The Bend Trap Club finally has a new home.

After two years of shooting at the Redmond Rod and Gun Club, members of the Bend Trap Club have a new building and grounds to call their own.

Located about 25 miles southeast of Bend off U.S. Highway 20, the new Bend Trap Club is now open every Thursday and Sunday starting at 9 a.m. for anyone interested in trap shooting.

Membership in the Bend club is currently about 100, and the nonprofit is hoping to increase in size.

“I’m sure it’ll take some work,” says Bill Grafton, president of the Bend Trap Club. “But it’s really a nice facility. Once they’re out there, people will want to come back.”

In trap shooting, participants fire a shotgun at clay targets, 4 inches in diameter, that are flung from a trap house. Shooters, standing 16 to 27 yards behind the trap house, take five shots from each of five different positions. The targets are launched away from the shooter at random directions, but their elevation and speed stay constant.

The Bend Trap Club was previously located in southeast Bend off Brosterhous Road since the early 1930s. That property was sold in 2005. The trap club’s board of directors then bought property in Crook County on which to build the new club. That plan fell through, according to Grafton, and the Bend club made arrangements to shoot at the Redmond Rod and Gun Club.

The Bend Trap Club’s board of directors eventually sold the property in Crook County and bought land on the new site, four miles east of Millican and south of Highway 20.

The new club is now getting its finishing touches. The facility includes a clubhouse, nine trap fields, walk-in trap houses, on-deck shelters for trap shoots, a large storage facility, a caretaker and RV parking.

“We started off reconstructing what we had at Brosterhous — that was our goal,” Grafton says. “We tried to keep it low maintenance, low cost.”

Grafton says that more than $2 million went into the new facility, adding that funds from the sale of the Brosterhous Road and Crook County properties were used in the purchase of the new 280-acre site.

While the previous site of the trap club was conveniently located in Bend, the new club is a bit of a drive from town. Because of that, Grafton plans to eventually include additional attractions such as sporting clays and skeet shooting — other forms of competitive clay target shooting — on the grounds.

“We’re trying to provide a forum for shotgun sports,” Grafton says. “Trap is our center focus. We’d like to allow expansion into related (shooting sports) as the funds grow. Just as a trap facility, it’ll be difficult to survive out there. When you’re 25 miles away from town, it’s tough. We’d like to see a skeet presence, and five-stand sporting clays in the future.”

Unlike trap- and skeet-shooting targets, sporting-clays targets are flung in a variety of trajectories, speeds, elevations and distances.

The Redmond Rod and Gun Club offers skeet shooting and sporting clays.

“We’re trying to broaden the horizons, with skeet and sporting clays,” Grafton says. “That’s the idea behind the growth and the facility.”

Bill Ferrin, who also sits on the board of directors for the Bend Trap Club, is impressed with the new facility.

“It’s a first-class job out there,” he says. “Now we can have our own shoots and do our own thing.”

Ferrin says that in two years without a facility, the Bend Trap Club saw its membership dwindle to about 70 shooters. With the new clubhouse, membership is back to about 100.

“It’s on its way back up,” Ferrin says.

But shooters do not have to be members at the Bend Trap Club. Cost to shoot is $3 for members, $2 for junior members, and $5 for nonmember guests.

“Everybody’s welcome,” Ferrin says.

But visitors to the club should not expect to be proficient right away.

“It’s hard to get really, really good at (trap shooting),” Grafton says. “Once you start on it, you get the feeling that this could be a lot of fun.”