Welcome to the Itasca Gun Club web site!

Itasca Gun Club's Sight In Days is coming up soon, and we need to get the range ready.  This is our biggest fundraiser of the year, and we need your help to make it successful.  There are three things you can do to help.

1.      Help us in a work party on Saturday, October 6^th, to get the outdoor range refurbished and set up to handle hundreds of shooters sighting in firearms over a two-week period.

2.      Sign up for a four or five hour shift, either using our spotting scopes to help hunters sight in firearms, or working in the office selling shooting tickets, raffle tickets or reclaimed lead and brass.  There’s coffee, cookies and donuts to be had.  Sight In begins Saturday October 20^th, and ends Friday November 2^nd.  Check the IGC Sight In Page to see a slideshow to get a feel for what it’s like, and to see the schedule and sign up instructions.

3.      Sell your book of $2.00 raffle tickets, and either drop them off at the range during Sight In Days, or get them to TJ Russell.  If you didn’t get a book of tickets, or you’ve been successful at selling yours, TJ has more books of tickets.  You can also consider just buying your own book of tickets for $20!  There’s a Thompson Center 30-06, a Ruger 9mm, a Ruger .22, a Burris 3x9 scope and a Buck folding knife available to be won.

Outdoor range work needed, typically done as small crews:

·        Repair wood target frames.  This requires a little carpentry skill and hand tools.  Materials are ready to go.

·        Install mill felt in the ceiling of the firing line.  This job needs a few people with stepladders, cordless drills and basic hand tools, screwing a large sheet of cloth to the ceiling joists for noise abatement.

·        Clean up the area around the firing line.  There are small piles of construction materials that need to be moved/organized so they’re out of the way and the place looks nice.

·        Organize the equipment/materials in the shooting shack, office and trailer.  It’s like any garage cleaning – organize and move things into the new Conex container at the range.

·        Install a few road signs.  Arbo township donated a stop sign, some speed limit and curvy road signs.  We have the signs, bolts, posts and a post driver ready.  We just need some thoughtful sign placement and some muscle.

·        Slide the firing line structure on the pistol range out of the way, so a concrete pad can be poured.

·        Spread wood chips on walkways down in the range area.  If you have an ATV and a trailer, that could help speed things up.

·        Cordless drills, hand tools, rakes, shovels and stepladders would be handy things to bring.

·        Coffee, cookies and donuts will be available.

If you’re considering signing up for a shift or two at Sight In Days, the schedule and instructions are on the Sight In Page.  We really need some people on October 20 and 21, the first weekend of Sight In.

Itasca Gun Club is a club of skilled people.  We’re looking for a licensed plumber who can help with laying out the sanitary drain drawings for pouring the concrete slab for our new clubhouse location.  If you can help with this, please call Mike Twite at (218) 259-3795. We need this layout in order to go out for concrete bids.

Range Construction

It will be a busy and unpredictable summer.  Range construction will result in multiple range closures as contractors do their work.  Please check the calendar regularly if you plan to use the range.  Sometimes we have no control over when contractors can do their work, and range closures may happen on short notice.

In the short term, contractors will be hauling fill dirt for backstop berms, hauling clay for surfacing the berms to keep rocks from causing ricochets and building up three outdoor pistol bays to safety standards. 

Concrete will be poured for the new pistol shooting points, and overhead cover will be erected.  Concrete will be poured for the new clubhouse location, and a mover will haul the clubhouse over and place it on the concrete.  

This work is being funded by a grant from the IRRRB.

There will be a great deal of work in disassembling the clubhouse, ready room and indoor range -  breaking down the heating and ventilation systems, removing the interior fittings, the cabinets and other items.  A new trail for DNR Youth Firearm Safety classes is laid out and needs to be constructed.  

This will require a large chunk of volunteer work.  We’re looking to club members and other volunteers to get this work done in stages, as specific work tasks.  Your volunteer work helps the club twice, as the hours spent are recorded as an in-kind donation, which helps the club acquire future grants.

In order to ask for volunteers, we will be sending a few more regular and irregular emails asking for work parties to accomplish specific tasks. 

The outhouse will be moved to the new site, and the existing port-a-potty by the rifle range will remain.  The clubhouse will operate on a generator until heavy construction is finished.  At that point, power can be run into the new site.

Summer Programs

Itasca Action Pistol happens every Thursday evening.  Service Rifle matches are held every third Tuesday, as are the 100 Year Old Rifle matches.  There will be pistol carry permit classes in the clubhouse/indoor range June 9 and June 23 (these require pre-registration).  Monthly IGC meetings are held on the third Tuesday of each month.  And a new pilot event, a 3 Gun Run will be held June 23.  All these events are open to the public, and are on the Calendar, where you can click on any event to learn more and find contact information.