RICE SHOOTING CLUB

The Rice Shooting Club is a safe, friendly, and fun environment for the development of marksmanship skills. We welcome any new members, whether beginners of experts. If you've never shot a gun before, we'll teach you how! Got shooting trophies? Great! Join up and participate in our easygoing competitions --we all want to improve and there are prizes to be had. The shooting club has a long and interesting history here at Rice, but right now it's going strong and getting better by the day. Come join us in the enjoyable pastime of recreational shooting!

The Rice Shooting Club is much more than old white men with guns:

WHAT WE DO EXACTLY

So, what exactly is shooting with RSC like?

First, there are things that you must do before you shoot. The first and most important is the RSC safety test, which you can read more about at Enlisting. Second, you need to be properly attired for shooting. This includes close-toed shoes and shirts with sleeves. Remember that the hot brass casings will be ejected out of your gun and out of guns all around you, so you don't want to be wearing clothing which will trap it against your skin--ladies, trust me on this and don't wear low-cut shirts! Everyone must also be wearing eye and ear protection. If you wear glasses regularly, those are sufficient but be aware that they might get damaged by flying brass so you might want to wear your cheaper pair or put in contacts and get some shooting glasses. People who don't wear glasses regularly must use either shooting glasses, which can be purchased on your first outing, or regular old sunglasses (but not your $100 Oakleys, unless you don't mind them possibly getting scratched).

Now that you know what you need, here's an overview of how outings work. Outings take place on Saturday afternoons. We usually meet up in the RMC around noon or a little later (watch the listserv to know for sure week-by-week). From there we go to the campus police station to check out club and personal guns and ammunition. Rice students can store personal guns and ammo in the police armory--they are not allowed in dorms or elsewhere on campus.

From the armory we carpool to our range, American Shooting Centers, which is approximately 25 miles from Rice. The Club recently purchased several Texas EZ Tags which allow us to take Westpark Tollway, turning an unpredictable and hectic drive into an easy 25 minutes. Along the way we stop at an Academy Sports and Outdoors location to purchase ammunition. Going to Academy together is helpful for new shooters because all ammo is not equal and experienced members can help others figure out what to buy. Academy also stocks a selection of eye and ear protection, gun cleaning equipment, and guns if you're so inclined.

Now to the range... Because ASC is so huge, there are typically separate carloads of people going to the trap and skeet range and people going to the rifle/pistol range. However, if you're interested in doing both in the same day, which many people do, it's easy to get from one area to the other.

Rifle/pistol:

When we first arrive, we check in at the range office. ASC has very generously provided all our members with FREE admission to the rifle/pistol range. An individual membership costs $225 a year, so they are really helping us out! You can purchase various types of targets in the office, as well as generally overpriced ammo and equipment (which is why we stop at Academy).

The rifle/pistol range operates in cycles. Every 30 minutes, a cease fire is called by the range masters, who must always be obeyed under penalty of getting kicked out and embarassing the club. A cease fire means that everyone stops shooting and unloads their weapons immediately. Once everybody is clear, we are allowed downrange to post fresh targets and retrieve old ones. On the pistol range you may use either large targets like those purchased in the office or just the small RSC targets available on the Rankings page. On the rifle range you must have a large target, even if you want to tape an RSC target over it to score yourself.

Depending on how many RSC members show up on a particular outing and who is interested in shooting what, we may have to take turns with guns. Time when you are not shooting should be seen as an opportunity to observe other shooters and learn from them. Speaking of learning, new members must always be introduced to new guns by an experienced member. Everybody in the club is happy to help you if you have questions--we've all been beginners, some of us very recently.

Trap and skeet:

The trap and skeet fields are a short drive away from the rifle/pistol range and the main entrance. Shooters purchase tokens in the shotgun office. ASC has also extended us a generous offer for skeet shooting: a round costs around $5.50 instead of the typical $8.50. Once we have tokens, we drive to one of the members-only fields and fire away. Unlike the rifle/pistol range, trap and skeet fields are essentially self-governed. That is, we are able to "pull" for ourselves (fire the clay birds which are our moving targets) and go at our own pace with nothing like cease fires to interrupt.

Most members tend to stay at the range until between 4 and 6 pm. Spending a few hours out there makes the drive worthwhile and lets us get our weekly gun fix. However, members who don't want to stay all day are welcome to arrange to leave early. Just make sure that if you bring four people in your car, you leave with four people or make sure they have another way to get back! Sometimes if outings last though dinner we go out to eat afterwards and occasionally talk about something other than guns.

So that's the scoop. Hopefully this has answered your questions about how the day-to-day logistics of RSC work and what you need to participate.