"THREE masked men escaped with gun parts and cash after ambushing a member of a Westhoughton gun club.
They used a silver Mitsubishi to ram head-on the car of 62-year-old Steve Telford.
Then they used what Mr Telford believes was an axe to smash the driver's window.
He was hit on the head and bundled out of the car by the masked men who opened the car boot and took around £450 in cash and the gun parts.
Mr Telford was ambushed as he drove from the A6 Clay Target Centre at Reeve's House Farm along a dirt track off Chorley Road.
After the ambush, which happened at around 9.15pm on Thursday, the attackers drove off in the Mitsubishi Police believe it was then driven along Church Street, Westhoughton, before it was abandoned and set on fire in Peel Street at around 9.40pm.
Co-director of the clay pigeon shooting club, John Blackburn, rushed to the scene after being called by police at 9.25pm.
By the time he arrived, Mr Telford, a member and maintenance technician at the club, had been taken to the Royal Bolton Hospital with head injuries.
He was discharged at 11am yesterday.
Mr Blackburn, aged 42, had not been at the club that evening but said Mr Telford had been the last person to leave.
"We're very shocked" Mr Blackburn said. "Nothing like this has happended (sic) before.
"Mr Telford does our maintenance and does not shoot very often, so he did not have a gun.
"But criminals might want to get hold of any sort of gun."
Mr Blackburn said Mr Telford, who lives in Blackpool, had told him it all happened so quickly..
"They rammed into him, smashed his window, then started beating him up. They had an axe and anyone threatened with an axe would have given them what they wanted..."
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