Thread: Are there any youth or junior shooting competitions around?

My oldest son just turned 14 and he wants to get into competitive rifle shooting. We are currently building him a new AR15 and need to know where to take him and how the rifle needs to be configured. Thanks for any help.

Since nobody's answered in a couple days, I'll take a shot. Try Tri County Gun Club. I'm not into their Junior Program, but they seem .22 oriented from what I've seen. I'm pretty sure any of the adult programs will take a youth, assuming basic maturity and muzzle control.

You need to think about what kind of competitive shooting he wants to do. TCGC has a very successful and inexpensive Junior small bore program which has sent a few kids to the junior Olympics and more than a few college scholarships. If he wants to shoot NRA high power, just show up to a match an people will help you out.
The other way to go is the action shooting disciplines like Practical Rifle locally and then 3 gun. Speed steel is one of the best for any beginner, youth or adult.
Think about how much money you are willing to sink into his activities before he starts

Also see the local competitions thread below.

The Albany Rifle and Pistol Club www.ARPC.info has a great junior program.

NRA High Power Rifle is geared towards teaching juniors like your son. Most clubs have incentives to encourage junior participation. Reduced match fees, loaner AR service rifles, spotting scopes,shooting mats, ect are available to the junior shooter. To get started it would be best to attend a clinic before the first match to learn the different shooting positions and procedures. Douglas Ridge has CMP and High Power matches. The CMP matches has a class available the day before the match. You can find more info on there web sight. Douglas Ridge Rifle Club
TCGC High Power and Vintage Military matches every month that are a lot of fun. Estacada has an excellent junior program. The Oregon State Shooting assoc. web site has more info and match schedules for all the clubs in the state. Click on 'Highpower'. Under contacts You can find the e-mail of the high power director Carl Haggland. Oregon State Shooting Association

About the type of AR you can look at Rock River, Bushmaster, ect. to see the standard mods for a service rifle. But for now I would focus on practice and learning position shooting. You could even consider borrowing a competition AR from a club for your son to shoot at a matches. The sport is geared towards training juniors.

yea, what ron said. there is also junior shooting in vancouver at the VRPC. (small bore @ 50ft)

Estacada ROd and gun club puts on a junior (and anyone wanting to brush up on position shooting) NRA style service rifle high power clinic every year. From my observations they have an excellent youth service rifle program at ERGC.

In addition to the CMP matches Ron mentioned, OSSA HighPower sponsors Cascade League matches, which are designed to help new shooters in HighPower shooting. They pair inexperienced and experienced shooters together. There are about five of them, at various local ranges. Unfortunately, the Cascade League matches were in February through April, so look for them early next year on the OSSA HighPower web site.

As mentioned earlier, Tri-County gun club has a juniors thing going on. I believe it is Thursday evening at the indoor range. I don't know if you need to be a member to get involved or not.

I vote NRA juniors....... I used to do it had a blast and in some cases you can actually travel. Of course that was a 100 yrs ago LOL j/k I am 36 but also just going local is a lot of fun as well. just my 2cents

Vancouver rifle pistol club has youth rimfire program. I think they meat Tuesdays at 5:00 pm.

Salem has the Col. Allison Junior Rifle Team (Four Corners Rod & Gun Club) that competes .22 smallbore and precision air rifle. Great group of kids! If you can't afford a rifle for your young shooter, the club has nice target rifles.