Shooting sports and this weekend's festivities

For anyone that has spent a few minutes scrolling through my blog it'll be pretty clear I own and shoot guns. It's something I take seriously, guns should always be taken seriously, and I engage in my shooting sports weekly.

I shoot rifles, handguns and shotguns in various disciplines however all of them are practical in nature meaning simulated real-world scenarios - A lot of movement, shooting from barricades and props, inside buildings and urban settings whilst applying tactics and strategy to determine the most efficient method of completing each competition stage. I compete all over the country and whilst I'm certainly not the best, I do ok, achieve reasonable results and definitely have a lot of fun. Image shows me shooting from a barricade at an event, out to about 500m on hand sized targets on this occasion.

In addition to my own shooting I volunteer my time, effort and expertise to a rifle shooting event, arranged and run by some friends and I, aimed at introducing shooters to practical rifle shooting and this weekend is event three of the four we are holding this year. The event is to be held a couple hours from home so I'll be heading away for the weekend, leaving Faith behind, to set up and test the event stages on Saturday and deploy the actual event on Sunday before pack-down and heading home.

Our event presents several stages over the day offering various challenges to the shooters, each one supervised by a Range Officer (RO) and spotter for scoring purposes. Points are gained over the course of the event and place-getters are awarded at the end. Simple really. well, in theory it is, but in reality it's a complex event and one that takes huge amounts of effort and man/woman-power to stage.

Each shooting stage is unknown to the shooter until the brief is read atfer which the competitors, who are sectioned into squads of around 10 people each, then have a short time, (2-3 minutes), to determine their strategy before the first shooter is called to the line and that stage begins under command of the RO. Shooters shoot individually not as a group as ofter they move down range - The RO follows along behind ensuring compliance to the rules and safety. These events are not always held at gun ranges so the line simply refers to the start-point, not a shooting line that one would find in a gun range.

Stages range from prone shooting at longer ranges, shooting from barricades and props that are designed to be awkward and difficult to shoot from, whilst moving (running), or at moving (dynamic) targets that may run on rails, cables or pop up and down from behind cover or concealment. The stages are designed to simulate real-world situations, to present problems to solve and to reward speed, accuracy, good tactics and strategy.

The rifle events I personally compete in are similar but competed over very long ranges, sometimes over 1200m (1312 yards) and the guns, equipment and ammunition used is very costly. One of my competition rifle systems costs $12,000 just for the rifle and scope which is not achievable for everyone. Anything up to and including 30-cal guns are permitted. We wanted to make this event accessible to everyone so chose the rimfire .22LR calibre for the rifle to keep costs down and fun up; It's about introducing the sport after all.

We have two divisions:

Open - Straight-pull, bolt, pump or lever-action rifle with any modifications at all. Production - Basic bolt action rifle with scope and bipod permitted.

Using the .22LR calibre means the ammunition is cheap, around $6-$22 per 50 rounds, and anyone with a bolt action scoped rifle can compete. We have rifle systems in the production division worth from $600 to $1,500 and in the open division from around $1,000-$7,500. We award trophies for 1st, 2nd and third in production with 1st only for open, top female and top junior.

These events take a lot of time and effort to put together and the organising group (me and a few others) work for months to get each event together. The last one we did was a night shoot which took even longer as we had additional safety scenarios to work around. Events are catered for with breakfast and lunch available on the event-day plus drinks and a BBQ after the event usually. We cater for around a hundred people or so typically with some 80 percent of those being the shooters themselves and the rest being organisers and helpers.

This weekend is a scrubland shoot, (the Aussie bush) so the set-up takes a lot of work which we will be doing Saturday. We will also shoot the stages ourselves on that day to ensure they work and the times we set for each stage are suitable; We don't set out to demoralise shooters but have to have a balance of challenge to push the more experienced shooters and cater for the newer ones as well.

There will be a pretty cool run and gun stage on the weekend where the shooter works his/her way along a scrubland-course with the steel targets presenting themselves right left and in front as they proceed. They will need to apply a strategy and some degree of speed as the score is determined by dividing total hits by elapsed time to determine a hit factor which is the score. It's called comstock scoring. There will be some other cool stages also of course and we're always complimented on our stage design and fun-factor by the competitors.

Above images show a novelty house-target (the round things in the windows are the targets - About 3 centimetres in diameter), one of the shooters on the western town stage. All targets are custom made by us from Bisalloy steel and incorporate hit-indicator (lights that light up when each is hit.)

A wide shot of the western town with the saloon in the back ground and a shot of the flintstones car and rail system to the right. The falling steel targets were concealed behind drums and other things and only became visible as the car was pushed backwards. Sometimes multiple targets appeared at once so roll too quickly and the shooter would miss seeing them - And gain penalty "fail-to-engage" points for not engaging them.

We have used props like cars, jeeps, quad bikes, a barrel on springs with a saddle to simulate a horse, a plane and even used a western town as a run and gun stage! One of the more interesting ones was a flintstones car which the shooters had to shoot within whilst rolling it backwards with their feet. It ran on rails and as targets presented themselves from behind cover and concealment the shooter had to engage. Obviously it was a stage scored by time and accuracy, comstock as above. We also use suspended platforms to simulate the deck of a ship and all manner of evil barricades to take the shooter out of their comfort zone.

The organising group don't get much out of it other than the satisfaction of giving a little something back to the sport and helping to promote practical shooting as a sport to those who may not normally have the chance. Static shooting and shooting at paper targets is boring. This event is not for brand new shooters though, they must be fully licensed and have a degree of competency before we permit entry. Having said that though we are always happy to provide a mentor for a new shooter to help guide them through a few stages to break them in a little.

We get a lot of practical competition shooters - ones I compete against, military and law enforcements types as well as farmers and straight-up sporting shooters who all compete for fun and practice depending on their needs. Our emphasis is on fun of course and everyone has a lot of that! It is really interesting to see how shooters improve, change their style, equipment and strategy as they get more experienced.

*Image below shows a Texas star, poppers (falling targets) and a couple of falling plate racks - All steel, all made by us. The Texas star is cool. When a plate is hit it falls and the unbalanced star starts turning. When the next is hit it will turn one way of the other depending on the weighting...It's fun to shoot, and challenging. It's big, some 2 metres tall and all made of steel so when it starts turning, shit gets real.

Anyway, this post is probably too long so I'll wrap up here.

I'm sorry there's not many pictures but I am often too busy at these events to grab pictures usually. I will try and get a few from this weekend though and possibly post them if they come out. I'm always mindful of posting a picture in which a shooter can be identified for obvious reasons of course. I'll se what I can do. Maybe I'll snap some pictures of the 5-star resort hotel cheap-ass dog-box I'm staying in on Saturday night and the country-pub meal I have with the rest of the organisers for you.

Organised shooting events are designed to be safe, controlled environments for people to engage in a sport that rewards effort, precision and dedication. Our event, and the events I personally compete in, also add the element of tactics and strategy. It's a technical sport; I have done many posts about ballistics, shooting skills, specific equipment and the art of making my own ammunition and whilst guns aren't everyone's thing shooting sports can be a rewarding and enjoyable past time.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

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