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The New RFI Badge System
Distribution of the new PSC Badges began on Saturday, June 14th at 10:00AM. Several hundred Members came to the Club to pick up their badges and to be perfectly honest, the volunteers handing them out were quite surprised. The weather caused matches to be cancelled and the prospects for rain were high all day long. We expected a few dozen Members but were happy to see the great turnout. We also want to express our appreciation for everyone who waited in line. The schedule for this coming week is posted at the top of the Home page.
These are “swipe” cards, not those that must be pushed into a reader. When you get to the gate, simply hold the card close to the new reader. There’s a keypad also, but ignore it. That’s only for non-members attending matches and other events. Also, there will no longer be a generic pin code that opens the gate. The codes will be event-specific and only operational on specific event days and times.
How the New Badge System Works
The distribution of the new permanent Club Badges is going very well. Over 2,000 Club Members have picked up their badge and there are four more days scheduled for folks to pick up their badge. These days are Saturday, July 19th from 9AM to 1PM as well as Tuesdays July 8, 22 and 29 from 6PM to 8PM.
Several Members have asked how the new Badge system is going to work. This article will cover all of the questions we have heard as of this writing.
Let Me Tell You How it was back in ought 6.
By: Randy Parker, PSC Rifle Director
I wasn’t around back in 1906, but I was probably around when your grandpa was a kid. Back when I was a kid when you thought about an “air gun” you were thinking about a Red Rider BB gun or a Benjamin pump-up pellet gun. These were used mainly by kids to have fun and maybe kill a sparrow or maybe a rat if you were lucky. Back then you wanted a .22 to do real shooting, and a box of .22 ammo was about $0.50 to $0.60 per box of .22 Long Rifle. Yes, and gasoline was $0.20 per gallon. We have come a long way since then, and “air gun” technology has also come a long way.
Back in 1800 there was the Girardoni air rifle and one or several of these were taken along with the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1803. The Girardoni air rifle was a .46 caliber air gun producing a 1,000 ft per second muzzle velocity and could penetrate a 1” pine board at 100 yards. This rapid-fire rifle could shoot 22 times in less than one minute with high accuracy! Way better performance than the muzzle loading muskets of the time. Some of these air guns were used in European battles around 1790 to 1800. It is kind of amazing that there was not any investment in further development of air guns as a battlefield weapon. Anyway, after the Lewis and Clark Expedition air guns pretty much disappeared and we were left with the Red Rider BB gun.