GINA B. GOOD / PVT A lengthy line of shooting ranges is featured at the Front Sight site off the Tecopa road. Advertisement

On Monday, Front Sight's assets were returned to Ignatius Piazza.

After being in receivership for seven days, Front Sight Firearms Training Institute dodged a bullet but got hit in the wallet.

Piazza is back in control of the organization he founded 12 years ago, pending his making a payment today of more than $600,000 into the already established fund for the members of a class action suit filed against him and Front Sight in November 2005.

In a short hearing two days ago, U.S. District Court Judge James Ware, in San Jose, Calif., discharged George C. Fisher as Front Sight's receiver, relieving him of all his duties and responsibilities.

When Ware appointed Fisher May 11, he stated Piazza was failing to comply with the negotiated settlement handed down in 2007 that listed specific payments and other terms by which Piazza was to abide.

"Good cause exists that Front Sight is deliberately failing to comply with the judgment and will continue to do so," Ware's order stated last week.

However, on Monday Piazza promised the court to make two balloon payments as well as making regular monthly payments over a three-year period to honor the 2007 negotiated settlement.

In October 2008, a court accounting showed Piazza $5.4 million short of the $8 million he agreed to pay to settle the class action filed in 2005 by members of Front Sight's First Family membership program.