Been removed from almost everywhere now, very unlikely to happen unless re-engineered.
The ACF I think have basically decided teh L144 doesnt exist and are just doing air rifle with their people then straight on to L98. Their justification for shooting allows this a bit better than ours.
You lose half the experience as it ends up like shotgun where they have little control of the weapon and things like MMSP go out the window so it actually makes the swap to full bore harder. What we need to enable is better and quicker movement for CFAVs to train on air rifle.
So do I (with myself) as we move towards more and more use of Magazine fed air rifles it does make sense. But when it first came in it was stupid, we should’ve gone breach flags etc for Air Rifle and certainly .22.
In the world of unlimited budget a dedicated .22 L98 would be amazing, never gonna happen though.
My old Sqn used to shoot air rifles in the days before there was a pamphlet and defined WHT. I didn’t notice any lack of control back then
The SASC have written a pamphlet based on what they know - Infantry weapons, rather than sporting rifles. If the SASC method is so good, why haven’t they written the L82 Pam…?
They have little control in the sense of they don’t learn the drills in a progressive manner for the L98/other service rifles, as the NSRA route doesn’t teach them in the same way.
SASC wrote the pamphlet based on consultation of how to make the air rifle progressive on to the other service rifles, it’s done in consultation with the ACF and RAFAC so they aren’t solely to blame for the way things are.
Whereas what would’ve been more logical is to write the Air Rifle and L144 so that the drills are progressive to the L81, so that the 3 bolt action rifles all feed into each other.
APC18 has been updated, apparently, only 2 air rifles are listed (Scorpion and something else, sorry appreciate that isn’t that helpful). We’ve been told to wait out on buying any new ones to see if that position shifts to allow others.
We are looking to get shooting back as soon as we can but what that looks like once staff are all re qualified etc we shall see.
Arrrrghhhhh!! SASC have written drills as if all single shot rifles are wpns of war.
The different rifle drills are not linked, & also they do not relate to any corresponding aspects of “civilian” tgt shooting. For example, breech flags would work (safely) for all 3 types - & until the drills were published for the Scorpion, breech flags were certainly used by us. As to having a rifle left “safe” with the bolt closed (or firing off an air rifle twice to prove clear), don’t even start!
Air rifle should be seen as a simple system (as for the Scouts) - no WHT, no pre-authorisation required to run a range.
There is a dedicated AR RCO Course, this is two days and does cover “Just the minimum safety stuff” along with all the other required knowledge on now to correctly setup, manage and run a AR range.
I disagree, the RSD is in essence your risk assessment for the shoot. Detailing what you are doing, who the safety staff are etc.
Most importantly is has all the details of what to do should something go wrong, thats ignoring the fact it’s part of the SST
None of what you say is untrue. But why not just devise a system where all of that is included in range orders, and so there is no need to create one for every shoot?
The RCO may change, the SS may change, the cadets may change, but you could write the RSD off, and stick with a simple SMS approval process.
Trying to take MOD processes and apply them to cadet shooting is over complication that we don’t need, doesn’t make anything safer, and puts people off getting involved.