Toe to toe with a top shooter
I’ve decided to bite the bullet and take a crash course in what it takes to be a competitive long-range shooter.
I’m at Seddon Range in Upper Hutt, where the country’s top longrange target rifle shooters compete each year for the national championships, which began yesterday and includes the prestigious Ballinger Belt.
The crescendo of this experience will be a friendly match against a top-drawer shooter at the 1000-yard (914.4-metre) mark.
This should be just like knocking over bunnies out in the back paddock with a slug gun, right?
My eager preparations amount to rereading Barry Crump’s
but to ensure I don’t go into the match half-cocked, I will be tutored by National Rifle Association New Zealand chairman and former Paralympic shooting coach Ross Mason. We start with a couple of tutorials at 300 yards before attempting a shoot from 1000 yards.
He tells me the sport has a long history in New Zealand. The first national championships were held in 1861 – nine years before rugby reached this country.
More important than the history lesson, I’m given the safety briefing, and Mason teaches me how to use a 7.62mm target rifle.
I’ve put 20 rounds down-range before Mason tells me I’m ready for 1000 yards.
My opponent is New Zealand representative and former US longrange junior title holder Charlotte Flanagan. She is one of nearly 400 shooters competing at the nationals and world long-range championships, being held back to back at Seddon this year.
The sport can be boiled down to putting the bullet as close as possible to the bullseye – but understanding the concept is easier than doing so in practice.
My start is inauspicious when two ‘‘sighters’’ – shots used to dial in the sights – from 1000 yards miss the target completely.
❚ The New Zealand National Rifle Association Championships, which includes the Ballinger Belt, and World Long-Range Championships and international Palma matches are being held at Seddon Range, Upper Hutt, between January 25 and February 10.
❚ Australia, Canada, the Channel Islands, Japan, Kenya, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and United States will be represented.
❚ Seddon Range has hosted the World Long-Range Championships twice before – in 1979 and 1995.
❚ The Ballinger Belt is New Zealand’s oldest contested sporting trophy and was introduced in 1873. It was named after Arthur Ballinger, who won it for a third time in 1907. Ballinger was entitled to keep the belt after his third win but donated it to the National Rifle Association. Since then it has been the prize for the winner of the national championships.
At this distance, the target, a few feet in diameter, looks like a pinhead. Placing it in the middle of the fore sight, which needs to be lined up with the rear sight, involves multiple microadjustments in the shooter’s hands, arms, shoulders, body position and breathing.
‘‘Don’t overthink. Keep blinking. Empty out your lungs and squeeze the trigger,’’ Mason keeps reminding me.
The wind is also up. Seddon Range is world renowned for its challenging drafts, which get caught and redirected by the hills and gullies around the range.
The flags used to read the wind are dancing off at all angles.
‘‘You can have different flags pointing in different directions all at once. It can catch out the best shooters in the world,’’ one shooter tells me.
Top shooters can group 15 rounds in an area the size of a dinner plate – my expectations are not so high after those sighters.
Flanagan generously gives me two more shots to get dialled in so we can get the match under way.
After five rounds each, Flanagan’s shots are tightly grouped more or less around the bullseye. By comparison, mine are sprayed across the target, but a five-point handicap means our scores are even.
In a one-round, winner-takes-all shootout, Flanagan shoots a four – just away from the bullseye. Her place in the national team is safe when I shoot a two.
It turns out a lifetime of watching war movies won’t prepare you for the rigours of longrange target rifle shooting.
‘‘Don’t overthink. Keep blinking. Empty out your lungs and squeeze the trigger.’’ National Rifle Association chairman Ross Mason