Getting greater women involvement in sport shooting and hunting.
A part of The Powder Keg culture is pushing the boundaries; being proactive allows us to influence what others do not consider. Paul Luff and the local team do the hard and important work of growing our existing business and looking after our existing customers.
I use my remoteness to seek areas of strategic growth. We are focused on increasing the size of the market and not only fighting for a piece of the existing market. Our initiatives seek to engage people of all sexes and races to participate in the amazing sport of shooting.
I start with this headline on the Clay Target Shooting Association of South Africa’s website, “welcome to the thrilling and visually exciting sport of clay target shooting – you are now connecting with one of the oldest and safest sports in the world!” We must contribute to improving the image of “guns and hunting” because responsible hunters and gun owners are being tarnished through irresponsible, ignorant and biased media reporting.
With that introduction the point of this BLOG, women shooters . Generally us men have bigger egos than women and this is immensely restrictive to our advancement. For example, the advice to men about starting the sport of 3 gun shooting is “toss your ego aside and jump into the arena”. In getting women involved in shooting we fortunately do not have the ego hurdle to climb. We do however have to be a supportive community to show that getting involved is easy for women.
The Powder Keg is a family store. The golden thread of our business is not “GUNS” but includes creating an environment where women feel at home; buying gear for themselves or simply being supportive of their families involvement in the sport of hunting and shooting. Who better to uplift the image of guns and shooting than women.
In Austria alone there are more than 12000 registered female hunters, and growing. Some Austrians concede that women may be better hunters than men, their reasoning includes women’s respect for the animal; and that they make sure that the meat, the fat and the fur are not wasted.
The point I am trying to make is not which sex is a better hunter, but to point out that more and more women in Europe are choosing to spend their free time in the nature, gun in hand and dog at side, hunting for food, fun and companionship.
In Europe women hunters contribute to keeping the old huntsmen’s traditions alive and keeping us men folk better behaved, although not all hunters like it, especially hunters with old habits and fixed paradigms.
I think women have improved hunting in Europe, made it more elegant, they are less interested in hunting just for “trophies” to hang on the wall, instead they hunt primarily for food, camaraderie and because of their love for nature.
The Powder Keg stocks a range of Chevalier hunting clothing for women that is functional and elegant. Our goal was more, a gun that would be a “signature gun” for women hunters. Research suggests that women are more precise with their shots vs. just blasting away, hence The Powder Keg decided on a single shot break-down gun; a type more suited to creating an elegant, light weight and short rifle.
Here is a “sneak peak”, a 308 Win weighing in just over 2 kg without scope. The gun is that well designed that recoil is no issue despite the light weight. We did not want to insult women with a “signature gun” in a .22 caliber:)) We fitted a scope of 1″ tube diameter that complimented the sleek and elegant lines of this round body action, and there is no better 1″ illumination scope than a Kahles Helia 3 scope.
I am hopeful that through The Powder Keg initiatives to get more women shooters and women hunters involved my daughter will rekindle a flame that was part of many days that we spent in the veld together.
Demi shooting with Dave Hurr
The Powder Keg and Kahles are proud to be associated with Lauren Parsons, ladies Field Target World Champion in 2015 and SA Ladies National Champion in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. Lauren shoots with the Kahles 1050FT scope. We will join with Lauren to support initiatives for a greater involvement of women shooters and women hunters.
