SHOOTING: Wily marksman isn't lowering aim

ANENDRA SINGH
The Vietnam War was still raging, Neil Armstrong had just taken a giant leap for mankind and New Zealand had black-and-white TV that pulled the plug at 11 each night.
A lot has changed since then and the world is a different place. LP records have been phased out, typewriters have been banished to museums, Colin Meads is an All Black no more and current poster boy Dan Carter wasn't even born back then.
But during hat 37-year period, Havelock North fullbore rifleman Tony Loughnan has continued to fly his country's flag.
In fact, the top shot is at the pinnacle of his sporting career. The 66-year-old Hastings Okawa Rifle Club member competed as part of the New Zealand fullbore rifle shooting team at the world long-range championship in Ottawa, Canada, last month, where he cemented a top-20 world ranking and was unanimously elected president of the international governing body of the sport, the International Confederation of Fullbore Rifle Associations.
"It's an all-life sport in which men and women compete as equals. I get a kick out of running my business and also get the position of the president of the (fullbore rifleshooting) outfit," Loughnan tells SportToday.
Passion has been a powerful trigger for Loughnan, who owns LHT Design Engineering Solutions in Hastings.
In more than three decades of national duties, he reckons he has "never won anything important".
His best finish has been a bronze medal at the nationals in Trentham, Wellington, in 1993. But just as good wine improves with age, he believes a New Zealand champion title is not beyond his reach despite the fact he is getting a little long in the tooth.
"I'm not counting myself out, although a lot of people are counting on me to fall over," says Loughnan, who also has Commonwealth shooting events under his belt. "What I lose in eyesight I gain in cunning."
Fullbore shooting is an outdoor target sport and the rifles are bigger (.308, 7.62mm) than those used for hunting, packing a sizeable kick in recoil.
The wind can create havoc and test a rifleman's prowess, considering the 914m distance the bullets travel. "It comes down to the top two inches, probably more so than any other sports."
Loughnan's dedication to the sport is reflected in his commitment to travel outside the Bay to practise and compete, after the New Zealand Army in 2000 deemed Roy's Hill Rifle Range unsafe and shut it down, pretty much sounding the death knell for the Hastings club. The 30- member club is down to nine today.
"I was the NRA (National Rifleman's Association) president then and they (the army) were also trying to close down the Trentham range but we were safe under the DOC (Department of Conservation) Act there. We lost here (Roy's Hill) because we couldn't fight on two fronts," he explains. "I do what I do now - jump into a plane or a car and I go shooting."
He's indebted to his former school, St John's College, Hastings, for having army cadet training in the 1950s where starchy uniforms and marching exercises were part of the curriculum.
"I was cunning and became a trainer and avoided marching." He got into school teams and eventually went to Canterbury University and represented New Zealand University against Australia.
Over the decades, Loughnan has seen many changes in the sport and the public attitude toward it. It peeves him that there's so much prejudice out there.
"There's all this TV nonsense and stupidity and people becoming paranoid about rifles. We have to be careful not to do things that may upset people.
"I treat my gear just like a billiard cue or golf clubs - it's just a tool."
John Hastie, of Hastings, and Tony Halberg, of Taradale, were team armourers who made the rifles that the the 25-strong Kiwi team used in Ottawa last month. They selected and fitted the teams barrels, designed and supervised the manufacture of the special ammunition used. Hastie is a national champion and has represented the country at the Commonwealth Games.
"They did magnificently. It's a pity we didn't do better," says Loughnan of the team that finished sixth overall. His individual ranking of 19 was out of 370 competitors. He has been involved with the governing body since its inception in 1998 and from then chaired its rules committee, tasked with establishing universal rules for the 30-member countries.