Shooting

Contrary to what people believe, you even get to shoot in the Air Training Corps!

   After you have successfully passed the tests required to earn your first class badge, you are eligible to fly, visit camps and fire rifles in the Air Cadets. However, before you are allowed to handle a firearm, you have to pass a further test to qualify you to use the weapon.

   This is called a Weapons Handling Test (WHT) and you are required to have passed this before you are allowed to fire a rifle down range. After completing the WHT on the Enfield No.8 Rifle, you are allowed to handle and fire the rifle using the standard ammnuition, which, for this rifle, is .22 caliber.

   Once you have reached a certain standard on this rifle and have attained a "First Class Shot" rating, you are allowed to progress onto the Enfield L98A1 Cadet General Purpose rifle, which fires a larger 5.56mm

cartridge. You may even have the chance to go further and fire the L81 7.62mm target rifle, which is similar in exterior design to the No.8, but fires a larger cartridge and therefore recoils more.

   If you are successful enough, it is possible to obtain marksman badges that can be added to your brassard. Marksmans can be gained on either rifles, the No.8 or the L98A1, but have different parameters. For example, as the L98A1 is more powerful, it can only be fired on ranges outside, whereas the No.8 is mostly shot indoors.

   The first badge that can be obtained is a "squadron marksman" badge, and to achieve this standard, you must score 75 out of 100.

   "Grouping" is the name we give to classify how accurately a cadet has shot the weapon. A one inch grouping, for example, means that all the rounds that were fired are within one inch of each other. A 1

The Cadet One Hundred Badge

inch grouping equals 25 marks, a 1 and a half inch grouping is equal to 20 marks, and a 2 inch grouping is 15 marks.

   Once you are at this marksman standard, you may progress to achieve the next classification of marksman, called the Regional Marksman badge. After this you can go on further to achieve the Corps Marksman badge and the Cadet 100 badge - the ultimate marksman badge.