Nova News

As NOVA Parks (formerly the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority) celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, looking to the early days can reveal some very interesting things. Today, we do just that, throwing it all the way back to that time and discovering how the first regional park, Bull Run, incorporated an already existing business into its grounds. And the amazing part is, the asset has been in continuous use since then and is just as popular as it ever was.

Years and years ago, many considered sport shooting to be a pastime enjoyed only by the wealthy Country Club set. Some even thought of it by picturing men in nicely tailored jackets, pleated pants and dress shoes, holding engraved shotguns as they called out: “Pull.” Yet, here in the Northern Virginia region, all kinds of people have been enjoying the skill and thrill of it for decades. 

As NOVA Parks was acquiring more and more land to complete Bull Run Regional Park all those years ago, an already existing shooting club became part of the park. 

In the early 1960’s, Bull Run Regional Park rebranded its newly acquired resource as the Bull Run Shooting Center, offering differing styles of firing areas where visitors could aim to take down skeet and trap. The area quickly became a big hit for the Park Authority, and the center began to offer everything from rental guns to safety and shooting lessons, as well as the purchase of everything else needed for the associated activities. 

Shooters who have visited the center since the 1960’s, have enjoyed testing their skills at trap targets rising and heading away from them, high and low skeet crossing in front of them and, thanks to the newest area built in the 2000’s, clay pigeons popping up from concealed brush piles and unknown tree hideouts, known as sporting clays.

Shooters who have visited the center since the 1960’s, have enjoyed testing their skills at trap targets rising and heading away from them, high and low skeet crossing in front of them and, thanks to the newest area built in the 2000’s, clay pigeons popping up from concealed brush piles and unknown tree hideouts, known as sporting clays.