NSSA - National Skeet Shooting Association

The National Skeet Shooting Association is the world's largest organization dedicated to the sport of Skeet Shooting.

Get Your Krieghoff K-80 Raffle Tickets

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K-80 Raffle GunThe annual Krieghoff K-80 raffle is underway, and tickets are selling fast! Krieghoff has upgraded its raffle gun this year, donating a K-80 San Remo shotgun valued at $28,495. The winner will have a choice of Pro Sporter or Standard Sporter models with 30″ or 32″ barrels.

The drawing will be held in October during the 2017 National Sporting Clays Championship at the National Shooting Complex. You do not have to be present to win.*

Tickets are $100 each, and only 600 will be sold. To buy your tickets, contact Lori Hartmann (NSCA), 210-688-3371 ext. 116 or Michelle Lee (NSSA), ext. 107.

You can also  purchase tickets from the NSCA trailer at NSCA Championship Tour events. Remaining events this year are:

September 6-10, 2017 – South Central Regional, Providence Hill Farm Sporting Club, MS
September 27 – October 1, 2017 – Southeast Regional, The Fork, NC
October 21-29, 2017 – National Championship, National Shooting Complex in TX

In addition to the Krieghoff K-80 raffle, you can buy tickets for a Blaser shotgun and two E-Z-Go shooting carts.

Proceeds will benefit NSSA-NSCA All-American programs and NSCA USA Sporting Clays Team.

* Krieghoff shotgun winner must have a valid U.S. social security number, as NSSA-NSCA must collect tax and report the winning value to the IRS. We cannot ship firearms outside the U.S.

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Meet Gary Burley and Nathan Boyd

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NSSA is pleased to announce the appointment of two individuals to positions within the organization.

Gary Burley
Gary Burley,
Skeet Director

Gary Burley is the new NSSA Director of Skeet. Burley is an avid skeet shooter and was an elected representative at state, regional and national levels within the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association in the UK, as well as being vice-president of the NorCal Skeet Shooting Association. He earned selection to the NSSA All-Zone Skeet Team in 2006 and has shot NSSA skeet competitively in three countries and 24 states, as well as living and shooting in five different zones.

Burley comes to the NSSA from a background of senior management and consultancy roles across the IT industry, having worked in development, marketing and operational positions for Fortune 100 companies in Europe, Asia and the USA. Recently he has been focused on business process re-engineering for major organizations within the healthcare and banking sectors.

“We are very fortunate to have found a person like Gary Burley to join our organization as its new Director of Skeet,” said Michael Hampton Jr., NSSA-NSCA Executive Director. “His business background, coupled with his background as part of the management team for shotgun sports associations and his passion for the game, will be an asset in promoting and growing the game of skeet and the National Skeet Shooting Association.”

Gary Burley can be reached at gburley@nssa-nsca.com or 210-688-3371 ext. 109.

Nathan Boyd
Nathan Boyd,
Special Projects Manager

NSSA-NSCA also announces the addition of Nathan Boyd to its staff as Special Projects Manager. According to Executive Director, Michael Hampton Jr., special projects with youth development for both skeet and sporting clays will be a major part of Boyd’s role. He will also be tasked with member retention and outreach to former club and individual members to encourage re-joining.

Nathan grew up in Clinton, Mississippi, where his dad introduced him to the game of skeet. He began shooting registered targets as a Sub-Junior in 1999. He has been an active member of Capitol Gun Club where he served on the Board of Directors and acted as Skeet Chairman prior to moving to San Antonio. He also served on the Mississippi Skeet Shooting Hall of Fame Committee. In addition to being a life-long shooter, he has refereed at many top 100 shoots. Nathan earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting at Mississippi College and a law degree at Mississippi College School of Law. He practiced law with a primary focus on workers’ compensation defense.

“It is my goal to promote and advance the shooting sports for all shooters, but especially in the development of youth shooting. I’m very excited to be working at NSSA and ready to get to work toward the betterment of the sport,” said Boyd.

Nathan Boyd can be reached at nboyd@nssa-nsca.com or 210-688-3371 ext. 133.

Long-time Member Howard Confer Passes

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Howard and Letitia ConferNSSA regrets to report the death of Howard Confer, one of the association’s longest-serving active members and the person most responsible for the high-quality targets thrown at the World Skeet Championships. He died peacefully at home on October 23, 2016, at the age of 97.

Howard was an ambassador for the game of skeet in his home state of Michigan and the nation. He was inducted into the NSSA Hall of Fame in 1975 as the Ray Boller Award recipient and as a shooter in 1979. He is also in the Michigan Skeet Hall of Fame. Howard attended the World Skeet Championships 54 times, shooting in 52 consecutive World Shoots and winning a world championship in 1954. He served as NSSA president 1976-1978.

Howard Confer’s estate encourages his friends to donate to NSSA’s general fund,
youth shooting initiatives, or NSSA Museum in his memory.

Click here to donate.

As a long-time member of the Detroit Gun Club, Howard was a member of the famed Michigan Wreckers 5-man team that dominated team events in the 1960s and holds a number of team world records. Until the past few months, he was still active in the game and was still coaching at the Detroit Gun Club, as well as remaining busy designing clay target traps and installing sporting clays courses across the U.S.

Although he served his club and NSSA tirelessly in many ways, his greatest contribution was his quest for perfection in the targets thrown at the World Skeet Championships and other events. Howard wanted every target thrown to be perfect, and it especially mattered to him that the World Shoot throw targets worthy of the status of the event. That meant no broken targets from the machine and every target flying the same. To reduce the number of broken targets, he started by having referees count them, then analyzed the reason for the breakage: was it the manufacturing process, the way they were shipped and handled, the way they were loaded into the machine, a problem with the machine, or something else?

“At first he would ride on the back of the truck, watch us unload the boxes, and make sure we were handling targets correctly,” said Barney Brown, a trap expert at the National Shooting Complex and protégé of Howard’s. “He developed an 18-point checklist for every machine. If there were too many broken targets, his common phrase was ‘pull it,’ meaning we had to pull the machine and determine what the problem was.

“Howard was absolutely committed to ensuring quality in each and every target, in each and every machine and event. He certainly helped me become better at serving the industry. He revolutionized quality control and checks and balances in targets. I’m a better man for even meeting him. At first he was a mentor, making sure I was learning and doing what I should, but he evolved into an honest friend and someone I looked up to,” Brown said.

“Howard was a fixture in NSSA for over 55 years,” said Louise Terry, an NSSA past president who served with Howard in many capacities over decades. “His life was dedicated to our sport and he gave willingly of his time to the association. Howard was the primary person who dedicated years of focus to target quality, especially at the World Shoot. Anyone who has attended the World Shoot can attribute the high-quality targets to his work. Nobody loved skeet more than Howard, and this is a great loss to our association.”

Howard is survived by his wife of 71 years, Letitia; children Daniel (Debbie) and Sheri (Steve) Confer; grandchildren Carrie and Cole (Maria) Confer and Hunter and Sara Dzierbicki; and great grandson, Xavier Confer.

Funeral Service will be at Lynch & Sons Funeral Home in Clawson, Michigan, on Monday, October 31 at 11 a.m. Obituary and condolences are at lynchfuneraldirectors.com. A memorial service will be held at Detroit Gun Club on December 23 at 1 p.m.

Howard Confer’s estate wishes to encourage people to give to the NSSA in memory of Howard. At their request, we have set up a donation form for that purpose. Those who wish to remember Howard and his love of skeet shooting can click here to make a tax deductible donation online.

If you prefer to mail a donation, you may send a check to NSSA with the following on the memo line, or provide a separate letter accompanying the check:

In memory of Howard Confer to support (a) the NSSA Skeet Program, (b) NSSA Youth Skeet Shooting or (c) NSSA HOF/Museum.

For your tax records, the Federal Tax ID number of NSSA is 75-0108632.

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Thanks to World Skeet Championships Sponsors

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NSSA and participants in the 2016 World Skeet Championships wish to thank the many sponsors of this year’s event, without whom the World Shoot would not be the same. From funding to shooters’ gifts to winners’ awards, the contributions of our generous sponsors are essential to having such a memorable, world-class event. We urge our members to consider the contributions of our sponsors when you are making decisions about purchases in the future.

Sponsors of the 2016 World Skeet Championships include:

Academy Sports & Outdoors
Ainsworth Trucking
BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse
B & P
Blaser
Briley
Browning
Chick-Fil-A
Decot Hy-Wyd
Elite Shotguns
E-Z-Go
Federal
Kolar
Krieghoff
Laporte
L & B Elite
NSSF
Paxton Arms
Rio Ammunition
Tachyon GunCam
Sportsman’s Insurance Agency, Inc.
Viola’s Ventanas
White Flyer
Winchester Ammunition

Kids & Clays Events Get Support from Winchester Ammunition

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Kids & ClaysWhen Indiana McDonald’s restaurant owners Glenn and Kathy Lubeznik decided to chair a sporting clays tournament in 1999 to raise money for the Chicago Ronald McDonald House, little did they realize at the time how big the fundraising movement would become. They hosted 137 participants and raised $16,000. People had a lot of fun, too.

That one event became the impetus for the creation of the Kids & Clays organization, which this year will host more than 20 fundraising clays tournaments. Since 1999, it has raised more than $14 million for Ronald McDonald House Charities. And since that very first event, Winchester Ammunition has been right there with them.

“Winchester plays a large part every night when thousands of families benefit from the Kids & Clays program by receiving housing, food and other benefits from the houses,” says Doug Jeanneret, executive director of Kids & Clays. Ronald McDonald Houses assist in provide housing, meals and a positive environment for families traveling away from home to tend to a sick child in the hospital or receiving treatment for serious illnesses.

Winchester provides ammunition at the sporting clays fundraising events as one of the primary sponsors of Kids & Clays. “As one of the founding supporters of what is now Kids & Clays, Winchester made it possible for the program to get off the ground. These donations save the organization thousands of dollars at each event,” Jeanneret explained, “valuable funds that can be put back into supporting Ronald McDonald Houses across the country.”

In celebration of Winchester’s 150th anniversary this year, a special donation of one of only ten Winchester 1866 Yellow Boy firearms is being auctioned on GunBroker.com, with all proceeds going to Kids & Clays. For more information on the auction and upcoming events, visit www.kidsandclays.com.

“There may be no greater cause than helping families faced with the challenge of caring for a sick child, and Winchester is proud of our long-standing relationship with Kids & Clays in supporting Ronald McDonald House Charities and the incredible services they provide,” said Brett Flaugher, vice president of marketing, sales and strategy at Winchester Ammunition.

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