Soldiers, cops fired up for inaugural comp

An inaugural gun shooting competition between Kimberley soldiers and police officers has gone off with a bang — and triggered some friendly rivalry.

Broome Police Station’s finest took on WA’s Norforce Kimberley Squadron in an inaugural firearm shooting and puzzle competition at a Department of Defence firing range outside Broome in November.

The three-man team of WA Police carried the day against Norforce’s four-man unit, 2345 points to 1989 with about 70 extra hits on target.

NKS Warrant Officer Paul Harrison said the accuracy was good across both teams but the coppers had snagged a win with their pinpoint fire, despite coming off worse with the course’s memory puzzles.

“The WAPOL shooters were more acute at getting the five’s (centre target) — the observation and memory puzzles were better with us,” he said.

“Considering Norforce don’t train with pistols, there wasn’t much difference — we look forward to next year’s competition, seeing what the event evolves into and we will train a bit harder.”

Both teams used the opportunity to test out their rival’s equipment with shooters using the army’s new F88 Austeyr assault rifle, WAPOL’s AR-15 patrol rifles and Glock 22 pistols.

Senior Constable Ollie Mills said he was under pressure from the time limit and puzzles but enjoyed the variety of the shoot. “It’s nice having the four times optics (scope) on their rifle, it certainly brings the target a lot closer,” he said.

“But the duress (of the puzzles) beforehand and the amount of rounds that need to hit the target before the time limit was added pressure. I wasn’t expecting the quiz at all — I thought I’d memorized everything I could but after the shoot my mind just went blank.”