What a fantastic sport we enjoy and from the beginning the founding members shared the same joys as we do now, a family sport with friends, enjoying the simple things in life, being outdoors, great food. A challenging sport which requires split second timing, a sport that is physically and psychologically trying that gives you the opportunity to represent your country (if that’s your goal) or one that is joyous and relaxing just being there.

The start of the club was very humbling, the founders a group of Italian migrants that had a great passion for hunting in Italy and had recently migrated to South Australia. The founders would get together regularly with their families and enjoy good food and often game dinners together with a few glasses of homemade vino. This group of friends often discussed how great it would be to shoot clay targets when the hunting seasons were closed. It was hard times; money was a major issue as all arrived in Australia with very little and all were working very hard to look after their families.

In 1964 the group was able to acquire a Plus trap by all contributing towards the purchase in pounds (the photo below shows our first trap with Artie Dalle-Molle one of our Foundation members).

But where could they shoot –no problem, what better place than a winery/vineyard one of the founders owned Patritti Wines and they had a property at Mclaren Vale. Now a trap house was needed, again one of the founders was a metal fabricator so he built it but it looked more like a shield than a trap house. So up to the property they all went, had a few working bees, dug a hole for the Trapper to sit in, built a stand inside the hole for the plus trap to be bolted on, erected the trap house shield and marked out some lanes. Now for those that haven’t experienced using or shooting over the Plus trap I’ll explain how it works, first there is no such thing as a slow pull, they were all slow. A trapper would sit inside the trap house (they would all take turns doing this, I was 9 years old and would follow my dad Serafino Olivero into the trap house handing him the clays), the trapper would manually bring the arm of the trap back to spring load it and place a clay on the arm (all shooters had to allow enough time for this to happen, the springs were not a soft load).

The shooter would call loudly for the target and the trapper on hearing the call would release the target. The trapper would periodically change the angle of the target by lifting the trap into various slots for the different angles. Now it was really a picnic type shoot that occurred with not too much shooting as physically they could not throw a lot of targets but economically, they could not afford many cartridges or the clays (a lot of clays were missed and they were all picked up and recycled). Most of the cartridges back then were paper (32gm loads the norm) and many used side by sides and automatic shotguns it was great. In fact the Eikins paper cartridges were loaded in South Australia and this small business provided gunsmithing, firearms and reloaded cartridges. Dario Panazzolo used to buy these for the shooters and some were stored in cartons of 50 and displayed on picnic tables, so you could buy 10 cartridges if that’s all you could afford.

These were special days, it was a family affair with children and good food everywhere, it was the once a month shoot that everyone looked forward to so much.

Between 1964 and 1967 some of the founders started shooting a little at other clay target clubs with modern facilities i.e. traps that were power operated they oscillated and you didn’t have to manually set the throwing arm after each shot. The founders lead by Enio Boldrin our first president started the formal process of establishing an ACTA registered gun club with all the modern facilities, a DTL trap that ran by electricity and a proper trap house, lanes etc to ACTA regulations.

So, the founders had weekly meetings at each other’s homes and these were always great social events with lots of laughter and of course good food, wine, coffee and homemade treats. Discussions that followed included what name shall we give to the Club, there were various names discussed but Enio and Dario suggested a name that all supported – International Gun Club, the reason behind this name was it reflected a welcome for all to this club and to hopefully one day hold a major International event.

The club name was established, now to obtain a club ground that could meet the needs of the future at no or little leasing costs as there was no money. The word was spread and Dario and Artie met with a market gardener from Virginia, Peter Marcoionni who had a few acres of land and enjoyed shooting.

Peter was happy to provide the grounds at no cost and he had an ideal place with shady trees and the river running nearby, now the club had the grounds.

Enio and Dario worked with Bob Mules in liaison with the ACTA to register the International Gun Club and work through all the required official paperwork to formally register the club in 1967.

The club build then happened, with all voluntary work, within the founders there were concreters, electricians, earthmovers etc and the one DTL trap layout was built very quickly. The first trap was a DAMO and this was expensive, donations were sought and social events were organised to raise the funds, these included dinner dances with several hundred people attending, raffles,

What a fantastic time we had at te club, a true family outing with many young families enjoying the outdoors with just the best BBQ’s and social gatherings after the shoot that went on for quite a while, different to today when everyone is so busy.

The success of the club was outstanding, from one DTL layout there were 2 built very quickly as we couldn’t cater for the number of shooters with one and soon quite a large club house was built.