SSAA 5-Stand Canberra Shoot
21 November 2010

Greg, Frank and Darren show off their flash
new shirts and the shotgun trailer.


The new stands in action out in the open on
Layout 2. The Majura Park Gun Club (MPGC) has been considering expanding its shotgun disciplines to include 5-Stand - one of the fastest growing shotgun disciplines in Australia.

After contacting the SSAA Shotgun National Discipline Chairman Warren Brown to discuss some options, we quickly discovered that SSAA NSW had just what we needed. Their SSAA shotgun trailer was available to SSAA clubs and came equipped for two full layouts including traps, batteries, wireless remotes and one very fancy controller (to ensure the targets were indeed in a random order). Phone calls were made and trailer manager Greg Allen was booking us in for November 21 this year.

Greg was extremely helpful in explaining how it all worked and what he could do to assist the club in hosting an event to meet our skill level and ensure the 5-Stand layouts could be enjoyed by all. Greg’s services, including the shotgun trailer, are available to SSAA clubs for the meagre price of travel expenses (cost ex Griffith and return). Greg’s knowledge and experience in setting 5-Stand layouts, combined with the exceptional help of his two offsiders Darren and Frank, made for two great layouts. If you were at the National 5-Stand Championships in Wodonga in late 2010, you would have already seen some of his work and equipment on Layout 4.

Thankfully, after a week of rain, we were met with a beautiful sunny Sunday morning for competition and 35 keen shooters rolled out to test their skills against 100 SSAA 5-Stand targets. Layout one was set up over one of our Down the Line (DTL) ranges and presented some testing battue and midi targets with a very trying springing teal going high and moving away quite fast. For the first event, this layout was shot with a known target order, just to ease all the new shooters into the swing of things.

The second layout was set up on the edge of the bush and really gave a better feel of what 5-Stand can be like when not shot over existing DTL or Skeet ranges. The trees added a dimension of difficulty, hiding one of the traps with the battue obscured behind a small rise, as well as providing an excellent location for a fast downhill rabbit. MPGC had a set of stands that provided the correct level of safety for shooting out in the field and this layout was shot with a scrambled target order similar to competition at the National Championships.

The first 50 targets gave everyone a good feel of how 5-Stand works and after experiencing both known and scrambled targets, the decision was made to shoot the next 50 with scrambled targets on both layouts. Shooters were fast to grasp the concept of scrambled targets, with a five-target menu board in front of each stand and targets being presented on call in a scrambled order and pairs being signalled by a buzzer. Surprisingly, more targets were hit, with the need to shoot instinctively bringing out some DTL shooters’ hidden talents.

The first event was cash divide, with the second event attracting some exceptional support from two of MPGC’s regular sponsors. Prizes were supplied by Phil Petriella from Perazzi Australia and Andy Vaccaro from Supabarn Supermarkets.

The whole event was well received and well attended and the turnout of seven squads for a non-advertised event was very promising for future inclusion in the MPGC event calendar. Both the MPGC President Joe Thaller and SSAA Shotgun National Discipline Chairman Warren Brown were impressed enough with the way the event was set up and run and it was suggested that MPGC may be interested in hosting a State Selection Shoot.

I am pleased to announce agreement was reached and MPGC will be hosting a SSAA (NSW) 5-Stand State Selection Shoot on February 20, 2011. The club has come a long way in recent times, with improved facilities and an excellent reputation for friendly and competitive shooting. We look forward to seeing you all here.