ORA October New Shooter Program - Pictures

[Ganderite]

The ORA conducts a series of classroom sessions on handloading, scopes, rifle care, wind doping, rifle building, etc. over the winter using a classroom at the Burlington Club. The classroom sessions and range days organized through the initiative of Ric Melling who is convinced shooting is a fun sport that many Canadians would find compelling - if they were invited to try it.


In the summer they conduct a number of new shooter days. This is a brief classroom session followed by a lot of 300 yard shooting. the ORA supplies a good scoped rifle (223 and 308) and a dedicated coach for each shooter.

Some are people who have never shot before and are interested in taking up shooting. Some are friends of shooters who have been invited out to "give it a try". And some are rifle shooters looking to try a new dicipline at longer ranges.

The October 08 New Shooter Day saw 30 new shooters at Amiens Range, Camp Borden (near Barrie, north of Toronto).

 

[Winnipeg Toymaker]

Wished that the shooters here would do something like this...but alas it seems join or do not shoot.

 

[rnbra-shooter]

Great work! It's nice to see so many new people trying out shooting. Presumably every on of them had a great time.

I am curious what your experience tells you w.r.t. how many of these new people you'd expect to see a second time, and how many you might expect to see as ORA members in a year or two?

 

[dogzilla]

I was in that group, it was a blast. I've been shooting for almost 40 years, and was looking for a new challenge. Unfortunately it's going to cost me a lot more money(think f class) and truing and re barreling my existing rifle. Already planning on trying both precision and f class next year. So I have a winter project. Borden is only fifteen minutes away so that's a bonus. The good thing is that I've never needed an excuse to get another toy.

 

[Ganderite]

Q: How many come back and how many join?


Well, we have been running this program for 4 years because it works. The conversion is quite high. Ric Melling was saying that to me while at the range. I did not ask him to put that into percentages.

But I did notice that a lady I was coaching on a newbie day about 4 years ago was one of the coaches on this weekend.

 

[CyaN1de]

You guy's are obviously pushing F-Class style shooting which is good to see. I wish our club would purchase rifles for that very reason.

It's hard to get someone hooked when they show up with their pencil barreled 30-06 or whatever and spray rounds all over the target face at 300m. A few of us pony up and let the newbies, that do show up now and again, shoot our rigs so they see what can be acclomplished with a well built rifle.

Looks like you guy's have a great turn out too.

 

[Gunslinger]

I think this is the only way to encourage and grow the sport. Shooting really is fun and I am amazed at how many people haven't shot a gun. Once they've let off the first shot most can quite easily get hooked given the right atmosphere and advice and become active participants. The more people involved in the sport the better. You can have 10 anti gunners in an office preaching their crap, but when you have one shooter their rhetoric is blow to pieces in the face of a logical argument from a fellow worker. We also have to get over strict members only attitudes, clubs should promote these kinds of events if the sport is to have a revival and future. Kudo's to Rick and others involved in pushing things forward and promoting our sport.

 

[Tikkaman]

I have attended a couple of those ORA Intro Days. They explain all about the different disciplines, F Class, TR, Precision, Service Conditions, and what gear you need for each. I got to try iron sights as well as F, they even had shooting jackets, slings and all that stuff you could use, so I don't think it is just F class.

 

[dogzilla]

There were about 30 people in the class including myself. I think less than half the class even had a pal, and there were about 8 women. A number of them had never fired a gun before. The firearms were all fairly new, Rem 700's , Savages, even a Tikka. Both .308 and .223. It was well run and everyone was friendly and would answer anything you wanted to know. Everyone I talked to had a great time, and one young girl with her dad was even getting some good hits a 300 yards. She was tickled pink.

 

[CyaN1de]

I have attended a couple of those ORA Intro Days. They explain all about the different disciplines, F Class, TR, Precision, Service Conditions, and what gear you need for each. I got to try iron sights as well as F, they even had shooting jackets, slings and all that stuff you could use, so I don't think it is just F class.

Based on the pictures, I saw scopes and bipods. Good to see they are running the gamut.

I would like to try irons and slings myself, but I couldn't see myself getting into it like I have with F-Class.

 

[maynard]

The reason F class is pushed a little more than the other disciplines on the Intro Days is that it is much easier to get first time shooters to hit the target with a scoped rested rifle, than it is with a TR rifle off the elbows with irons.
You have to dangle the bait before setting the hook

If the new shooters are getting good hits near the center of the target at 300 yards, they walk away feeling good. If you wrapped them up in a shooting jacket and sling very few would want to come back again unless they are into the whole S&M thing

 

[Ganderite]

Target rifle = S & M

Such eloquence!!

 

[lejarretnoir]

maynard, you're starting to scare me.

 

[maynard]

The S & M thing was pointed out to me by a female CO of a Cadet Corps where I used to coach. While she has been shooting since her cadet days (more years ago than most of us want to think about) she had never shot using a shooting jacket, glove and sling. Shooting this style isn't something you can teach in 5 minutes, so in most cases it is very uncomfortable to begin with for a new shooter. Maybe the buckles and straps on the jacket and the sling and leather glove tickled her fancy, but I can't say for sure

If the Intro Days were based on TR only, we would get very few returning or joining. Most TR shooters make sling shooting look easy, however building a good prone position takes time and practice. With a bipod rested rifle instant hits near the center of the target are common, that's why the Intro Days focus more on F Class shooting.

 

[Ice-Pick]

pushing f class

We,re not actually PUSHING f class, the f class rifles are used because they are easier for the newer (some first time)shooters to control and we worry less about errant shots. The people coming out do have the option of shooting TR if they'd like to try. Ric has said the club does have TR loaners, but this would be for a second/return trip which they are given for their intro fee.
Ric, the guy behind the intro days here is actually a TR shooter himself, he's done quite a good thing here with the intro days. I've gotten alot of the intro day people call me to go out many times. I've got one now who's coming by to learn reloading procedures and he's signing up for the O.R.A.'S training sessions for this year.

Mike.

 

[lejarretnoir]

More pics of cute young ladies please.
If the young bucks see more of those they will want to come out and shoot more.

Hey, some of you older bucks need to get on the treadmill eh!

 

[shortandlong]

good on ya guys , way to go