Author: Tom Davis

SASP Founding Partner Sponsor, Ruger has resumed scheduled firearm auctions with all proceeds to benefit SASP. These auctions feature rare firearms from the Ruger vault and will help support youth shooting sports.

This week’s auction item is a 308 Winchester caliber Ruger® M77® Standard rifle. The serial number on this rifle is 770-03172, and the rollmark date is March 4, 1985. Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. introduced the M77 bolt-action rifle in 1968. It was advertised as, “The World’s Leading Hunting Rifle. . .” This rifle was never sold and has not been fired beyond normal testing during manufacture. This M77R rifle features a tang safety and a hinged, quick-release floorplate with a staggered integral box magazine that holds four rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. It also features a 22-inch blued barrel with no sights, but does have integral scope mount bases machined to accommodate the included one-inch Ruger scope rings. Other features include an American Walnut stock hand-checkered in a sharp diamond pattern on the forend and pistol grip. The pistol grip cap inset and the black, rubber recoil pad both feature the Ruger “SR” Eagle logo design. The M77® Rifle will be shipped in the rifle box it had been stored in along with an appropriate instruction manual, marketing materials, and locking device. The rifle is being sold “as is.” The purchaser assumes all liability for its safe and proper ownership, storage, use, and resale. The rifle is a part of the Ruger factory collection in Southport, Connecticut, and a Certificate of Authenticity will be mailed to the winner of the auction. Please note that the winning bidder of this auction is responsible for paying the Federal Excise Tax of $40.15.

This auction ends 9/16/2020 12:30 PM. View and bid on this auction at Gunbroker.com

The NSSF’s First Shots and +ONE initiatives have aimed to introduce new groups and individuals alike to shooting sports. With August being declared National Shooting Sports Month, these resources have been utilized by the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation’s SASP and SCTP members as a means to grow their teams for the upcoming season.

The SASP team, WildGats at the University of Arizona got their start in 2015 thanks to an NSSF grant and have been an enthusiastic partner for NSSF initiatives ever since.

This youth shooting sports team has been focused on sharing their sport via First Shots events for several years and just put on their latest introductory event on August 22nd. Along with event partners Southeast Regional Park Shooting Range and Pima County Parks and Recreation, the WildGats put on a wildly successful event.

“We had a 127 sign up in the first hour before we could announce that it was full,” said WildGats Head Coach, Bill Perkins. “Talking to our guests, I was surprised. At our first five events, we have had ~50% new shooters.  When I asked for a show of hands at our latest First Shots event, ALL the hands went up in all three groups. We also saw very high participation by women.  I would guess over 80% this year.”

Event staff greeted participants, with each group signing in and going through a quick temperature check. From there, new shooters were oriented by a First Shots powerpoint, staff introductions, gun safety rules, and future shooting opportunities.

From there, the University of Arizona WildGats athletes taught new shooters the fundamentals of grip, stance, sight alignment, and trigger squeeze with visible laser SIRT trainers. NextLevel Training, Platinum Sponsor of the Scholastic Action Shooting Program, manufactures training tools, especially helpful for new shooters.

Once given an introduction, First Shots participants were taken to the live fire range, receiving 1:1 guidance with a Coach, Instructor or RSO.

During this year’s SASP National Virtual Championships, athletes from 17 states competed from home ranges to help their state become the top state in pistol or rifle and have bragging rights for the next year.

Athletes of their respective SASP State Championships were considered in the following disciplines:

• Rimfire Pistol Iron
• Rimfire Rifle Iron or Optic
• Centerfire Iron
• PCC

At the National Virtual Championship, the 2020 All-State Athletes not only competed for the National title with their team, but also represented their state in Rifle and Pistol teams to crown the top states in the nation.

The Missouri All-State Pistol Team, edged out Tennessee by just over one second to become the top state in the nation for SASP pistol disciplines.

Ohio All-State Rifle Team members claimed their title by over four seconds, becoming the top state in the nation for SASP rifle disciplines.

2020 SASP All-State Finals

The sound of bullets ringing steel were heard all over the country over a three week period in July, during the 2020 SASP National Virtual Championship. Over 248,000 rounds were sent down range as SASP athletes competed virtually from their home ranges in the midst of an unusual season.

Just last year, the SASP National Championship surpassed the Glock Shooting Sports Foundation (GSSF), to become the largest Action Shooting Match in history. Despite a heavily altered season, the SASP community continued to break records for participation with 1,656 event entries for the National Championship in 2020.

Traditionally held at the Cardinal Shooting Center in Marengo, OH, the decision to hold Nationals in a virtual format for 2020 came as a difficult but necessary decision by the SASP national staff. “In order to protect the safety of our athletes, coaches, and families, we had to proceed with a virtual format for the National Championship this year,” said SASP National Director, Rick Leach. “The nature of our sport puts athletes and range officers in close proximity, which we could not in good conscious do with thousands of athletes in Ohio this year. We are incredibly fortunate to have such a wonderful community and are constantly inspired by the SASP athletes, adult volunteers, and families. We received hundreds of photos and videos from teams competing in Nationals from their home range. Almost all gave shootouts to our program sponsors and our National staff on social media and thanked us for giving them the opportunity to compete.”

The silver lining of moving the in-person event to a virtual format was accessibility. “This year we saw participation grow to states that are not always able to make the journey to Ohio each year for Nationals,” said SASP Director of Development, Kelvin Walton. “Although the spectacle of teams converging on the Cardinal Center to compete is part of the Nationals experience, the SASP community made the most out of an unusual season. The ability to compete at Nationals from their home range gave teams all over the country the opportunity to finish the season as a team, competing for the national title.”

Media from member-submitted photo and video can be viewed on Facebook or Instagram by exploring #saspnationals2020

For scores and leaderboard information from the 2020 SASP National Virtual Championship, please see the following link:

https://app.sssfonline.com/nationals/sasp
 

The Scholastic Action Shooting Program is happy to announce your All-State Team members for 2020! Athletes who participated in their SASP State Championship were considered for the 2020 All-State Teams in the following disciplines:

• Rimfire Pistol Iron
• Rimfire Rifle Iron or Optic
• Centerfire Iron
• PCC

All-State Team members will receive a designating jersey, sponsored by GLOCK, CZ-USA, and Ruger. Athletes on the respective All-State Teams who shoot in the 2020 SASP Virtual National Championship will have their scores compared to other All-State Teams to determine the top Pistol and Rifle teams in the nation. The winning Pistol and Rifle team athletes will receive medals for their achievement of best in the nation.

Virtual Series Matches:

-Can be set up by coaches and open to invited teams or all teams

-Can be set for weekly, bi-weekly or monthly competitions.

-Can run up to 52 competitions in a series (if you run weekly events for the entire year)

-Uses team scoring where the top 4 athletes, regardless of classification, on your team are selected to be the team score. There are no set squads.

-When you enter your team into a league it will list all your registered athletes. You only enter scores for the athletes that shoot in a round/match. DO NOT ENTER 0.

-Each round’s/match’s top 4 athletes per team are combined for a cumulative team score at the end of the series.

-Scores you enter for each athlete are the stage scores (best 4 of 5 strings). This can be done on paper or using a tablet to record them and then entered in SHOT system (or SHOT).

-Scores are entered by the coach for everyone into the virtual scoring module in Shot. This must be done by the end of the grace period (date is listed in the match for each round/match).

-Shooting can be done on your home range or at another team’s range if they can host you for a little head-to-head action for the virtual.

-There is no fee for the virtual series matches. (If teams want to run virtual leagues of their own and do awards they can charge a fee outside of SHOT.

-The stages for the match are set by the match host. Those are the stages that must be shot.

-Disciplines to be shot will be based on the match host’s selection and listed in the match.

State and national championship virtual matches (if run):

-These matches will be run if in-person championships are not feasible due to restrictions in place because of the pandemic.

-Matches will be built in Shot by national staff and administered with the assistance of state advisers.

-Matches will be shot at your home range, or possibly at another team’s range if they can host a team, based on restrictions in place.

-This is a onetime match that will be shot over the course of a week or several weeks.

-Disciplines to be shot will be selected by the match director and provided to all teams.

-These matches will be done with traditional squadding (4 athletes in the same classification) as noted in the rulebook.

-State Matches Scores will be entered in tablets if possible and emailed to the state adviser. Paper scores can be sent if a team does not have scoring tablets.

-There will be instructions on how to set up the tablet with the PractiScore file if we do any of these matches.

Nationals virtual if held, scores will be submitted via PractiScore to back to SASP National staff. All four stages must be shot back to back just as they would be at the nationals match. They cannot be split up over multiple days.

We have created a video tutorial on how to get started in the Virtual Series within the SHOT system: