Giving it back...

Life is complicated: Work, socializing, planning for the future, keeping house, holidaying, sleeping...Who doesn't love a good sleep! There's a million things a person has to do to get by in today's world. Oh, I forgot steemit posting! Silly me. In my circle of friends we're all simply trying to get the most from our days and weeks. That put's pressure on leisure and relaxation time I think. We spend so much time working we need to cram a bunch of relaxation into the small gaps between work and sleep.

One of my passions is practical/tactical shooting encompassing long range, (1000m-1665m) and more dynamic positional challenges at ranges of 200m-800m. A longer range course-of-fire would generally be shot prone and the closer-range stages are more positional, time-restricted and dynamic. (Meaning running, climbing, position-building. Basically shooting under duress.)

Double tap on this gong from 1321m away. This was a cold bore first shot with a second follow up. Rifle: Ruger Precision Rifle in 6.5mm creedmoor with Nightforce ATACR optics and Atlas bipod.

I love engaging with my sport/hobby. I load-develop and hand make my own ammunition, practice positional changes and timed-shooting at home, do live-fire practice on the range (private properties) and compete around the country when time permits. (6 competitions this year). It's a great sport. Having said that I also like to give back to it.

There's a lot to know. I can attest to that. Just when I thought I was getting my head around it there's yet another facet to master: Reading wind direction and speed from mirage, barrel harmonics, understanding ballistics and how the environment affects trajectory. Hand-loading techniques, brass preparation and so on...

I'm involved at a relatively high level of competition placing well mostly, (Mostly, but certainly not always), but I remember the early days, the novice-days.

This weekend I'm giving a little back. There's a competition running that I won't be shooting in but have volunteered to help with. I'm a Range Officer (RO) on the Sunday which is a competition-day for guys with my level of experience but Saturday is for beginners. I don't necessarily mean new to shooting beginners, but certainly new to this style of shooting for sure. I'll get to assist these guys and girls as they compete, give advice, answer questions and generally be there to help them learn. It's not a centre-fire day either. Rifles are limited to .22 calibre. Pretty much pea-shooters really. It'll be great fun though as the shooters will be put through similar conditions and duress that I was in the PRS Australia Vortex Cold Steel Challenge earlier this year for instance.

I'm looking forward to it as I'll be surrounded by a lot of mates, some of which are new shooters, and will get to meet new shooters as well. At times this sport can seem closed and difficult to break into but we are all just regular girls and guys willing to lend a hand to help. I can recall shooting stages in a competition and messing up only to turn around and give the next competitor, (who is trying to beat me), the correct dial for wind for example. It's just how it is. We want to see more people getting involved and out having a go.

I'll take some pictures over the weekend and post a few up for those that are interested.

Thanks for reading.