Category: News

All post from all categories fall under Club News.

Ashley’s Return

In 2019 a group of men set out on a journey retracing the steps taken by General Ashley traveling from the Rocky Mountains to St. Louis, Missouri. In 1823 Ashley was setting up a trade route for the trappers and mountain men. Along the route there were Rendezvous locations where the beaver furs were traded for supplies needed by the mountain men. Gerry “Lucky” Messmer, the owner of Powder Horns and More, was one of these men that undertook this adventure and he wrote these articles chronicling the trip and what they learned along the way. These articles were published in MuzzleBlast as a five part series discussing the trip. Afterwards Gerry continued to publish articles about Trekking called Lucky’s Trekking Tips. I have pulled all of these published articles into the following two documents so that you can easily read them as a book. Enjoy!

Gerry has attended the Hawken Classic each year and has shared his adventures as one of our seminar presentations. He will be back for the Hawken Classic 2024 on May 17-19, 2024 at the Lewis and Clark Boat House and Museum in St. Charles, Missouri.

Ashleys-Return-5-PartsDownload
Luckys-Trekking-TipsDownload

Missouri State Rifle Gift Ceremony

On Wednesday, April 24, 2024, Bob Browner donated the Hawken rifle he built to the State of Missouri. The rifle will be displayed at the Missouri Capital Museum for all to see. On August 2023 the Hawken rifle was named the official state rifle for Missouri. Next time you’re driving through Jefferson City, Missouri stop in at the capital museum at see this rifle. Seeing the important role that the Hawken rifle played in the westward movement and the mountain man is why the Hawken was named the Missouri State Rifle.

Representatives Doug Clemens and Mazzie Christensen hosted this event.

Paul Fennewald took this video of the ceremony and provided it to me to share below:

https://youtu.be/Y1-CkW-EoEQ?si=26ddxiZXvvSC3NAF

The video is about 12 minutes long with pictures of the rifle during the build process as well as photos taken while the bill was presented to the Missouri Congress.

Mazzie Christensen and Art Ressel
Art Ressel

The pictures above were provided by Greg Grimes.

April 27, 2024 Workday Activities

Thank you to the members that assisted this month with cleaning up the fence between the clubs property and the conservation area. Many trees and limbs were on the fence and there are still repairs that need to be made. At least now we can walk the fence and make these repairs.

We also cleaned up the range area itself and put fresh cardboard on the targets that needed it. The step between the lower area and the shooting deck was also prepared for painting to make it more visible. It was too wet to paint on Saturday, but this will be done soon.

Thank you again to everyone that regularly works to keep our range and property nice and usable. If you go out and work on a project on a non club workday, be sure to send Brad Dickinson a message letting him know the date and work that you did to receive credit for a workday. Workdays consist of 2-4 hours of work at the range.