GRAND RIVERS, Ky. — Paul Pluff’s retirement lasted about 13 months.
The longtime firearm industry executive who stepped away from Sturm, Ruger & Co. in September 2025 has been named executive director of MMSSA Future Shooters Initiative Inc. (MFSI Inc.), the 501(c)(3) nonprofit launched last fall by the Metal Madness Shooting Sports Association. MFSI announced the appointment from its home base at Grand Rivers Shooting Range on Oct. 29.
Before spending a decade working for Ruger, Pluff put in nearly 30 years in management at Smith & Wesson. That’s a deep résumé for an organization barely a year old. MFSI plans to lean on it, along with the industry contacts Pluff built along the way, as he takes charge of growing its leagues and teams.
“It’s exciting to have Paul fill this leadership role, and we all look forward to the growth and opportunities his experience will bring to the organization,” Metal Madness founder Ed White said.
What Pluff inherits is a program built around one idea: shooting sports belong to everyone, and no one in the family should be stuck on the bench. MFSI’s league and team guidelines welcome participants of any age, and every team has to include a parent, guardian or approved family or community member who actually takes part. Grandparents qualify, along with adult siblings, other relatives and the neighbor down the road, as long as a parent or guardian approves. MFSI wants that person learning alongside the kids at practice, not just driving them there.
Getting started doesn’t take much. One team makes a league. Five members make a team, provided they hold an organized practice at least once every 30 days and have a coach who has finished the online Scholastic Action Shooting Program (SASP) coach training and cleared a background check. Sponsors are welcome, but not required. MFSI expects leagues to grow out of schools, homeschool groups, churches, businesses and community organizations, or out of a handful of families who decide to go in together.
New teams start with Metal Madness, the steel-shooting game White created at Grand Rivers Shooting Range. Shooters work through numbered lanes of plates with rimfire rifles and pistols, racing the clock, and age or experience doesn’t separate anyone on the line. During the launch, MFSI is scoring every firearm as Stock Rifle, whatever it happens to be. That’s a temporary call. Once results start piling up, the organization will decide whether it needs more classes or a dedicated team-scoring system. Anyone whose scores count needs a current MMSSA membership, and monthly events cost $5 per firearm.
Students get a break on that membership. MMSSA picks up the annual fee for any eligible student who stays active on a team and stays enrolled in school, and there’s no grade-point minimum attached, either for the benefit or for joining a team in the first place. Two school-aged members enrolled in an accredited school program are enough for MFSI to call a team a youth team. The MidwayUSA Foundation is a partner, though it runs its own programs under its own rules.
Metal Madness is meant as a starting point, and MFSI pitches itself as an introduction to the shooting sports, not a replacement for other disciplines. The organization encourages teams to try whatever else catches their interest. White has pushed in that direction before. In 2021, he moved the Metal Madness youth program to the SASP format so juniors would have more chances to branch out.
The next chance to see it all in person comes Saturday, Oct. 31, at MFSI’s annual fundraiser at Grand Rivers Shooting Range, starting at 10:00 a.m. Up for bid in the live auction are four Ruger rifles: a 10/22, an AR-556 chambered in 5.56 mm NATO and two Ruger American .22 LR bolt-actions. Firearm certificates and other items are on the block too. Plus, anyone who brings a new hoodie for schoolchildren shoots free.
Learn more at mmssa.net.
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