The NMLRA Family Fun Shoot concluded Sunday, August 9, 2020 with great weather, old friends, and many happy competitors. With the cancellation of the NMLRA National matches due to COVID 19 related complications, NMLRA members have been itching to do some more shooting this summer. Much like the 2020 NMLRA Youth Shoot, the Family Fun Shoot saw a nice increase in participants this year. In total, we registered just over 100 shooters for the weekend.  

Shooters and campers began arriving on Thursday, with the majority coming in through the day on Friday. The weather was cool in comparison to previous weekend shoots, topping out in the high 70s. On Saturday, the line opened around 9 am to make use of the best shooting conditions. The offhand line, bench line, trap and skeet ranges all opened for shooters to compete, and have fun.  Check out the photo gallery below to see the action!  

At 7 pm on Saturday evening, the trap range opened up for the “Modern Trap Shoot”. Participants bring their favorite modern shotguns and make a line shooting 5 birds before returning to the back of the line. This is one of the most popular events of the weekend due to its quick nature and large crowd, resulting in a fair amount of heckling and camaraderie. At about 9:30 pm the lights on the range shut down and everyone headed back to their camps to rest up before the next morning. 

Sunday came with a cool fog, it was hard to see much past 200 yards on the range. However, as the sun rose in the valley the fog quickly disappeared, opening up the range for more shooting sports. On Sunday the relays stop at noon to give staff enough time to score targets and distribute prizes. Each range was packed as everyone did their best to top yesterday’s scores or inch in a few more shots before another year of school began. 

On the trap range, we were able to catch a tense shoot-off between Andy Larson and Amada Weisel. They had tied in one of the weekend matches and needed to settle the score. One trap range spectator shouted “If Andy was a gentleman he’d give it to ya Amanda, but “quit” isn’t in his vocabulary. The marksmen started at the 20-yard marks and began the shoot-off. It wasn’t until they ventured to the 3rd shot at 27 yards before the winner was crowned, Andy had finally missed and Amanda won. 

By 2 PM, all the prizes and targets had been picked up and just about everyone was on their way home. As you can see from the photo on the left, Joe-D Baxter’s girls got everything they could out of the weekend!

The NMLRA would like to thank Bob Weaver and his family once again for sponsoring and helping NMLRA Staff host this match. It was wonderful to see Bob visit each of the ranges through the weekend, offering any spectator the chance to shoot his firearms.

Below you’ll find the scores from the weekend on the offhand line, congratulations to all the winners for keeping up their skills during quarantine!