Weapons week day 5

Today was our last day of weapons handling and our last day of tests. However it was the day I was most looking forward too.

First we had a shoot on the 25m outdoor range with live ammunition. It has been a while since I shot pistol but the range environment came back tome quickly. I can only imagine how difficult it would be for some of the course who had never fired a weapon before.

My shoot went pretty well and I achieved a group of just 20mm in the prone. The sitting and standing were also passed but I knew given the chance I could have done better. It was nice to know however that we all passed the live fire discipline.

Again this was credit to the four corporals who have been teaching us throughout the week. To get a novice to achieve a decent grouping after a few days training is a great achievement. Also one of the lads who spent 15 years invite service and confessed to never hitting a barn door was getting excellent groupings.

In the afternoon we turned to the indoor range to practice a series of drills in different firing positions. I was I the second group and one of the group had already shot a perfect 70/70. I had to do the same!

The shoot consisted of several different scenarios at 100m range and during the shoot I was about to take a shot when nothing happened. After realising the safety was still applied I hurried the shot and missed the target. 1 mistake. So 69/70 and then a 10/10 on the reduced light shoot. All in all very happy but gutted I dropped a shot.

As we have the weekend tomorrow and a slightly later start, the course decided tonight we be a good night for a beer out. We have a cracking group of people and we had a good night out to rind down after a hard week of weapons drills.

Tomorrow we start our first aid training so hopefully nobody overdid it at the pub. A lay-in tomorrow as breakfast is at 7:40. Another happy day in the RAF Reserves.

Dave (AC Beatley)