The ReticleThe ReticleGun Safety, Education, Marksmanship

September, 2016

Member Meetings Highlight Member Meetings Highlight Political CandidatesPolitical Candidates

For the first time the Eisenhower and Savannah meetings were different because the FL state primary was held on August 30th.

At the Eisenhower meeting on Monday, August 22nd we hosted Dennis Baxley and David Gee who were running for the Florida Senate, District 12 seat. Mr. Baxley won the primary. Also present to speak to the members was Justin Grabelle who was running against Daniel Webster for the US House. Daniel Webster won the primary.

All three candidates had an “A” rating by the NRA for their support of gun rights and the 2nd Amendment. We asked them to discuss their top priorities if elected. Their individual responses were very informative.

Savannah Center Meeting – September 7th

With the primary over, the Savannah meeting included a presentation by Bryan Lifsey regarding the Seniors vs Crime organization. Bryan is the office manager for the Sumter County Office which serves The Villages residents.

The Seniors vs Crime operation is a project under the Florida Attorney General’s office with 40 or so offices throughout the state. The objective of the organization is to help seniors deal with, and hopefully avoid, the numerous scams perpetrated against seniors.

Bryan emphasized that when in doubt concerning the reputation of a particular business, a quick call to them may help you avoid a problem. It is important to NEVER pay in advance on a business deal, only after the job or service is complete. Once the business is paid, you have no leverage if the job or service is incomplete or unsatisfactory for some reason.

Seniors vs Crime may be contacted at:Sumter County Office

Office Hours: Tue, Wed, Thur – 10am until 2pm

(In the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office – Villages Government Annex)

352-689-4600, Ext 4606Email: sumter@svcinthevillages.org

The balance of the Savannah meeting included a presentation on the firearms manufacturer Magnum Research, Inc.

They make the Desert Eagle brand of semi-autos and revolvers that are generally very large caliber firearms. The original Desert Eagle is a .50 caliber weapon – shown below:

Not a gun for the weak or faint of heart. They strongly recommend you use two hands when shooting it! In fact, they claim the gun is capable of producing “shock & awe” – in the shooter!!

The meeting presentation is posted on the website on the Education page.

The Villages gets an The Villages gets an Indoor Range!!Indoor Range!!

Yep, you heard it right! You may have seen it on the Villages-News.com website or heard it at a meeting. Shooters World, with a 5 star range in Tampa, and one soon to open in Orlando, has decided to build a range in The Villages.

The Villages has been identified in marketing studies as a very under served market regarding shooting facilities. Having no quality indoor ranges in or near The Villages or even within a 30 to 45 minute drive would certainly qualify us as an under served market.

While the location is yet to be announced, we do know that the range will be in Sumter county and have golf cart access to The Villages residents.

The developer of the Shooters World range, as well as the developer of the Basics range, at the intersection of SR 466 & 441, have been working with our club to ensure their plans will accommodate the club’s requirements. After all, with over 35 shooting events each month, and more planned, we will be the dominate customer for both ranges.

The Shooters World range is on a fast track with hopes to open the range in late spring of 2017. It will probably not open before our seasonal residents head back north, but certainly by the time they return in the Fall next year, we’ll have one, possibly two, quality ranges available to serve the needs of the club.

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A 50 caliber handgun – For when there is an armed

burglar behind the refrigerator..at your neighbors house.

Continued from front pageAt the present time, with the shooting events being added this October, we are becoming “range limited” on being able to add more open events and unable to add the tactical training opportunities we hope to provide our members in the future.

So, the development of these two ranges are very welcomed additions to The Villages and nearby communities. We will keep you posted as the projects progress to completion.

The August 17th seminar on Shooting Fun-damentals I attracted a full house with 95 members present.

The Shooting Fundamentals I, and in Octo-ber the sequel II seminar, were created to help refresh and expand member knowl-edge of sound shooting techniques.

The sessions were created based on obser-vations by our instructors and RSOs of member on-range shooting techniques and general abilities to properly handle mis-fires, stove pipes, and other routine mal-functions.

The first session covered loading, unload-ing, proper grip, and the basic isosceles stance as well as 4 other stances that have various pros and cons associated with them.

The second section, II, coming in Octo-ber will cover:

● Zeroing your gun● Breath Control● Aiming● Sight Picture● Sight Alignment● Trigger Control● Hold Control

Seats are still available for the Shooting Fundamental II seminar on October 19th.

The first section will be offered again in January for the benefit of our seasonal residents that missed the seminar on Au-gust 17th.

Time to Clean your Gun!

The September 21st seminar will be our next gun cleaning opportunity. Bring your gun(s) to be cleaned, no ammo. Guns will be checked at the door to en-sure all are unloaded. If you have never cleaned the gun before, it would be good to bring the owner’s manual with you to the seminar. If you do not have the Owner’s Manual and think you might need it, drop an email, HERE, and let us know the make and model of the gun. We’ll try to get a manual for you.

If you have a cleaning kit, bring it. The club will provide mechanic rags, Q-Tips, brushes, CLR cleaner/lubricant, and Hoppe’s Bore Snakes for .22 calibers and 9mm/.38/.380 calibers.

August Seminar a Hit!

Seminar SubjectsSeminar Subjects

Don’t be shy, bring your Rugers. We prom-ise, Ruger owners will go home happy with their gun full reassembled, not in pieces in a box!!

See you there.

New Shooting New Shooting Opportunities AddedOpportunities Added

The Winchester and Open shooting events are some of the most popular activities the Club offers. Duh, it is a gun Club!!

Over the past few months both the Winchester and Open shooting events have been fully booked in advance suggesting a demand greater than the current schedule. This is especially a concern since this is not even the busiest time of year.

In response to this concern, beginning in October we are adding a fourth Tuesday Winchester shoot AND are doubling up on the times. There will be one shoot from 8:00 am to 9:00 am and a second from 9:00 am to 10:00 am on all four Tuesdays, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, & 4th. That, of course, will be 8 events per month, now 12 shooters per slot, serving a total of 96 shooters!

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Page 2 September, 2016

The ReticleThe Reticle

Villages Straight ShootersVillages Straight Shooters

If you take guns away from legal gun owners, then the only people that would have guns will be the bad guys. Bruce Willis

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The ReticleThe Reticle

Villages Straight ShootersVillages Straight Shooters

The Villages Straight Shooters offers mem-bers a variety of member services. You can see the current services offered on the web-site under “Member Services.” Click HERE.

We were very pleased to announce this month that the VSS club and MVP Athletic Club have partnered to offer MVP Athletic Club memberships at a discounted Corpo-rate Partner Rate for Straight Shooter members.

These MVP memberships are available to VSS active members. VSS members may add to their Primary MVP Membership one member of their household as a MVP As-sociate Member.

These Memberships will be valid at the Spanish Springs and Brownwood MVP lo-cations.

VSS Member Savings:

1. Enrollment fee waived – saves $100

2. Corporate Membership is $46.97 per month – a savings of over 25% off the normal primary member fee of $63.13

3. Primary + Assoc Member fee just $87.34 per month – a savings of 20%

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MVP Athletic Club added as a MVP Athletic Club added as a New Member ServiceNew Member Service

As you might imagine, over the past four years or so, in the process of doing the re-search for member meeting presentations, we have accumulated a fairly large library of books, DVDs, and other materials.

A lot of the material is really very in-formative and educational. Some sim-ply outstanding! Members are encour-aged to contribute books, DVDs, and other materials of interest.

We would like to make this source of information accessible to the members on a lending library basis as a new member service.

The way it would work is a member could checkout one item at a time at one of the member meetings and would be expected to return it at the next meet-ing. Cost is free. The inventory of items available would be posted on the website.

The problem with launching this new member service is resources. We need a volunteer to take charge of the pro-gram. It would require that the volun-teer attend the member meetings twice per month for the hour before the meet-ings start and staff a table where mem-bers could checkout the items.

The “process” could/should be fairly simple and could be done manually or computerized if the volunteer is able to handle it. A club manager will be avail-able to help get the “system” set up and functioning.

If you can help please drop us an email, HERE, and let us know that you can do it or at least call Terry at 352-360-5666 to discuss it if you might consider help-ing.

We would really like to launch this pro-gram in September 2016. The effort re-quired is minimal. Please consider helping us offer this new member ser-vice to our Club members.

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We are doing the same thing with the Fri-day open shooting events on the 1st & 3rd Fridays with the 2nd Friday now added to the mix beginning in October. Each day there will be an 8 to 9 am plus a 9 to 10 am for 14 shooters. Shooting opportunities are now available for 84 (up from 60) shooters per month.

The not-so-good news is that we have pretty much maxed out the range on 44, so it will be very difficult to add more events should the demand expand even further.

The new ranges in The Villages cannot open fast enough! See the other article in this newsletter on the new indoor ranges being planned.

Credit for the expanded shooting opportu-nities goes to Floyd Dunstan, Manager of Shooting Programs for the Club. He and his team of assistants are working hard to stay ahead of the curve. It is also a chal-lenge to have all of the shooting events staffed with RSOs and Instructors as we like to do.

If the opportunity arises, they would cer-tainly be grateful for any expressions of appreciation you might offer for all of the hard work.

The volunteers keep this Club afloat al-though we may, on occasion, take a little water over the gunnels!!

Late news: The Club now has a patriotic membership count of 1776!!

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The ReticleThe ReticleVillages Straight ShootersVillages Straight Shooters

Upcoming Club ActivitiesUpcoming Club Activities

Next Member MeetingsNext Member MeetingsSeminar - 3rd Wednesday, Sept 21h at the Sea Breeze Recreation Center from 2-3 pm. Topic will be Semi-Annual Gun Cleaning Festival.

4th Monday Sept 26h Club Meeting at the Eisenhower Rec Center - 6:30pm – 8:00pm, Doors open at 5:30pm.

1st Wednesday Oct 5th Club Meeting at the Savanna Center – 6:45pm – 8:15pm, Doors open at 6:00pm.

Topic will be: The War on Guns (Countering the Lies) Part 1

Gun Raffle for each meeting will feature a Glock 19 Gen 4, a 9mm compact pistol.

Upcoming Shooting EventsUpcoming Shooting EventsWinchester Pistol Qualification shoots at the Gun Range on SR44 in Leesburg. 1st,

2nd, & 3rd Tuesdays on Sept 13th, 20th and on Oct 4th, 11th, 18th, & 25th. Beginning October, two sessions, 8-9am & 9-10am. Floyd Dunstan is the Shoot Manager. Cost $8. (Note: beginning in October Winches-ter shoots are scheduled for 1st thru 4th Tuesdays and expanded to 12 shooters per session)

Beginning October, 1st, 2nd, & 3rd Fridays, October 7th, 14th, 21st. Open Handgun shoots at the Gun Range on SR44 start at 8-9am and 9-10am. Cost $8.

4th Thursday**, September 29th at Ocala Sportsmans Assoc. Handgun and rifle sessions are available, Shooter of the Month determined in shoot off. 1st session at 8:45am and the 2nd at 11am. Cost $10. ** Moved from 22nd to 29th per OSA request.

Remember eye & ear protection. Adhere to the Club safety rules. If you need a Club safety card, ask an RSO or the Shoot Manager.

ExcursionsExcursions ● Shooters World – Wed. Sept. 14th

● ReLoad Gun Range Shoot – Wed. Oct. 12th

● Shooters World – Wed. Oct. 26th

● National Naval Aviation Museum – Feb 8 & 9 overnight excursion.

At the Eisenhower and Savanna Club Meetings on Monday Aug 24th and Wednesday, Sept 7rd the Club raffled off a S&W Bodguard 380 with Crimson Trace Green Laser carry pistol:

The Raffle Winners!The Raffle Winners!

OSA Champions of the OSA Champions of the MonthMonth

Congratulations to Larry and Bill!

Shooter of the Month for the August shoot at the Ocala Sportsman Assoc. is John Giunta. Good Shooting!

Club Membership and Club Membership and Reservations are Required Reservations are Required

for all Shooting Eventsfor all Shooting Events

Attained Distinguished ExpertDistinguished Expert for for September: September: Francis Renzoni.

Winchester / NRA Winchester / NRA AchievementsAchievements

A Hearty Congratulations to All!!

Attained Distinguished Distinguished Expert for Expert for Defensive Pistol IIDefensive Pistol II for Augustfor August: Martin Roewer and John Giunta

Congrats to John!

Bill Flood

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It is important to note that the VSS club is making no, $0, nada profit on this program and is only collecting the MVP and transactions fees in order to break even. All of the benefit in reduced pricing goes to the member.

You can learn more about how to sign up and how the program works by going to the website HERE. In short, you must sign up and pay monthly through the VSS club website: vssclub.org. After paying through vssclub.org, you may go to MVP with your receipt for orientation.

Unfortunately, the way our system works, you must pay monthly before the 20th for access the following month. You cannot set up automatic deductions. For details on payment options go to the website above.

However, having said the above, this is a great member service for the exercise and sports minded members of the Club. Be-sides, you’ll need to buildup those biceps in order to shoot one of those Desert Ea-gle .50 cal monsters we talked about at the last Savannah meeting!

If you are already an MVP member and wish to transition to this program, email Renee Lackey at rlackey@mvpsportsclubs.com.

We want to see all the Club members “live long and prosper.” Give MVP a try, you’ll be glad you did!

Larry Smith