The local club had been granted $6000 to install a new trap, and sport and recreation minister Morris Iemma said the Government recognised the importance of having better shooting facilities to encourage the sport's growth and to foster safer environments for the participants.

Lightning Ridge Gun Club president Steve Dunn said while the committee still had to give the final vote on what the grant would be used for, the preliminary idea was to install one new trap, rebuild the existing trap house hosting it, and finish off the shooting laneways.

"The new trap will help us cope with a larger number of people at our shoots, because we are slowly expanding, and it would be good to have another one (trap), otherwise there is just too much waiting time for the shooters."

He said the at the moment the club had two trap houses but only one had a mechanical automated trap with the other needing to be released manually.

"We use the manual trap sometimes for our double-rise event, where someone has to stay in the trap house to release them, but we're hoping to get a continental trap, which will provide us with a wider range of angles to shoot the target at and also provide various height levels they're released at," he said.

Dunn said while the Lightning Ridge Gun Club had existed for more than 20 years, and the club had been applying for funding for a number of years, this was the first time money had been granted.

"We're hoping to expand our club to eventually include a clubhouse, so we can prepare food and meals, because at the moment it's a bit hard with just the sheltered area that we have," he said.

Dunn said they were hoping to have installed the new trap by the end of the year.

He said the club currently had about 35 members, but often got visitors who were on holidays in Lightning Ridge and at times from interstate, to take part in some of the shooting events.

The club's next shoot is scheduled to take place next month on Saturday, August 24 at 1pm with a cash divide event and coaching lessons available.