Canadian Cadet Movement - AIR RIFLE TRAINING

albertacoyotecaller said:
We shot lots of FN in my time. At Cedar Springs and Ipperwash. Some 303 and not much 22. Those were the good old days.
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Same here. Winona, Cedar Springs, Ipperwash, Borden (rifle coach). Had my "own" issued FN at the armory. The Air Cadets where I lived also had a couple of Brens. No such luck in the army Cadets, but lots of trigger time.
 
I just talked to my old Unit's Sr Cadet. He was the Cadet RSM at Blackdown (Borden) last summer. He confirmed that Cadets on Instructor courses fired the C7 last summer (2012). He didn't know about this year as he was doing the jump course at Trenton. His Cadet career is over as he will be 19 in a couple weeks and off to University. This young man belonged to a small unit in a small village but was able to achieve some noteworthy things- Summer Training Center Cadet RSM last year and earned his CF jump wings this summer. These kinds of opportunities are available in the CCM to any young person who really wants to work at it.
 
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piratepete said:
It had devolved to all drill and they got bored. My son always wanted to sign up for the service, but was disappointed with his cadet experience. Is this isolated? Have others had good, recent cadet experiences?
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I was a Cadet in the mid/late '70's and was planning on joining the reg force. My limited exposure to Army Bureaucracy and the chickensh!t way the Gov't handled the Airborne debacle soured me enough to turn me hippy.
 
CZ85Combat said:
Sad but there is some reasoning behind it
-parts for the .22 was becoming an issue and still required Weapon tech inspection
-most cadet corps didn't have access to a range. With pellet gun, they can shoot in classroom
-storage... It was still considered a CF weapon
-ammo... Same reason as above

I don't support the move, but I understand it

Most shooting program is highly dependant on the COATS staff and their view of weapons... It should be mandatory
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Yeah, that's pretty much what Happened with the 543 Squadron in Wingham. We met and did most of our drills and such at the old armoury building in town (which included a gun range in the basement). Over the years, the armoury building was sold to the local police station. Which abruptly closed this public range and made it private for the police force to my understanding. With no access to a range, the firearms program deteriorated until the introduction of the current program with the air rifles.

With that said though, air rifles still allow a user to practice marksmanship skills and safe handling. However an air rifle is not in the same league as a .303 or a .22. But I understand about liability insurance, range fees, equipment upkeep etc. Cadets is FREE (unless that changed the last time I checked). So for something that is free and still promotes a shooting sport and more, I'm all for it. It is only because of cadets that I gained an interest in the military, shooting sports, outdoor survival/ living and flying (yes I flew gliders - still the most awesome way to fly) in Canada. I still like the cadet program and think they are doing the best they can under the circumstances.
 
dfemia01 said:
You're kidding, right? Shoot in a classroom? or the Gym? Down the hall? Nope ... school boards won't allow that. Waiting for them to get cranked about the DP Lee Enfields that we use for Drill Team or Honour Guard ...
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Our Squadron team shot air rifles. We drilled and shot out of our schools gym. This was about 15 years ago. The school was more then happy to accommodate. We had made the Lord Stratchona finals 2 years in a row.
 
In Army Cadets, air rifles are used at the corps level for teaching marksmanship concepts. Aunshutz .22 are also used by corps with biathalon teams. The CF still contracts for "standard velocity) .22 for the biathalon teams.
Air rifles are also used at summer camps, but cadets often also have the option to fire the C7 for familiarization. (20 rds, semiauto only). Drill and Ceremonial course cadets fire the .303s on final parade for a "fue de joi".
At Connaught, cadets who have proven themselves in marksmanship at the corps, region, or camp level, will shoot "fullbore" C11 (5.56 CF target rifle) and C12 (7.62 CF target rifle) to get onto the Bisley team.

Colt Canada pitched the "C10" cadet rifle a number of years ago but was unfortunately turned down. The C10 was to be a dedicated .22lr bolt action C7/AR15), with "friendly" all wood furniture. Since many parts would be common to the C7 it would cut down on training and parts costs related to maintenance, and the wood furniture was designed to take away the "assualt rifle" image, plus the .22lr bolt idea was an excellent "PC" idea for a light, versatile local training cadet marksmanship rifle at any cadet corps with access to the local range. Also, cadets could scrap the Enfield DPs in favour of the C10 and follow the CF drill manual for rifle drill. However, some pantywaist kiboshed the idea, and it never happened.
 
I was with the 1705 BCD Cadet corp in Vernon BC.
When I joined the Cadet Corps , we were trained to fire the .22 Anschutz, and had to make a certain grade before we were allowed to train on the FN C1 A1. Once we had several hours of classroom training under our belt's , we went to the outdoor range on military land above Vernon ( this range would/will give any gun safety nut the heeby jeebies, this is due to the orientation of the range, ) we were allowed to fire 20 round magazines at the targets. yay for Semi Automatic Rifles.

for those interested souls, look at Google maps locate Vernon BC and see if you can find the army cadet Camp again, ( most of you who were there will remember it with either hate or loathing ) most of you who do locate the camp and have a general Idea of where the range is, look at where we were pointing our nice high powered rifles.



this was back in the late 80's early 90's, so please forgive the memory gap's.
 
yep, that's the range. and if you looked at it from the sky view and moved north a bit, you would see that they have it oriented so that if some one misses the target butt's , the round/s would fall in the western part of Vernon.
 
ya, and there have been some stupid cadets who attended VACC ( Vernon Army Cadet Camp ).
At one point the government of BC was getting blasted by the Municipal government of Vernon because someone was hit in the leg with a spent round that had been fired over the target butts.
 
maple leaf said:
Well I came across these and thought I would share. I feel like an old foggie, as I remember shooting .303 Lee Enfield rifles instead of air rifles. Still, I own air rifles and an air pistol and think they are a load of fun, great for firearm safety training and most of all marksmanship. Hope others find these interesting:

AIR RIFLE TRAINING MANUAL
http://www.bpcr.net/site_docs-results_schedules/documents/Canadian_Air_Rifle_Training-1.pdf

CADET AIR RIFLE VIDEOS
This is a series of 22 short videos on air rifle marksmanship produced by the Canadian Cadet Organizations
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC8E447A8EDE4558B
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I was talking to a friend who is one of the head guys for a group of air cadets. They want to get back to actual firearms whenever their air rifles wear out...
 
WulffMaster said:
ya, and there have been some stupid cadets who attended VACC ( Vernon Army Cadet Camp ).
At one point the government of BC was getting blasted by the Municipal government of Vernon because someone was hit in the leg with a spent round that had been fired over the target butts.
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and that range is closed now, and it wasn't from a cadet shooting over the hill (which is not 200m tall, its closer to 50m) it was a BCRA shooter, but thats another story. It did cause a re-evaluation of the range and danger template, sad really its a nice range.
 
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