The Gun Club at Cordillera Ranch is no stranger to activity. On any given week, the secluded creek canyon on 200 beautiful acres hosts members and their guests for fun shotgun shooting and target practice on the handgun range and rifle range.
By Shane Reynolds
Teaching people about gun safety and how to shoot are both important aspects of what we offer. We provide members and their guests opportunities to learn to shoot shotguns, help scope in rifles, take personal safety classes using handguns and offer the Texas License to Carry course.
The Gun Club is a great place to practice your target shooting in a fun and serene environment. As we gear up for hunting season, there are plenty of activities to get our members and their guests ready to get into the field.
For the wing shooters, The Gun Club has a field with seven traps. One of the traps is the wobble trap, which moves side to side and up and down and challenges shooters as they must adjust to a flushing target that’s direction and trajectory is unknown when they call pull. The field has six other traps where we can shoot the Five Stand and Flush games. Virtually any wing shot can be practiced in this field, from a flushing quail to a springing teal or a high crossing shot. The field also has a rabbit that moves along the ground, hopping at a good pace. This field is perfect for group outings and for teaching the basics of shotgun shooting.
The clay target game of Five Stand is very similar to Sporting Clays in that a wide variety of targets are thrown in an effort to simulate situations commonly encountered when hunting upland game and waterfowl. Five Stand is a great way to get a Sporting Clays-like experience in a small amount of space, with very little walking. No two Five Stand ranges are exactly alike, but they have one thing in common: there are five “stands” or stations from which you shoot. You can shoot our Five Stand course with one to five shooters, making it a great group activity. The Five Stand has six traps, each of which throws a different target. Participants shoot in turn at each of the five stands and various combinations of targets are thrown from the traps for a total of 25 shots per round. Our outfitter staff will advise the shooter of the sequence of targets so you know what to expect, and they have the ability to change the menu set so shooters can experience a wide variety of scenarios. It is a great range to get “tuned up” for your hunting endeavors.
We have a traditional 10-station Sporting Clays course where targets are launched in a variety of ways approximating a different hunting scenario at each station. The course is a great training tool for shooters who enjoy wing shooting. Shooters rotate through ten different stations, and clays of varying sizes are used, approximating the different sizes of birds and targets found in hunting. A trapper accompanies every squad of shooters that enters the course to ensure safety and appropriate operation of the traps for consistency of targets. The course features novice-friendly targets since the fun is in breaking targets, not missing them. For competition shoots, the traps are adjusted to separate the great from the good shooters. Sporting Clays are offered year-round.
Cordillera Ranch maintains a network of local shooting instructors for beginning to advanced shooters. If you need instruction before beginning your next hunting trip, are interested in learning advanced self-defense handgun techniques, or if maybe you’d like to learn to shoot your rifle off shooting sticks, our friendly staff and instructors are here to help.
Shooting sports are fun and economical when it comes to entertaining a large group of shooters. We offer packages for our members and their guests that can be developed for shooting events that include instruction, a competition course, prizes, meals and beverages.
For any questions about The Gun Club at Cordillera Ranch, don’t hesitate to contact me.
Shane Reynolds is the Director of Recreation at The Clubs of Cordillera Ranch. He can be reached at sreynolds@cordilleraranch.com or 210.616.6051, or the Cordillera Ranch Outfitter Center at 830.336.4823.
