I belong to two clubs. The "big" club limits membership. The "small" clubs does not. Neither club is experiencing any issues with the number of members.

 

All the clubs here in Pittsburgh limit. I'm on a waiting list right now to join. Nice thing is they let non members shoot trap in Sunday's. The only thing is the pistol, rifle, and archery are for members only.


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By capping the membership then getting a lot of 'applications in waiting' it is easier to raise club membership fees and dues. Supply and demand. Of course by raising dues and fees the club can offer more to its members. Where I was Pres. at one time does cap out at 1300. I signed an application for a friend of mine and it took 2 years for his to be accepted. Long waiting list.

Bulge.

 

The club where I am a member (private, we can bring guests)-----3 skeet & 4 trap (3 fields are combos), sporting clays (15 stations-guessing), 5 stand, rifle, pistol. On 80 acres (guessing again). Membership capped @ 600, have a waiting list usually of about 100, so most times it's about a 3 year wait, due to normal attrition. Ross Puls

 

I belong to an indoor handgun range that has a membership limit and only takes as many new members each year as there are non-renewals. A larger club (153 acres) I belong to does not have a limit but has talked about it so the existing members don't have to wait unreasonable lengths of time to use a range or find the target backers too shot up to use, a problem that seems to be growing at a rate equivalent to the growth in popularity of semi-automatic firearms. So far the BoD hasn't seen a need to limit membership but I think that time will come. We had 17 new members voted in at last Wednesday's monthly meeting; if that rate remains constant, that's 200 additional members each year. Of course, some will not renew but in time, we could wind up with a limit.

Ed

 

I belong to Pitcairn-Monroeville Sportsmen's Club near Pittsburgh Pa. Currently we have 2700 + regular members a few hundred spousal & junior members. No membership cap as of now (there is talk about capping it). Club has 5 trap fields 3 have lights , 1 lighted skeet field ( members who have taken an orientation get a key to the trap houses & skeet for access 9 am to 9 pm 365 days a year ) Public trap practice Saturdays @ 10 am ,Skeet- Thursday 6 pm $ 3.50 per round . Club also has 5 stand , 50/100/200 & 300 yard rifle range , indoor 8 bay pistol range , 15 outdoor pistol ranges , indoor & outdoor archery ranges, clubhouse , rental hall (meetings held there) softball field & hunting on club grounds . You would think with 2700 + members that the club would be crowded all the time , but that is not the case . Only time anything ever gets a little crowded is the rifle ranges 2 weeks before Pa deer season. Saturday trap practice attracts 15-25 shooters . The rest of the time you have the ranges pretty much to yourself except league night once every 4 weeks on a Tuesday evening during the summer . PMSC host monthly USPA & IDPA matches , but there are always pistol bays available during the matches to shoot . Archery also holds matches quite a few times a year . Dues $75.00 for regular members /$20.00 spouse & junior. Trap & skeet shooters makeup only a very small part of the total membership. PMSC has a lot to offer anyone interested in shooting sports . Come and check us out we welcome new & experienced trap shooters .
Rick S.

 

If the club is so packed that capping membership is on the table, why not invest in more infrastructure to handle the greater number of users, assuming the land is available to do so? If the current facilities are being used to their capacity, it is time to upgrade the facilities... Put in more skeet fields, more trap fields, expand the rifle/pistol range, broaden the sporting clays course/5-stand, make sure the club is open for shooting more days a week, ect.

Turning away people with cash in hand is just plain dumb, especially in this economy. And unless you're the only game in town, they're going to the club down the road to spend their $...

One club I'm a member at capped it's membership @ 750 when they installed a new 200 yard rifle range, to make sure they wouldn't get overwhelmed. They never did, and incrementally raised the cap as time went on, and eventually dropped it all together when it was realized it was hurting them WAY more than it was helping. The only benefit was that it encouraged members to renew on time, if they didn't pay on time their membership lapsed and they had to go to the back of the waiting list and start from scratch. In the mean time, we lost a lot of good members because of this (they weren't willing to wait until their name came back up, and joined other clubs instead), and turned away at least 20-30k in profit from memberships... It seemed like a good idea @ the time, since the huge influx of new members was a complete unknown, but unless you expect a huge influx of members like we did, I see absolutely no reason for one.

 

The board members concern is non shootering member numbers will out number shooter membership. I'm against a cap. Are anual dues are $40 a year seniors are $20. $85 first year of joining. Member fees are $2.50 s round members. $5.00 non member.how can you beat it.

 

I used to belong to a club and they did have a cap but I thought it was due to some legal thing, such as if you went over X members you had to change the way the club was structured or chartered or something like that. But that could also differ by location.

 

1200 plus member private club. No cap. All volunteer run. Board seems more interested in new member $ than actually putting facilities to good use. Stated time and again: Most valuable member is the member(s) that pay their dues ($175 yearly with added assessment) and only come out once a year to sight in a rifle or shoot a pistol. Trap turnout usually ten or less. ATA Shoots attract less than three squads. Great facility, what a waste. Marc

 

Generally, I think caps are a bad idea. With today's antigun climate, not to mention the economy, clubs can use all the help they can get. There is strength in numbers! If there are wait times at ranges, it might be time to add a bay.

 

The idea of expanding facilities to accommodate additional members makes sense but it isn't always that easy. Of course, the necessary land has to be available. Next comes the ability of the working members of a volunteer-run club to maintain the extra ranges - no sense having them if they become under-maintained and the old adage about 10% of the members doing 90% of he work is becoming an overstatement. Another hurdle that doesn't come along often but does exist at that 153-acre club I mentioned is a restriction on expansion.

Perhaps 20 years ago, that club that was built at the base of a mountain and far from any civilization many decades before signed an agreement with the township that the club would not expand its facilities in order to quiet noise complaints from neighbors. Yes, I know Pennsylvania has a law protecting existing shooting ranges from complaints from people who moved in close to one but suits can still be filed and a club has to pay its attorney to defend such litigation. All it would take is an attorney to build a mansion beside the club and file one suit after another to bankrupt the club. This way, the neighbors agreed to stop the complaints if we don't add any new outdoor ranges. Large homes are being built near the club grounds because the BoD of yesteryear was too shortsighted and cheap to buy that land when it could.

But really, some of our members are the club's and their own worst enemy. I am on the side of any firearm owner but the number of semi-auto handguns and rifles being shot on ranges in a state where those firearms (aside from shotguns used on birds) are illegal for hunting is surprising. What's worse is the fact that most of those shooters have no training in the rapid-fire discharge of a gun and seem to be possessed with how quickly they can empty their guns' magazines. Our outdoor range target backers and frames are constantly being replaced because they are riddled with holes and our indoor ranges even have bullet holes in the ceiling! You know those same shooters are launching bullets above the berms behind the target backers on our outdoor ranges; one has to wonder where those bullets are winding up and given the growing encroachment of homes, that is a scary thought. Sometimes, our ranges sound like a war zone these days so if that agreement was not in effect, we would probably be hammered with complaints.

Expansion is an easy-sounding fix but sometimes it isn't all that easy. Some area clubs are starting to "control" membership numbers by outlawing semi-auto firearms unless fired single-shot or in slow-fire mode and suspending or expelling members for disobeying that rule. A lot of shooters may not like that policy but those who shoot for accuracy instead of effect and/or know what range upkeep costs do. I own numerous 1911s and am seriously considering buying an AR-15 so I am not opposed to those types of firearms, just the mentality of some owners of them. Our club has an indoor or outdoor range for just about every shooting sport except skeet and sporting clays plus has a large fishing pond and off-site trout nursery. I've been a life member for 15 years or more so I've lost track of membership costs but a year or two ago, a single annual membership was $60 and a family membership was $85. That's not bad in this day and age.

Ed

 

Shooting up target holders or unsafe shooting (ceiling, over berm, etc) is one issue, while shooting at a fast pace is another, and the two are not necessarily related. In addition to trap and skeet, I like to shoot USPSA, 10m AP, 25M Rapid Fire Pistol, and Bullseye. I run the gamut from games the require quick runnin' and gunnin' to firing about one round per minute. We should all learn to get along and not impose silly speed limit range rules that tend to breed divisiveness between different shooting disciplines. I've seen and heard of clubs virtually destroyed by stuff like that. In one case, animosity between a clique of pistol shooters and a clique of shotgun shooters was so great, that someone was dropping dimes to the state DNR and trying to get the shotgun ranges shutdown, claiming the shotfall areas were in protected wetlands. This shut down the shotgun ranges for quite a while until some very costly shot curtains were installed...which I believe later were damaged enough to stop shooting. I don't know if they were ever fixed/replaced as my dad stopped going.

We've got enough folks that are anti-2nd Amendment and want to shut down shooting ranges all over without promoting bickering and divisiveness amongst ourselves. If someone is doing something unsafe or tearing up club property, call them out on it and/or kick the individual out. But as Ben Franklin said, "we must all hang together or, assuredly we shall all hang separately."

 

Shooting up target holders or unsafe shooting (ceiling, over berm, etc) is one issue, while shooting at a fast pace is another, and the two are not necessarily related. In addition to trap and skeet, I like to shoot USPSA, 10m AP, 25M Rapid Fire Pistol, and Bullseye. I run the gamut from games the require quick runnin' and gunnin' to firing about one round per minute. We should all learn to get along and not impose silly speed limit range rules that tend to breed divisiveness between different shooting disciplines.

We've got enough folks that are anti-2nd Amendment and want to shut down shooting ranges all over without promoting bickering and divisiveness amongst ourselves. If someone is doing something unsafe or tearing up club property, call them out on it and/or kick the individual out. But as Ben Franklin said, "we must all hang together or, assuredly we shall all hang separately."

I get all that and support it but the problem with enforcement of club rules is having eyes on the ranges at all times so we can only go by the evidence of damage being left behind. The fact that we, like some clubs, have not outlawed semi-auto firearms indicates our willingness to encourage all kinds of shooters and shooting sports. In fact, we hold monthly NRA-sanctioned matches just for AR-type rifles. But unfortunately, the range damage and indications of unsafe shooting have escalated with the popularity of those guns as well as autoloading handguns. When we hear one burping out a magazine of ammo at a rate of about a shot every second (or faster), we try to speak with the shooter but most of us who care are older and have brittle bones that break easily so we aren't anxious to start something we cannot finish. But the marks from skipping bullets on the concrete walkways and holes in indoor ceilings and outdoor range roofs cannot be ignored as those slugs are going somewhere beside the dirt berms.

Encouraging and insisting upon safe responsible shooting is not being anti-gun; just the opposite, in fact, for all it would take to close a club and stir up gun ban legislation would be a bullet through a window in a neighboring home regardless of what or who it did or didn't impact.

Ed

 

A small club that I go to limited members to 100.. only a few members shoot trap, some shoot rifle and pistol and some just don't come

 

A club I was a member of in Illinois had a cap of 750. Had to have a sponsor, come in for an interview with your sponsor. If I'm not mistaken, just before I moved away they raised the cap to 850.

 

I am not a member of this club, though I'm trying to be and is on their waiting list:
http://www.sunnyvalegunclub.com/

They put a limit on the total number of club members because the club facility isn't very big and they don't want the number of members to get too big. A pity though, I like shooting trap there but public hours are usually crowded so it takes a long time to shoot. As such, I've moved away from shooting there and go further south to shoot at some other trap ranges.

 

I feel that any club in this day and age that limits membership is very short sighted. Strength in numbers is what gun clubs need, just ask any gun club that has been forced to close.
Steve Balistreri
Wauwatosa Wisconsin

 

I'm with Stevie-Boy on this subject.

M.D.

 

I think it depends on several factors such as the size of the club, how many fields they have, how many members they have, how much use the fields get, and whether expansion of facilities is an option.

I can certainly imagine a situation where the club has no more room to expand, yet they keep adding more and more new members every year. This could mean that the existing members who have helped pay for the member-owned club over the years and have helped with their volunteer work, now have to wait in long lines while all the new members are using the fields that the existing members paid for and built.

Easystreet

 

In the clubs I am in , if you look at the membership cap and range use plus the number of spaces on these ranges then a high percentage of members being active would glog them up. Luckly it seems most members are casul users. The old saying many pay so a few can use.
the best support for guns is the nra I dont always agree with them but they have kept us in business.

 

I would think increasing the membership cost would be a much more effective means by which to neuter membership numbers than a cap. Tends to keep out or get rid of the riff-raff too. I've been to a couple clubs that have otherwise inexplicably high membership costs, and keeping undesirables out was their primary reason.

 

Also keeps out the poor working guys who can't afford higher dues...elitism doesn't seem like the right answer either.

 

Orillia Gun Club in Orillia, Ontario does. They have a max allowable of 500 and have a waiting list or they did a few years ago when I tried to join. I haven't been back since.

 

A lot of the clubs that I know to have membership limits also have dining rooms and the cap on membership is linked somehow to the state-imposed seating limit in the dining room. And looking at a cap from another perspective, how often would you return to and remain a member of a gun club where you often had to wait a long time to use a range and/or found the target backers on a rifle or handgun range too shot up to use? If not having a cap is going to cost a club members it wouldn't have anyway if there was a cap, what's the difference? I want as many firearm-owning people as possible (some of whom hopefully will actually vote) to have a place to shoot their guns but if the facilities cannot be expanded and the number of members is overwhelming the facilities, a cap makes sense.

Ed

 

Northbrook is capped somewhere around 1200, limited by the club bylaws, and the members just agreed to raise the limit.

There comes a point where larger membership is not necessarily good for a club, and you can see it in the dining room and the wait times for traps (sometimes 45 minutes with a two round limit during the worst of the rush). Trap has declined considerably in the last year or so. Although the club has 10 fields, typically only two are open for trap, and those are frequently filled with skeet shooters when other skeet-only fields are wide open. I don't think there's anything nefarious going on, it's just human nature. But it just doesn't make sense to go to the club until about noon on weekends, after the 2-box social shooters go in for their lunches and go home. Before noon or 1:00, it's pandemonium.

Still a nice club, but its nature has changed in the last year or two. Bigger is not always better.

 

What you describe doesn't sound like a matter of size, but of improper use. Sounds like the skeet shooters should be shooting on the skeet-only fields and more trap fields need to be opened. Looks like membership numbers have nothing to do with your club's problems.

 

This thread is reminding me of one of the shooters that I once knew (now deceased) that was a millionaire many times over. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and thought he was superior to anyone who did not have as much money as him. One day, he walked up to my best friend and his son and myself and said "I wish this club would raise the membership fee so it could eliminate riff-raft like yourselves". He laughed after he said it, but we all knew that he meant every word of what he just said.

A lot of shooters at our local club did not like Vic Reinders for one reason or another. But let me tell you that Vic always felt that trapshooting needed to keep cost down so the average working man could continue to compete in our sport. He felt without the average man's participation trapshooting would be in trouble.

Trapshooting was never meant to be for the working man but with the advent of reloading our sport boomed to new heights. With cost continuing to rise the average man is finding it more difficult to stay in the sport as evidence of this is in the size of the average book.

There are a certain number of elitist people in our sport along with a few on this site that would just love to keep the working man out of gun clubs and go back to the way the sport was originally intended for royalty and the rich. The more I hear and read, I am convinced of this sentiment.

I enjoy shooting with all people regardless of their income and I hope they are not intentionally locked out of some clubs due to increased membership fees specifically designed to keep them off the premises.

Steve Balistreri
Wauwatosa Wisconsin