SHARPSHOOTER: Phil Dunlop, reigning North Island 3 Gun Champion and tutor at Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre, was making moving targets at the centre in readiness for the upcoming North Island Three Gun Championships that will run at Gladstone next month. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
SHARPSHOOTER: Phil Dunlop, reigning North Island 3 Gun Champion and tutor at Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre, was making moving targets at the centre in readiness for the upcoming North Island Three Gun Championships that will run at Gladstone next month. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
A champion sharpshooter who tutors at the Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre is designing "bullet-proof" practical stages for the upcoming North Island 3-Gun Championships.
Tutor Phil Dunlop, who is reigning North Island 3 Gun Champion, also has been using the holidays to manufacture moving targets at the engineering block at Taratahiahead of the event, which will run at the Wairarapa Pistol and Shooting Sports Club (WPSSC) at Gladstone on February 15 and 16.
Competitors in 3 Gun events combine accuracy, speed, and power to complete stages of unique shooting scenarios using a rifle, handgun, and shotgun. Each stage requires shooters to transition between the firearms and at varying distances to shoot targets - some paper and others steel - while also ignoring other targets that incur penalties when hit.
Mr Dunlop also is the WPSSC practical shooting co-ordinator and is designing the Practical Shooting stage for the championships next month "in a way that will push competitors to their limits", he said.
Each stage was different, he said, so competitors "will have no idea how it will play out until they are on it".
"Competitors will do their best to manage the stage to their advantage and try to avoid or mitigate the challenges I've created for them. It's something I really enjoy doing, figuring out how competitors will try to manoeuvre the stage, how the targets should move and how I can make competitors work hard and push their capabilities and skills as shooters."
Designing the stage on paper typically takes a full day and each system is tested on the range during the week before competition to ensure there are no easy ways around his design.
"I'm lucky I work at Taratahi which has all these great facilities and don't have any issues with me coming in and spending the down time to work on this. Not a lot of employers would have that kind of attitude."
Mr Dunlop has held his championship title for the past two years and has been on the New Zealand Pistol Team since 1999. "In November I came second in the Pistol Nationals, I only lost by 0.5 per cent and I have to say that losing by that tiny margin was a bit brutal."
He had introduced several Taratahi students to rifle and clay bird shooting as well and on Wednesday nights he and interested students were regulars at the Wairarapa club.