About

The Club owns 165 acres and offers trap, skeet, sporting clays and 5-Stand shooting. The Clubhouse is over 3,000 square feet and has a commercial grade kitchen that is open during normal operating hours. In addition, there is a campground with 26 camp sites that have electric and water hook-ups. The Club is open year round on Wednesdays from 4 to 8 PM and Sundays from 10 AM to 4 PM. The public is always welcome. The Club holds numerous trap shoots that are registered with the Amateur Trapshooting Association (ATA). Additionally, the Club has summer skeet and 5-Stand leagues and participates in a multi-club sporting clays league in the winter months. Please refer to the complete schedule of events for details of activities at the Club. For more information you can contact the Clubhouse at 814-368-6245 or Mike Schuler, President at 814-598-2186.

Trap Shooting

The Bradford Gun Club has nine regulation trap fields. These fields face to the northwest and have a tree background. Four of the fields are lighted. The traps used are PAT traps with Canterbury voice release systems and all orange White Flyer targets are thrown. A radar gun is used to accurately set target speed. At registered shoots the R. J. Stuart software system is used to prepare bulletin sheets, calculate payouts, prepare payout checks and report results to the ATA.

Skeet Shooting

The Club has three skeet fields with one of the fields being lighted.

5-STAND

The 5 stand course has 7 traps used to present a variety of interesting and challenging targets. The target presentations and menus are changed regularly to keep the course “fresh”.

Sporting Clays Course

The 18 station sporting clays course is laid out on a mostly flat ½ mile circuit. A combination of Lincoln hand set and automatic traps are used to present some exciting stations. The course is primarily a woodland course, but long and close presentations are always on the menus. The club does not have rental golf carts, but shooters are welcome to bring their own carts.

History

Nestled in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, 90 miles south of Buffalo, New York, Bradford is located in the heart of the Pennsylvania oil regions. In 1878, the town was the very center of a flourishing oil industry. In 1878, the oil fields produced nearly half of the entire nation’s oil production.

This same group of pioneers in the “oil game” played the leading role in the area’s clay pigeon shooting game. The Bradford Shooting Club was established in 1880 and the sport continued to grow as the club’s successor, the Bradford Gun club, was formed in 1930. The hub of the shooting game in those days was the Gun Club’s elegant stone clubhouse. Pennsylvania state shoots were held at Bradford in 1908, 1917, 1931, 1936, 1941, and 1948.

Shooters from as far as Texas and Oklahoma were regulars for the Gun Club’s famous Green Corn events. Among the early highlights at the club was the annual match featuring Bradford’s Mallory family vs. the famed DuPont family of Wilmington, Delaware. Early prominent club members included L.G. Dana, winner of the 1934 GAH. James Lewis, a “pro” settled in the area for a time and introduced the “Lewis” class system, now used the world over. In 1989, Jack Titus, another club member, won the GAH.

The Club’s directors, faced with an offer that they could not resist, sold the stone clubhouse and shooting grounds in 1968, helping to make way for a new shopping mall. The equipment was packed and put in storage in a local barn and receipts from the sale were held in trust with the interest from the trust given to local charity each year. So it remained until 1977, when the only two remaining club trustees, Robert Habgood and Arthur Simmons, encouraged a group of local shooters to build a new shooting facility.

After a new site was selected, the Bradford Gun Club was reorganized and a Board of Directors formed. In 1980, actual construction began, and in August of 1981, registered shooting returned to the Bradford area.

The great shooters of the state’s history have shot and won state championships at Bradford between 1908 and 1948. Steve Crothers captured his 7th state singles title there with a 200 straight in 1931. His daughter Alice, also captured the ladies title. Crothers also captured the doubles title along with the HAA and the HOA titles.

In 1936, Crothers again won the singles title (his 11th), the handicap championship, the HAA and the HOA. Andy Long prevented him from winning all the titles by winning the doubles. In 1941, perhaps the greatest shoot off in state history took place between Steve Crothers and Walter Beaver, with Crothers winning his 14th and last singles title. The shoot off between these hall of famers went 175 targets with Crothers breaking them all. The last shoot was held in 1948 with hometown shooter Al Maulhaupt winning the doubles title.

Since the original construction in 1980 the Clubhouse has been doubled in size allowing more dining area as well as an office used for the cashier and computer operations. The trap fields were expanded to allow for 8 event traps and a practice trap. Three of the fields are “combination fields” allowing both trap and skeet shooting. In the late 1990’s a sporting clays course with 9 stations was built. This course was later expanded to 18 stations spread across a ½ mile course. In 2008, a Five Stand course was added by using one of the combo trap/skeet fields and adding an additional 4 traps to create 7 target launching locations.

Miscellaneous

The Club does not have a pro shop, but does maintain an inventory of shells available for purchase at market prices. In addition to registered shoots and club sponsored events, the Club holds a number of fund raising shoots. Currently the Club hosts a shoot for the Univ. of Pittsburgh at Bradford baseball program, the Allegheny Highlands Chapter of the Boy Scouts and the Bradford Hospital Foundation. The Club can also be reserved for exclusive corporate events.

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