THE Tennant Creek Pistol Club recently had their annual presentation of trophies for all of the shooting disciplines and as the winners are calculated on a handicap basis there were a few surprised shooters.
In the Most Improved category two shooters battled it out closely for some 10 months and in the end our shooting chef from Woks Up, Dee Yu won over Renato Guartico however Renato is going to be hard to beat this year with a 55 point improvement.
Shooting Chef Dee also won the combined Sport Pistol discipline narrowly beating Renato by 5 points.
One of our stalwart shooters was quite surprised when called to collect not one but two trophies and Eric Brahim justly deserved to win the 25m Standard Pistol and 10m Air Pistol disciplines as he regularly competed with consistent scores in both.
In the four Service disciplines our chief worker, “tree waterer”, and President John Bertram cleaned up and not just emptied the bins but won Service Pistol, Unrestricted Service Pistol, 25 Yards Service Pistol, and World Association 1500 disciplines.
Our Alice Springs based lady Karen Shiell took out the Ladies three match aggregate trophy combining good scores and attendances in the 10m Women’s Air Pistol, 25m Standard Pistol, and 25m Women’s Sport Pistol disciplines.
It came as no surprise to members that both the 25m Centre-Fire Pistol and 50 Metre Pistol disciplines were won by Jim Cruise as not only does Jim shoot these disciplines reasonably well but also quite often.
The club handicapper has advised that to win a trophy a shooter must compete in a discipline at least once a month over 10 months and remember that the score is handicapped so it should be relatively easy to beat Jim or John if you compete often enough.
With a few new members regularly shooting it will be an interesting year for those contending for the Standard and Sport Pistol trophies.
In other news the club is moving forward in gaining a 500 Metre rifle range.
Approval to lease the adjacent land is close to completion and we are waiting on the police to inspect and approve the final boundary locations for the range template.
Once the approvals are complete fencing and clearing will start and Tennant Creek will have a safe place for people wishing to sight in their hunting rifles, check their accuracy, or shoot rifles for fun or competition.