Long shot hits target

Champion Goldfields rifleman John Moore is one name that should not be forgotten when the Boulder Rifle Range opens for official shooting for the first time in 12 years on Saturday.

Envisaging the problems that would befall the now-closed Commonwealth Rifle Range when the Australian Defence Force stopped training there, the three-time Queen’s Prize winner took target shooter Mace Ramsay under his wing four years ago and told him to revive Boulder.

“John Moore has to take credit for volunteering me when I came back to join the target shooting four years ago,” Ramsay said.

“He could see that Kalgoorlie was going through a difficult patch so he got me to join Boulder club, so I became the first new member of Boulder club (in years).

“The mission there was to preserve the lease so we didn’t lose the land. So we renewed the lease and brought the range up from scratch.”

Before a new core — led by now club captain Ramsay — signed up, Boulder’s membership had whittled down to just one, former captain and life member Bill Haning.

The clean-up of the range started in earnest early last year, before a new five-year lease was agreed with the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder for the West Kalgoorlie facility mid-year.

Its re-certification is expected today ahead of Saturday’s opening event, when the first shot will be fired by Haning.

“For me personally, it’s a job done, I’ll be so happy,” Ramsay said.

The range will be named after Haning, the man charged with keeping the club and its $25,000 treasury safe from 2010 after the other remaining members left town or died.

Haning, now 72, was surprised by the honour.

“It was quite a shock actually, yeah, quite a shock. I just didn’t think they’d do something like that,” he said.

One of the biggest issues the Boulder Rifle Club faced as it entered the 21st century was its ageing membership.

It now boasts 25 members, and has managed to engage a number of younger competitors, including two juniors. The bulk of the membership is in the 30-50 age bracket.

When the range closed and went into disrepair, hunters and sporting shooters keen to test their loads used it — one of only three full-bore 1000-yard ranges in the Goldfields alongside Leonora and Kambalda — leaving several tonnes of scrap metal littered across its expanse.

Many of those people have since been convinced to sign up.

Ramsay said reimagining the club as a dual-purpose organisation — for both target shooters and sporting shooters — had enticed a younger crowd and seen it add a new member virtually every fortnight over the past 12 months.

The opening ceremony and 500-yard friendly shoot will be at 1pm this Saturday, followed by a barbecue.