Buffalo City Gun Club Trap Shooting League in full swing – Jamestown Sun

JAMESTOWN — Those who love shooting guns have a place to go in Jamestown, the Buffalo City Gun Club.

The club has been in existence for over 50 years and has four trap shooting machines available to competitors. The club organizes competitions throughout the summer with two major competitions each summer.

“The league is competitive but not super competitive. It’s more about having a good time than being super competitive, just having fun,” said Tyler Goldade, president of the Buffalo City Gun Club. “The ATA (American Trapshooting Association) events… they are ultra-competitive, for them, it’s business.”

Goldade said the club has about 50 members. He said the club is typically open from late April or early May until October.

Goldade said the biggest challenge the club faced was the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Twenty years ago the club had a lot of teams and a lot of people shooting,” Goldade said. “It kind of tapered off a little bit and then COVID crushed us. I think it was across the board for almost everything, bowling, with the exception of golf, golf did well. … We slowed down a lot after COVID and now we’re starting to pick up. Our league at one point had 20 teams, and then during COVID, that first year of COVID, I think we had about eight teams for our league, five-man teams. Now we’re about to get back to about 15 or 16 (teams).

While the pandemic has hurt club membership, Goldade said the Jamestown High School trap team, which started around the same time as the Jamestown University shooting sports team, helped the club enormously.

Goldade said the start of the season was slow due to the weather. He said he expects the number of people competing to increase after the Stutsman County Fair ends. The club was not in session during the Stutsman County Fair to avoid any potential accidents.

Goldade has been president of the nonprofit organization for three years. Goldade said part of his responsibilities as president are taking care of money, maintaining grounds and planning events.

One such event is the Amateur Trap Shooting event. During the trap shooting events, Goldade said competitors are grouped into different classes: A, B, C, D, juniors and veterans. The class to which an individual belongs depends on the average score of the shooter. Goldade said the score for the event is based on the number of clay targets hit by the shooter. He said the highest class is reserved for those who shoot 96 targets or more, and it goes down to those who shoot 89 targets or less per competition. Goldade said competitors shoot either shotguns designed specifically for trap shooting or field rifles.

“We have our standard leagues and stuff like that,” Goldade said. “It doesn’t matter, it’s all happening within the club, it’s not going anywhere. The American Trap Shooting Association, when we have these shots, you have to be A, a member of the American Trap Shooting Association, and B once you shoot, all your markers are sent there and they track your averages and everything, pretty much forever. . So I can go back and review my average from 10 years ago if I want.

This summer the club is working on construction projects to build a new clay pigeon shooting range and shade shelter. He said members were also working on other improvements to the clubhouse facilities. Goldade said the differences between skeet shooting and trap shooting are that skeet shooting has more “stations” to shoot at and the machines shooting the targets move more in skeet shooting.

“The majority of the improvements will be to the skeet range and that’s almost primarily, 100 percent, primarily for the middle and high school kids because they have the ability, if they have the opportunity, to shoot skeet for get scores,” Goldade said. “We just didn’t have the facilities until hopefully… late summer this year. So if they wanted to shoot skeet, the closest place would be like Wimbledon.

Adults aren’t the only ones who frequent the club. Goldade said it was also frequented by the Jimmies and the Blue Jays. Goldade said the high school team had 38 athletes and the Jimmies team had between 15 and 20 athletes.

While the Blue Jays practice, Goldade said some Jimmies and other club members help the high school students. He also said that both teams had the same head coach, John Mazur.

“The high school thing blossomed a few years ago,” Goldade said. “A handful of towns in the state have had trap teams for a few years. We had actually been trying to get the high school involved for probably three years before they actually did it. At the beginning, I want to say that there were about 20 kids the first year, and then the last two years there were about 40, 40 kids shooting, which I think is a pretty reasonable number for a club sport. It’s very popular among young people, more so than among adults.”

This sport is related to hunting since, according to the American Trapshooting Association, the targets are called pigeon or clay pigeon.

“The vast majority of members are hunters and a lot of them use it almost as a training tool for hunting,” Goldade said. “…Usually throughout the year, a handful of guys show up towards the end of the year just to try to get a little tune-up before the hunting season starts.

Goldade said the club has no age requirements but requires children to pass a hunter safety course before joining. A subscription costs $65 for the entire season. The club provides hearing protection to its members and sells ammunition.

Good morning,
My name is Max O’Neill. I’m a sports reporter for the Jamestown Sun. I’m originally from New York and graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Television-Radio in 2020.