In 1971 MSRC was founded by Grant Briggs, Tony McLarin and Maureen McLarin. It was named Manukau by the fact that it was based at Tony’s residence at Everitt Rd in Otara.
We first shot on a small farm in East Tamaki Rd for about 6 months Sunday mornings until we were able to construct a 50m outdoor open range behind Southward Engineering on Harris Rd, East Tamaki.
Due to the shoots being weather dependant, in 1973, Grant leased Mt Richmond Rifle Range for weekly Wednesday night shoots.
In February 1989 Grant designed our Mobile Rifle Range for the Game Fair in Clevedon.
This continued through to 1990 when it was decided to have our own range facility.
The long and laborious search for land began and MSRC continued to shoot at Mt Richmond in the interim.
The Mt Richmond Range was razed by arsonists in January 1997.
Everything was destroyed, including 6 brand new German Rifles that the club had saved for 6 years to buy. Only a handful of singed targets remained.
This was devastating to the club and especially Grant who had nurtured the club for over 25 years.
Come March, Grant had battled to get the club running again, first using the Youthtown Range and then Mercury Energy’s private range.
As MSRC was starting again from scratch, membership had fallen sharply.
Still looking for a permanent home range MSRC moved to the Howick Range in 1999.
In 2002 the phone call that changed everything, Ian Doust of Counties Manukau Sports Foundation called Grant asking if he had heard about the rebuilding of the Howick Range – where we were still shooting. He hadn’t till then and found Council funding was available.
With the help of the Council, ASB Trust, the 2 other clubs using the range and some other backing, funds for the $1.37 million project was secured by November 2003
In June 2005, the 18 month long project was complete and Auckland now has a state of the art 25m indoor rifle range in Howick.
And Manukau Sporting Rifle Club has a new home.
Grant was awarded the Service to Sport Award by Sir Barry Curtis, Mayor of Manukau City at the Sporting Excellence Awards in 2005.
