Fort Wayne Rifle and Revolver Club

The first Hoosier Outlaws match was a success!  Despite a questionable weathrer forecast, we had 17 shooters, with several from Michigan, including Three Gun Cole (more about him later).

The side matches and main match got started a little late as we were getting everything organized.  The first shot went off at 10:15 AM, and we had the entire match finished with awards handed out by 2:30 PM.  Right as we finished, the freezing rain started coming down – we finished just in time!  We only had one shooter from FWRR, but we did have several spectators from the Club come out and watch.

The main match was 60 rifle rounds, 60 pistol rounds, and 26 shotgun rounds on steel targets.  The feedback was excellent, and many shooters said that they would return.  Three Gun Cole is a world champion shooter in his class from southern Michigan, and his feedback was very positive; he said that he would highly recommend this match to shooters in the future.  The beauty of the Single Action Shooting Society is that there are many categories for age and gender, and different shooting styles.

The top shooter was Three Gun Cole; Wild Walt (your correspondent) came in second, and Dallas McBoomBoom came in third. Of the 4 female shooters, Kaya finished fifth overall; first in the Cowgirl Class.

Match Results (top five) were:

Match          Alias                                            Category                                  Time

Finish                                                                                                            

    1         Three Gun Cole                                                                                 118.39

    2         Wild Walt                                          Senior                                    145.43

    3         Dallas MacBoomBoom                  PaleRider Gunfighter           166.77

    4         Ya Big Tree                                        Senior Frontier Cart.            168.96

    5         Kaya                                                   Cowgirl                                   171.53

Next month’s match on May 27 is on Memorial Day weekend, also the weekend for the Ohio State and Iowa SASS championship, but we will shoot at FWRR for those folks who do not want to travel to those matches.

Get you an alias and come out and shoot with us!                                            

There is a new game in town and it starts on Saturday, April 22 at the Fort Wayne Rifle and Revolver Club Range ay 15715 Rupert Road; Harlan, Indiana.  Cowboy Action returns to FWRR on that date when the Hoosier Outlaws Cowboy Action Club start the Single Action Shooting Society season. 

The next easiest way is to go to a GOOGLE Maps search and just type “Fort Wayne Rifle and Revolver Club” into the search box.  That brings up both a road map and a satellite image of the area. Google: 15715 Rupert Road for detailed directions.

The FWRR Cowboy action matches will be held on the 4th Saturday of every month from April 22 through October 28.  All matches will be SASS sanctioned matches.

Registration will open at 8:30 AM; side matches, which contestants are not required to enter, will start at 9:00 AM.  The start time for the main match is 10:00 AM with a mandatory shooters meeting prior to the main match.

There will be 6 stages for the main match with an ammo requirement of 60 rounds for pistol, 60 rounds for rifle, and 30 rounds for shotgun.   ALL AMMO MUST BE LEAD.  Rifles must be pistol caliber, and shot shells must be loaded with lead shot, #4 shot or smaller (4, 6, 7 ^1/2, 8 or 9).   

Entry fees will $15.00 for FWRR members, $20.00 for non-members.  Eye protection is mandatory, and ear protection is highly recommended – things do get loud!  It is always a good idea to bring extra ammo.  

For more information, contact Mark Walters, Cowboy Action Range Officer at MKW1427@gmail.com

The 2023 Summer High Power season got off to a good start on Saturday, April 8th.  Fourteen shooters, all five Juniors, came out of a bright but brisk day to see if equipment and bodies were ready for the upcoming season.  Since there were questions about both bodies and equipment, we shot this match as a Club match; scores were not sent to either the CMP or to the NRA. 

We took all the time we needed and there were a lot of sighter shots as folks warmed up.  On the equipment side, there were no major failures, but we did hear “I forgot my sling, does anyone have any extra earplugs, my tablet died” and the eternal “I forgot how to get into the server.”  As for body issues, the most common comment was; “Groan … I’m getting too old for this stuff”.  It was the usual set of high power complaints, nothing especially new.

The results (ranked by percentage) were:

First                      Mike King                    80 shots               781-27X               97.6%

Second                 Mark Walters              80 shots               764-22X               95.5%

Third                     Jeff Beierke                80 shots               752-15X               94.0%

Fourth                  Randy Jahn                 50 shots               467- 7X                93.4%

Fifth (Tie)             Doc Habel                   80 shots               744-15X               93.0%

                      Marshall Rohrbach           50 shots               465-  9X               93.0%

We had two new shooters join us for the match, Bradd Shull (Addiysn’s Dad) and Tayt Shaffer (Kileen’s younger brother).  Welcome to both of you, y’all come back, ya’ hear!

And, we learned that one of our long time high power shooters recently had some significant heart surgery.  Ron Dague is reportedly recovering well and will be back with us as soon as possible.  Get well Ron!

Our next match will be our annual CMP Games Match on Saturday, May 13^th.  This match will start at 8:00 AM and we will shoot the 30-round Garand Match Course of fire; up to five sighters and ten shots for record Slow Prone, ten shots Rapid Prone and ten shots Offhand from 200-yards.  We will shoot categories for Modern Military, Unlimited Modern Military, M1 Garand (As-Issued and Unlimited), 1903/1903A3 Springfield and Vintage Military (1917 Enfield, 98 Mauser, Swiss Schmitt-Reuben… etc.).  We have a category for just about every safe rifle.  Bring all of your rifles, shoot in several categories or shoot the same rifle as a re-entry match.

One of the goals of the FWRR Junior Program is to share the sport of High Power shooting with young people who are not familiar with the discipline.  On Sunday, April 2 we had a unique opportunity to do this.  The DeKalb County 4-H Hotshots, a 4-H Club that specializes in a number of shooting activities (archery, air pistol, air rifle and .22 rimfire) asked us to make a presentation about High Power shooting to their group.

We decided to present a Mini-High Power Clinic concentrating on the topics of firearms safety, shooting equipment and shooting positions. And, who better to make these presentations that the Juniors themselves?  Our presenters were Kileen Shaffer (4-H Hotshots President). Addiysn Shull (4-H Hotshots Vice-President), Mia King (an Ohio 4-H presenter) and Tayt Shaffer (4-H Hotshot member).

We prepared brief 15-minute presentations based on material from the NRA and CMP training materials, we did a rehearsal of the presentations on a Thursday gathering at the range and we executed our plan.  A major part of 4-H is making presentations and demonstrations, so this Mini-Clinic worked into both the High Power and 4-H skill sets.  We had about sixteen 4-H members present and we were well received by the group.

The Juniors proved to be excellent Ambassadors for the Club. Now that we have the presentation, we may have the opportunity to do it for an Ohio 4-H Club.