Man, I'm with you on that one.
Coaching noobs is great, but as you say club night becomes very compact and you have little time to experiment.
eg. if you wanted to bench your rifle with various ammo it's going to suck up at least an hour.
I'm going to make some enquiries at my club. I'm guessing there would need to be an official range officer present (unless you are one)
Thanks for raising that.

How do you qualify as offical range officer? We had a guy last year who was ex army trained range officer. Does TSNZ run courses?
I dont see need for range officer, as licanced shooter I could go out to farm and blaze away on my own unsuppervised. A range is a much safer enviroment. Environs

That may be true but remember you are in a club facility and they will be responsible for whatever happens there. Any accident (even falling down the stairs and breaking your leg) will require an OSH investigation of the premises/facility.
I believe (may be wrong) that you can be trained by an existing range officer and made familiar with all protocols to do with both safety and competition rules.
Someone correct me please if I'm wrong.
Just that I saw in our club minutes that there was a call for more range officers to be trained and I've put my hand up. Just waiting to be followed up on that.

Point taken. Just seems such an under-utilisation of resource. I have desire and time to train in my choosen sport but can only participate when they are open. Environs

Yeah, check with your club.
I can't help but think we're not the only ones feeling like this.

Re Osh, they only have durestiction where there is hire or reward involved, however its always better to be safe than sorry.
Don't recall any RO courses being available thru TSNZ but I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask the question.
We got it good here, so long as the range isnt being used for anything else then we ok to use it for private practice, a number of our senior members have keys and code to alarm and if we don't have that, its just a matter of asking. Sometimes its good to train with someone else as they can take a look at what your doin and offer some help. I guess it depends on you local rules

TSNZ does not have currently a formal RO course.

I am currently working in conjunction with some others (NZSF Judges plus some others) on RO training for Rifle, This is the first stage in training our officials to international level and gain ISSF Judges license.

Next stage for those interested is an ISSF course to be held in Wellington in Nov - further details via TSNZ

Also The reason for RO to have a valid firearms license is the NZ Firearms regs require "non license holders" to be supervised
If all shooters on the range have a license then this doesn't matter


Craig O'Brien
ISSF judge NZL

Feel sorry for you environs, we have access to our range whenever we want go and practice.
Looks like small clubs arn't so bad after all.

So Gordan you can shoot by yourself unsupervised?

Yea, just wander down and go for it. You can't shoot any match targets. Just practice.
Our range is part of an engineering workshop, so can't shoot during the day, but any night is fine.
i usually ring around & 2 or 3 of us go, more interesting with others, plus you can help each other.

Senior members at our club have a key and can use the range when they want as long as you have someone with you..just in case you trip over ya feet and fall flat on ya face hehe..
Just spent most of Sunday afternoon shooting, trying out sight adjustment for the English targets I will have to shoot at the N/S match, and BSA in Levin,in a couple of weeks time..we have a bench rest, so that's good if you need it.

HI all,
back home and catching up on the goss...

Sounds like a poll is needed is it exists somewhere already.
Couldn't find any, just a list of posts about them.

We have access whenever I've asked.
For all the reasons mentioned above plus the smell of powder.
A Firearms license holder and away.

ian

Here in the deep south, any of our members who require to, can apply to the Association for a key. Great for training and as we have two test rigs, one for barrel and action only, the other for complete rifle, the time that using these requires does not interfere with club nights when you can go to the range at your convenience. (License holders only of course.)