Posted: 4/17/2026 12:50:08 PM EDT
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So last year I joined the Sanilac Sportsman's Club up in the thumb near deckerville. Small club 180 members only a handful under 50yo 1/2 city people but they don't seem to show up for anything. My father owns a home based FFL close by in forestville and we do CPL classes once a month at the club and get a decent turn out but we have not been able to convert those people over to showing up at events. My question what events do people want to see or participate in and how far would you drive for said event. They cant be over complicated and need to be one size fits all so no open class or restriced class. Last year we put on a Pcc shoot 20 targets one mag change required 3sec penalty for each missed target. We started the pot with $100 $15 buy in $5 second chance winner takes all. I think the winner got $250ish last year not a lot of turn out but a start. I am sure we will do the PCC shoot again this summer but want to add something else the club has trap league and we will do a rimfire shoot but I want something to get people excited but not feel intimidated. |
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Bowling pin shoots used to be really popular. My son worked at a bowling alley. He asked what do they do width the old pins? The manager said, “Why? Are you gonna shoot them? “ He gave us ten pins for free. He had more if we wanted them. .22 shoots are fun. Most people have a .22. You can get steel silhouette targets or do a holiday theme like shooting Easter eggs. |
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Agree bowling pin shoots are fun for everyone, especially with .22 to keep it economical. The clubs I belong to seem to have a good turnout of the younger crowd for USPA/IDPA style "practice." Sometimes better than actual matches. When I have people visit my range, young or old they always seem to love shooting steel, so a couple of practice stages with a drawing at the end would likely pull some people. |
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We are talking about doing something at our local range to get more people interested in using the rifle range. Our plan to to have a varmint steel shoot inside the 100,200 and 300 yard ranges . We bought some AR500 steel from a wholesaler going out of business , most of it is varmint shapes . Props are what makes the shoot fun and more of a challenge like shooting resting on a quad , shooting some hi angles off a scissor lift and blocking the steel with brush or no shoot materials. The main goal is bringing attention to the rifle range and later making money for improvements to the range . |
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The PCC shoot we spnsor and put on at the club is all steel targets last year I had 2 plate racks of 6 on the outside and a dueling tree of 4 in the middle and then 4 steel silhouette targets on the back berm above the lower targets. Shoot any way you want but you only get 20rds 10 rds per mag to be fare for people with small mags +3sec per missed target. I think this year I am going to pick up a texas star to replace the dueling tree. I am going to help one of the other guys do a .22 steel target match sometime in august. But I am just the helper for that one so don't know the details. |
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I'm on the other side of the state SW Michigan, and our club has Steel Challenge, IDPA, USPSA, SASS, benchrest (rimfire and centerfire), military rifle and Long Gong matches. Steel challenge is the gateway sport, since you can use handguns and PCC's, ranging from bone stock to custom guns. Some shooters shoot .22 to keep the costs down. Long Gong is gaining popularity and shooters travel from across the state for events. |
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I get out to the club near me (BWSA) often to shoot by myself or with the family, but I sometimes go to meetings and events. From what I've seen, the things that draw the most people are shooting at clay birds (more old-timers at this), and an event called the '22 woods walk' they put on 2-3 times a year. It's .22LR only, and what they do is set up a bunch of steel targets in the woods around the edges of the club property - with various stations that have different distances and difficulty levels. This near-all-day event (self paced/guided) draws loads of people from all over. We have whole families and tons of people who aren't members come for it. Here's my little gunslinger at one last fall: Attached File |
Of all men’s miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.
- Herodotus
- Herodotus
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The woods walk is a neat idea I will have to bring it up at the next meeting not sure we have enough room to make it interesting though. How do they cover range safety throughout the shoot? The club is on 40 acres but multiple ranges and club house ball diamonds etc take up a lot of space. I have been wanting to get something to bring people up from down south the club is only 45min north of port huron. |
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We use volunteer ROs for that. Our club has a bit of land behind the main ranges, so the woods walk is back there on the back side of the berms. There are posts with numbers for the firing spots, and steel targets. If you have a little space, you could do a variation with multiple targets at one station, or stations close enough together to be monitored by one RO. Let me know what you come up with. I'm up for visiting, and I'm not very far away. 
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Of all men’s miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.
- Herodotus
- Herodotus
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Years back, I shot at a few annual charity events held there (Sanilac) that consisted of a round of pop up 3D archery, a round of static 3D archery in the woods, a round of trap, and a golf scramble the next day over in Sandusky. It was a hell of a good time, but it was tough finding a lot of traditional archery shooters. The club and organizers did a great job putting it on, though. I wish you luck, as these types of events are pretty cool in my book. It is just seems tough getting enough interest to get a good turnout these days. |
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That is the problem getting people to show up and even getting the members of the club interested. We are having a rimfire shoot on Aug 16th but little interest so far. We (my father and I) have a home based ffl and have done some raffles for the club using nicer firearms not just cheap junk to make a buck and it is hard trying to move those cards all money goes to the club. We are raffling a Henry Homesteader now and just above profitable. I think we are going to cut our loses (so to speek) this Wednesday at the club meeting and send it down the road it will make a few hundred profit for the club but should have brought more its a nice rifle Do to some recent drama We (forestville firearms) will probably sponsor and put on one more PCC shoot this September (just bought a Texas star for it) but that will more then likely be it for trying to help organize stuff. |
| Do you want to get new members to join the club then maybe you will more members to your event. My club is a decent size they get lots of members out for events. One of the things they used to have was deer rifle sight in days in October or so. They would open the club to non members for a Saturday to use the 100 yard rifle charge a small fee. often times we would get a few members to join. |
Six
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Originally Posted By raffi383: For the .22 event, do you need to shoot pistol and rifle or are they separate matches? What's the course of fire? Maybe someone should update the club's webpage. It's from 2015. Not everyone has Facebook. The .22 shoot is going to have to be a see how many people show up as to what way we go. The basic is timed event steel targets. The old website is a problem the guy that ran it died years ago nobody is sure why or how that old website is still active. I have only been a member for 1.5 years so before my time. They said they bought the domain name but the guy handling that is on his own schedule. I have taken on the flyers for the events and we handle the gun raffles at the events (not the yearly big raffle). We also do the CPL classes once a month at the club but that is as a private entity. |
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Originally Posted By MaxCast: Have your events more than once a year. People may be busy that weekend. Maybe offer a $20 rebate to CCW grads if they come back for an event. Not sure which events you would like more then once a year? Depending on scheduling the club house is used for hall rentals so that limits some weekend dates. Trap shooting is a weekly event on Thursday's they did have rifle pistol league on Thursdays last year but did not get a decent enough turnout to carry this year. The CPL classes are run as a private event we (Forestville Firearms) rent the club for the day however the ranges remain open during our CPL rental as we only use one bay for about 1-2 hrs. |
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Originally Posted By Sixgun357: Do you want to get new members to join the club then maybe you will more members to your event. My club is a decent size they get lots of members out for events. One of the things they used to have was deer rifle sight in days in October or so. They would open the club to non members for a Saturday to use the 100 yard rifle charge a small fee. often times we would get a few members to join. So the club size is limited to around 180 members and we are almost at that number from my understanding. The catch with our club is you are not only a member but also an owner buying 1 share as a member so you dont want 400 members. It was originally a small club but with aging membership so there was a push by former directors to expand the club looking for new younger people. The club is in the thumb where a lot of cottages are along M25 so in turn a lot of the new members are not residents and may only come up on weekends and have their own events going on. They may only use the facilities once or twice a year at most. I am trying to get people re-interested in events. Before covid I am told the events shooting and social were well attended for whatever reason after covid people lost interest. Thursday night trap is still a decent turn out. I am not a local resident (my parents are I live 2hrs away in Detroit) but as most people know shooting sports are more fun in groups and that is what I am trying to help get back to. We are doing rimfire shoot next Sunday while my father holds a CPL class in the club house. Our home based FFL will sponsor a PCC shoot next month 20 steel targets 1 mag change required fastest time winner takes all pot $15 entry $5 second chance. |
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I am going to throw this out there knowing full well that there will be all kinds of excuses for people to poo poo the idea but here it is.... FRTs are a really hot item right now. Problem is, unless you own land, you have trouble finding some place to use them. MOST gun clubs that Im aware of dont allow them. I bet if a club were to host an FRT day and advertise it, once word got around it would be pretty popular. It would require a lot of planning and volunteers to insure you had enough RSOs. I used to shoot on a spot of State Land in Lapeer but the Damn DNR turned it into an improved range with a bunch of rules. Now I have no place remotely local to me to occasionally get some FRT time in. Shooting opportunities for people who enjoy full auto and FRTs is seriously lacking in Michigan. |
Not you typical Elmer Fudd type duck hunter.
To "turn them on" you've got to rub em and talk dirty to them. - pattymcn
To "turn them on" you've got to rub em and talk dirty to them. - pattymcn
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Originally Posted By Lumpy223: I am going to throw this out there knowing full well that there will be all kinds of excuses for people to poo poo the idea but here it is.... FRTs are a really hot item right now. Problem is, unless you own land, you have trouble finding some place to use them. MOST gun clubs that Im aware of dont allow them. I bet if a club were to host an FRT day and advertise it, once word got around it would be pretty popular. It would require a lot of planning and volunteers to insure you had enough RSOs. I used to shoot on a spot of State Land in Lapeer but the Damn DNR turned it into an improved range with a bunch of rules. Now I have no place remotely local to me to occasionally get some FRT time in. Shooting opportunities for people who enjoy full auto and FRTs is seriously lacking in Michigan. That idea will never happen at any club with respect for itself. Maybe they would have a members only event but one open to the public would never happen. For sure you would pack the house then you would have a disaster to clean up afterwards and unless you charged crazy money the club would lose money. Just think every steel target would need to be replaced plus dirt berms rebuilt plus I dont even know if an insurance company would give you coverage for that kind of event let alone what it would cost. "The pit" got turned into an "improved range" because it became a nuisance to the DNR from trash to neighbor complaints to safety issues with roads being boobytrapped. Thats why no good club would do an open to the public FRT shoot they will have alot of the same issues. |
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Another event our club does to engage members is host a picnic/ range day. In the morning each shooting discipline sets up a stage, and members (and family and friends) have an opportunity to shoot the stages. Around noon the range shuts down and members go to the clubhouse for lunch and we sell raffle tickets. We raffle off a shotgun or a .22 rifle, and year's membership. We have other events and games for the kids This event exposes members to the club programs and provides a social activity outside of standard competition. |