Steady shooters hit their target for Boy Scouts

Low-hanging clouds and periods of heavy rain could not dampen the spirits of shooters who gathered Saturday at Desert Lakes Shooting Club in Boulder City for the second Las Vegas Sporting Clays Classic. Neither could the wind, which sometimes blew hard enough to carry huge raindrops into seemingly protected places where shooters and event volunteers sought shelter.

“I must say the weather did hold enough for us to get started. And then these sportsmen very stoically stayed with it and went through the sporting clays courses and the fun shoots. They just stuck right with it,” said Jim Schmidt, finance chairman for the Las Vegas Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

About 150 shooters braved the elements, not to win a large cash prize but to support the local Boy Scout council, which serves 34,000 youths in Southern Nevada. The two-day fundraiser, which includes an auction on the first night, was started last year as a means to replace “funding sources that are no longer associated with the Boy Scouts of America,” Schmidt said.

“We really wanted to create an event that would appeal to friends contributing in other programs,” he said. “We wanted to reach out to new people. There’s something like 450 golf tournaments in Las Vegas every year, and we wanted to do something completely different with a different group of folks.”

Last year’s event raised $230,000 for the Boy Scouts. With fewer registered shooting teams, the total this year dipped to just over $200,000, Schmidt said, but he was gratified the event could raise that much in a struggling economy.

The Classic’s primary sponsors have been Smith & Wesson, Land Rover of Las Vegas and the Fiocchi and Cor-Bon ammunition companies, which supply all ammo for the event. Smith & Wesson provides firearms to be auctioned and awarded as prizes. The company also provides firearms at the noncompetitive “fun stations” where participants could shoot, well, just for fun.

During the event I took the opportunity to fire Smith & Wesson’s .50 caliber handgun offering, the model 500. One look at the large cartridge made me wonder what I had gotten myself into, but the recoil was much less than I expected. Three rounds fired netted three hits on water-filled milk jugs set up as targets. Granted, they were a large target and only 7 yards away, but considering I had never fired the gun before, I came away impressed.

Land Rover of Las Vegas contributed a two-year lease on a vehicle that was awarded by drawing. Sales representatives also gave demonstration rides on a course built specifically to demonstrate the Land Rover’s off-road capability. The “pucker factor” was high in a couple of places, but I was pleasantly surprised. At one point my guide had the vehicle balancing on two wheels, but there was never a loss of traction. Perhaps most impressive was the Rover’s controlled descent down a steep slope without requiring the driver to take a single action.

In addition to the event sponsors, the Metropolitan Police Department was represented by its Search and Rescue and SWAT teams. Both put on demonstrations showcasing their training and the equipment required to perform their jobs.

“It would probably surprise you how many of our members have some touch with scouting at some point in their lives, throughout their youth, their growing-up experience,” said SWAT commander Lt. Larry Burns, explaining his unit’s participation in the Classic.

“It’s the same reason we do elementary schools, middle schools, high schools — to have that touch with the kids and let them know, ‘You can do this, too.’ We know that not all of them will, and don’t expect that they would, but we want them to believe that they can. And when you’ve got that belief sown in their heart, then they’ll go on to do whatever it is they’re destined to do but keep themselves on the straight and narrow.”

The 2010 edition of the Las Vegas Sporting Clays Classic also will be in February at Desert Lake Shooting Club. The event will be limited to 75 teams of four shooters. Sponsorship levels are $5,000, $10,000 and $25,000 per team.

Freelance writer Doug Nielsen is a conservation educator for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. His “In the Outdoors” column, published Thursday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NDOW. Any opinions he states in his column are his own. He can be reached at doug@takinitoutside.com.