Australia enjoys a proud reputation on the sporting scene in various shooting disciplines, but Rachael Andrews explains how future success could be put at risk by calls to ban self-loading pistols. One athlete who has experienced the frustrations of anti-firearms legislation is British pistol shooter Georgina Geikie. She outlines the difficulties in keeping her Olympic ambitions alive. International competition is also on the agenda for Australia’s Sam Balin, who treks to the United States for Single Action events. Sam explains his passion for the genre, which includes using an alias persona as a cowboy. Also turning back the clock is Dick Eussen, who traces the evolution of handguns and their cartridges from the earliest flintlock period of the early 19th century through various wartime innovations up to modern sporting calibres.