A unique birthday for Glen Munninger
by Mike Munninger
I hate getting old, but if you are moving towards your 85th birthday and have led a busy life all along and are still reasonably healthy, you may wish to turn back the clock. Many of my old Muzzleloading mates all over Australia will remember me and the times when at most national competitions I managed to walk away with quite a few golds. Fancy that, starting an article for the ‘Youth in Focus’ section of the Australian Shooter, talking about an old grandpa!
I have a grandson, Glen, a bit of a latecomer, but a boy who is everything a boy should be in our modern, but somewhat weird times. He is now past 14 years of age, already a member of the SSAA and the Perth Muzzle Loading Club. He is also an Army Cadet and loves every bit of it. His parents, like most people now, are always very busy and that is where ‘old grandpa’ comes in. Needless to say, I love it.
A friend of mine has a farm and a small orchard not far away and Glen helps by keeping the pests under control with his single-shot Anschutz .22. For bigger game, we use my Ruger .243 with a telescopic sight, but I teach him to go for head or chest shots and if you are not sure, you just wait.
All of this brings me now to the real story. For Glen’s 14th birthday, he was allowed to invite some of his cadets mates to our range for, I must stress, a strictly supervised shoot with qualified range officers. My old shooting mate, Paul Schipp, yelled, “Cadets, line up. Attention! Stand at ease!” and so on, then proceeded with a half-hour lecture on firearms safety and range procedures. This is not difficult for cadets, as they are already used to standing still and following orders.
Then, another shooting mate, Lindsay Smith, divided them into three squads of two, each squad with a range officer. Everyone was given 20 rounds of .22 ammunition, with genuine .22 Cadet rifles. The targets were normal ISU types set at a distance of 50m. The targets were taken off for scoring while Glen’s mother Karin got the barbecue going in the clubhouse. The results were quite astonishing. Actually, no-one missed a target!
We then brought out some .310 Cadet rifles and our good friends donated some ammo. Again, they were given 20 rounds each. It starting raining and the wind became bitterly cold. I was frozen stiff, but nothing deterred those boys.
When lunchtime arrived, Karin had plenty of hotdogs ready and did they gorge themselves! The targets were scored and the results were quite good. Some boys blamed a strange rifle with crooked sights. What’s new?
With lunch finished and bellies full, now came the highlight of the day - the .303s! “My father used one of them”, “My grandfather too”, “I have seen them on the old pictures”, and so the chorus from the boys went. Each cadet was given five shots, which is about all we could manage. While no-one complained about a sore shoulder, I think it was enough anyway.
Glen finished the day with a demonstration using his Hawken .45 muzzleloader and that really topped off the rainy and cold but otherwise lovely day - one that I and hopefully Glen will never forget.
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