Easing into target shooting - North West Sydney

[Don_Stevenson]

Hi Everyone,

New to the forum but not entirely new to shooting although its been a long time since I had a licence.

A couple of months ago I organised a "try shooting" session for my wife and I at St Mary's SSAA range as my wife had never shot before.

She had a great time and produced some very respectable groups for a complete beginner shooting with a 223, 357 mag lever action and 303.

So, she's now agreed that we can investigate shooting more regularly as a couples activity. As much as I'd be tempted to buy matching Sako M10s and compete in long range comps etc we have kids, jobs etc and making this thing too big is going to mean it falls over pretty quick.

My question is, if you were looking to start out in rifle shooting in Sydney's North West (we live in the Hills/Parramatta area). What would be the lowest friction way to start? Is it feasible/allowed to start by becoming members of SSAA and just doing the licence course and range attendances at St Mary's, Silverdale and Hornsby before choosing a club and doing some comps or is there a requirement to do a certain number of comps per year? ( I'm going off my pistol licence from 10 years ago).

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[pomemax]

You become a member at St Mary,s your wife becomes a member as a family member via you its cheaper and she gets cheaper range attendances .
As well once you are members book in to do you safety course .
Do the course and submit paper work to Far you can Tick hunting and Target on the application , then you need to do range attendances for a hunting tick you need 2 and for Target 4 unless you have a property then that becomes you reason for the licence .
Or you can do the R licence and use that as you reason for the firearms licence then you dont need Any range attendances
Whatever way you go you can attend any SSAA range once you have your licence @ St Mary's you can hire a .22 club gun not sure what they cost used to cheap as till you know what you want to buy.

[Don_Stevenson]

Excellent, thanks!

Sounds like a good way to start, now to wait out this bloody lockdown!

Equipment wise we will probably start with 223 with a view to shoot F Class at Hornsby at some point but will happily shoot 22 hire guns until we decide for sure. I'm watching way too many videos of 6.5 Creedmoor set ups for my own good but will temper my enthusiasm and develop some accuracy on the more affordable calibers before dropping the coin on anything fancy.

[SCJ429]

The best way to ease into a competition is to try rimfire. Many different styles of comps out there and you can use a cheap rifle like a Ruger or Tikka rimfire with some quality ammo and do OK.

[Bugman]

I might suggest that if you wish to shoot F Class at Hornsby, it would probably be better to start there. Most of the rifle clubs there like to encourage new members, and the training you will get there is excellent, especially for F Class.

[Woden]

Sounds like a good way to start, now to wait out this bloody lockdown!

Yeah, frustrating to say the least.

[pomemax]

Why I like St Mary's is I can shoot up till 10 pm every night Sunday till 6 pm I shoot pistol there and can get a long arms attendance at the same time.

[Don_Stevenson]

Thanks for everyone's feedback. Leaning toward at least starting with SSAA and St Marys/Silverdale as we might not always be able to make a set range time for some of the clubs at Hornsby but I will also get in touch with the clubs there to find out more about what's involved in F Class etc

[Woden]

Why I like St Mary's is I can shoot up till 10 pm every night Sunday till 6 pm I shoot pistol there and can get a long arms attendance at the same time.

My mate and I like St Mary's but living on the Central Coast it is hard and expensive (tolls) to visit on a regular basis. With this freakin' lockdown it is impossible!

[simmo]

Hi there

Hornsby is a great place to progress to once you get the bitten by target bug and they are very good people from my experience.

Start off with rimfire. It’s cheap and you can learn good form and technique with recoil that will serve you well if you progress to shooting F-class or target rifle with bigger centre fire chamberings.

[rc42]

"Easing into" is an understatement in Sydney at the moment, you'll be lucky to get to the range again this year.

Hopefully you do though, I started with rifle and quickly moved to pistol which I find much more rewarding and have just started with shotguns and clay shooting which is also great fun

[Don_Stevenson]

Thanks for all the input guys.

Its funny that 2 weeks ago when I put this post up I was thinking it might be a few more weeks before lockdowns end but now it might be months, but hey, what can you do.

I've swung across to the idea of starting with rimfire and building up from there and am currently window shopping the various options for nice (but not crazy expensive) rifles and scopes. Currently wondering if the wife will let me buy one each of the Lithgow 101, Tikka T1x, Ruger precision and CZ457 so I can do a complete newb comparison review on them (as a public service)

Would love to add pistol to the mix at some stage but my wife has very much the makings of a precision shooter (scientist, very methodical, likes to be able to measure improvement precisely) and I think it's a safer path to scope up a 22 and let her make tiny groups before considering anything more dynamic.

[Don_Stevenson]

Update - sent St Mary's an email a few weeks ago asking to be informed when licence courses open up again and yesterday I got a call saying they had two spots on a course this weekend because someone who was booked in wasn't able to attend.

So, my wife and I are off to do the course and will take it from there.

[Communism_Is_Cancer]

Good news mate.