Youth Shooting Sports

[Bruce Day]

I was working this morning and got a call from a friend who asked what I was doing so I told him and he asked me to post photos and explanation on the forum, as the PGCA has a youth shooting sports initiative.

So, about 20 days in the summer and several saturdays in the spring and in the fall I am involved in teaching Boy Scouts in first steps and advanced shooting, shotgun, 22 rifle, 22 and 38 pistol and black powder muzzleloading. All instructors have to be NRA certified and I am certified in shotgun and pistol. We have 11,000 youth ( boys and Venture age girls) in council and we run about 5000 through a shooting program every year.

We have about 100 qualified instructors but only about 30 can be counted on time after time. Shotgun takes one instructor per student, rifle and pistol , one to five. You get some students and they have never shot before and they are hitting after a few shots, others take a lot of instruction effort.

So, some folks find this rewarding and all BSA councils have these programs that a person could help out on if he was so inclined. Its a way to preserve a traditional sport for future generations. I know the NRA was putting out a general call for shotgun instructors for the national jamboree in West Virginia next summer, but I am already committed to help out at our council camps then. We have young women in the Venture program and we had no female instructors in the council, so a couple of us asked a well known local woman shooter ( Captain, USN, Ret) to help. She had no BSA connection but she has been wonderful in working with the young women.

So, here's some photos.......oh we use 870's and run about 20,000 rounds per year through them in just part of our total program. We have five and its the close of season and we need to work on two of them. We burn a lot of powder.