Where do MA school rifling teams practice?

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EcHo

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Does anyone happen to know of any school air rifling/pistol teams that practice on school property? I'm trying to convince my campus police chief to let me bring rifles for an air rifling team onto campus and he wants examples of other MA schools that allow it. (I'm trying to get permission per MGL 269-10(j))

I know MIT's team has an on-campus range and they practice there, but I've been having a bit of difficulty finding other institutions that do the same thing. I also believe Wentworth also has an on-campus range, but I have not been able to find proof of that.
 
Bedford HS has an air rifle team that practices in the basement of the school. They used to have a small bore team in the 90s, but was scrubbed in 2k,.
 
EcHo said:
Are any of the firearms in this museum functional? I only ask because I don't think firearms that have been rendered useless/inoperable are prohibited on school property in the first place
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i believe that they are functional. they have most everything from muskets to the vulcan miniguns and lots and lots inbetween. very nice place to visit if you have never been there.
 
Wentworth has a non-functional range on campus. Closed a few years ago due to the need to upgrade the range and foot-dragging by Admin on funding/getting it done. Wentworth has been using Braintree R&P for practice and matches since then.

NU had two ranges a very long time ago, but closed both probably 25 years ago. No idea where ROTC practices. Rifle team and range went poof at NU to be politically correct way back then.
 
LenS said:
Wentworth has a non-functional range on campus. Closed a few years ago due to the need to upgrade the range and foot-dragging by Admin on funding/getting it done. Wentworth has been using Braintree R&P for practice and matches since then.

NU had two ranges a very long time ago, but closed both probably 25 years ago. No idea where ROTC practices. Rifle team and range went poof at NU to be politically correct way back then.
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Same thing happen at Lowell Tech/Lowell U/UMASS Lowell. They had an active rifle/pistol program when I left school in 1972, but the range was gone when I returned in 1989.
I wish I knew what happened to the S&W Model 52's that they had.
 
Do any of you have links to prove the existence of the springfield museum being on the springfield college campus? I looked around and had no luck finding a website.
 
Wentworth, MIT, and Mass. Maritime are the only schools in Mass. in the Mid-Atlantic Rifle Conference. (http://www.mac-rifle.org/) No guarantees that there aren't schools with facilities but that aren't shooting competitively, though. (You can set up for air rifle almost anywhere.) MMA does have a range.

If non-Mass. schools are useful to make your case, there are plenty more listed on the MAC web site.

Are there any high school teams left in the state?

Good luck!
 
EcHo said:
Do any of you have links to prove the existence of the springfield museum being on the springfield college campus? I looked around and had no luck finding a website.
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Its on the campus of Springfield Technical Community College. And it is the Old Armory. Great place to visit and it is free last time I was there. I would love to see the underground range that Garand used to test fire his rifles. I believe its still under there somewheres. We asked the man at the info desk and he said after 9/11 it became off limits because of structural loss. Not too sure if this is true or not. Just spent a few minuteslooking and cant find a link. I live 20 minutes from it and cant find a link. WTF man
 
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LenS said:
That seems to be the "excuse" that a lot of colleges are using to shut down their ranges or the sport itself. [thinking]
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Well, they could simply kill the rifle team but they haven't done that. MMA now offers an elective for receiving NRA certification for LTCs.
 
One of the problems is that they were constructed in a day and age where there really was no concern for industrial hygiene and lead exposure. I don't think I would want to spend too much time on ranges like that any more. I have a DoD IG report from about ten years ago on National Guard and Reserve indoor ranges. There were significant problems with soldiers being exposed to dangerous levels of lead in some cases. In many cases closing the ranges was a good idea. The same could probably be said of many school ranges that were constructed under the supervision or in consultation with the ROTC staff.

On a side note I think USA Shooting or the NRA commissioned a study about atmospheric lead contamination from air guns. There was zero as long as pellets were contained.

B
 
bpm990d said:
On a side note I think USA Shooting or the NRA commissioned a study about atmospheric lead contamination from air guns. There was zero as long as pellets were contained.
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I couldn't find that (but if anyone has a copy I'd love to know where to find it), but I did find a Swedish 1992 study (comparing a group of pistol, airgun, and bow shooters over the course of a winter indoor practice season) that said basically the same thing. It also notes that lead levels in the subset of firearm users who molded their own lead bullets showed no difference from those who didn't, and that most of the airborne inhalation risk comes from the combustion of the primer, not the downrange impact of the lead bullets. (Might be a useful report to have handy for anyone trying to get an airgun range set up.)

I don't have a URL handy, but the report is:

Lead exposure in indoor firing ranges
International Archives of Environmental Health 1992
Bengt-Giiran Svensson, Andrejs Schiitz, Anita Nilsson, and Staffan Skerfving
Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, University Hospital, S-221 85 Lund, Sweden
 
JonJ said:
Well, they could simply kill the rifle team but they haven't done that. MMA now offers an elective for receiving NRA certification for LTCs.
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I've seen MMA at BR&P, competing against Wentworth. No idea what/where they do their training however.

I knew the person who was involved in running the shooting sports at MMA, but he was also a gunsmith operating out of his home. After the 1998 law put him out of that business, he sold his house and both he and his Wife quit their jobs in MA and moved South. Last I heard, he was working for NRA, but I lost touch with him years ago.
 
Actually it is STCC, not Springfield College and the college is on the grounds of the old Armory. Which is where the guns are in the Springfield Armory Museum.

http://www.nps.gov/spar/index.htm

Sorry for the dupe I missed the other post.
 
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When I was at MMA (graduated in 07) I shot on the rifle team my senior year. We shot at the schools range and after talking to some people it seems like the team is growing.

I will see if anyone I know has any info on the possible range closure. I am not positive but I believe that they are renovating the gym and that might have something to do with it.
 

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