Taking aim at shooting sports trend

BY SARA KEDDY

King County Register

Shooting enthusiasts at the Greenwood Rod & Gun Club knew it would work - it just took a while to get there.

A permanent five stand set-up for the increasingly popular sporting clays sport is now in use at the club, with its first event a charity shoot October 7.

“We’ve had sporting clays for years,” says club member Winston Dominie, but the club also used its ranges for trap and skeet.

“We think it’s the thing to shoot now,” he says, pointing out the 2007 events schedule around the Atlantic provinces, which features a handful of sporting clays shoots for every other event.

Sporting clays allows people with “just regular shot guns” to come in, and there are just three rules, compared to the complicated regulations around other shooting sports.

“If you have a misfire, it’s the same as if you were out in the field when a pheasant jumps up: too bad,” Dominie says.

“People like it.”

The Greenwood club has hosted two sporting clays events a season in recent years, but Dominie expects the club will get its name on the Atlantic provinces’ schedule more often for next year with the permanent field, along with regular Sunday club shoots.

“People will travel.”

There’s the competitive side of shooting five shots from each of five stands, for a 25- or 50-shot round: the machines will throw targets across the range, away from the shooter and even toward them; Greenwood has a “rabbit” target shooter that skims the ground and an international bunker machine, which adjusts for both sweep and rise at the same time. Target throwers can send out singles, doubles or following pairs; even smaller than normal targets - “interesting,” says Dominie.

Registered shoots, on the other hand, are fun for shooters.

“A very good shot can come in an ace a course, then we all come in and it’s just a draw for prizes,” whether it’s sport paraphernalia, tools, gizmos or gift cards.

“People have discovered they go to sporting clays and have a really good time.”

The club didn’t do much to adjust to a permanent set-up, gathering existing equipment and redesigning a couple target trajectories.

“A couple of years ago a few of us did the sporting clays and thought about it for here - there was no opposition, but it was a matter of getting it underway.”

Dominie says the club has 19 regular members but will draw dozens more for shooting events. The club would like to increase its membership and is open to anyone interested in shooting sports. The club is located off the Glebe Road (south of Highway 1 in Auburn).