Quote Originally Posted by Son View Post
There are a lot of self imposed grey areas in the rifle classes within all service rifle shooting clubs. They allowed terminology to define the rifles instead of makers marks.

A rifle that almost kind of might look something near to one that my uncles, friends, mother saw used by a fellow in a uniform forty years ago on the way to her optometrist, would almost certainly pass as a faithful reproduction of a rare and little known model presented for trials in a secret location by unknown people at an undetermined moment in history...

You usually find the bottom line is "if we allow it will it bring more people into the sport?"

I think it should be "genuine issued sniper" a) Pre 1947 or b) Post 1947 or c) "fake"...... no grey areas, just three classes

Sorry Ned, not taking the pi$$ out of you personally, had the same argument with the SSAA years ago... didn't go back...


Just spotted Neds post above/ real easy, buy a real rifle. You can't enter the Melbourne cup with a shetland pony, even if it's the same colouring as the Goodowindi Grey
"Buy a real rifle". Well, it would be great if it were that easy, but given the scarcity of genuine No4(T)'s and No 32 scopes and L96's et al its not that achievable is it?. Also given the astronomical sums these rifles are now fetching most proud owners only get them out of the safe to drool over and fondle them!. An old Omark however can be had for as little as $150AU and with a little time and thought be presented as a REPLICA trials rifle and used for its intended purpose, SHOOTING. The SSAA has it inclusivity policy right in my opinion because if you allow more types of rifle into a class then you might actually get a shoot off the ground, because there will actually be more people able to shoot in it.
There is an NRA club here in the west that will remain nameless for the fear of having a fatwa imposed that will only allow shooters to use a No1 mkIII* and nothing else and its numbers are dropping rapidly, if you put up barriers for people, don't be surprised if they turn around and walk away. You can keep your purism for the non-shooting collectors who own all the (T)'s anyway, there are some who think the best way of keeping our sport of service rifle alive and well is to keep it accessable. Just my opinion! Fire away.