Non-IHMSA Members Please Read

[19Turkeys]

First, BurmKiller has created a very friendly & welcome place for all folks interested in whacking steel or learning about same. Thanks for doing that.

In reviewing several profiles of members of this forum I note that many have not ever been members of IHMSA. Douglas' forum seems to be the perfect place to pick these people's brains.

As a non-IHMSA member, you still have some interest in handguns, handgun accuracy, and a fun sport or you would not have joined this forum.

Given that as a match director interested in growing our club, I would like to hear your thoughts on why you have not taken the step of joining IHMSA and participating in a local club.

I understand there are many reasons for that the primary one being that there may not be a club in your area.

Hopefully, your thoughts would be helpful in giving IHMSA some ideas on the best way to increase membership. Thanks for your time & participation in this forum & for giving input to this thread.

Yours,

Steve W.

[ScooterTheShooter]

As a side note to Steve's thread, maybe we can get more match directors/shooters from different clubs to post information on the "Silhouette Ranges and Clubs" thread so non members could see if there are clubs nearby.

[35isit]

Steve, Scott, As a match director and as state director I have done everything I can to recruit new shooters. I have posted my local schedule on here and on specialty pistols. A forum we all are familiar with. When Lorene at IHMSA headquarters gets a request for information. She in turn forwards the requestors information to the appropriate state and region director. I have contacted every person she has sent me. I have found out where they live and the closest range to them. Some of the ranges were even out of state. I gave them the match directors name and their contact info, location of range and their schedule, what disciplines they shot and offered to help any way I could. To the best of my knowledge not one person has taken advantage.
So you non members please let us know what we can do. We would love to have you come out and try our sport.

[ChargerFan]

Here's my story.
Until a couple years ago, my knowledge of IHMSA in general was very limited. I only owned a couple guns, shot then rarely & only for recreation...didn't even reload. It wasn't until I bought my first Dan Wesson (I had always wanted a Pistol Pac & finally bought one) & joined the Dan Wesson Forum shortly afterward, that my eyes were really opened to the whole world of IHMSA.
I began asking many questions, bought some books, bought more COOL guns and ended up with a whole lot less money on hand. But I'm having fun being able to hold & shoot something more tangible than a pile of money.

I am one of those folks with no local club, I'm just south of Salt Lake City & the nearest one to me is in Idaho. My work schedule is really not going to let me travel a few hours north to attend meets, with any regularity. So my plan so far is to have some silhouettes made locally, then take them out to my desert "range" when I can make the time on weekends & do some personal IMHSA style plinking.
I hope to be able to get myself into a different work schedule sometime in the near future, that will allow me to attend some meets. I am glad this site is here, and I hope I'm not offending anyone by not being an official IHMSA member myself.
I wouldn't mind joining & paying dues, but like I've mentioned, I don't see myself being able to attend many (if any) matches for anytime soon. Because of that, I haven't tried to join just yet.

I'm just now getting into the reloading scene this month...in fact I've got the 2nd half of my pile of empty brass downstairs in the tumbler right now. I will start reloading .44 Mag first, mainly because I have a huge mountain of brass to load. Then I'll start working on 38's, .357 Mag & Maxi.
Speaking of which, if any of you guys know of anyone wanting to offload some .375 SuperMag dies, I'm all ears!

[19Turkeys]

ChargerFan,

First, thanks for your post. It is great to have someone interested even though you are without a range.

Would you consider contacting the Region 6 Director (Dell Taylor who lives near you) to see if somehow a formal club could be formed using your desert "range"? IHMSA provides all the paperwork (scorecards, etc) to put on a match & match software can be downloaded at http://www.orchidsoftware.com. Dell's contact information is on the IHMSA website, and BurmKiller has a link to it here.

Thanks for considering this idea & for your contribution. & there is absolutely no problem with a non-IHMSA member being on this site. Hopefully we IHMSA members can learn how to grow the organization from your input.

Steve W.

[ChargerFan]

Steve, that sounds like a good idea. It may be a month or so until I can get some of my "ducks in a row", but I will contact him & see where it goes from there.
On a related note, I bought this buckle from a guy in Florida last summer, David Kiseleski, if I recall correctly. He told me that Dell had made these a few years ago, so there's a little some thing else to talk about right there.

ab9.jpg

[19Turkeys]

On a related note, I bought this buckle from a guy in Florida last summer, David Kiseleski

Charger,

If you run into Dave again, tell him I said hi. He & I used to e-mail back & forth quite a bit. He's good people!

Steve W.

[ChargerFan]

Steve, I'll do that. He sure seemed like a nice guy.

[k9jri]

I have not been able to find any silhouette shooting in central Indiana. In the warm weather I shoot weekly at the FCVCC in Anderson, IN but only mounted paper targets are allowed at the range. I do shoot paper smallbore silhouette targets at 25, 50 & 100 yards in the warm weather and airgun silhouette targets in the garage during the winter. I had hoped to be able to enjoy some moderately priced shooting but as yet that has not happened.

I have some adequate equipment I think:

IZH-46M .177 target air pistol
TC G2 Contender, 12", .22LR Match with Leupold 2x20 EER and 3-9X33 EFR
TC G2 Contender rifle, 23", 22LR Match with Leupold 3-9X33 EFR and 25X Competition

I live in Indianapolis, IN if someone is aware of a nearby silhouette range.

[19Turkeys]

I live in Indianapolis, IN if someone is aware of a nearby silhouette range.

K9, here you go. MARION COUNTY FISH & GAME, INDIANAPOLIS ED LEDBETTER 312-293-5779 edwardrimfire@earthlink.net

Steve W.

[k9jri]

Thanks Steve

[35isit]

Terre Haute In and Crittenden or Lawrenceburg Ky are not super far away either. New shooters can go to ihmsa.org and check out the schedule. It will give them the date and place of the matches. They can then google how far away the match is away from them. My personal threshold is 3 hours. Just be sure to contact match director before traveling very far.

[35isit]

I also meant to say there are several match and state directors on this forum and others. I know some match directors are hard to get in touch with. Ours being one. So if you have problems reaching one person try several. Keep trying until your questions are answered. I attempt to return phone calls or emails as soon as I can. Conversely my wife has the contact info and match schedule for every range in Ky. She could give you info if all else fails.

[k9jri]

Thanks. I was aware of the Terre Haute group as our local Gander Mountain gun manager shoots silhouette over there. I may have to make the trip just to look around

[IHMSA80x80]

Welcome ChargerFan and k9jri...I know CF from the Dan Wesson site and k9jri from Specialty Pistols.

I used to live in Indianapolis, in fact, got my IHMSA career started at Marion County Fish & Game. The match director, Ed, and I are good friends. Our range in Crittenden, KY is a little over 2 hours from MCF&G, and Ed comes down here all the time to practice and shoot. See our schedule in the Silhouette Ranges and Clubs Forum here. You are welcome to our Friday practices and 2 matches per month. The 5 practice days I hold are a great way for you to be introduced to the game and get a chance to try out all kinds of guns. We start in March...be looking forward to meeting you here.

[k9jri]

80X80, Thanks for the welcome. I used to shoot with Al Story a few years back. I am not sure if Ed is his son or not but I do believe that Al's son is in a leadership role at MCF&G. I looked up Crittenden and see that it is an easy drive from Indy. I will watch the schedules and may well show up during the practice days.

Thanks again - Mike

[HandgunHTR]

I have been a member for only 4 years now but I can tell you what Ron Dixon at Cherokee Gun Club has been doing to get more people involved.

One of the things was that a S&W 686 was purchased as a "Club gun". The cost to shoot the club gun is $15 per entry. That is $5 to cover the entry fee and $10 for a box of 50 rounds of .38 special ammo. You are given 50 rounds of ammo with the gun and a book of sight settings with the sight settings of every one who has used the gun in it. Because it is an unfamiliar gun he allows 10 sighters instead of the usual 5 (and because it makes sense with the 50 round box of ammo). One of the regular shooters is recruited to be a spotter and a "mentor" for the person shooting. Lastly, once we get to a pre-determined number of entries with the "club gun" every entry will be given a number. All the numbers will be put in a hat and someone will win that gun. We have had numerous people come down just to shoot the club gun and they have ended up coming back at least once. In the past 4 years I can think of 5 people that now shoot regularly that were started on the club gun.

Another thing is to not be "clique-ish". I know a lot of you have been shooting for years together, and while almost everyone I have run into is very friendly, we do tend to be a clique-ish bunch. What I mean by that is that we tend to spend more time talking to those who we are familiar with and just greeting newbies and going right back to our conversations. I am going to make it a personal goal this year to go to a match, not to shoot, but to spend the whole day spotting and helping a newbie.

Those are two things off the top of my head (not counting some rule changes, but that is an ENTIRELY different thread).

[Boomer]

I am brand new here & can attest to what 35isit is saying.
I have been a long time long range handgunner, mostly varmint hunting but recently was bit by the bug to shoot some steel. Living in KY I emailed the KY state director to find out about range locations. Greg was most helpful & even made me aware of this forum.
I only live about 15mi from the Crittenden range so am looking forward to the next match to come up, poke around & ask questions.

[BurmKiller]

Boomer - Welcome to the board and the sport. You will find the shooters as entertaining as the shooting. I found the single most valuable thing to work on as a new IHMSA shooter is your list of excuses why you missed. Stand around and listen to some of the old time masters of this... (Melvin...can you hear me....?)

[IHMSA80x80]

My book has 487 reasons why I missed that target...so far.