Shawn Osburn has essentially been around guns his entire adult life. Starting with his work first as a Niles Township Reserve Police Officer, and later with both Coloma and Coloma Township Police forces as a Reserve Officer, Shawn gained early respect for the proper care and handling of firearms and has long been inspired to be the best marksman he can be. Now, he’s bringing his knowledge and skillbase to his new role as the new owner and operator of Point Blank Shooting Range which he is formally changing the new to Point Blank Sports Club.
Last Friday, Osburn wrapped up a 20-year stint with Verizon Wireless and tomorrow, Monday, June 4th he takes over the reins from Roy Daugherty as the new owner at Point Blank at 1340 Territorial Road in Benton Harbor.
He’s certainly no stranger to the regular clientele at Point Blank having helped Roy out with IT services, private parties and many other aspects of the multi-faceted business for the past 5 or 6 years or better.
Osburn recently cashed out his entire 401k, “took a bunch of money from the bank, and said ‘let’s jump in with both feet!'” He’s doing that and more as he tells of ambitious plans down the line for the more than 28,000 square foot facility which was saved from a dangerous and smoky fire late last summer.
The full-service sports center sits on a five acre parcel across Territorial from the entrance to Southwest Michigan Regional Airport. It has been a staple in the shooting community for more than eleven years under Daugherty’s watchful eye, but Daugherty says he’s ready to step away and is looking at a new venture or two, so he’s not going away anytime soon. In fact, he will continue to maintain an office on the Point Blank property for the foreseeable future according to Osburn.
Point Blank features a full service gun store offering new, used and consignment weapons sales, ammunition and target sales and accessories for gun owners across the region. The club offers a 12-lane, 25-yard long target range capable of handling firearms from a .22-caliber to a 30-ought-6 rifle.
Osburn says his consignment service means, “If you have a firearm that you want to legally get rid of, and you don’t want to have to worry about background checking whoever you are selling it to, bring it to us and we’d be more than happy to sell it for you. That way all the background checks are done and it’s completely and 100-percent legal, we are fully licensed with the ATF.”
Point Blank also sells ammunition, and Osburn adds, “We’re getting into selling bulk ammo, so people who, like the sportsmen who like to shoot a lot, you don’t have to worry about ordering online, you can actually come in and buy it directly from me, we’re buying at wholesale, bulk prices, so we can keep the prices down and compete with the Internet. I might not be able to always beat ‘em, but I’m gonna compete the best I can and keep it local.”
A new snack bar has been added just inside the front entrance, followed closely by the gun shop and a separate space that can be rented to host parties and other events. Osburn says, “Once you leave that area, you walk back into the sports center, where we feature full workout gear including full free weights — a lot of the old-school free weight equipment — and a regulation boxing ring with a licensed instructor and boxing coach that you can take lessons from by the hour.” He plans to put a lot of emphasis on the boxing arena in the near future.
Osburn says “From what I’ve been told, it has been like 1958 since the last professional fight was held in Benton Harbor, and my dad used to take me to boxing and wrestling and I always liked that as a kid, and now I have the opportunity to kind of grow that for the community, and I want to bring that back to Benton Harbor. Give people something to do on a Saturday night besides hanging out at the beach.”
Point Blank’s drive to always perform at the highest level of safety and within the law also results in a classroom where they host CPL (Concealed Pistol License) classes for the state of Michigan. Shawn says, “It’s all NRA-approved, and features NRA Instructors, and we host those at least once a month.” He adds, “We’re going to try to up that and do it 2 or 3 times a month. In the near future, will start opening on Sundays, to help the customers, and will feature limited hours on Sundays probably starting in July.”
Currently the hours are from 7am until 8pm Monday through Thursday, 7am to 7pm on Friday, and 8am until 6pm on Saturday, however Shawn urges you to stay tuned, inasmuch as, “We probably will actually be changing those hours soon from 7 til 7 Monday through Friday and 8 to 6 on Saturday, and then noon until 6 on Sunday.”
Point Blank’s banquet area can host 50 to 60 people at a time, if not more, and features a full kitchen for warming the food, but Osburn says, “I have access to three restaurants in the area, very good restaurants, so I have a wide variety of different foods that I can have brought in to host anything from a birthday party to a corporate event.” He notes, “We get a lot of people from out of town that bring large groups over from Chicago coming here and then we bring in food and they eat, they do some target practicing, do a little wine-tasting on their way back, and make a day of it.”
Point Blank currently has 8 employees on staff, but Shawn plans on bumping that up to at least 12, and adds, “The busier I get, the more I’ll need. There’s a lot of gaps here and there that I want to be able to eliminate, but the busier I get, hopefully I can have another 5 or 6 employees.”
When Roy Daugherty opened Point Blank more than 11 years ago, Shawn Osburn was one of the first members because he always wanted to be a “real good marksman, and I would come in and shoot every couple of weeks, and after target practice I started buying a few firearms.” He says he’s always been into guns and self-defense, “the tactical side” of law enforcement.”
The more he started to hang around the range, Roy pressed him into action as the place got busier and asked if he could help out. He started by doing IT work, online sales, and helping with parties and such. He says, “Then Roy and I were talking one day, and he just said, ‘You know, I think I’d like to retire from this business.’ He’s not retiring fully. He has other ventures he’s looking at doing in the near future, but he’s kind of decided he wanted to retire from this, and we talked about it for a little bit, and I said, you know what, I’ve been with Verizon Wireless for 20 years, I was working midnights for the last 9 years, I was getting tired of that whole thing, and this is right up my alley, this is my passion, and I miss working with people, I love talking to people, and interacting with customers and local people. I could tell he was just getting a little tired himself, so I jumped in with both feet.”
Osburn says he won’t miss working midnights to resolve wireless cell tower issues all across the region. He says, “I was a cell site tech engineer, held a few different positions over the last 20 years. I’m one of the guys that drove around to all of the towers and did all of the electronics that made ‘all the magic happen.’ I would need charts, an easel and a drawing board to try to explain what we do, unless you’re one of these technicians, we build all of the electronics, maintain it, we’re the guys up at 3 o’clock in the morning during storms, making sure the everything’s running.”
Driving at 3am from here St. Joe to Grand Rapids to Muskegon to Battle Creek, “Making sure everyone’s phone would work the best that it could was hectic.” He then became a switch engineer, and worked out of Kalamazoo for a bunch of years, driving back and forth every day, but really missed the big lake and St. Joe, having been born and raised in St. Joe. He calls the chance to buy Daugherty’s business, “The perfect opportunity and I had to jump on it before somebody else came along and did it.”
Most everything you see at Point Blank goes to Shawn, but not the Batmobile. That classic car remains Daugherty’s pride and joy. It will remain on site for another year or so until Roy finds a facility he wants to move it to, but Shawn definitely doesn’t get to keep it.
He does, however, want to bring the club “into the 21st century. I’m updating a lot of the electronics, the Internet, making it better, buying in bulk, bringing the guns in cheaper, bringing ammo in cheaper, bringing targets in cheaper.”
He’s also hopeful, talking with the NRA and the United States Concealed Carry Association, of starting both youth and adult leagues. He says, “I want to get the younger generation, those that might not necessarily understand firearms — or they haven’t been around them that much — bring them in and work with them and have NRA instructors here to teach them, keep them safe.”
Reality is that safety is number one at Point Blank. Osburn promises, “You will never be in that range without a safety officer. There will always be somebody out their with you to help you and to keep you safe. We’ve never had any incidents. We pride ourselves on keeping everybody safe, and I want everybody to have a good time. If you’re having a stressful day, come down and take it out on the targets. Mondays are still Ladies Day, where ladies get in free. We are also offering discounts for all military, law enforcement, firefighters, EMS. If you are a public servant past or present just let us know when you come in we’ll take good care of you.”
Tomorrow is a new day for both Shawn Osburn and Roy Daugherty and both are delighted with the transition.
