D A D E CITY ROD & GUN CLUB U. S. R T 5 2 P O B O X D A D E C I T Y, F L

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1 D A D E CITY ROD & GUN CLUB U. S. R T 5 2 P O B O X D A D E C I T Y, F L C L U B E - M A I L SECRETARY@DCRGC.US W E B S I T E W W W. D C R G C. U S DECEMBER NEWSLETTER Club Officers President Joe Hanson Vice President Jan Bailey Club facilities include: Club house with free coffee Outdoor Pistol (30 ft, 50 ft, 75 ft), Outdoor Rifle (50 & 100 yds.), Muzzle loading, Air Gun. Secretary Secretary@DCRGC.US Treasurer of a m Chet Kucharsky Treasurer@DCRGC.US Chief Range Officer Charlie Burns Charlie@dcrgc.us Board of Directors Ken Smith Trent Ansel Gary Woodard Paul Lavallee act== Newsletter - Range Access: Public & Members Range Fees: Non-member adult $ Juniors under 18 shoot free but must be under the direct supervision of a member or paid adult. Hours: The club is open Sunday through Saturday From 9:00 A.M. 4 P.M. except closed Thursday, when work is done at the club. Closed Christmas Day. Come and join us for our monthly Pistol Matches. Beginners are welcome! This is where you learn and have fun, at the same time. For everyone's safety- Keep it open and pointed down range (and your finger off the trigger until you have your target in sight) SAFETY starts with YOU be aware of your behavior / actions with a firearm in your hand. If talking, do not turn around with your gun in your hand, unload the firearm and lay it down, then finish your conversation. 1

2 Range Use and Tournament Schedule 1 st Saturday 9:00am Police Pistol Combat (PPC) 50 yard range 1 st Saturday FOLLOWS PPC MATCH Balloon Shoot - in the Hole range 2 nd Saturday 9:00 am Concealed Carry Pistol Match - 50 yard range 2 ND Saturday 11:00 AM (OR AFTER CC MATCH) THREE TARGET SILHOUETTE MATCH 50 YARD RANGE 3 rd Saturday 2:00pm Bullseye Pistol Match - 50 yard range For more information on these matches Check the SHOOTING EVENTS SECTION on the DCRG web site or the club house for handouts. IMPORTANT INFORMATION The Dade City Rod & Gun Club is an alcohol and chemical free club (year around). No use of alcohol or chemicals allowed on the range. Anyone under the influence, or suspected of being under the influence of alcohol or chemicals, will be asked to leave. This is for everyone s protection and safety. The monthly Board Meeting is the second Monday of the month and I encourage you to attend. After the board meeting it becomes an open meeting where members can speak and have a voice in your club. Our next meeting is January 13 at 1:30 in the club house. Before you sign in, please show your club identification card to the on duty Range Officer. From the Secretary - The Board Meeting was held on December 9. 9 members of the board were in attendance as well as 6 members. Treasurers Report The club continues to hold it's own and we finished November showing a small profit after expenses. At our next meeting we will have an opportunity to review year over year with income and expenses against 2012 which happened to be a banner year. We will keep you posted. CRSO Report This was our second year for hosting the annual RSO and Board Member Christmas Dinner at the Tampa Bay Golf & County Club. Attendance exceeded our expectations and everyone enjoyed themselves with absolutely no complaints. We have already scheduled next years event, same place on December 4. The Sheriff's Department continues to use the range for qualifications and their program should be completed sometime in February. Although not yet firm, they have inquired if they can use the range on Thursdays to qualify new officers. The range is normally closed for maintenance, but we would accommodate them if they wish. Don't forget about the upcoming Swap Meet scheduled for this Saturday, December 14. We have already scheduled another one for January 11 from 8:30 a.m. until noon. We will be sending a reminder bulletin sometime in early January, but mark your calendar now. Any member may bring items to sell. 2

3 Toys for Tots There is already three boxes filled in the clubhouse and we want to extend our thanks to all our members for their generosity. Please remember that the final date for any donations is December 15. Building & Grounds Please enjoy the Christmas and Hanukkah decorations around the clubhouse that were put up by our volunteers. We have also painted the barriers and eyebrows on the 50 yard range black to match what was done on the 100 yard range a few weeks ago. We did this to cut the glare and overall it seems to be working. Although we still have wayward shots fired, the barriers and eyebrows don't seem to be as chewed up as we have seen in the past from some really poor shooters. Our next meeting will be on January 13 at 1:30 in the clubhouse. All members are welcome to attend. If anyone has any questions as to content or additional suggestions and things you would like to see in the upcoming newsletters, please feel free to me at; Secretary@DCRGC.US Secretary From the Secretary The following article was published in the Buckeye Firearms and has been edited for space. Ammo shortages concentrated around areas where there are the largest numbers of gun owners/shooters and ranges Submitted by cbaus on October 25, :00am. by Jim Shepherd After reading a lengthy exchange between a group of friends that includes competition shooters, writers, law enforcement and instructors, on "what's causing the ammunition shortage" yesterday, it seemed high time to wander out and do some decidedly un-scientific research for myself. My first stop was the closest Walmart. I wandered into the sporting goods section and there on the shelves was ammunition-including.22 LR in boxes (no bricks) and virtually any handgun caliber ammunition I wanted, so long as I didn't want the "premium" ammo lines. No dice there. There was also a decent selection of rifle calibers for hunting (including.223 and.308) although a two box limit was still in effect. It was a similar story at two local gun shops, although inventory and product selection was considerably reduced. Lacking the buying power of big box retailers, many local shops are offering lesser-known brands of accessories. If they didn't, one owner told me, he still wouldn't have much to sell. Plenty has been written about ammunition shortages over the past year, but having physically driven across the country, I've been to enough different places to say the shortages are not the same everywhere. They appear to be centered in areas sharing two vitally important things: a concentration of shooters (existing and new) and easy access to places to shoot. If people don't have lots of places to shoot, they're not using ammunition. Because they're not diminishing their supplies so rapidly, they're not so concerned about replenishment. So they're not panic buying everything on the shelves. Speaking with managers at big boxes in the area, I asked if they'd increased their ammo orders over the past few months. Their responses didn't surprise me, but did help explain why some stores across the country have inventory while others don't. It seems Walmart's guidelines for increasing restocking quantities aren't 3

4 discretionary at the store level. Those are based on turn times on inventory. If your location didn't sell inventory faster, it wasn't getting an increase. Quick sellouts, however, reallocated inventory, including portions earmarked for the slower-selling store. That helped in high-demand areas, but eventually led to some short-term availability at slower-demand stores. In that retail model, less demand did mean diminished supplies eventually, and not the suddenly bare shelves of high demand areas. That helped me understand why I was unable to buy.380 ACP ammunition anywhere in Birmingham, Alabama, an area with several public/private ranges and shooting clubs, but walked into an east Tennessee Walmart and left with two boxes of premium defensive loads. So where is all the ammo going? If you buy the supply/demand model, it's going where it has always gone: where demand is the highest. But only in the quantities dictated by manufacturing capacities. Walmart would ship more if it had more. Ditto other big box retailers. If that's the case, at least some portion of the ammo shortage would actually be the result of the shooting community's self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, we talk incessantly among ourselves about ammo supplies and shortages. It's vitally important to every one of us. That stokes a feeding frenzy whenever ammo hits the shelves. The resupply is snapped up, and the conversation returns to the shortages. As the shampoo instructions read: Lather. Rinse. Repeat. But I'm not saying there isn't also the "new normal" when it comes to shooting. There are lots of new gun owners and they're buying more ammo than new buyers of old. They add to the shortages, again primarily in areas where they have ready access to places to shoot. If there are no bowling alleys in your area, you have a tough time finding bowling supplies or other bowlers. What makes firearms different is the constant pressure of a government trying to outlaw an activity Constitutionally guaranteed to every citizen. Bowling doesn't have dedicated "anti-bowlers" constantly campaigning to have alleys closed down and balls outlawed because of artificial weight and/or color concerns. So here's my unscientific observation on the ammo question: ammunition is not as widely available as it was a couple of years ago. But not due to a government conspiracy or manufacturers artificially creating demand. The most acute shortages are concentrated around areas where there are the largest numbers of a) gun owners/shooters and b) ranges. Ammunition makers are still going as fast as two key factors allow: component supplies and equipment capacities. Component manufacturers are constrained by raw material issues. There is a higher global demand for brass, copper, lead and other raw goods because there are more consumers worldwide. Industries in China, India and other "developing countries" are competing for the same raw goods and driving up both demand and price. Finally, as my friend Michael Bane points out, shooters have finally used-up most of the surplus ammunition for those surplus foreign guns we used to consider cheap to own and shoot. Those "exotic" calibers aren't being made in the United States because ammo makers can't reduce output of bread-and-butter calibers. Foreign ammo makers aren't shipping huge quantities of that formerly-affordable ammo here because their domestic demand gets priority. And in case you haven't noticed (and thanks Michael for pointing this out), today's world isn't a terrifically stable place. Maybe more importantly, some companies are telling me quietly that they're preparing to actually launch new product. With NASGW coming up next week, wholesalers and distributors may see the first new products from some companies in more than a year. Demand for existing product forced some manufacturers to delay new introductions. Now, as orders slow, they're able to offer new stuff. And new stuff always catches the attention of existing - and potential - shooters.. Republished from The Outdoor Wire. 4

5 From all of us on the Board at the Dade City Rod & Gun Club, we want to wish all our members a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 5