Welcome to the London Historic Shooting Club.
About Us
The London Historic Shooting Club is a Home Office approved club that was founded in 2020 with a simple desire: To create an accessible, affordable and friendly club enabling young people with an interest in shooting, no matter who they are, to shoot historic firearms - regardless of the age, design or origin nation of said firearms.
Whether you are a complete beginner or are a current firearms license holder you are welcome at LHSC. You will be provided with the training to both practice safe handling and improve your marksmanship skills. If you choose to compete in our competitions, your scores will be compared to those using firearms of a similar age. This means that whether your preference is for a UK legal AR-15 with a bipod, high powered scope and underslung bottle opener, or a rusty old smoothbore Japanese matchlock, you will never find yourself with any more of a disadvantage than those who originally used these firearms.
For those without their own firearms or those who want to shoot something different, the club has its own rifles that all members are welcome to use. These are a Yugoslavian Mauser in 8mm, a Swiss Schmidt-Rubin K11 in 7.5 swiss, a Winchester 1892 in .357 Magnum, a UK legal AK-101 in .223 and a Ruger 10/22 in .22.
Whilst the LHSC aims to accommodate a variety of tastes, from bench rest to off-hand shooting, generally we seek to emulate the types of shooting these historic firearms were designed for. This could mean anything from long-range bullseye shooting with your Whitworth rifle to rapid-fire with your Lee-Enfield.
We do not have our own range instead we shoot at Bisley National Shooting Centre, in Surrey, where we can utilise ranges from 10 - 1000 yards.
As visible in many of our photos, we have taken to often shooting in period military uniform and equipment that match one or more of our rifles. We are not a reenactment group but we have found it interesting and fun to shoot in this attire and the webbing can be very useful in some of our competitions when it comes to reloads. Although we will encourage members to join us in this if they are interested it is by no means necessary to do so to be part of the club, there is no dress code other than dress practically for the weather.
We will also run social clay pigeon shooting trips to a variety of clay pigeon grounds in the south of England.
Types of Firearms we currently shoot
Although we aim to be able to cater to any type of shooting our members want to do, as a new club these are the types of firearms we shoot regularly. As we grow as a club so will the disciplines we take part in. We will however do what we can to facilitate the types of shooting you want to do if it is outside our current discipline list.
Historic Service Rifle
This is our largest discipline within the club currently, with members having a wide variety of historic service rifles. Courses of fire will range from precision to rapid-fire with reloads to replicate the practical usage of the rifles. The club itself has its own Schmidt-Rubin K11 and Spanish Mauser rifles that are available for all club members to use and we will add other firearms to that list along the line as well as hire rifles when needed. You will get to see a wide variety of rifles owned personally by members which range from the British Lee Enfield SMLE, Pattern 14, and French Lebels and Berthiers to M1 Garands and a wide variety of Mausers.
Club Quartermaster Chris Crump shooting his 1886 Lebel in 8x50r
Modern Service Rifle
Modern service rifle (usually called Civilian Service Rifle) is much like historic service rifle only using the best rifle technology available today. Highly customised straight pull and bolt action rifles that make use of modern optics and materials are common for these competitions. Whilst the courses of fire may be similar to historic rifle competitions the standard of accuracy expected is usually much higher.
Black Powder Rifle and Pistol
Black powder rifle and pistol covers all rifles and pistols from throughout history that use a Black powder charge whether it is a muzzle loading flint lock musket to a straight pull en-bloc clip-fed 11mm Mannlicher 1886. This discipline is shot at a variety of distances from 10 yards up to 1000 yards depending on the type of black powder firearm used, courses of fire can also range from precision to rapid fire.
Club Secretary Debbie with her 1869 Werder Rifle in .43 Mauser
Gallery Rifle
Gallery rifle is typically shot with small calibre rifles at shorter distances. Courses of fire are very similar to pistol competitions and depending on the facility used can have turning or moving targets. Given the greater availability of short ranges and the lower cost of small calibre ammunition, gallery rifle is one of the most popular and fastest expanding disciplines in the country. Shooters will often choose to shoot more historic rifles like lever-action rifles inspired by those of the old west or perhaps they will shoot more modern rifles such as semi-automatic .22's.
Club Chairman Sam with a .44spl Marlin
How To Join
Fill out an application form, upon acceptance of the form and payment of membership, you will have to attend an informal chat with the committee (normally over Google Meet) to get to know you a little before you join us on the range to shoot.
Membership costs £40 a year, renewed every September.
Contact us.
londonhistoricshootingclub@gmail.com
