Technically, physically and mentally. Shooters will be tested on all those elements with the use of their equipment in the Quesnel Rod and Gun Club’s upcoming 2Gun Winter Brutality Competition and Night Shoot.
The two-day event is set to take place Saturday, March 5 and Sunday, March 6.
“This will be our first ‘brutality’ competition,” said director Thomas Simpson.
“Rather than a casual sitting down at a shooting bench and shooting a target at a set distance, there is going to be many challenges for the shooter who is competing in the competition.”
The Quesnel Rod and Gun Club has conducted 2Gun shoots in the past.
A rifle and a pistol are used to shoot at different targets at different ranges from different positions.
“It’s a huge amount of fun, and we want to help people have fun,” Simpson said, calling 2Gun a rapidly growing sport for all ages.
The daytime competition will feature six to seven stages of combined shooting, physical and mental challenges with movement, weights, skill-testing questions and more.
Two different levels of physical challenge will be available, with a non-competitor squad an option for all the stages.
“It’s a bit harder to do a nice painting when you’ve just done a five-mile run,” Simpson said with a laugh.
“So it’s just making tasks which otherwise would be much less challenging harder by combining them together.”
Around 40 attendees have currently registered.
In addition to the daytime competition, a night shoot will be conducted on March 5 through a series of strobe lights and more to illuminate areas.
Simpson said that some shooters have night vision devices to see targets others can’t.
“We’re going to have all sorts of fun things going on there, and again safety is really on top of every step of the way,” he added.
Warm fires, hot drinks and a heated indoor range will be present for participants and spectators who are required to bring hearing and eye protection.
Before then, a lot of setup and designing of the courses of fire which Simpson described as a series of activities you would conduct as one component of the shoot is needed.
The club will run through each stage with and without firing to make necessary changes. Any concerns of safety such as trip hazards and places where safety rules may unintentionally be broken are identified, assessed and addressed before firing.
The brutality competition will be a first in North America for Simpson, who served with the British Army and participated in the European Practical Shotgun Championships and other shooting events.
“It’s going to be great,” Simpson said.
“We’ve run a series of competitions and events prior to now, and we felt that we were ready to run a brutality match.”
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