Twilight over Rifle Range
Most of you know Bliss Dinosaur Ranch hosts the nationally sanctioned Tactical Rifle Championship up here on ranch every July. (Sanctioned by the “Riflemans Team Challenge” )
The course of fire consists of 8.5 miles of groomed pin flagged back country trails. There are 28 different mowed shooting stations with over 290 reactive steel targets downrange. (2 courses each in both Montana and Wyoming) . If you look carefully, you can see a few reactive steel targets set up. This visual tunnel looking through a the trees to the hill/backstop 800 yards in the distance where a few more 10 inch blue square plates reside.
We have had the “Wyoming Tactical Rifle Championship” as a dedicated even up here for the last 11 years. Sporting events around the globe are being cancelled due to “Pandemic” . There of course is a discussion of what to do among the board of directors of this long running 501 C3 non-profit event.
We raise funds for Wounded Veterans and their family having given away in excess of 100K over the years. Hopefully we will have no cancellations from Corona Virus this summer. Not having this event would be a serious disruption to the whole series to say the least. Having said that: we will evaluate based on conditions as we go here.
I’ve actually had a major shooting event up here every year for 18 years. The first 7 years the event belonged to someone else. They just held it here which we facilitated. After that group “retired” from the game, a small group of folks picked up the reins. We only had 6 shooting teams our first year. Now we have an average of 26 teams over the last few years and now we are affiliated with “Rifleman’s Team Challenge” for accumulating national points toward that National Championship. Professional shooters from around the country usually show up a day early in July (registered and paid for) and we camp/RV for 3 days until everyone has engaged two days of field shooting and a third day of team versus team challenge.
Every year, over 100 people descend on us for 4 days of RV and tenting with the shooters spending 4 hours each hot July day on courses of fire . It is quite a culture shock for our little quiet homestead. 🙂 This event is not open to the public generally but we do take donations for the prize table or cash for direct vets. 60 volunteers put it on, none of us are paid.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana).
Title: Twilight over Rifle Range