One Membership, Twenty Plus Sports
Ask most members what sort of shooter they are and you will get a one-word answer. Benchrest. Clays. Silhouette. Pistol.
It is a fair answer, and there is nothing wrong with finding your thing and staying with it. But it does understate what a membership of this Association actually buys you. Our disciplines are the backbone of SSAA NSW, and between them they cover rifle, shotgun and handgun across rimfire, centrefire, air and black powder with something like a couple of dozen distinct sports sitting inside a single membership card, across 135 branches and affiliate clubs in New South Wales.
Most members will only ever try one or two of them. I think that is a shame, and it is entirely fixable.
A QUICK TOUR
Consider the range of what is on offer, and how genuinely different these sports are from one another.
| Discipline | Description |
| Benchrest and Fly Shooting | Are the pursuit of the smallest possible group, and they attract the most obsessive detail people in the sport, handloads, wind flags, barrel harmonics, conditions read shot by shot. Our larger branches shoot it out to 500 metres. |
| Metallic Silhouette | Includes steel animals at varying distances, and no ambiguity whatsoever; the target either goes down, or it does not, and everyone hears it. It began in Mexico in the early 1950s and reached Australia in the late 1970s. There are matches for centrefire, rimfire and air rifle. |
| Field Rifle and 3-Positional | Are the closest to what a hunter actually does; shooting from field positions rather than from a bench, with 3-Positional pushing further into precision. Recommended for hunters who have never competed before. |
| Lever Action | Is unique to the SSAA and one of the most enjoyable matches going. It is fast, it rewards rhythm, and it is very hard to shoot badly and not laugh about it. |
| Combined Services | Uses rifles and pistols of service origin, fired at various distances and positions. It began in Victoria and Queensland in the 1980s and is now shot everywhere in Australia. Part of its original purpose was to let anyone into the sport cheaply and put everyone on an equal footing, which remains one of the better ideas in shooting. |
| Muzzleloading and Single Action | Involve replicas of colonial-era firearms, competition built around Australia’s pioneering period, and a level of theatre that has to be seen. There is nothing quite like standing behind a line of black powder shooters on a still morning. |
| Clay target, 5-Stand and Sporting Clays | Involves reaction, swing and timing rather than stillness and moves the whole thing into the air. |
| Target Pistol, Action Match and Steel Challenge | Covers the handgun side, from the deliberate precision of bullseye through to dynamic matches against the clock. |
This is just a snapshot of some of the disciplines available.
And for members with dogs, Working Gundogs runs training and trials across retrieving, hunt-point-retrieve, spaniel and pointer work; a genuine field sport in its own right.
WHY BREADTH MAKES YOU BETTER
Here is the practical case for stepping outside your usual match.
Every discipline teaches a different fundamental.
| Discipline | What it teaches you |
| Benchrest | To read conditions properly, which very few field shooters do well at the start. |
| Silhouette | Position and follow-through under a clock |
| Field Rifle | To be steady when there is no bench and never will be. |
| Clays | To move with a target instead of freezing on it |
| Muzzleloading | The discipline of one careful shot rather than the comfort of another one straight after. |
Bring any of those back to the discipline you already shoot, or into the field with you, and you are a better shooter for it. The best members I know are almost always the ones who have shot several things.
IT GOES AS FAR AS YOU WANT TO TAKE IT
Our competition structure runs from a casual club shoot at your local range, right through to state and national championships, with international competition beyond that for those who chase it.
That range matters. Nobody has to become a champion for this to be worthwhile, and nobody has to stay casual if they do not want to. The same branch, on the same day, will have a member who has driven interstate to compete and a member who has never shot a match in their life, standing on the same line under the same range officer.
For juniors especially, that pathway is one of the best things we offer. A young person who takes to a discipline can follow it as far as their ability and dedication will carry them, and the national junior competitions are a genuine proving ground.
HOW TO ACTUALLY DO IT
It is simpler than people assume.
- Ring your branch and ask when the discipline you are curious about is next being shot.
- Turn up. Say clearly that you have never done it before, which is the single most useful sentence you can say at a range.
In most disciplines somebody will walk you through the format, and in many cases a member will offer you a go with their own gear rather than let you miss out.
If your branch does not run what you are after, another one nearby almost certainly does, a look at the disciplines pages on our website will tell you who shoots what and where. A day trip to a branch you have never visited is a good weekend in itself.
And a note to branches; the single most effective thing you can do to grow your discipline is to make the first visit easy. Have someone assigned to look after newcomers, explain the scoring plainly, and make it clear that nobody expects them to be any good yet.
FINALLY
You joined this Association for one kind of shooting. You are entitled to all of it.
Before this year is out, shoot one discipline you have never shot. You may well decide it is not for you; and you will have learned something about your shooting either way. Or you may find, as plenty of members have, that you had been missing your actual favourite sport for many years.
Let me know how you go. My door is open at jai.rowell@nsw.ssaa.org.au.
Until next week: keep ’em on target, in the field and on the range!
Jai Rowell
President — SSAA NSW
WHAT YOU TELL ME MATTERS MOST – ASK THE PRESIDENT
Every week I hear from members and branches, by phone, by email, and standing around at ranges. If you ask me what the most important part of this job is, that is it. Listening to members. Everything else follows from it.
So, I want to open up another avenue. If you have a burning question about SSAA NSW, your membership, your discipline, or where we are heading, send it through to me at jai.rowell@nsw.ssaa.org.au. Each week I will publish a selection of the questions I receive and answer them here, straight, in this column.
No question is too basic and none of them are off limits. If you are wondering about it, chances are a few thousand other members are wondering the same thing
ABOUT THIS COLUMN
Each week I pull up a seat at the bench to talk about what’s happening across SSAA NSW, the wins, the setbacks, what’s on the political radar, and my thoughts on whatever is front of mind, from the matters members are raising with me to whatever is shaping the sport that week. I’ll put our volunteers where they belong, at the front, because they’re the backbone of everything we do, and I’ll back the industry that keeps our sport strong. The promise is in the name: plain talk, no spin, and I’ll always tell it to you straight.
