Narrabri Pistol Club honoured and excited to host another national championships event

Narrabri Pistol Club will host the 26th Pistol Australia Metallic Silhouette 100-metre Small Bore and Field Pistol Australian Championships from tomorrow at the club’s range at Stoney Creek Road.

The local club has a proud history of conducting open, state and national championships in Metallic Silhouette since the early 1980s and is looking forward to hosting its latest national championships event from Friday, March 4, to Sunday, March 6.

Competitors will travel to compete from Victoria, Queensland and right across NSW. However, floods in Queensland and Northern NSW
currently present a significant challenge to some competitors in actually getting to Narrabri.

Despite that challenge, there will still be Australian team members, who have been selected to compete in the World Championships in Sweden in July, who will compete in Narrabri this weekend.

There will also be several former state, national and world champions in action.

Tim Anderson and David Dewsbury are two Narrabri Pistol Club members who will compete this weekend. Both men have won state, national and world championship gold medals in metallic silhouette.

Two other local shooters keen and ready to compete are Jason Anderson and Jack Ford, who are both current NSW champs, while fellow Narrabri club members scheduled to compete include Paul Wilkins, Jeff Hamblin, Billy-Dean Borodzicz and Matt Burke.

Club secretary Robert Boutcher, who was appointed official judge by Pistol Australia, told The Courier that club members had spent countless hours preparing the local range and ancillary facilities, ensuring they were in first-class condition for what he labelled a prestigious event.

Meanwhile, Narrabri Lionesses will be providing their usual first-class catering at the range across the three days, while Will Brooks and the staff at the Outback Shack will look after the official dinner on Saturday night.

Ron Campbell, the Narrabri Shire mayor, will officially open the event on Friday afternoon when the day’s shooting is completed.

Narrabri Pistol Club thanked the Narrabri Shire Council, which it said had been very supportive of the club over the years.

Council has assisted the pistol club in obtaining state and federal grants to enable significant improvement to club infrastructures, such as the new kitchen and insulated awning costing more than $100,000.