For Mexico resident Jim Badarraco, the most exciting trapshooting competitions are the biggest ones.
“It’s really something else,” he said in an interview Thursday. “The ranges are huge and all the big fish are there.”
Next month, Badarraco, who has been downing targets for more than 40 years, will get to fire in the biggest stage in the sport: The Grand American Trapshooting Championships. The yearly gathering in Sparta, Ill. brings together the best shooters from around the globe for a single competition.
As the 2009 singles champion for Missouri Senior Veterans, Badarraco will face off against winners from all 50 states and several different countries to try for the sport’s world senior veterans singles championship. The competition, which hosts several different events, is expected to draw about 3,000 contestants.
“It’s really something to see hundreds of people all on the same line ready to shoot,” Badarraco said. “At some ranges, like Sparta, you’ll need a car to get around because the last target could be three and a half miles from the first.”
Badarraco, now 74, began shooting with his father on the banks of the Salt River when he was 10 or 12 years old.
“We took my grandfather’s target rifle out and I really enjoyed it,” he said. “That’s probably one of the memories that got me hooked on this.”
Badarraco continued shooting and in 1955, he helped form the Mexico Gun Club. At the time he mostly shot pistols and rifles. When Stuart Miller became sheriff in 1985, Badarraco signed on as a reserve deputy and competed at several police shooting tournaments, once being crowned the Missouri State Reserve Officer Champion.
He calls himself a jack of all trades because in addition to pistol and rifle shooting, he also shot sporting clays and took up trapshooting, where targets are thrown in front of the shooter at varying speeds, angles and elevations for the shooter to break. Badarraco won the first Show-Me State Games trapshooting competition and several medals for sporting clays and even considered shooting with some All-American teams that attend shoots around the country. But Badarraco said that kind of schedule was too stressful.
“It’s like having a full-time job,” he said. “Some of the competitions you have to go to you’d have to drive all the way to Arizona.”
In the 1990s, Badarraco took a hiatus from the sport but then in 2006, Badarraco got a call from his fishing buddy, Bill King. King was headed to the Missouri State Shoot and asked if Badarraco wanted to shoot in the competition. Badarraco said he did and has been doing it ever since.
“He really got me hooked back on it,” Badarraco said. “I’ve probably shot more than 100,000 targets since then.”
He practices often in Jefferson City, because the city has a well-kept range and the location allows him to be close to his daughter who lives in that area.
Despite his many accolades throughout a long shooting career, Badarraco said the people of the trapshooting sport are what make it most enjoyable. Even though all have a competitive spirit, they all help each other learn the sport.
“You’re always happy when a buddy of yours wins,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate to win a lot of medals, but the best part of trapshooting is the good friends I’ve made.”
Mexico, Mo. —
