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To help our members to improve their skills, we encourage them to take part in some form of competitive target shooting. Most find it both challenging and great fun.
Gallery Rifle Competitions
Gallery Rifles are generally lightweight magazine rifles that fire low powered ammunition. Although they can often prove surprisingly accurate out to distances of 200 yards, we mostly use them from a standing position as (poor) substitutes for our lost pistols. We have found that we can complete many of the old pistol courses of fire with minimal modification.
Service Rifle Competitions
Any rifle that has been official military issue anywhere in the world fits into the category of a Service Rifle (SR). Since our government do not trust us with self-loading service rifles, this largely limits us to bolt-action rifles designed in the pre-WW2 era. Many SR competitions are based on the targets and courses of fire used in contemporary military practice; others are a test of the target accuracy that can be achieved from as-issued military equipment.
Target Rifle Competitions
Both smallbore (.22 rimfire) and fullbore (centrefire) Target Rifles (TR) tend to be heavy-barreled single-shot rifles fitted with precision 'iron' sights. The competitions are shot from the prone position for accuracy; fullbore TR is shot exclusively with .308 or .303 rifles at distances up to 1200 yards. We have a growing group of members who own fullbore rifles fitted with telescopic sights and bipods for which we have created a separate 'F Class' competition.
Historic Smallbore Competitions
Because .22 ammunition is cheap, accurate and low-powered, firearms that fire the .22 rimfire cartridge are the most numerous and varied of all. In the last 120 years of invention, every know type of action has been adapted to this versatile cartridge. Members own a number of early designs, and compete in competitions based upon contemporary targets and courses of fire.
Muzzle Loading Pistol Competitions
When they confiscated our target pistols, even the politicians and police could not justify banning the old cap and ball pistols. Members compete in the standard international courses of fire, and also in close copies of the old cartridge pistol courses of fire.
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