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Sixty years on the same range
Campbelltown Liverpool District Pistol Club is a volunteer-run sporting club at Campbelltown, in Sydney. Our members include beginners, juniors, families and experienced competitors, brought together by an interest in learning, practising and enjoying target shooting.
ISSF pistol shooting is at the heart of the club, with five ranges here supporting training and competition. Members also participate in Service Pistol, WA1500 and rifle shooting, and the club has an active collectors group.
Who we are
The date is stamped in the concrete
Members have been shooting on this range for more than sixty years — you can read the date in the concrete they poured. The club itself is older still. It started in the mid-1950s as a provost marshal military club, formed largely by Mick Grey, then an Army captain. Civilians joined, the military membership fell away, and what was left is the club you find today.
Before Campbelltown there were ranges at Holsworthy and Denham Court. The move here, in the mid-1960s, is the one that stuck.
There are many club competitions through the year with competitors attending from across the state. A number of those events are a stepping stone towards state and national team selection.
We are affiliated with the NSW Amateur Pistol Association and Pistol Australia. Our members shoot the full ISSF range, from Olympic air pistol indoors at 10 metres to free pistol at 50.
An Olympic connection
Pattie Dench took up shooting at this club at 42. Ten years later she stood on an Olympic podium in Los Angeles.
Her bronze in the 1984 women’s 25m pistol was the first Olympic shooting medal Australia had ever won, and the first won by an Australian woman in the sport. The event itself was brand new — 1984 was the first time women contested pistol at the Games.
She was 52. She remains the oldest Australian woman ever to win an Olympic medal, in any sport. She was later inducted into the NSW Hall of Champions.
Nobody spotted her at fourteen and put her on a pathway. She walked into a suburban pistol club in middle age and got very good at it. That is the part worth repeating, because it is still true of the sport: you can start whenever you like.
On the record: Donald Mackintosh won at the 1900 Paris Games in pigeon shooting, but the IOC has since ruled those events non-Olympic, which is why Dench is counted first. Sources: Australian Olympic Committee · Shooting Australia
Also at the club
The collectors group
Not everything at CLDPC gets shot. The collectors group meets for the history: the engineering, the makers, and how a design that looks impossible now made perfect sense at the time.
The pair in the photograph are pinfire revolvers, a French design from the 1860s, small enough to sit in one hand. Cartridges like these were among the first self-contained rounds anyone made.
You do not need a collection to come along. Curiosity is enough.
What that means for you
Learn, practise and compete together
Whether you enjoy regular club shooting or want to compete further afield, CLDPC offers a place to develop your skills and share the sport with others.
We aim to keep membership affordable. Generous discounts are available for juniors, spouses and partners; contact the club for current details.
Five ranges
Four live-fire ranges and a fully air-conditioned indoor air pistol range with electronic targets — so weather is rarely a reason not to shoot.
Coaching and training
Safe handling courses for both handgun and longarms licences, regular Wednesday evening training, and experienced members who can help you learn.
Real competition
Club matches, sanctioned NSW APA events, and memorial competitions that have been running here for decades.
Also here
More about the club
Club history
The early years at Holsworthy and Denham Court, building the Kentlyn range by hand, and the two members who in 1963 became the first women in NSW licensed to shoot target pistol.
Read it →
NSW Firearms Registry
Licensing, safe storage, ammunition permits, transport, registration, deceased estates and the P650 declaration — all in one place.
Useful links →
Latest news
Range maintenance projects, competition announcements and what the collectors group has been bringing in.
See the news →