IOWA 1000 Yard Range closed

G

Gordy Gritters

Guest
Hello 1000 Yard shooters. Here is the letter we just sent out to most of our recent shooters announcing the closing of the Iowa 1000 Yard range:



President’s Letter - Iowa 1000 Yard Benchrest Association

Lee Fischer and I want to thank all of you for participating in 1000 yard competition at the Iowa 1000 Yard Benchrest Association over the past 8 years. We all learned a lot, we had plenty of superb competition, we witnessed many records being set, and everyone had a great time!!

We hosted the IBS 1000 Yard National Championships at our club in 2005 and 2009, both of which went extremely well!

But we have recently had to vacate the property we were shooting on due to the death of the landowner. We tried to get a new range set up with Brownells but that did not work out, so we have decided to close down the Iowa 1000 Yard Benchrest Association.

We will miss this very much since this club, and especially all you shooters, have become a very big part of our lives. We made so many friends these past 8 years, and we are honored to get to know you and to share many wonderful memories with you!

We and all of our staff did our very best to make this a well-run club that everyone had a great time competing at. We want to thank all the club officials for their assistance in making the past 8 years go as smoothly as they did: Lee, Juli and Stephen Fischer, Dave Clark, Randy Bonnett, Matt Bonnett, Chris McLees, Dean Walther, Ron and Joy Dykstra, Mike Shotwell, Ed McClelland, Doug Van Wyk, and my wife, Chris Gritters, who cooked and oversaw the food service on match days. We also want to thank our primary target crew Tony Escher, Jordan Pinegar and Colton Pinegar who did a great job helping Matt run targets over the years. We had a great team and definitely couldn’t have done such a good job without everyone's help running the matches.

We will keep our club’s website (www.iowa1000ydbenchrest.com) going for a short time yet so you can view match results, equipment lists, range records, and other details.

Remember to also keep an eye on the IBS website (www.international-benchrest.com) for our member’s national standings, gun and equipment rules, and rules of competition.

I am still offering some very in-depth classes in precision gunsmithing for do-it-yourselfers, but until I find a 1000 yard range to use I will not be offering any more 1000 Yard/Long Range Shooting classes. I am still in the process of producing instructional DVD’s on precision gunsmithing for those who are interested in learning more about working on their own rifles. See info on classes/DVD’s on my shop’s website: www.ExtremeAccuracyInstitute.com.

Thank you so much for being a part of our club and our lives – we had a great time, didn’t we?!!

Gordy Gritters, Club President
 
This is what happens when the club does not own the range. We lost our gun club when the owner of the ground we were leasing died and the membership would not pony up $250,000.00 to buy it from the estate. We had a number of "life members" who stated that they could not be expected to contribute - now they are "life members" of nothing. A lot of the membership would not go along when we told them that their dues would go from $50.00 to $150.00 and that the life members would have to pay an annual maintenance fee. Some clown bought the property and a 50 year old club was history.
We tried to purchase new ground several places around the county, but we could not (and were told that we would not) get zoning approval.

I would suggest that any other clubs on rented or leased land take this as a warning and purchase their ground when they can for whatever they can. To duplicate what we already had was going to take 1/2 to a million dollars.
 
I'm not sure I can help but would like to. What would it really take to start a new range? I don't have a 1k yards but do go to 800 yards and I also have access to an area that has 2 miles of clear space...Just wondering
 
Gordy,
You guys out there had a great range and put on great, and fun, matches. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to go out there and shoot. You and all the staff were top notch and will be missed, I hope something can be worked out in the future.
----------Jeff
 
James,
I am in the very western part of Iowa.. and I know that makes things difficult...matter of fact I think iowa sees us as eastern Nebraska...I'm in Onawa between Omaha NE and Sioux City, IA
 
CJ,
I would sure be interested if you can get anything going for 1000yd IBS matches there, it's a lot closer for me than Pella, in fact about half as far.
I know other shooters that would be very interested in shooting 1000yd IBS matches there too. Let me know if I can be of any help.

James
 
I would love a reason to drive to Iowa this year from Texas. You guys get it figured out and I may bring some Texans for you to try to outshoot and get some braging rights! I really hope you guys can figure something out and get longrange benchrest back to Iowa. I wish you all the luck in the world. I was very disappointed to hear the news of the closing.
 
Ok guys I need info...how much room for how many shooters?so on and so forth..We might have to make it a gentlemans competition the first year then go from there k
 
Thank you.

Thank you Gordy. Thank you Chris G., Lee, Julie, Matt, Dean, Randy, Dave, Mike, Chris M. and all of the rest.

Competing and otherwise, the time I spent at the range at Pella are some of the highlights of my life.

Regan Green
 
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