Youth marksmanship in easter Washington?

[jrw1976]

I am the youth activity coordinator for our local Pheasants Forever orginization here in eastern Washington. I have been thinking about taking the kids to somesort of practical rifle marksmanship class. But I have never heard of such a class in my area. In the past I have taken a group of 15-20 kids to a couple of different sporting clays courses once a year and we also put on a youth bird hunt in the fall for the kids all free of charge for the kids. But I think the kids are getting a little bored with that since 99% of them all shoot trap in the winter at our local gun club. If anyone knows of this sort of a class in eastern washington or even someone that would be willing to put on such a class I would really like to hear about it.
Thank you, JRW

 

[milanuk]

Where in eastern Washington?

Around the Wenatchee Valley area we may be able to work something out @ NCW Gun Club.

 

[jrw1976]

we are in ritzville, wenatchee is only about 80 miles away we could easily work something out. i would love to here more.

 

[milanuk]

Do you want a formal course of fire / competition they could engage in, or are you looking for more of a 'teaser' to give them an appreciation of what is out there - a 'sampler' of different rifle disciplines, per se?

For the former, Spokane, Wenatchee, & Tri-Cities have programs that might be of interest. For the latter... I can't say about the other ranges, but we may be able to come up with something here @ NCWGC... something ranging from Service Rifle to F-Class to practical/field rifle, etc. Might even be able to holler across the river to another gun club and get some Benchrest type people involved.

To my knowledge, there isn't really any formal program of the latter type anywhere around here... I think the Hunter Ed program has them go through and fire various firearms and then walk a 'course'... but with an unloaded weapon.

 

[jrw1976]

All of the above. I think the kids would have great fun learning about everything from the competitions to the proper way of sighting in a rifle. But that might be asking to much to shove all of that into one day. My original thought was to have them learn about the proper ways to set themselves up for shots in all the practical hunting positions from someone that is a better teacher than I am with nice facilities to hold it at. Our hunter safety program does splash over these topics but they are not gone into with very much detail because of time constraints. Then as they learn the proper way to preform these positions they would be able to apply what they have learned on the range with say .22 LR's out to 200 yards. Which would also give them a chance to learn about windage and elevation. My goal is to teach them how to be more precise hunters instead just going out and slinging lead untill the critter goes down and then learning from thier mistakes on thier own. Like most of the rest of us have had to do.