Fort Wayne Rifle and Revolver Club

FWRR Newsletter

November & December 2020

December Meeting Date & Location: The next FWRR meeting will be held on December 1st at 6:30 p.m.  The meeting location is the New Haven Community Center. The Community Center is located behind the New Haven McDonald’s, along U.S. 930 East. Firearms and alcohol are not allowed inside the facility.

NOTE: THIS MEETING HAS SINCE BEEN CANCELLED

Club Election: The biennial election of Club officers will be held at the December meeting. At present, the offices in contention include Vice President and Director. Please make an effort to attend the meeting, as a quorum is required for conducting the election and Club business.

2021 Match Schedules:

Range Officers should submit their 2021 schedules to the Program Manager, Ryan Brammer, no later than December 1, 2020.  Ryan can be reached at rvbrkba@ yahoo.com.

End of Year Notes from the President;

There is a new firing point at 100 yards on the 300 yard range.  Please stay off of it. It is newly seeded and soft.

Winter is coming. Stay off the grassy areas going out to the target frames when the ground is soft. Mowing is done for the year. I would like to thank all of the men who gave there time to take care of the mowing.

A great thanks to those who came out to Workday. The range looks great. There are some projects that still need to be done: 1) Replacing the foot bridge and 2) installing drainage pipes north of the 100 yard target frames and at the low spot between the gate and the driveway that leads to the pistol pit.

If I don’t see you at the December meeting, have a happy holiday and pray for a virus free new year.

High Power Happenings November – December 2020:

We closed out a very successful and active High Power season with the October Mid-range match. Our Silver Mountain electronic targets allowed us to shoot more relays in smaller groups to allow social distancing and overall we had more participants this year than we have had in many years.

Several FWRR members were consistently among the top shooters at the State level this year. Mike King repeated as the Governor’s Trophy winner and Mark Richard, Mark Walters and Geoff Branson were consistently in the top-10 in just about every match they shot.

The Hoosier Home Range Hundred series was a brainchild of Mark Richards. With at least five clubs and 85 shooters competing for an award pot of $1,000 it turned out to be a very popular ISRPA event.

At the close of the year we managed to put in a 100-yard shooting position to give us a third distance to use with the electronic targets. We plan to shoot a 100-yard reduced range match on one Thursday night every month next summer. This would be during a Thursday practice time and will not take any more range time – another opportunity to work on upgrading your NRA or CMP Classification.

I have turned in a proposed 2021 schedule and part of that schedule includes several dates for NRA and CMP Team Matches at Camp Perry and Camp Atterbury. FWRR has been out of the team match habit too long – next year we come back!

Winter Offhand starts on November 14th; Saturday morning at 9:00. Depending on weather, we might shoot at electronic targets – we’ll see how it goes. Yeah, I know that is the opening day of deer season – so I guess I can understand why someone might want to go sit in a tree instead. Just be safe – wherever you go!

Larry Beardsley High Power Range Officer

Safety Officer: Many times the Club Safety Officer comes across as the bad guy – like the OSHA inspector at a job site or that QA guy who keeps getting in the way of finishing a job. But – every so often the Safety guy finds a way to make life a bit better for everyone.

I had some issues with some things in the pistol bays that led to a very good discussion of how things were being done and what could be done to make our range a safer place to shoot. The outcome was that we will do a major range improvement in the pistol bays – raising the wing berms to the level of the base of the containment berm to allow the Action Pistol folks to safely use a wider angle of engagement in their match setups.

Before we get too far into winter, I want to do some marking of our south property line to warn potential trespassers that they are encroaching on a danger area. This will include a simple horse wire fence line, purple markings on trees (per Indiana law) and signage to warn people off.

Larry Beardsley, Safety Officer

Newsletter Editor: A Newsletter Editor is being sought. The volunteer must have access to a computer, word processing software, and email. The present Newsletter Editor, Chip Seidel, is willing to assist with the transition. Contact Jim Sweeney or Martin Didion for further information. Thanks go to Chip for his work on the newsletter as well as with special mailings and membership renewals.

End of an Era: The muzzleloading program will come to a close this year due to low participation. Sincere thanks to Dennie McNabb for the many years that he ran the program.

2021 Membership Renewal: Members should expect to receive the 2021 Membership Renewal Form via U.S. Mail no later than the end of November, 2020. The exception is individuals who are inducted at the October and December 2020 meetings. Be sure to include proof of current NRA membership with your completed form. NRA Life members who have previously submitted proof of lifetime membership are not required to submit proof annually. The renewal form and proof of NRA membership (as applicable) must be submitted by all members, even FWRR life members.

Normally I do not post Meeting Minutes to the website – but these are unusual times and I have decided that unusual times require unusual actions. The December meeting has been cancelled, so keep an eye out for updates on when we will meet next.

FWRR MEETING 10/6/2020 

Meeting Minutes 

Meeting held at FWRR Range @ 7 pm. 

 Called to order by President Jim Sweeney.  23 members in attendance. 

Pledge of allegiance recited.   Minutes of last meeting read by Secretary, Mike Miller   Motion to accept and seconded. Minutes accepted by membership.   

Treasurers report:  Presented  by Treasurer Marty Didion. 

Motion to accept and seconded.  Report accepted by membership.

DISCIPLINE REPORTS

High Power  Larry Beardsley reports a good year for Hi‐power. September 5 held a new match, the Hoosier Home  Range Hundred.  

September 12 was the John Garand/cmp Games Mates with 20 shooters. 

September26 hosted the Leonard Johnson Memorial Match .  Mike King is the ISRPA State Champion for the second  year. 

Dirt moving has begun for the new 100 yard firing point.  fforts continue to start a Junior group   

ACPDL  Matt Hite  reports matches with 20 ‐25 shooters. 

USCPA  Ryan Brammer will be replaced by Brian Smith. Brian will also act as Safety Officer. Last match had 33  shooters.   Black powder  Dennis McNabb reports 3 shooters at last event

Safety Officer  Larry Beardsley reports  problems with pistol pit separation berms not being safe.   Bay closed sign are not visible at all times.                                    

OLD BUSINESS    None. 

NEW BUSINESS     New members:  Michael Camperman, Martin Hardwick and Doug Johnson are  accepted.     Work day was September 19 . Brush clearing and drainage repair were performed. Officer elections are in December and any person interested in holding office is encouraged to make itknown. Director and officers positions are open.      Mark Strahan is moving and has resigned as VP. Matt Hice will finish this years term as VP.  

Motion  is  made  to  increase  the  height  of  the  pistol  bay  separation  berm  at  a  cost  not  exceeding $7000.     Motion seconded and accepted by membership.    Next meeting (Dec 1) will be held at new Haven Community Center starting at 6.30 pm . 

  Motion to adjourn, seconded, and passed. 

 Submitted,   

 Mike Miller, Secretary 

Directions to NHCC: On highway 930 ,west of New Haven. Drive entrance on south side of road, near  McDonalds. Big sign is present.  Use east parking lot and entrance. 

Please be advised that due to COVID concerns and restrictions,  the December meeting has been cancelled.

Details concerning the next meeting will appear in the January/February newsletter.

Saturday, November 14th marked the start of the 2020-2021 Winter Offhand season.  The day started out as a very frosty morning – about 22-degrees.  But, there was no wind and it was surprisingly comfortable to shoot.  I don’t think I heard a single “My fingers are freezing, or I can’t feel my nose” comment from the line.

We have a new software update for the electronic targets that is hoped to fix the “red target” issue we have been having, so we decided to shoot this first match on the electronic targets instead of the usual paper targets.

The new 100-yard range isn’t ready for traffic as yet, so we moved back to 200-yards – a change from the usual 100-yard match.  Our eight electronic targets would not handle the number of shooters we had for the match, so we decided to explore a feature of our system we had not used previously- pair firing. 

We had the usual start-up fluster of tablets, phones and IPads that wouldn’t connect, or stay connected – but we worked through those issues and got things under way.

Oops!

The Ranger Officers are still learning the system and we started off getting the order of fire wrong.  The Left shooter’s scores showed up on the Right shooter’s score column and vice versa.  Once we figured out what was going on, we told the shooters to just swap scores and life went on.

When we went to the second relay, we got the firing order correct and all went smoothly.  It was a learning experience for the Range Officers to figure out how the multiple shooter feature works and several of our shooters had never pair-fired before; kind of a win-win.  One shooter made the comment; “I liked that, it slowed me down and I shot at a better pace during the match.”

Thanks for all the folks who came out to shoot – and Thanks for helping us learn how to use the features of our Silver Mountain electronic target system.

Oh yes – the improved software looks very promising.  With the eight targets in operation for about four hours (32 total operating hours), we had only one brief “red target” incident – but it cleared itself with no intervention from us.  The system seemed to work well even in the cold conditions – something we had not verified for ourselves.

Our next match will be the second Saturday in December, December 12th.  We will shoot on paper targets from the 100-yard line under the porch.  We will start at 9:00 A.M. or whenever the first relay fills up the 12-target firing line.

Come on out and join us!

As we move into winter – it really will come sooner than we want it to – the range is in very good shape. Over the summer we made some really nice improvements by cleaning up brush, keeping the ditch cleared off and just in the last month or so finishing some dirt moving work on the High Power and Pistol Bay ranges.

As we move into winter there a few things we need to keep in mind to keep the range as nice as it is now:

Loose ammunition and cases: Housekeeping under the covered firing points has improved greatly over the last year or so. We don’t see the piles of .22 rimfire cases like we once did and folks have really improved in picking up steel cases that can’t be reloaded. Just a reminder – police up your brass (or steel) and if you don’t want it, put it in one of the buckets marked “BRASS”. The brass mice seem to get rid of it.

And, before you leave – take one last look around. We have found several live rounds laying around the porch lately; several .22 rimfires, some .223 that look like they got mischambered and thrown out and some dinged up .308 rounds. Leaving live rounds laying around isn’t a good idea- there is no telling where they might end up and cause mischief.

Sandbags: We try to keep a number of sandbags on the covered firing points for folks to use. But, we are seeing an issue with how people use them. We get the bags free from the Allen County Highway Department – we just have to fill them with sand and lug them out to the range. But, since they are free – they’re not a really high quality bag – they are intended to be biodegradable.

Folks tend to misuse them two ways. If you support a rifle with a quad rail on the bag, the notches on the bottom of the rail tear the bag open and all the stuffing spills out. It ruins the bag, makes a mess on the bench and gets grit in your rifle. The other misuse is that shooters rest the muzzle of the rifle on the bag and the muzzle blast tears the bag or burns a hole in the fabric. To help eliminate these problems, we have put several carpet squares on the bench up next to the house. If you want to rest a quad rail or muzzle on a sandbag, put a carpet square under the rifle – please.

One last request. When you finish with a bag, put it back up on a bench. If you leave it on the deck, it gets wet, freezes and becomes either a soggy sack of wet sand or an ice block; neither is a good place to rest a gun.

Trash: This is a strange request. We have trash cans at both covered firing points with liners in them. There is no trash pickup service at the range – trash gets hauled off by people who notice that the cans are full or overflowing. The request – use the cans as little as possible. The greatest volume of trash stuffed in the cans is shot-up targets and target backing cardboard and plastic. If you bring out targets, faces or backers and shoot them up – please take them back home to your trash.

Yeah, some trash will accumulate. When it does, there are new trash can liners inside the door to the clubhouse, just under the light switch. Feel free to pull the full liner out of the can, put in a fresh liner and take the full liner home to your trash.

THANK YOU FOR KEEPING OUR RANGE SO NICE!

       

At the October meeting of the Fort Wayne Rifle and Revolver Club, the membership voted to make improvements to the pistol bays to raise the height of the berms separating the south facing bays.  By raising these berms, the FWRR Action Pistol and the ACPDL could be more flexible in placing their targets in their action scenarios and increase the overall safety of the range.

When the project was approved, it was not clear if the work could be accomplished before winter weather set in; but we have been blessed with an unusually warm and dry Fall and work started on the project today, November 11th.  The contractor brought in his earth moving equipment about noon and if all goes as planned, he will finish by tomorrow evening.

By completing the project this Fall, the improved ranges will ready to go next Spring with no interruption to match schedules or practice sessions due to new construction.

Update; 14 November

The work on the pistol bays is complete. The berm walls between Bays 1 and 2, Bays 2 and 3 and 3 and 4 were raised by approximately four feet. It was an impressive addition to the existing berm

After the new dirt was placed, the new berms had some seed and straw added to give fresh grass cover a start over the winter to be ready to sprout in the Spring.

The next FWRR meeting will be held on December 1st at 6:30 p.m. 

The meeting location is the New Haven Community Center. 

The Community Center is located behind the New Haven McDonald’s, along U.S. 930 East.

Firearms and alcohol are not allowed inside the facility.