The wow factor
SG meets David Florent, manager director and head shooting instructor at the Oxford Gun Company
What is your shooting background? I started shooting at the age of eight while I was at Bredon School in Gloucestershire, setting up shooting grounds there when I was 14. Next, I started shooting competitively, including Double Trap for GB, and travelled all over the world.
My parents, Doug and Shirley, started the Oxford Gun Company nearly 40 years ago. I went to work for other shooting grounds first as my father wanted me to get some experience elsewhere before I came in here. Over the past couple of years my sister and I have been slowly taking the reins.
What does your role at the company involve? The day-to- day running of the business and coaching lessons – it’s my job to make sure the whole place runs smoothly. I’m always at the shooting school, either teaching or out in the shop, so you can always find me and come say hello. Also, if you watch our fast- growing Youtube channel, The Shooting Channel ( TSC), which has just broken a million-and-a-half views, you can always see me on there. What do you hope to achieve with The Schools Challenge? The Oxford Gun Company runs The Schools Challenge, which is one of the biggest Young Shots competitions in the country. The first thing that I noticed when I was shooting Double Trap was that there were not many youngsters, so what we’re trying to do is to bring new blood into shooting. We are the only people in the country to give cars away – this year’s top prizes are two cars. My ambition was to do something for the shooting world that would turn heads. Ami Hedgecock, a 13-year- old girl, walked away with a car last year – how many 13-year- olds win cars? It’s a wow factor.
That was basically how The Schools Challenge started - doing different things and getting outside sponsors into shooting.
What can our readers expect when they visit the Oxford Gun Company? A friendly atmosphere from the team. Whether you are new to shooting or the most famous person in the world, if you have £ 50 million or £ 50, you can walk into the Oxford Gun Company and you’ll have a home wherever you go. Whether it’s the shooting school or in the gun shop, we’ve got something for everyone.
The shooting school offers tuition, competitions, pay and play, events and we’ve also got an airgun range, so it offers everything for the country enthusiast. The biggest challenge is changing the shooting world. It is so backwards and old-school and has got to be able to go out into the big wide world – not just stay in our own. The shooting world needs to stop spending money on protecting shooting and start spending money on promoting shooting instead. Get it on TV, get the national press involved, get it out there, splash the cash and tell everyone that shooting is the best sport in the world.
“The shooting world needs to start promoting shooting”