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The Mesquite Senior Games Pistol Shooting competition was held at the Hidden Valley shooting range on Saturday, April 12, and had about 60 seniors competing in both centerfire and rimfire shooting.  The Mesquite Games this year have been dedicated to the memory of Betty Ann Pati.  Mesquite Senior Games Chairman, Frank Pati, lost his wife and valued assistant in November and members say she will be forever missed by all.

The results were not ready by the newspaper deadline, but will be posted on the website,www.mesquitelocalnews.com.

The oldest member of the 2014 Mesquite Senior Games Pistol Shoot, 89 year old Richard Bowers, is a gold medal winner in his age bracket and has been shooting with the Mesquite Shooters Pistol Club for a year and a half; this is his second year with the senior games.

Bowers told the MLN, “I didn’t know much about the senior games last year. I didn’t know there were age brackets or medals.  I shot kind of bad last year and didn’t expect anything so after I shot, I just went home.  Next week when I came back for shooting they asked me if I wanted to come and get my gold medal, I thought, ‘What?’  It wasn’t until then that I realized there were age brackets.”  Bowers said the gun club has about the nicest and most helpful bunch of people around.  They are always willing to help another member solve a problem.

Many familiar faces were present from years gone by and some new faces joined the crowd this year, not all were competing such as Bruce Landvik, the Director of Food Operations with Mesquite Gaming. He has been coming to the range for just a year.  He became a Range Safety Officer six months ago.  Landvik agrees with Bowers about the knowledge the other members share with each other.  He said they helped him quite a bit this past year.

“I picked up my first gun just over a year ago,” he said. “I never shot a gun before that and they helped me a lot.  I had a friend who is a federal officer and he took me out shooting one day and I had a ball! Now I have a collection of about 12 or 14 guns and I shoot every week.”  He was interested enough in the sport to become a Range Safety Officer in only six short months and holds a CCW (concealed weapon) permit in two states.  Landvik says he doesn’t go halfway in his interest with the guns or Harley Davidson motocycles.

The Mesquite Shooters Pistol Club shoots at the Hidden Valley range every Wednesday and Saturday, 9-11 a.m. The range accepts handguns only but is one of the few ranges that accept rimfire ammunition.

There have been many types of cartridge casings used since their first development but only centerfire and rimfire remain today.

Centerfire cartridges have a primer in the center of their brass base. When the firing pin strikes the primer, the brass casing is not damaged and can be reloaded. Rimfire cartridges have the primer built into the rim of the brass case. They are damaged when fired and cannot be reloaded.

Centerfire is more reliable and more accurate but the ammunition costs many times the amount of rimfire shells.

The Women’s Defensive Weaponry Club meets at the Hidden Valley Ranch on the first and third Saturday of the month at 1 p.m.

There are fully trained NRA certified Range Safety Instructors to assist you in firearms safety and handling.

Contact Ovid Pinckert 702-346-6314 or Ken Ness 702-613-4170 for more information on the Mesquite Shooters Pistol Club. Full results for the Mesquite Senior Games Target Pistol event can be viewed by clicking HERE.