spectr17
05-28-2010, 09:58 PM
SHOOTING SPORTS FAIR -- matthews-ONS -- 26may10
Twentieth anniversary edition of the `Hands-On' Shooting Sports Fair set for June 4-6 at Raahauge's
By JIM MATTHEWS - Outdoor News Service (http://www.OutdoorNewsService.com)
NORCO -- The 20th Turner’s Outdoorsman Shooting Sports Fair will be held at Mike Raahauge's Shooting Enterprises June 4-6 in Norco after a one-year postponement because of last year’s ammunition shortage.
The Sports Fair remains the first and largest hands-on gun show in the nation where anyone attending the show can actually shoot nearly everything on display, which includes firearms from major manufacturers around the world. It also features a comprehensive line-up of seminars and shooting exhibitions.
http://www.jesseshunting.com/images/raahauges_shooting_sports_fair_crowd_jim_matthews. jpg
“It’s gotten to the point where there’s almost too much to see and do in a single day, and a lot of people come two or all three days so they can do it all,” said Mike Raahauge, founder of the event.
The very first Shooting Sports Fair was held in 1982, and it was an annual event each year at Raahauge’s through 1990. Then for seven years, there was no Sports Fair, and Raahauge fielded calls every week of those seven years from shooters and hunters asking when the next Sports Fair was going to be held.
Other people were also noticing the Fair was gone.
“We helped Mike bring it back because it was good for our sales at what is traditionally a slow time of year,” said Andy McCormick, who was then working with Turner’s Outdoorsman, and is now vice-president of Legacy Sports, a sporting firearms importing company.
Surveys conducted from 2006 through 2008 showed that more than 25 percent of the people who attended the Sports Fair eventually bought a specific gun they had shot during the event, usually within the first two months after the Fair.
“That’s not a surprise,” said McCormick. “There are very few big-ticket items that cost as much as firearms that we as consumers purchase without trying out first. We watch big screen TVs in the showroom, we try on clothing, we sit on the new sofa, we test drive trucks. The Sports Fair is the firearm industry’s test drive.”
Restarted in 1998, the event has been held every year since except for last year’s unexpected cancellation because there wasn’t enough ammunition available to host the event. And it takes a lot of ammunition. During the three days of firearm “test drives,” shooters would typically burn up well over one million rounds of ammunition, and there have been years the total was closer to three million.
Some of the exhibition shooters shoot several hundred rounds each in their daily shows, and the exhibitions have always one of the biggest attractions of the Sports Fair. Raahauge said the exhibition and trick shooters revive the tradition that was so popular during the early part of the last century when all of the major manufacturers had shooters touring the country.
“We’ve brought back the spirit of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Shows and Annie Oakley, and everybody loves ‘em,” said Raahauge.
This year’s pair of exhibition shooters include Benelli’s Tim Bradley doing a shotgun shooting exhibition that combines fantastic shooting feats with the trademark blasting of fruits, vegetables, and jugs of liquid to the explosive delight and squeals of kids – kind of like Galligher’s Veg-O-Matic gone airborne. If you are downwind, plastic sheeting would not be a bad idea.
Also returning this year is Todd Jarrett, one of the world’s finest speed pistol shooters. Jarrett combines his amazing speed shooting skills with an instruction program designed to help handgun shooters improve both their skills and safe gun handling. Besides his daily exhibitions, Jarrett will also be in the Turner’s Outdoorsman shooting booth all three days talking with shooters and giving hands-on shooting advice and tips.
Paul Caccitori of Starlight Kennels will also be returning with his popular hunting dog obedience and field training demonstrations, one of the most heavily attended seminars at the Sports Fair. In addition, Singleton’s Rattlesnake Avoidance Dog Training will be appearing at the show this year, giving daily demonstrations and exhibitions, and also running snake avoidance sessions throughout the show for people who bring their dogs to the event.
There will also be a whole slate of seminars on-going nearly every hour of the event featuring sessions on waterfowl hunting and calling basics, a local upland bird hunting forecast, and wild hog hunting tips and advice.
The waterfowl hunting seminars will be given by Chad Belding, host of The Sportsman’s Channel show, “The Fowl Life.” Harold Horner, of High Desert Guide Service, will be doing the upland forecast, and noted author Durwood Hollis, and long-time hunting guide Ron Gayer, will be doing the hog hunting sessions.
But ultimately the event is all about recreational shooters and hunters who are thinking of buying a new firearm or two. The Sports Fair offers a unique opportunity to shoot guns side-by-side to make decisions. It’s the ultimate test drive because you can shoot dozens of different firearms in one place with virtually all of the nation's major firearms makers in attendance. But unlike in the gun store, where you can just handle the newest products, here you can also to shoot them under supervised conditions to see how the guns will fit, recoil, and perform.
Just some of the firearm makers to be at the show include Ruger, Smith & Wesson, Remington, Benelli, Beretta, Savage, Mossberg, Taurus, Glock, Howa, Puma, Thompson-Center, Springfield Armory, Para-USA, H&K, Walther, Sig Sauer, Stoeger, Franci, Uberti, Rossi, and many others.
New this year, Taser International will have its consumer taser available for test firing and training, and – for the brave of heart – you can even volunteer to get a brief jolt to see its impact on the human body.
The Shooting Sports Alliance will again have its full complement of big bore sniper rifles in 50 BMG, 416 CheyTac, and .338 Lapua, Browning semi-auto machine guns from World War I and II, exotic speed pistol race runs, and all the manufacturers’ polymer .45s to allow shooters to compare them side-by-side.
Absent for several years, the Gatlin Gun also returns to this year’s Sports Fair and you can crank off 10, 20, 50 or 100 rounds through this old West classic, and there are several demonstrations each day when over 200 rounds of .45-70 ammunition will be cranked thought one of these guns.
Firearms Training Associates will also be giving short defensive sessions on its steel plate range and distributing information on self-defense and concealed carry classes.
The California Rifle and Pistol Association and the National Rifle Association are also on hand to provide information on the latest state and national gun control efforts.
Most of the region’s sporting conservation groups -- from Ducks Unlimited to Quail Unlimited (which is running the kid’s BB gun booth) -- are on hand to talk about their work in this region, and there will even be free catch-and-release catfish fishing in the big pond on the sporting clays range.
The Shooting Sports Fair will be open from noon to 6 p.m. Friday, June 4, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, June 5, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, June 6. Admission is $12 for adults and parking is $5. On Friday, women are admitted free, and kids 14 and under get in free all three days. There are $2 off admission discount coupons available at all Turner's Outdoorsman stores, and through a number of other on-line outlets. For more information or directions, call Raahauge's Shotgun Sports at 951-735-7981.
================================================== ====
TODD JARRETT AT SPORTS FAIR -- sidebar -- matthews-ONS -- 26may10
World speed pistol champion Todd Jarrett to give exhibitions at the Shooting Sports Fair
By JIM MATTHEWS, www.OutdoorNewsService (http://www.OutdoorNewsService)
Todd Jarrett, one of the finest handgun shooters in the world, will be giving daily speed pistol shooting exhibitions during the June 4-6 20th anniversary Turner’s Outdoorsman Shooting Sports Fair held at Mike Raahauge’s Shooting Enterprises in Prado Basin.
http://www.jesseshunting.com/images/todd_jarrett_shooting_jim_matthews.jpg
Jarrett, a four-time World Champion and nine time U.S. National Champion in speed pistol competitions, has been a professional shooters since 1994 and has over 500 area and state championships on his resume. The Virginia resident has been a dominant force in practical shooting in the United States for the past 15 years, and he is still the only man to hold all four National United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) titles -- Open, Limited, Production and Limited 10. Jarrett has been a member of the USPSA “Gold Team” since 1990. He has competed internationally since 1992 and held the International Confederation's (IPSC) World Champion title from 1996 to 1999.
But now, the 47-year-old is scaling back and changing gears. From 1990 until this year, he was a sponsored professional shooter working with Para-USA (formerly Para-Ordinance), and “in many ways, I was the public face of that company.”
But the draining professional shooting schedule left Jarrett with little time to follow some of passions.
“I spent 211 days in hotel rooms in 2008. It was time for me to make a change,” said Jarrett. “I’m not going to be competing as much as I have in the past -- I’m tired of practicing all the time.”
Jarrett said he has 20 years of constant pistol shooting under his belt, and he figures he’s fired 2 1/2 million rounds over that period. It has taken its toll on his wrists and elbows, which he says are simply “wearing out.”
“Now I want to try to encourage people to get out and shoot, to get more people into shooting.”
To that end, Jarrett is approaching this goal in four ways.
First, he’s starting his own firearms company, Strike Force Manufacturing, that will be marketing consumer 1911-style .45s and AR-15-style rifles and top ends chambered for sporting cartridges. A consultant for 20 years, he’s finally going to be able to incorporate more of his ideas into a line of products for average shooters and hunters. Parting with Para-USA on good terms after “a great working relationship,” he’s even looking forward to a shared project or two with his new company and Para.
Second, he’s also going to be opening a shooting range near his Hopewell, Virginia, home. Jarrett noting that over 100 ranges have been shut down in this country just in the last two years. To grow the sport, shooters and hunters need a place to practice with their firearms.
Third, he will continue giving seminars and exhibitions, along with teaching a few specialized classes for law enforcement and the public, where he can reach the most people, hoping to spark people’s interest in firearms, shooting, and hunting.
Last, he and some associates have started “Brotherhood of Arms,” a non-profit scholarship fund to be given to shooters who attend “gun-friendly” schools. Only six months old, the fund already has $50,000 to be given away in 2011.
Like with his competitive shooting, Jarrett has the ability to focus his efforts and accomplish goals. And it’s because of his love of shooting and his interest in reaching vast numbers of the shooting public and encouraging their involvement in the shooting sports that has brought him back to the 2010 Shooting Sports Fair.
“This is a great event,” said Jarrett, who has given exhibitions at this event seven times. “I don’t know how many times I have spoken with people in this industry about doing these kinds of shows nationwide. This is the only one. There’s not a show like this anywhere else in the country.
“And there should be,” said Jarrett.
Jarrett said it was just about impossible for a shooter to go someplace and try out all of the guns he’s thinking about buying -- or get an opportunity to shoot a gun he might never be able to afford or need. But the Shooting Sports Fair has most of the nation’s firearm makers and importers side-by-side with their products on hand to see and shoot.
Unlike a lot of other exhibition shooters who attended the Sports Fair in the past, Jarrett doesn’t give his seminars and then disappear. He likes visiting with other shooters, and he’ll be in the Turner’s Outdoorsman booth throughout the show talking with shooters and giving hands-on shooting advice and tips.
His shooting exhibitions will at 2 p.m. Friday, June 4, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, June 5, and at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 6. Admission to Jarrett’s exhibitions is free after paying admission to the Sports Fair. The price is $12 for adults and parking is $5. On Friday, women are admitted free, and kids 14 and under get in free all three days. There are $2 off admission discount coupons available at all Turner's Outdoorsman stores and through a number of other on-line outlets. Sports Fair hours are from noon to 6 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. For more information or directions, call Raahauge's Shotgun Sports at 951-735-7981.
For more information on Jarrett and Strike Force Manufacturing as it becomes available, you can check the web site at Strike Force Manufacturing from Champion Shooter Todd Jarrett (http://www.toddjarrett.com).
Twentieth anniversary edition of the `Hands-On' Shooting Sports Fair set for June 4-6 at Raahauge's
By JIM MATTHEWS - Outdoor News Service (http://www.OutdoorNewsService.com)
NORCO -- The 20th Turner’s Outdoorsman Shooting Sports Fair will be held at Mike Raahauge's Shooting Enterprises June 4-6 in Norco after a one-year postponement because of last year’s ammunition shortage.
The Sports Fair remains the first and largest hands-on gun show in the nation where anyone attending the show can actually shoot nearly everything on display, which includes firearms from major manufacturers around the world. It also features a comprehensive line-up of seminars and shooting exhibitions.
http://www.jesseshunting.com/images/raahauges_shooting_sports_fair_crowd_jim_matthews. jpg
“It’s gotten to the point where there’s almost too much to see and do in a single day, and a lot of people come two or all three days so they can do it all,” said Mike Raahauge, founder of the event.
The very first Shooting Sports Fair was held in 1982, and it was an annual event each year at Raahauge’s through 1990. Then for seven years, there was no Sports Fair, and Raahauge fielded calls every week of those seven years from shooters and hunters asking when the next Sports Fair was going to be held.
Other people were also noticing the Fair was gone.
“We helped Mike bring it back because it was good for our sales at what is traditionally a slow time of year,” said Andy McCormick, who was then working with Turner’s Outdoorsman, and is now vice-president of Legacy Sports, a sporting firearms importing company.
Surveys conducted from 2006 through 2008 showed that more than 25 percent of the people who attended the Sports Fair eventually bought a specific gun they had shot during the event, usually within the first two months after the Fair.
“That’s not a surprise,” said McCormick. “There are very few big-ticket items that cost as much as firearms that we as consumers purchase without trying out first. We watch big screen TVs in the showroom, we try on clothing, we sit on the new sofa, we test drive trucks. The Sports Fair is the firearm industry’s test drive.”
Restarted in 1998, the event has been held every year since except for last year’s unexpected cancellation because there wasn’t enough ammunition available to host the event. And it takes a lot of ammunition. During the three days of firearm “test drives,” shooters would typically burn up well over one million rounds of ammunition, and there have been years the total was closer to three million.
Some of the exhibition shooters shoot several hundred rounds each in their daily shows, and the exhibitions have always one of the biggest attractions of the Sports Fair. Raahauge said the exhibition and trick shooters revive the tradition that was so popular during the early part of the last century when all of the major manufacturers had shooters touring the country.
“We’ve brought back the spirit of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Shows and Annie Oakley, and everybody loves ‘em,” said Raahauge.
This year’s pair of exhibition shooters include Benelli’s Tim Bradley doing a shotgun shooting exhibition that combines fantastic shooting feats with the trademark blasting of fruits, vegetables, and jugs of liquid to the explosive delight and squeals of kids – kind of like Galligher’s Veg-O-Matic gone airborne. If you are downwind, plastic sheeting would not be a bad idea.
Also returning this year is Todd Jarrett, one of the world’s finest speed pistol shooters. Jarrett combines his amazing speed shooting skills with an instruction program designed to help handgun shooters improve both their skills and safe gun handling. Besides his daily exhibitions, Jarrett will also be in the Turner’s Outdoorsman shooting booth all three days talking with shooters and giving hands-on shooting advice and tips.
Paul Caccitori of Starlight Kennels will also be returning with his popular hunting dog obedience and field training demonstrations, one of the most heavily attended seminars at the Sports Fair. In addition, Singleton’s Rattlesnake Avoidance Dog Training will be appearing at the show this year, giving daily demonstrations and exhibitions, and also running snake avoidance sessions throughout the show for people who bring their dogs to the event.
There will also be a whole slate of seminars on-going nearly every hour of the event featuring sessions on waterfowl hunting and calling basics, a local upland bird hunting forecast, and wild hog hunting tips and advice.
The waterfowl hunting seminars will be given by Chad Belding, host of The Sportsman’s Channel show, “The Fowl Life.” Harold Horner, of High Desert Guide Service, will be doing the upland forecast, and noted author Durwood Hollis, and long-time hunting guide Ron Gayer, will be doing the hog hunting sessions.
But ultimately the event is all about recreational shooters and hunters who are thinking of buying a new firearm or two. The Sports Fair offers a unique opportunity to shoot guns side-by-side to make decisions. It’s the ultimate test drive because you can shoot dozens of different firearms in one place with virtually all of the nation's major firearms makers in attendance. But unlike in the gun store, where you can just handle the newest products, here you can also to shoot them under supervised conditions to see how the guns will fit, recoil, and perform.
Just some of the firearm makers to be at the show include Ruger, Smith & Wesson, Remington, Benelli, Beretta, Savage, Mossberg, Taurus, Glock, Howa, Puma, Thompson-Center, Springfield Armory, Para-USA, H&K, Walther, Sig Sauer, Stoeger, Franci, Uberti, Rossi, and many others.
New this year, Taser International will have its consumer taser available for test firing and training, and – for the brave of heart – you can even volunteer to get a brief jolt to see its impact on the human body.
The Shooting Sports Alliance will again have its full complement of big bore sniper rifles in 50 BMG, 416 CheyTac, and .338 Lapua, Browning semi-auto machine guns from World War I and II, exotic speed pistol race runs, and all the manufacturers’ polymer .45s to allow shooters to compare them side-by-side.
Absent for several years, the Gatlin Gun also returns to this year’s Sports Fair and you can crank off 10, 20, 50 or 100 rounds through this old West classic, and there are several demonstrations each day when over 200 rounds of .45-70 ammunition will be cranked thought one of these guns.
Firearms Training Associates will also be giving short defensive sessions on its steel plate range and distributing information on self-defense and concealed carry classes.
The California Rifle and Pistol Association and the National Rifle Association are also on hand to provide information on the latest state and national gun control efforts.
Most of the region’s sporting conservation groups -- from Ducks Unlimited to Quail Unlimited (which is running the kid’s BB gun booth) -- are on hand to talk about their work in this region, and there will even be free catch-and-release catfish fishing in the big pond on the sporting clays range.
The Shooting Sports Fair will be open from noon to 6 p.m. Friday, June 4, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, June 5, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, June 6. Admission is $12 for adults and parking is $5. On Friday, women are admitted free, and kids 14 and under get in free all three days. There are $2 off admission discount coupons available at all Turner's Outdoorsman stores, and through a number of other on-line outlets. For more information or directions, call Raahauge's Shotgun Sports at 951-735-7981.
================================================== ====
TODD JARRETT AT SPORTS FAIR -- sidebar -- matthews-ONS -- 26may10
World speed pistol champion Todd Jarrett to give exhibitions at the Shooting Sports Fair
By JIM MATTHEWS, www.OutdoorNewsService (http://www.OutdoorNewsService)
Todd Jarrett, one of the finest handgun shooters in the world, will be giving daily speed pistol shooting exhibitions during the June 4-6 20th anniversary Turner’s Outdoorsman Shooting Sports Fair held at Mike Raahauge’s Shooting Enterprises in Prado Basin.
http://www.jesseshunting.com/images/todd_jarrett_shooting_jim_matthews.jpg
Jarrett, a four-time World Champion and nine time U.S. National Champion in speed pistol competitions, has been a professional shooters since 1994 and has over 500 area and state championships on his resume. The Virginia resident has been a dominant force in practical shooting in the United States for the past 15 years, and he is still the only man to hold all four National United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) titles -- Open, Limited, Production and Limited 10. Jarrett has been a member of the USPSA “Gold Team” since 1990. He has competed internationally since 1992 and held the International Confederation's (IPSC) World Champion title from 1996 to 1999.
But now, the 47-year-old is scaling back and changing gears. From 1990 until this year, he was a sponsored professional shooter working with Para-USA (formerly Para-Ordinance), and “in many ways, I was the public face of that company.”
But the draining professional shooting schedule left Jarrett with little time to follow some of passions.
“I spent 211 days in hotel rooms in 2008. It was time for me to make a change,” said Jarrett. “I’m not going to be competing as much as I have in the past -- I’m tired of practicing all the time.”
Jarrett said he has 20 years of constant pistol shooting under his belt, and he figures he’s fired 2 1/2 million rounds over that period. It has taken its toll on his wrists and elbows, which he says are simply “wearing out.”
“Now I want to try to encourage people to get out and shoot, to get more people into shooting.”
To that end, Jarrett is approaching this goal in four ways.
First, he’s starting his own firearms company, Strike Force Manufacturing, that will be marketing consumer 1911-style .45s and AR-15-style rifles and top ends chambered for sporting cartridges. A consultant for 20 years, he’s finally going to be able to incorporate more of his ideas into a line of products for average shooters and hunters. Parting with Para-USA on good terms after “a great working relationship,” he’s even looking forward to a shared project or two with his new company and Para.
Second, he’s also going to be opening a shooting range near his Hopewell, Virginia, home. Jarrett noting that over 100 ranges have been shut down in this country just in the last two years. To grow the sport, shooters and hunters need a place to practice with their firearms.
Third, he will continue giving seminars and exhibitions, along with teaching a few specialized classes for law enforcement and the public, where he can reach the most people, hoping to spark people’s interest in firearms, shooting, and hunting.
Last, he and some associates have started “Brotherhood of Arms,” a non-profit scholarship fund to be given to shooters who attend “gun-friendly” schools. Only six months old, the fund already has $50,000 to be given away in 2011.
Like with his competitive shooting, Jarrett has the ability to focus his efforts and accomplish goals. And it’s because of his love of shooting and his interest in reaching vast numbers of the shooting public and encouraging their involvement in the shooting sports that has brought him back to the 2010 Shooting Sports Fair.
“This is a great event,” said Jarrett, who has given exhibitions at this event seven times. “I don’t know how many times I have spoken with people in this industry about doing these kinds of shows nationwide. This is the only one. There’s not a show like this anywhere else in the country.
“And there should be,” said Jarrett.
Jarrett said it was just about impossible for a shooter to go someplace and try out all of the guns he’s thinking about buying -- or get an opportunity to shoot a gun he might never be able to afford or need. But the Shooting Sports Fair has most of the nation’s firearm makers and importers side-by-side with their products on hand to see and shoot.
Unlike a lot of other exhibition shooters who attended the Sports Fair in the past, Jarrett doesn’t give his seminars and then disappear. He likes visiting with other shooters, and he’ll be in the Turner’s Outdoorsman booth throughout the show talking with shooters and giving hands-on shooting advice and tips.
His shooting exhibitions will at 2 p.m. Friday, June 4, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, June 5, and at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 6. Admission to Jarrett’s exhibitions is free after paying admission to the Sports Fair. The price is $12 for adults and parking is $5. On Friday, women are admitted free, and kids 14 and under get in free all three days. There are $2 off admission discount coupons available at all Turner's Outdoorsman stores and through a number of other on-line outlets. Sports Fair hours are from noon to 6 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. For more information or directions, call Raahauge's Shotgun Sports at 951-735-7981.
For more information on Jarrett and Strike Force Manufacturing as it becomes available, you can check the web site at Strike Force Manufacturing from Champion Shooter Todd Jarrett (http://www.toddjarrett.com).