Rugeley Rifle Club traces its origins to 1879 and the “Rugeley Rangers” (21st Staffordshire Rifle Volunteer Corps), part of the Victorian Volunteer Movement. The Corp shot around the Cannock Chase and Etchinghill area where the earthworks and back stops associated with many of those ranges can still be seen. The heritage lives on in names like “Shooting Butts Road” and “Rifle Range Corner”. Although we are rightly proud of our heritage, the club is now an entirely civilian group practicing Olympic (ISSF) and NSRA disciplines. We of course welcome members of both the Police and Armed Forces, but do not participate in any military style shooting.
The club was formally constituted on June 1900, affiliating to the National Rifle Association. Our oldest trophy is dated 1901 and was presented by the Earl of Lichfield. 1901 also saw the formation of the Society of Working Men’s Rifle Clubs, which spurred both civilians and Rifle Volunteers to form “miniature rifle” clubs where marksmanship could be practised affordably at short ranges and even indoors using smallbore rifles or fullbore rifles fitted with Morris Tubes. Training with fullbore calibre rifles was not only more expensive in ammunition, but also entailed travel to larger ranges in the countryside, to the exclusion of those on lower-incomes.
The club gained some fame when a Mr A. Playfair won the prestigious Conan Doyle match at the Imperial Meeting.
After ceasing operations around 1935, the club was reformed in the 1950s, primarily as a smallbore club. Originally in the old Drill Hall on Brewery Street, premises were secured on Mill Lane in a former Gas Board building. This provided for an indoor range, but members had to travel to the County Range at Baldwin’s Gate to shoot outdoors. By the 1960s, land had been found near the Town Railway Station on Wharf Road, with an outdoor range being constructed there.
The clubhouse and indoor range complex on Wharf Road was purpose-built and opened in 1971, undergoing continuous improvement since. The most recent developments include the installation in 2019 of a Public Access Defibrillator which was funded by club members in partnership with Rugeley and District Community First Responders, and the completion of the new Training Room in 2020, which provides a multi-purpose space for instruction, 10 metre airgun shooting as well as providing a covered firing point for the 50metre outdoor range, and housing the monitors for the Meyton electronic targets.
The club is open to all comers including disabled participants, and we have a strong training programme that encourages and welcomes novices into the sport. Please see Membership for information on becoming a member.