TargetTalk

I moved here to South Carolina in the fall of 2014 ... I've been working on buying and rebuilding a house, and managing a small business since then, but now I am getting ready to start shooting again.

I really enjoy 10m Air Pistol, 50m Free Pistol, and would like to try 25m Rapid Fire as well. I can't seem to find any matches going on here for any of the aforementioned disciplines. Some in Georgia, obviously, but if anyone here in the Palmetto State knows of competitions or clubs with an interest in the ISSF events, any information is greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Welcome to SC!
Things are pretty dead these days. We had regular matches at our club in Newberry, but that was several years ago. The organization was pretty muddled, and it just fell apart. There still is some junior AP. Newberry is probably 1hr & 15-20 min drive from Greenville.
There is conventional 2700 bullseye in Columbia. Great matches! Well organized.
There were some int'l matches at the Citadel (Charleston), but I haven't heard much in quite some time. Lots of organization problems there, too! I made more than one wasted drive only to find out that matches I'd signed up for weren't going to run that day, or at all. (And, that's after confirming the day before!)
Charlotte Pistol Club was doing some int'l matches a few years ago. Again, I haven't heard much in quite some time.

Best Regards,
Jim

Hey Jim,

Thanks for the quick and detailed reply. It's funny, as Newberry was a club I had seen mentioned in some earlier posts. Do they still have the facilities in place for holding matches? the drive I don't mind at all ... and would be willing to help out in any way I could to make things happen.

Best,

Patrick

Hi Patrick,

The club has both a clubhouse with indoor range and an outdoor range several miles away.
The clubhouse is a converted horse stable. One end is a 25yd range for any caliber up to 44 magnum. The other end is a 10m air range. There are 8 positions on each range.
The membership is mostly older rural folks big on ccw. Most of the matches are very informal and defensive pistol minded.
The worst part of the organization is that there are three evenings of junior shoots per week plus one evening for the defensive stuff. So, forget about range time on weekday evenings. There are also occasional ccw classes on weekends. So, it is hard to get range time for individual practice during "normal" hours. A couple times a month, usually on Fridays, there is a handicap "bullseye league". Some people shoot standard gallery style at 25yds, some people shoot handicap, being 25 feet(!) two handed.
The outdoor range is mostly rifle and some silhouette. Mostly informal stuff. It is usually easy to get free range time, but you definitely need an offroad worthy vehicle to get access! Bug spray helps too!

Personally, I go during weird off hours just for personal practice. That's the best thing about the club for me.
There's more I could say, but I'd rather do so discreetly.

PM me and I can send you my email and/or phone number.

Best Regards,
Jim

The short answer is join a club and start running matches. The truth is around here (Charlotte) precision rifle and pistol is deader than yesterdays mackerel. However, if you want to blast away at a steel plate with a Glock hundreds will be beating your door down.

A lot of reasons have been speculated about but personally I think it is the loss of the DCM giving out guns and ammo to clubs, the loss of acceptable ranges both indoor and outdoor and lack of volunteers.

There are a lot of commercial ranges around. I think there are at least 15 in the Charlotte area but it costs a lot to shoot. One charges $19 an hour per firing point. You cant run a match or have a junior club at those prices.

I'd be totally willing to do that gwsb, if I can find a club that has facilities for 10m AP, 25m RF, or 50m ... the latter being the easiest as one needs only target frames, a 100 yard range, and some wind flags. Run in six 10 shot strings, and using the old X-count scoring method of tie breaking, with no finals. AP & RF have pretty specific and complicated range equipment required to make it work with a line of shooters ...