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Paul Zbegner walked into the clubhouse at the Factoryville Sportsmen’s Club and was immediately at ease in his home away from home.
It’s a feeling shared by the club’s 700-plus members, and it’s been that way for a while.
Zbegner, who is on the club’s board of directors and is in charge of publicity, has been a member for 13 years. He joined not long after moving to the Factoryville area and seeing the club for the first time.
“It felt like heaven,” Zbegner said. “I got involved with the club right away.”
While the club places a heavy focus on shooting sports, firearm safety and hunting, it actually started out as a softball club. Shortly after World War II, Zbegner said, some of the softball club members started to use the grounds for target shooting and the club evolved from there. Today, the 130-acre facility is a shooter’s paradise, complete with three rifle ranges of 100, 200 and 400-plus yards, two trap ranges with voice-activated stations, skeet range, pistol range, two-hour sporting clays course and a 30-target archery course. There’s also an enormous barbecue pit, a clubhouse with lounge and kitchen, pavilions and plenty of space for members to hunt.
“We have over 700 members using this club but I’ve never had a problem finding space to shoot on any day,” Zbegner said. “It’s under-used with all this space.”
But the club certainly isn’t under-utilized.
More than 400 events are held on the club grounds every year, including shooting events, hunter education courses, concerts, horseshoe tournaments and fundraisers. Several law enforcement agencies use the club’s shooting facilities for training, and Zbegner said Kahr Arms – a firearms manufacturer based in Massachusetts, is considering using the club’s grounds as a testing range.
One of Zbegner’s favorite aspects of the club are its youth programs, such as its Scholastic Clay Target Program and the 22 youth members who participate in competitive trap shooting.
With its heavy involvement in shooting sports plus all the recreational trap and target shooting from its members, the club essentially survives on two things- clay birds and volunteers.
Zbegner said the club goes through 190,000 clay birds each year, and an army of volunteers and two sheds full of equipment are needed to maintain the grounds.
“We put in countless hours and couldn’t function without volunteer help from members,” Zbegner said.
But with an emphasis on shooting and firearms, the club is also big on safety and education. Safety courses are a routine at the club, including everything from advanced instruction to beginners who simply want to learn the basics of firearm safety.
“Safety and education serve as the backbone of our club,” Zbegner said. “There are so many misconceptions about firearms today and we’ve seen an increase in interest in our NRA safety courses both from members and the public. The demand is there.”
While the club is well-established in virtually every element of shooting sports, Zbegner said it is always open to expand into new areas. As technological improvements constantly change, so to does the club. They offer targets for crossbow users and, Zbegner said, Factoryville is the only club east of Williamsport to offer long-range rifle targets.
“If there’s a demand from our members for something, we’ll do it,” he said. “It’s not just shooting. It’s training, education and a myriad of things that make us function.”
Factoryville was recently named a “Four Star Range” by the National Shooting Sports Foundation – one of five clubs to earn the honor and the only facility within 60 miles to receive the recognition.
But Zbegner said there is one thing more meaningful than the prestigious honor from NSSF.
“Our biggest recognition is when someone writes a letter thanking us for a great time, or when a 13-year old shoots his first claybird,” Zbegner said. “Those things make al the hard work we put in worth it.”
