With 169 members, the OSU Shotgun Sports Club has almost doubled its members in the past year. The club is for students who enjoy skeet shooting, sporting clays or other shotgun activities.
It is not too much of a stretch to claim many OSU students enjoy shooting objects with guns.
Unfortunately, outside, legal forces can hinder this pastime. The OSU Shotgun Sports Club is an ideal facet for enthusiasts to direct their attention.
In its third year at OSU, the Shotgun Sports Club has gained membership and momentum in the community. With 169 members the member count has risen from about 80 a year ago.
The club’s origin was humbler, though.
“There were about six or seven people that heard other schools had [shotgun sports clubs] and they decided we needed one,” said Kevin Coffman, the Shotgun Sports Club president and a wildlife and fisheries ecology senior.
Members seem to come from many sources on and off campus, but for the most part there is a central supplier, said Gabe Miller, president-elect of the club and a mechanical engineering junior.
“Most of our new members come from Aggie Roundup,” Miller said.
The club isn’t for just experienced shooters, though.
“We do have some people who have never shot a gun and want to see how it works,” said David Henneberry, the group’s faculty adviser.
Although the membership total might seem intimidating to prospective members, the active number of members is a little less frightening, Henneberry said.
“We have a huge club, but a smaller core group goes to nationals and events and shoots,” he said.
The club’s activities include shooting expeditions at local areas designated for shotgun sports, competitions across the greater Midwest region and general social events.
“Each school hosts events,” Coffman said. “We’ve been to Wyoming, Colorado, Iowa, San Antonio, Missouri. We hosted a shootout in December.”
The club usually practices in Guthrie at Silver Leaf Shotgun Sports. The common shooting sports played are skeet shooting and sporting clays.
Skeet shooting involves clay discs, which are shot from various locations along a semi-circle. The discs are shot from a variety of angles in relation to the shooter, according to http://www.shotgunsports.com.
Sporting clays, or “golf with a shotgun” as Henneberry jokingly refers to it as, differs from skeet shooting in that the shooter moves from station to station shooting clay discs shot from varying distances at varying angles and velocities.
Sporting clays is challenging, said Keenan Lewis, club historian and a history freshman.
“It is probably the most frustrating thing I have ever done in my life,” Lewis, said.
Recently the Shotgun Sports Club benefited from a $3,000 National Wildlife Turkey Federation grant.
“That was a huge step forward,” Henneberry said.
These funds are going toward a trip to San Antonio for the Association of College Unions International Clay Target Championships, taking place at the National Shooting Complex April 9 to 13, Henneberry said.
“It is the largest shotgun range in the world,” he said.
Shotgun Sports Club members said they are grateful for the opportunities this grant opens for the club. Now the focus is to continue finding ways to increase funding, especially on a regular basis.
“They [the NWTF] put us on their agenda and we’re looking at maybe getting an annual grant,” Lewis said. “The way they see it is we are their future.”
Membership requires annual dues of either $10 per semester or $15 per school year. On top of this are the regular costs for ammunition and shooting range charges, which can range from $50 to $70 depending on what targets are used. Although the club does not have a regularly scheduled time to shoot, fair-weathered time periods generally are far from dull.
“In the fall it’s really busy,” Coffman said. “The spring is not as busy because it is colder.”
The fall usually has a stretch of five to six consecutive weekends with events, he said.
Experience demands practice, Lewis said.
“You have to be dedicated if you want to be good,” he said, “And, it’s expensive as hell.”
Anyone interested in joining the Shotgun Sports Club can access the club’s Facebook group, “OSU Shotgun Sports Club,” for more information.
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