduced membership dues to people willing to do maintenance, or other club work.

Most important is to understand the profit flow of a gunclub.  Rifle/pistol ranges don't have much outlay other than backstops and maintenance.  However, the club is usually supported by the once a year club member, who you never see at meetings. His dues actually support the club.

Avoid major outlays, by selling targets and any necessary target stands, for a small fee.

DON'T supply free targets or stands.  When targets are there for the taking, people will loadup and the next man won't get targets.  This leads to mad members. Either sell them, or make sure members understand that they have to bring their own.

Shotgun ranges can be money makers, or (in my case) kill a range off.
Understand up front that a rifle range is "selling" a place to shoot.  A shotgun range is selling clay birds.  If you don't at least break even on the price of birds, PLUS price of traps and trap maintenance, you'll loose your shirt.
Both my old clubs were killed by:
Members bragging that they had NEVER paid for a round of birds.
Gunstore owners bringing customers and salesmen out to test guns, and not paying.
Members running the range STEALING the money.

The shotgunner's claimed they were supporting the clubs since, "Why just last weekend we took in $300.00".  Yes, but they had spent over $500.00 for birds, maintenance, and to pay off the traps.  We could never get them to understand that money comes in at matches, but goes out at bill paying time.  Their $300.00 wasn't PROFIT.

Shotgun shooter's would "stack" a club meeting.  They would get together before the club meeting, to decide what they wanted, then show up at summer meetings when few other shooters would attend.  They would then vote themselves whatever money or equipment they wanted.

Allowing this kind of stuff will put you out of business ASAP.

I repeat: understand that most clubs are supported by the dues of the once or twice a year casual plinker/hunter.  You never see them at meetings or shoots, but their the ones you have to serve.  We lost sight of that, and two clubs went down the tubes.

also do what i learned from going to cowboy matches. At a main match have sponsers donate some prizes either draw at random or put em on a prize tble and pull names to c who comes up when. So that every shooter at least comes home with something. im sure they do that at other matches. ammo sales are always good just make it cheap enough little markup youll sell more tjat way and make more money better to sell more and make less on each item then to gouge and sell few yu will make it up in volume

I HAVE AN IDEA FOR YOU ! In my neck of the woods IPSC and comp shooting is a real draw to ranges. In a way it's kinda like paintball but with the "real" thing. With an 100 yard range you could put poppers up and maybe even an remote target pop system up. (Money and success permiting) Also with the handgunners the 100 yard limitation wouldn't be a bad thing.  How long is the range line? Depending on the answer you could also continue the sighting in range.

Hope I gave a new idea.

Turkey shoots are big where I am from.  I think some type of games(several) where you compete with 22's only and not hotroded guns.  Just about everyone has a 22 in the corner and if no one can use hotroded guns alot of people will participate.