From the main building it’s a short walk to
the live fire ranges that Warfighters will be
using on its courses. We also noticed an
assault course and abseiling tower, which
are used for adventure training at the facility.
Once at the range it was time to get the
weapons out of their cases. To say we had a
mixed bag was a bit of an understatement!
We had a H&K G3 7
.62mm assault rifle,
an AK74 in 5.56mm, a 9mm Makarov pistol
and a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun – but
my personal favourite was the .300 Magnum
Sako rifle.
It was hammered home to me that this
was not going to be a ‘shoot loads of rounds
down the range’ jolly. The courses aim to
teach people that have perhaps never fired
live firearms how to conduct all weaponhandling drills safely. We covered the lot
– from loading magazines with ammunition
and the ‘make safe’ drill to the handing-over
of the weapon, and every drill in between.
Despite having spent many years in the
forces I don’t know everything and still made
mistakes (albeit minor ones, not dangerous
or unsafe) and these where corrected by the
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Xmas 2011