Planning a visit with MEC, and I need your help!

So, remember that posting I did a few weeks back about MEC and how they're a great place to work?  I wrote that post because when I stumbled across that article in the Journal Sentinel, I immediately felt proud that a company affiliated with the shooting sports was receiving accolades.

Well, apparently MEC was happy that I noticed the article and took time to blog about it...

The day after I posted it, I got a message from the assistant to the CEO from MEC, thanking me for the kind words and asking me to call them because the CEO would like to speak to me about my article.  I was dumbfounded!  That post was only the 11th for my blog at that time, and I never expected having the opportunity to speak to the CEO of ANY company, let alone one of the most respected companies in the state and in the worldwide shooting community!

The assistant who initially contacted me is Linda Williams, and she found my blog because she setup a Google alert which notified her of any content on the web pertaining to MEC.  Once I posted my article, she got an alert sent directly to her...simple as that.  Speaking to her, I got a sense that she and MEC are very in tune with the ever changing marketing that companies need to engage in to stay competitive these days.  I also got a sense that there's a lot of employee pride at MEC, and I'm sure that part of the reason is the fact that it is entirely employee-owned.

Linda put me in touch with the CEO, Bob Kamphuis (pronounced Camp-house).  Bob is very personable and I got the feeling that he's extremely down to earth considering he's the CEO of a company that is a worldwide leader in its industry.  Bob expressed his gratitude for my article, and he invited me to visit MEC so I could meet him and Dave Kern, head of the reloading division. I enthusiastically accepted his invitation and asked if I could take a tour of the facilities and blog about the whole experience.  They said "yes", and on this Friday (July 2nd), I'm heading to Mayville to visit MEC.

This is an opportunity for me gather information about MEC which may not be widely known, and it's also an opportunity for me to ask them questions on behalf of the general shooting public.  I urge anyone who is curious to know anything about MEC to send me a message with your question.  I will attempt to ask every question that's sent to me, and I will write at least one follow-up article with all of the information that I gained, and maybe even some pictures and videos from the visit.

You might be asking me, "how can I send you a message, Dan?"  There are a few ways to do so.  The best way is to leave a comment on this article.  If you don't know how to do that, you can visit this link for instructions.  Alternate ways you can message me are by e-mail at deadpair@gmail.com, or if you are on Twitter you can follow and DM me @deadpair, or if you got to this article via a posting in a forum or discussion thread you can post your questions/topics in response to the posting there.  I will check all of these locations and compile everything prior to my visit.

I hope to have lots of questions from you guys by Friday!

Want to comment on my blog but don't know how?

I haven't had a lot of people commenting directly on my posts here, so I wanted to write up a quick guide for how to submit a comment to something that I've posted, just in case people are having troubles.  You can test these instructions out right here on this posting if you want, so that you are well practiced before replying to any of my other posts.

If you've read my article and wish to leave a post, follow these steps:

1. If you're not already at the bottom of the article, go to the bottom and click the text that says 0 comments.  NOTE: it may have other values instead of 0, for example, 4 comments.  See the below image for a visual example.
   
   
   
   
2. Once you click the comments link, a window will pop up for you to type your comment.  If there are many comments, and you don't wish to read through all of them, click the Jump to comment form link at the top of the window or scroll to the very bottom
   
   
3. Type your comment in the Leave your comment section of the window
   
   
4. After you type your comment, immediately under the comment box you will see a randomly generated word or phrase.  You need to type that word or phrase into the Word Verification box
   
   
5. Next, you need to select an option under the Choose an identity section
   
   • If you don't have a Google account or an OpenID, you can choose to enter your name or submit your post anonymously
   • Select the Name/URL option if you want to enter your name and/or a web address if you have one
   • Select the Anonymous option if you wish to submit your post completely anonymously
   • If you have a Google/Gmail account or an OpenID, select the corresponding option and enter your credentials
   
   
6. Click the Preview button if you wish to see how your comment will look before submitting
   
   
7. Finally, click the Publish Your Comment button to submit your comment

That's all you have to do!  Feel free to test this out right now on this post. If you have other questions about how to use this blog, feel free to ask them by submitting a comment, or you can e-mail me at deadpair@gmail.com.

Boxhorn ATA Wrap-up: 6/20/2010

I wanted to write a nice piece on the shoot held at Boxhorn last weekend, but haven't had time.  I'll just post a few things and then I'll do a follow up entry with more of my thoughts about how the ATA program is progressing this year.  For now, a summary of our Father's Day shoot is all I have.

The weather was near perfect...hardly any wind, comfortable temperatures (upper 70s), and the light was excellent.  The targets were set perfectly (credit Tom Pilak), and for the first time all year, the doubles event had hardly any broken targets (Rick found an issue with a PAT trap part that was causing the elevator to break the second target).

The only problem was that we didn't have a great turnout...just an OK one.  55 total entries, which is 4 more than we had for our previous shoot.  I heard Darien had less than us.  The only other club in the state throwing registered targets on Father's Day was Eau Claire.

Bob Klobuchar beat out Jordan Hintz in the Magic Number shoot off, and walked away with a special Brewers package worth over $120.  Bob and Jordan both were victors in each event that they entered.  Kevin Longberg registered his first ever 25-straight in the singles event, and tied for Class D with a 94.  Here he is receiving his patch:

Here are the full results:

Singles (22 entries)
AA: Bob Okray, 98x100 (Mike Nawikas forfeit)
A: Bob Klobuchar, 100x100
B: Don Liedtke, 97x100
C: None
D: Norman Thorpe, 94x100 (won coin toss over Kevin Longberg)
Veteran: Ed Fish, 96x100
Lady: None
Junior: None

Handicap (22 entries)
18-21 yd: Jordan Hintz, 93x100
22-24 yd: Bob Klobuchar, 91x100 (20-24 shootoff over Bryon Fennig 20-22)
25-26 yd: Randy Tersen, 92x100

Doubles (11 entries)
A: Dan Murphy, 97x100
B: Jordan Hintz, 91x100
C: Bob Klobuchar, 93x100
D: Larry Wahl, 64x100

Father's Day ATA Shoot at Boxhorn

This weekend, Boxhorn Gun Club is holding a special Father's day ATA shoot.  100 singles, 100 handicap, and 50 pair of doubles, PLUS a special Magic Number miss-and-out shootoff with a complete Brewers game experience to be won!

The magic number will be drawn at the conclusion of the day's events. Entry in an event gives you a chance to shootoff, however, each person may only shootoff once no matter how many of their scores contain the magic number. Last person left standing wins the prize.

In addition to the magic number shootoff, we are awarding cash trophies in each of the events. Our options pay out very respectful amounts too.

For more details about this and other shoots at Boxhorn this summer, check out our program: http://www.witrapshooters.com/documents/boxhorns.pdf

See you Sunday!

It's your turn to shoot YOUR mouth off about micro-stamping

I don't usually get too political, but I'm always keeping my eye on the battles over the 2nd Ammendment. I know you probably don't read my blog for political information, so I will only post something if I think it's truly important...

What do you know about micro-stamping technology? Were you aware that California already has enacted similar legislation? Did you know that Wisconsin is considering legislation which would require all new handguns sold in the state to have this technology?

I'm not going to go into much detail about micro-stamping other than to say that it's an unproven technology, and that if our state (or any other state) enacts these laws, it would effectively ban all new handguns in the state because no firearm manufacturers sell anything capable of micro-stamping. Any bill that could put an effective ban on any type of firearm is a major threat to the 2nd Ammendment, but also to our state's commerce and the livelihood of many gun shop owners.

Just this week, legislation similar to Wisconsin's Senate Bill 174 was voted down in the state of New York. It fell just two votes short of passing, and has since been "tabled". The bill is not entirely dead, and the politicians will try to lobby one another to gain those two votes so they can pass that bill. If the New York bill passes, it will definitely help the cause of the Wisconsin bill.

I e-mailed all of the senators from New York that voted against the bill to show my support for them and to encourage them to continue to vote against this legislation. I urge you to do the same and then leave a comment below letting me know you've done it. Here's what I sent them (feel free to copy, paste, and edit my e-mail below if you don't feel like coming up with your own):

To:

lavalle@senate.state.ny.us, flanagan@senate.state.ny.us, ojohnson@senate.state.ny.us, marcelli@senate.state.ny.us, hannon@senate.state.ny.us, fuschill@senate.state.ny.us, skelos@senate.state.ny.us, lanza@senate.state.ny.us, larkin@senate.state.ny.us, leibell@senate.state.ny.us, saland@senate.state.ny.us, bonacic@senate.state.ny.us, mcdonald@senate.state.ny.us, farley@senate.state.ny.us, little@senate.state.ny.us, griffo@senate.state.ny.us, jdefranc@senate.state.ny.us, seward@senate.state.ny.us, senator@senatorlibous.com, winner@senate.state.ny.us, nozzolio@senate.state.ny.us, alesi@senate.state.ny.us, robach@senate.state.ny.us, cyoung@senate.state.ny.us, volker@senate.state.ny.us, ranz@senate.state.ny.us, maziarz@senate.state.ny.us, aubertin@senate.state.ny.us, valesky@senate.state.ny.us, stachows@senate.state.ny.us

Subject:

Thank you for voting against S6005

Body:

Thank you for voting against New York State Senate bill S6005. I'm not a citizen of your state, but what you have done has implications across the country. My state (Wisconsin) is also considering micro-stamping legislation, and if it passes, it will most definitely hurt commerce and the livelihood of many business owners.

Your continued stance against this legislation will show the rest of the country that this unproven technology should not be relied upon at the expense of law-abiding citizens and companies.

Thank you for your time and public service.

Dan Murphy

Milwaukee, WI

For more information about micro-stamping, visit this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_microstamping

For more information about the New York legislation, visit this link: http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?id=5915

Boxhorn ATA Summary from 6/6

As I was heading to the club yesterday morning, I happened to notice that the trees were pretty active. Not usually a good sign for an ATA shoot as shooters tend to be a little skittish when there's a stiff breeze.

By 10 AM (the scheduled start time) we only had a couple squads signed up. I had noticed at the last two of our shoots that people rolled in sort of late, so I was hoping we'd see a few of those stragglers. It turned out that there were a bunch of people that signed up late. In the end, we had 6 squads (21 entries) in the singles, 5 squads (17 entries) in the handicap, and 3 squads (13 entries) in the doubles. All in all, not a bad day considering the weather (windy with a chance for rain) and the fact that we were going up against the WTA Zone and Burlington Money Shoots.

Being that this shoot was our first one which offered trophies this year, we were dependent on a decent turnout in order to be able to award trophies. We had enough shooters to be able to give out $20 and $15 cash prizes. Not too bad for a smaller shoot.

Here are the trophy winners for each event:

Singles (21 entries)
AA: Bob Okray - 96
A: Randy Tersen - 98
B: Scott McGregor - 95
C: Alex Peterson - 89
D: Richard Forgue - 84
Lady: Mary Thanos - 89
Vet: Nick Thanos - 93 (24-20 shootoff over Mel Schulz)
Junior: Jordan Hintz - 95

Handicap (17 entries)
18-21: Chuck Kalupa and Jordan Hintz 94 (split)
22-24: Ron Wahl - 90
25-26: Randy Tersen - 89

Doubles (13 entries)
A: Dan Murphy - 96
B: Nick Thanos - 89
C: Jordan Hintz - 91
D: Chuck Kalupa - 86

Congratulations to everyone who won something, and a special congratulations go out to Scott McGregor. Scott is a recent Boxhorn-league-shooter-turned-ATA-shooter. Sunday was his second ever registered shoot, and he won class B in the singles with a 95, breaking his first ever 50-straight in the process! Here's a picture of him holding his new 50 patch.

Oshkosh native sets shooting World Record

Most of you probably know that Patrick Flanigan is a trick shooter for Winchester.  You probably are also aware that he's an Oshkosh native.  I've seen him perform a few times at the Grand, and my impression of him was that he is great entertainer and obviously a fantastic shot.  You can tell from watching him that he's a perfectionist.

Well, just recently, Patrick perfected an amazing feat.  He became the first person in the world to break a stack of seven (7) hand-thrown targets from the hip, with only ONE HAND on the gun!  I've tried shooting one-handed before, and it's rather difficult.  So is shooting from the hip.  So is breaking ONE hand-thrown target.  If you put all those variables together, one figures it has to be mighty difficult to do what he did.

There are a couple videos of him achieving this world record...the first shows him breaking the targets, and the second shows him while he's shooting.  Apparently there are a couple more angles that were shot of him doing this, but they won't be able to be seen until the TV show he was working on is complete.

Congratulations to Patrick on your amazing accomplishment!  It looks pretty difficult, though, so I think I'll just stick to my trapshooting.

First video: http://bit.ly/bso5Mw
Second video: http://bit.ly/9K52UN

Patrick's website is http://www.patrickflanigan.com.  He is also on Twitter (http://twitter.com/patrickflanigan) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=506876937&ref=ts).