Gibsons marksman Allan Harding recently returned to the Coast after winning bronze in the Canadian National Pistol Championship in Camrose, Alta., for Team BC at the end of August.
BC won gold in both the 10m and 50m events, which Harding competed in.
“The big thing was the team wins,” Harding said. “That was huge for us.”
In the individual categories, Harding won bronze in the 50m .22 calibre event and placed fourth in 10m air pistol. Harding’s bronze medal assured him a spot on the Canadian national team in 2016 for the 50m.
His first stop with the national team is in Thailand in March 2016.
“[My year] is going to be pretty hectic, I think,” Harding said. “March is Thailand, April is Rio where they’ll do the test events for the Olympics.”
Harding began shooting in 1990 when his younger brother talked him into shooting a can in their back yard with a BB gun. His brother told him that if he hit the can, they had to go to the range.
Harding said he wasn’t very enthusiastic about this, but he did hit the can.
Other than a break from shooting in 1995, Harding has been going strong ever since, and he has an array of medals to prove it.
Harding’s favourite competition category is 10m air pistol.
“The way that most air guns have been evolved over time, you could put it in a vice and it would shoot through the same hole every time,” Harding said. “The gun itself is essentially perfect. When you miss, it’s always due to human error.”
Mechanical issues do happen, Harding added, but as long as it’s serviced properly, an air gun can last a long time.
Air gun competitions are held indoors (so there is no wind), the lighting is consistent and at 10m there isn’t enough space between the shooter and the target for aberrations.
“When you’re firing a .22, for example, there’s a small explosion that happens. The bullet is manufactured a certain way, and then there’s wind,” Harding said. “There are a lot of different things that are going to happen by the time the bullet gets 50 metres down range. There are a lot more environmental variables. With the air gun, not so much.”
The target bull’s-eye is about the size of a dime for the 10m air gun competition.
Harding has one last shooting match in Winnipeg at the 2015 Prairie Open on Oct. 24 and 25 where he hopes to secure his position in the 10m air pistol category on the Canadian national team for next year.
