Colorado Rifle Club

NEWSLETTER

January 2005

WELCOME TO THE NEW YEAR!

Start it off by making note of this important Club info!

This issue of the CRC Newsletter contains three items of special importance to members. They are:

* The Annual Dues notice

* The Annual Meeting notice

* The 2005 CRC Calendar

DUES NOTICE:

All membership dues are due as of January 1. The enclosed yellow coupon explains the particulars. The address label on this envelope includes your member number and your dues amount owed. Our rules are more liberal than most clubs in that you have all year to pay up. However it would be a big help to the Data Base Manager and the Secretary-Treasurer (who are volunteers too) if you would get them in before April 1. That will also help us with budget planning for 2005. Remember that on April 1 the gate lock combination changes and a $20 late payment penalty goes into effect. Your 2005 membership card will have the new gate combination printed on it, and the only way to get your new card is to pay your dues. Also, your work bond is a part of your dues obligation. Members will get a work bond verification card with their membership card. Please keep this with you and get it signed by your work leader when you fulfill your work obligation. Then be sure to send it in to the address on the back of the card so that you get proper credit for the work. Every year there are a number of folks who do the work in the spring but forget to send in the card until they get a warning letter later in the year. Get the credit you deserve for doing your work - and save the club some postage!

THE ANNUAL MEETING NOTICE

The Annual Meeting will be on Saturday, February 19 at Captain Bligh’s Restaurant at Sixth Avenue and Simms/Union in Lakewood. It is located on the northeast corner of the intersection in the back of the Mile High Inns and Suites motel complex. Bring your spouse and/or a good friend and enjoy a fun evening with your fellow shooters. It is also the only general membership meeting of the year. Do you really need a better excuse than that to get together and talk shooting with a bunch of great people? Among other business, three members of the Board of Directors will be elected. This year we are returning to the sit-down dinner format with a choice of entrees. We are holding the price at $25 including tax and tip and if you have eaten out lately, you know that is a bargain! There will be a cash bar at 6:30pm with the dinner at 7:00 and the meeting at 8:00. If you want to come to the meeting only, no reservation is necessary. Be sure to indicate your dinner choice on your reservation coupon. The choices are: Roast Prime Rib of Beef au jus; Halibut baked in lemon butter w/ parsley: or Hunter Chicken, a baked chicken breast with brown sauce of onions, mushrooms and peppers. All dinners come with green salad, vegetables, rolls, beverage and dessert. Fill out and return the reservation coupon with your check so that it is received no later than February 14.

CRC 2005 CALENDAR

The CRC event calendar is enclosed, and will also be posted on the web site. Please keep this handy even if you are not a competitive shooter, so that you will know what is going on at the range on any day that you might want to go out. Recreational shooters can sometimes be accommodated during a match. Call the match contact person for detailed information before you go out if there is an event scheduled on your favorite range. Notice also events called CLINICS. These events are intended to introduce members to a sport that they are not familiar with, and to offer basic instruction. Clinics are a great way to try a new sport. Call the contact person before the clinic and it might be possible to arrange the use of some equipment if you do not have what is needed. If you’re lacking for resolutions, why not vow to try out a new shooting discipline? Opportunities abound here at CRC!

MANY THANKS

Thanks to member Rod Wilems for his gift of $100 to the Club. It will be well used in our next mortgage payment on our new land. Thanks Rod!

Thanks also to Pat McCarthy for building a single axle cargo trailer, using the rear end of the burned out Ford pickup. (see the April ‘04 newsletter if you missed what happened to that poor truck!) This will be a handy thing for general use around the range but be advised, it is not licensed for use on the road. Incidentally, Pat is recently returned from two tours of duty in Iraq, so we owe him even bigger thanks!

Thanks also to the anonymous benefactor who has parked what appears to be an army 1/4 ton trailer at the range. We assume it’s a donation to the club. Let us know who you are and we will trade for three years work bond for it.

DUES & WORK BOND NOTICES

On December 1 letters were sent to about 95 members notifying them that they had not fulfilled their 2004 Work Bond obligation and must do so immediately or they would be dropped from the club as of December 31. We hope that all of them have responded by now. Some folks probably have done the work and simply forgot to report it, and a few have left town for new places. We have a big property and maintaining it and making improvements for the benefit of the members is a big job in which we all need to participate. There is no good way that the work could be hired out and even if we did do so, it would cost a lot of money and take a lot of supervision. Every shooting club that we know of has a work bond requirement of some sort and we are not as strict as several that we know of. The work bond should come as no surprise to members and we certainly work at publicizing it. If you’ve been known to put things off – make a new years resolution to be an early bird this year. Don’t know how you can help? Call Workbond Coordinator Dave Paananen – he has a host of different jobs to choose from.

Similar letters were sent to about 18 members who had not paid their 2004 dues. This number is less than normal, and we are sure that there are good reasons for most of these to be leaving CRC. In either case, we hope that those who choose to leave us will stay in the shooting sports in some way.

TODAYS WORKBOND IS TOMORROWS WINDBREAK

From time to time in the past the club has purchased tree seedlings from USDA and put them in around the range. Nearly all our cottonwood seedlings have died, or were eaten by deer. But many of the hardy juniper trees planted behind the ranges and around the house have survived. We can get more if we order before the middle of March. We’re looking for someone to take charge of a tree planting project and recruit a planting crew, order some trees, organize their planting and follow up with a watering crew through the summer.

The trees are tiny seedlings in paper tubes. If memory serves, they come in flats of 40 or 50. Planters will need to clear the grass and weeds from a circle about 3 ft. across and plant the tree with a bit of fertilizer. That’s easy enough, given our soil is pretty sandy. The bigger job will be making sure they are watered regularly. Unless we get a rainy season, it will be very important to water them about once a week through the summer and early fall and keep the weeds cleared away, so this will take some organization and several people. CRC will pay all expenses of course. This is a good work bond project and we’ll need plenty of participants.

Trees will improve the look of the property, give much needed shade and eventually serve as a wind break around the camping pads, house, and range areas. If you’d like to help plant and water, or take charge of this project, you are most welcome. Call Dave Paananen, 303 673-0106 or Martin Everitt 303 425-4450.

BIG BANG!

Member Bill Lutzens has built a Civil War Parrott Rifle (probably not named Polly) which he plans to compete with in local cannon shoots, etc. For those who like big, noisy rifles and want to get beyond the currently popular short magnums, this is the thing to do! Bill is looking for up to six people to help him as gun crew. Crew members will help transport, load and fire the piece and take part in all the action of increasingly popular cannon shoots. Unlike the original civil war, there is no other side shooting back. He also needs someone with access to a lathe to help him build a projectile mold. This thing is a rifle and does not need to shoot round balls. If you’d like to find out more, call Bill at 303 697-6046 or email wmlutzens@juno.com.

MORE RANGES IN DANGER

A front page article in the December 6, 2004 Denver Post describes the problems faced by a number of public shooting ranges, mostly informal ones on government land, as houses are built up around them. This urban growth is the reason that we left the old property at Morrison Road and Kipling in 1980 and it highlights the importance of clubs like ours in keeping the shooting sports alive. The Post story also talks about the trash that is often found at public ranges and the dangers to non-shooters in the area. There is no denying that some shooters are careless (we hope that none of them are CRC members), and that some (sadly including a few CRC members) are inclined to not pick up after themselves. If we want to shoot and pass the sport along to our kids, we need clubs like CRC. We count on our members to do everything they can to keep our sports safe and keep the clubs alive by shooting carefully and safely with full regard to the rights of others around us, whether they are shooters or neighbors. While it can be argued that there are many incorrect assumptions about shooting and shooters on the part of the public and the media – the power of public perception can’t be denied. Get enough people worked up over an issue, and right or wrong that fervor can bring overwhelming change. Let’s work to make sure we’re part of the positive image that is the reality behind most organized shooting clubs. CRC is happy to welcome new members who have been displaced by urban growth, and we are grateful we have such a fine facility. If you’d like to read the article, our web site has a link to it.

WELCOME CRC’S HEAVY EQUIPMENT MANAGER

CRC President Denny Reul has appointed Paul Wilson as the heavy equipment manager for the club. Paul will look after maintenance on the tractors, welder and grader (if it ever reappears from the maintenance shop) and train operators, etc. This position should help eliminate the problem of disabled equipment on work days, conflicts in scheduling and other hitches that sometimes come up. Paul will present his plans at the Match Director’s Workshop in January and will work with the MD’s and others to assure that the equipment is maintained and used efficiently. Anyone who wants to be checked out as an operator should call Paul at 303 646-6646.

HELP WANTED

Light Equipment Manager

We need a light equipment manager to look after the riding mowers, weed wackers, etc., as Paul Wilson is going to do for the heavy equipment. Interested parties can call Dennis Reul at 303 238-5696.

Steel Worker, Engineer or Architect

In 2003 we bought a pile of used structural steel. We need an Engineer or Architect to help Wayne Harris figure out how to use the steel most efficiently to build a maintenance building/ equipment shop and firing line covers for the silhouette range. Call Dennis Reul at 303 238-5696 or Wayne Harris at 303 431-4009.

VITAL SAFTEY NOTICE

CRC Club member Matt Goodrich sent in news of a potential safety hazard with Sako and Tikka rifles. Sako Limited is a Finnish company that manufactures hunting rifles, and is owned by Beretta Rifles here in the U.S. It has been reported on several websites, by a number of shooters, that some Sako 75 Synthetic Stainless rifles, Sako T3 Light hunting rifles, and Tikka model rifles sold after February 2004 have either bad metal or a bad heat treat. The use of flawed or sub-standard steel in the barrels of these guns has made them subject to rupture during firing. This is causing complete failure with explosive and devastating results. Neither the Sako website at www.sako.fi or the Beretta USA website at www.berettausa.com has any recall notices or further information about this that I could see. However, a shooter’s website I did find said that T3 Stainless rifles with serial numbers starting with 419140 and going to 461951 have been recalled by some dealers in Canada. Sako’s website listed Gun Works of Colorado in Lakewood as among their U.S. dealers. I called Gun Works and asked if they had any official information or notices from either company. They were very helpful, and said they too have heard of this problem via the internet. They have not had any local customers report damage, and they have not received any recalls or product advisories from either company. Without official manufacturer acknowledgement of a problem, it’s hard to know if the reported failures are operator errors, or a bonafide product defect that poses a danger to all. But the number of accounts is disturbing, and safety is the primary concern for all shooters. If you have purchased a Sako or Tikka hunting rifle, please contact the gun dealer from whom you purchased it and be prepared to provide them serial numbers and all product information about your rifle. They may have information I was unable to find. Or contact Beretta USA at 800-636-3420 and ask them for further details. Thanks Matt, for letting us know about this potentially deadly problem!

Winners Circle

Though summertime seems like a distant memory lately, there were some big matches this past summer that CRC members distinguished themselves in that we haven’t mentioned yet. Now’s the time to give them the recognition they’ve earned!

National Silhouette Championships

The 2004 Silhouette National Championships were held in Raton, New Mexico this year, with the Smallbore Championships July 11-13, and the High Power following July 15-17. One of the great things about Silhouette shooting is that its fun for the spectators as well as the competitors. There’s something about hearing that cling and watching the target fall that draws you in. In fact, silhouette competitors, both smallbore and highpower are guaranteed at least one audience member each – in the form of their spotters. Spotters watch the time, wind conditions and call the shots for the shooter so they can stay sighted in. Smallbore and highpower both shoot at chickens, pigs, turkeys and rams; highpower shooters at life size targets at distances of 200, 300, 385 and 500 meters. Smallbore shooters aim at 1/5 size targets at 40, 60 77 and 100 meters. Both have standard and hunting rifle matches - the principal difference being that standard rifles allow for stock, trigger, sight and other custom adjustments, while hunting rifles must be unmodified rifles. Most shooters compete in both categories, and some compete in both smallbore and highpower matches - including this years "grand slam" winner, Agustin Sanchez from California. He won both standard and hunting categories in both smallbore and highpower matches - only the second shooter to do so!

Several CRC members and regular visitors made the trip to Raton and did well in the competition. In the Smallbore matches, Bob Snyder took second place in the hunting rifle on the second day of competition hitting 35 of the 40 targets. In the aggregate, Dennis Fluman won the hunting rifle Super Senior title and Lones Wigger took High Senior in the Standard Rifle. But the best accomplishment was junior shooter Adam Routh. He broke the junior long run record when he hit 25 chickens in a row, shattering the previous record of 23 that had stood since 1996. Great shooting Adam! In the Highpower matches Lones Wigger mirrored his smallbore victory, earning a High Senior win in the Standard rifle aggregate. Both events had pretty good weather – something you can never count on in Raton – and a good time was had by all.

BLACK POWDER CHAMPIONSHIPS

The 2004 NRA National Mid Range/Long Range Black Powder Target Rifle Championships were held in Raton New Mexico August 2-7. There are 3 parts to this competition; the Mid range prone matches at 200, 300 and 600 yards; the Mid range position matches in standing, sitting with cross sticks and prone with cross sticks at 200, 300 and 600 yards; and the Creedmoor Match, a long range match at 800, 900 and 1000 yards. The Creedmoor Match was named for Creed Farm, on Long Island New York. This range, built on the farm in 1872, was the first long range in America that could host international matches, and was the site of the famous 1873 match between the U.S. and Irish teams. This is a black powder prone match fired with iron sights (!) and has a TON of history behind it. This year, CRC member Rick Moritz took second place honors, with an aggregate total of 525-2X. Rick used a Shiloh Sharps rifle in .45-90 caliber with a Badger Barrel and a 500 grain bullet. Rick was only 5 points off the National champion Lige Harris, also from Colorado, who has shot out at CRC a number of times. Lige Harris won the Championship with a 530-12x, and also earned the Iron Man Award with a cumulative score of 1631-38x. Great shooting guys!

SEE YOU AT THE ANNUAL MEETING!

Newsletter coding by James Speed Hensinger jhensinger5 AT comcast.net