The 2011 NRA Great American Hunting and Outdoor Show is just over four months away, so be sure to mark your calendars for the east coast's newest hunting and outdoor show.

NRA's Hunter Services Department is also please to announce a new website for the show: www.nrahuntingshow.org. Use this site for quick access to information on admission, exhibitors, show hours, and more! You can even order show t-shirts on the site in case you can't wait until January.

We'll have something for every hunter or lover of the great outdoors. From seminars, to the Mason/Dixon Big Buck Contest, and even the Lil' Hunter Scavenger Hunt, there's fun for the whole family. Check out the flyer below for all the information on the NRA Great American Hunting and Outdoor Show.

This just in from NRA's Hunter Services Department:

If you weren't at the 2010 Interational Youth Hunter Education Challenge (YHEC) to make it to the sales tent, now is your chance to purchase your YHEC 25th anniversary commemorative t-shirt! Designed for NRA by Buck Wear, Inc., these shirts were a favorite for competitors and their families as YHEC celebrated it's 25 year milestone this year.

There are a very limited number of chocolate brown shirts available, but black shirts are still available in the following sizes: S, M, L, X, XL, 2X, 3X.

Shirts go for $15 a piece, inclusive of shipping and tax. They are available while supplies last. Orders will be filled in the order they are received.

Email your questions and/or order to Rebecca Peak at rpeak@nrahq.org. Please include color, size, quantity and shipping address. Credit cards are accepted.

NRA's Competitive Shooting Division has added the Adams Arms Ozark 3-Gun Championship to its list of NRA-sanctioned 3-Gun matches. The match will be held September 24-26, 2010, near the Lake of Ozarks in the heart of Missouri.

Nearly 230 shooters will compete during this three day competition which includes nine stages of fire. Designed to test competitors’ pistol, shotgun, and tactical rifle skills, the stages feature the natural terrain and hills of the Ozark Mountains on 1,000 acres of land. Despite the physical and marksmanship challenges competitors will face, the competition includes shooters of all skill levels.

“We like to be challenging, but fun,” said Match Director Kirk Broyles. “We want to make sure the most experienced shooters are challenged and enjoy the match, but that new shooters can compete and won’t be overwhelmed.”

Run by the Adams Arms Shooting Team, the Ozark 3-Gun Championship held its first competition just last year. The match gained NRA-sanctioning in 2010, and Broyles looks forward to the relationship with NRA.

“I’m excited about the partnership with the NRA and the things they bring to 3-Gun as a sport and this match, specifically,” said Broyles. 

NRA-sanctioning is not the only new feature for the match in 2010. Broyles and his team recently announced that the competition will be the first match for the second season of the 3-Gun Nation television show. The program will film the match and hold a shoot-off at the end of the competition, where the top-ranked shooters compete head-to-head for cash, prizes, and more.

Check out the video footage above from the 2009 Ozark 3-Gun Championship, and bookmark NRAblog for coverage of the event live from Missouri.

An NRA Day event in Wisconsin was recently featured in the Columbus Journal. Sponsored by the Dodge County Friends of NRA, the event allowed area families to try their hand and the shooting sports and enjoy a day of family fun.

Sportsman's association holds family day

NRA Family Day was held July 31 at the Columbus Sportsman's Association (CSA), sponsored by Dodge County Friends of the NRA.

After a safety briefing, families were given hands-on instruction for shooting shotguns, single action shooting (cowboy), pistol and rifle by volunteer instructors associated with the Dodge County Friends of the NRA and CSA members.

Camp Director Steve Steinbeck would like to thank the volunteers who made the event possible: Rick Tebeest, Art Nevinf, Jerry Quiesser, DuWayne Kuenzi, Irene Pawlisch, Paul Mayer and Mike Fredricks.

NRA Day is an annual summer event at CSA made possible by the volunteers, NRA and CSA support.

Jamie Henning of Beaver Dam shared how he had not hunted or shot since childhood and had learned about the event at a recent hunter safety course in Beaver Dam that he had taken with his son in hopes of returning to the woods. During the day he told everyone, "Next year, we are bringing my wife. She would love this." Henning's word of the day was, "Wow!"

This day provided an opportunity for people to experience all kinds of firearm disciplines unfamiliar to them in a safe educational range environment. There was a good deal of friendly competition for bragging rights between spouses and siblings at some stations, making it a fun relaxed day for everyone.

Because the Friends of the NRA supports the 4-H shooting sports projects, a special invitation went out to Columbia County 4-H families to use the day to explore shooting sports. Starting in January 2011, CSA will be offering 4-H courses in wildlife/ecology, air pistol and archery. Any 4-H youth may participate as long as they are registered in that specific shooting sports project. Go to www.csa12.com for the complete 4-H shooting sports schedule, including rifle and muzzle loader.

Continue reading here.

Interested in attending a NRA Day event? Find one in your area.

Thanks to Chris Manning from Pennsylvania's Daily Review for an article featuring a team of five young men who brought home a win at the 2010 NRA Youth Hunter Education Challenge. Read on for more about their journey and their view from the top of the leaderboard:

Troy Senior YHEC team enjoys being on top

TROY - For the Senior Troy Youth Hunter Education Challenge (YHEC) team, winning the National Championship has been a long time coming.

"It's finally sunk in," Zach Bixby said. "Now when people ask how we did, we can say 'we are the National Champs.'"

For the team of Bixby, Jason LeVan, Samuel Antes, Cody Wolfe and Garrett Rathbun, the National title had always seemed just out of reach.

"We've been stuck in third place for a while," Wolfe explained. "We finally got through. We took states four times and we've been trying to take Nationals for a long time."

They see this triumph in their own, unique way.

"It's something our five-man team has been working towards for a long time," LeVan said. "It's good to see a lot of effort finally pay off."

Read the rest of the article here.

NRA Certified Instructor and Range Safety Officer Connie Elliot volunteered at the recent Boy Scout Jamboree, where thousands of scouts participated in the shooting sports. Read on for Elliot's story on running the OK Corral air gun range and how introducing young people to shooting became a rewarding experience.

Attending the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) National Jamboree as staff is a different experience than participating as an adult Troop leader. Both have their own merits, however, attending as a staff member and seeing Jamboree emerge from bare land to a city for thousands is exhilarating.

As an NRA Certified Instructor and NRA Range Safety Officer, you see and hear many things while helping on a range. There are those that ask why we would want to give up two weeks of vacation to spend it with scouters and scouts we have never met before. I had the good fortune of being selected as staff for the Venturing Exhibit’s OK Corral and there are Jamboree scouts that have helped change the way I look at our youth today.

The OK Corral consisted of 12 stations where scouts competed against each other by shooting air rifles at five targets. The first scout to knock down all five of their targets won that round and progressed to the darkened indoor range where they experienced shooting the Night Stalker air rifles with lighted scopes. Needless to say, this was a highlight and the scouts that did not win their round scurried back in line to try their shooting skills again and again.

More...

NRAblog told you about the 2010 International Youth Hunter Education Challenge winners from the awards ceremony, but complete results are now available online.

Congratulations to this year's coaches and participants who competed in YHEC's 25th anniversary event in Mansfield, Pennsylvania. A big thank you also goes to the parents, volunteers, and sponsors who have helped the YHEC program flourish and succeed over the past 25 years, carrying on the tradition of hunting and the shooting sports in America.

We'll see you next year as the 2011 International YHEC returns to the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, New Mexico.

With hunting season right around the corner, many outdoorsmen and women are ready to get in the field and set their sights on a trophy buck. If you need a little a little inspiration before your big hunt, come out to the Virginia Outdoor Sportman Show this weekend in Richmond, Virginia, to see some of the world's most amazing whitetails. 

One of the newest whitetails in the collection is the Melom Buck (shown at left) from Alberta, Canada, which scored a 268-4/8 on the Boone & Crockett scale for non-typical whitetails.

NRA's Hunter Services Department will be at the event from August 13-15 to showcase the Great American Whitetail Collection, which is a display of some of the highest-scoring whitetails in the world. These are the kind of whitetails every hunter dreams of, so check them out in person and tour the show to see the latest in outdoor products and services.

If you can't make it to the show, check out the Great American Whitetail Collection's online gallery -- and prepare to be amazed!

The 2010 JP Rocky Mountain 3-Gun Championship was held August 5-7 at the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, New Mexico. Nearly 250 competitors participated in the NRA-sacntioned match, which was filmed by the television program 3-Gun Nation. Here are your 2010 winners by class and points (possible high score of 900):

Open: Jerry Miculek - 821.9395

Limited (Scope): Daniel Horner - 864.9413

Limited (Iron Sights): Craig Underdown - 776.5357

He-Man (Scope): Kelly Neal - 867.6091

He-Man (Iron Sights): Patrick Kelley - 820.2407

At the end of the match, top competitors went head to head in the 3-Gun Nation Shoot-Off, where Remington's Robby Johnson and shooting legend Jerry Miculek were left to fight for top honors. In the end, Johnson, a former Army Marksmanship Unit shooter, edged out Miculek to take home $5,000 courtesy of Safariland. Check out the video above for footage of the incredible feat of accuracy and speed.

 

 

The 2011 NRA Great American Hunting & Outdoor Show is less than six months away, and our Hunter Services Department has shown NRAblog the new t-shirts for the show. These two designs, featured on different colored shirts, will be available for purchase at the show, scheduled for January 28-30 at the Carrol County Agriculture Center - Shipley Arena.

Can't wait that long for your shirt? The crew from Hunter Services will be at the Frederick County Fair in Maryland September 17-25 selling shirts and promoting the NRA Great American Hunting & Outdoor Show. Stop by to learn more about the show, pick up promotional items, and purchase your t-shirt.

Do you have an outdoor or hunting related club or business? If so, there are still exhibit booths available so your company or club can be part of the action. Contact Rebecca Peak at  703-267-1524 or rpeak@nrahq.org to learn more and reserve your booth.  

  

NRA's Hunter Services Department has posted a new recipe of the month from the NRA Members' Wild Game Cookbook.

This month's feature is Moose Marinade, submitted my Mark Zack of Henderson, Nevada. Don't have any moose meat? Use this marinade on a variety of game and other proteins, including elk, venison, lamb and beef.

To order your copy of the NRA Members' Wild Game Cookbook, visit NRA's Program Materials Center to order online, or call 1-800-366-7402. With over 390 pages of delicious recipes, it makes a great addition to any hunter's kitchen.

Pennsylvania served as the host state for the 25th Annual International Youth Hunter Education Challenge (YHEC) this year, and young hunters from the Keystone State used their home turf advantage to place high in the competition. Check out this article from the Star-Gazette that features the YHEC teams from Troy, Pennsylvania.

Troy shooters grab national title

After several years finishing near the top, a team of young shooters from Troy, Pa., reached the summit last week -- first place in the National Rifle Association Youth Hunter Education Challenge (YHEC) international championship.

The Troy squad, known as the Pennsylvania Senior Gold team, outshot teams from 16 states at the annual championship, held July 26-30 at the Mill Cove Environmental Area near Mansfield, Pa.

In addition to team honors, senior Jason LeVan took second place in the individual competition.

LeVan, Zach Bixby, Cody Wolfe and Garrett Rathbun took part in their final YHEC competition this summer. They are all heading off to college later this month.

Team member Samuel Antes will be a senior this fall and will compete in YHEC one more year.

It was a fitting finish for LeVan and three other seniors who competed in YHEC for the last time.

"It's a great accomplishment for a local club," Troy coach Jeff Castle said. "I have seen teams in the past that are all-around state teams take first place, but this is the first time in my 10 years that I've seen the local home club take it all. I had a great bunch of boys, they worked at it hard for a long time and what a deserving way to go out.

Read the rest of the article here and thanks again to Jeff Murray from the Star-Gazette for his local coverage of YHEC.

Here's a note from John Howard, NRA's National Instructor Trainer, on revisions to the FIRST Steps Pistol Lesson Plan.

To keep you up-to-date and to let you know that we are committed to continuously improving the quality levels in all of our programs, we have revised the FIRST Steps Pistol (FSP) lesson plan. In previous FSP lesson plans, the shooting portion required students to repeat the multi-shot exercise until instructors were comfortable with their performance. The vast majority take great pride in their role as NRA Instructors and place very reasonable expectations on their students to ensure they are able to shoot well prior to receiving an NRA Certificate.

Therefore, the objective has worked fine as indicated, until recently. We have been notified on several occasions by students that received a certificate, but did not feel confident in their shooting skills. They indicated that they took the course for their "carry permit" and only fired 15 rounds (or fewer) in their class. The specific revision is on page FSP-40, E-8 and incorporates an actual "skill standard" that must be met by students before moving onto the next step, and most importantly, before receiving an NRA FIRST Steps Pistol course completion certificate.

Watch for this change to be implemented in every NRA Basic Firearm Training course as they become due for reprint. In a nutshell, the optional shooting skill requirement that is currently in the basic practical rocker worksheet will become a standard skill requirement in each basic shooting discipline. People expect a high level of quality from training programs bearing the NRA name, and we cannot lose focus on the goal of any NRA Basic Firearm Training course. "To Teach the Basic Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude to own and use (the specific firearm) safely."

As NRA Instructors, it is imperative that your students feel confident in handling their firearms and that they develop the skill to be able to group their shots in the center of their targets with consistency before they receive your endorsement. We have placed this page at your sign-in screen at NRAInstructors.org under "Useful links for instructors" as FIRST Steps Pistol Revision FSP-40. Please print it and replace it in your FIRST Steps Pistol Lesson plan.

Thanks for the update, John. Have questions? Call NRA's Training Department at 703-267-1428 or send an email to training@nrahq.org.

Competing in the NRA National Pistol Championships for the first time is a thrill, but the experience is even better when your team comes in third. For Chief Warrant Officer 3 Glenn Ryther, Captain of the Marine Corps Reserve Pistol Team, his first time at Camp Perry led to a historic finish for his team, and a showing that other teams won't soon forget. CWO3 Ryther and his team were recently featured in New York's Time Herald-Record to chronicle their amazing first appearance at Camp Perry.

Town of Newburgh detective leads reservist shooters

TOWN OF NEWBURGH — Glenn Ryther tries to spend a little time with a gun every day. Live rounds at least once a week. BB guns with his kids at home. Pulling the trigger on an unloaded pistol over and over to perfect the movement. It's been that way since the U.S. Marine Corps reservist joined the Corps' pistol team two years ago in Quantico, Va.

All that practice has helped Ryther, a Town of Newburgh police detective, earn recognition as part of a nationally top-ranked military reserve pistol team. His team took third at the National Rifle & Pistol Championships in Camp Perry, Ohio.

It was the best finish ever for a Marine Reserve team. The squad competed July 11-19 at the tournament, which is considered the World Series of shooting sports, and finished ahead of every other reserve team in the nation. It ended up just one point out of second place. More than 100 teams, including active-duty teams, competed.

Read the rest of the article here.

Want more coverage from the National Matches at Camp Perry? NRAblog will be reporting live through August 18, so keep checking back from more news and photos.

The 25th NRA International Youth Hunter Education Challenge wrapped up yesterday, with a new group of champions crowned at this morning's Awards Ceremony. Participants and teams from North Carolina and Pennsylvania dominated this year's competition in both the senior and junior age categories. Here are your individual and team winners from this year's YHEC:

Junior Individual Overall Winners:

• 1st Place: Hunter Efird, North Carolina Park Ridge Sharpshooters - 1945
• 2nd Place: Bryce Bason, Pennsylvania Junior Blue - 1770
• 3rd Place: Lea Efird, North Carolina Park Ridge Sharpshooters - 1767

Senior Individual Overall Winners:

• 1st Place: Levi Epps, North Carolina - 2015
• 2nd Place: Jason LeVan, Pennsylvania Senior Gold - 1929
• 3rd Place: Billy Janos, North Carolina Forbush High School Red - 1899 

Junior Team Overall Winners:

• 1st Place: North Carolina Park Ridge Sharpshooters - 8479
• 2nd Place: Pennsylvania Junior Blue - 7629
• 3rd Place: Oregon Junior Team - 7528 

Senior Team Overall Winners:

• 1st Place: Pennsylvania Senior Gold - 8637
• 2nd Place: Pennsylvania Senior Blue - 8605 
• 3rd Place: North Carolina Forbush High School Red - 8581

Congratulations to our 2010 YHEC Champions! We'll see you next year at the 2011 International YHEC when it returns to the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, New Mexico. 

Check back tomorrow for photos from the 2010 YHEC Awards Ceremony.