SU Rifle Club

Southampton University has a proud tradition of rifle shooting, and SURC is currently the most successful University Rifle Club in the UK, with a healthy membership including students, graduates and the odd member of staff. The Club has won the prestigious Inter-Universities Small-Bore Championship for the last 5 consecutive years, and has won it 6 times in the past 7 years. Two of our members are on the GB Under-25 Full-bore Squad, while another travelled with the GB Under-19 Full-bore Squad to South Africa during Easter 2006. One member went to the World Shooting Championships in Zagreb during Summer 2006, and two members attended the

World University Shooting Games in Pilsen during September 2006.  A graduate and continuing member represents the Navy on their Combat Rifle Squad, and with a former Olympic Rifle and Biathlon Coach as our Club Coach, we can’t go far wrong!

If the international podium is not your place however, we have plenty of members who come down purely for the pleasure of good company, friendly banter and enjoyable sport.

We welcome new members whether they are total novices or international marksmen.

The Equipment

An Anschutz .22 Rifle

The club primarily shoots target rifles of Calibre .22inch (as shown below) at our 25 yard range in Southampton. In summer, we travel to outdoor competitions where we shoot at ranges of 50metres and 100yards. Some members travel to the National Shooting Centre at Bisley in Surrey to use the club’s 7.62mm rifles. These look much the same as the .22 rifles, but have bigger barrels and shoot much larger bullets (or “rounds”). They shoot much further – from ranges of 300yds to 1000yds.

The club benefits from Athletic Union funding which is far more generous than many other University Rifle Clubs receive, and as a result we have an excellent set of club equipment, including a lot of relatively new rifles, which are well cared for by the members. These rifles are Bolt-Action single shot rifles, where each round is hand loaded into the breech. Ours are made by a German company called Anschutz who are renowned worldwide for making superb rifles.

Canvas Shooting Jacket

To help steady the rifle we use a few other pieces of equipment:

• A tight, stiff leather or canvas jacket (picture below) helps restrict the movement that occurs in your chest and stomach with each breath. This is very handy since you are lying in the “prone position” on your stomach. The elbows of the jacket also have grippy pads on them to help hold your elbows in place on the mat.
• The mat provides a soft surface to lie on. It also has a grippy segment (the brown bit) on the top quarter which works with the grippy pads on your elbows to hold your position!
• Ear defenders – obviously an important piece of equipment.

You may also notice that the bipod on the front of the rifle is not used to support the rifle while shooting (like snipers do in the movies). It merely keeps the rifle upright the rest of the time (as in the top photo) so you can work on it, clean it and take nice photos of it!

On the other side you have a:

• Compression glove which cushions the rifle on the hand.
• Sling which wraps around your supporting arm and carries some of the weight of the rifle.
• Spotting scope so you can see where your shots went (try finding a 5mm hole in a card 100yds away with the naked eye!).

We also have all this kit in duplicate for Left-Handers.

Shooting in Prone Position