General News
22 October, 2025
Girls with Guns swings by Port Campbell
THE Port Campbell Rifle Range was abuzz with activity last weekend as women took over as part of the Girls with Guns program.
The not-for-profit, run by Farrah Buckland and Wayne Lording, is designed to bring more women into target shooting and encourage them to get out of their comfort zone.
On Saturday, October 18, around 30 women had the chance to be guided on using rifles and shotguns at the rifle range.
Mr Lording said he’s had over 1000 women go through the Girls with Guns program over the last 12 months, which has been “amazing”.
“There’s been about a 50 per cent rate on women continuing to shoot and get their licenses and that’s in both hand gun and in rifle,” he said.
“Within two or three hours of a session going up on social media it’s completely booked out with up to 50 people on a wait list, all over Victoria – it’s nuts.
“I’ve been training people in shooting for over 30 years and I have never seen so many women wanting to shoot and get licenses.
“It’s an emerging thing and it’s so good and I love teaching women how to shoot because they don’t have an ego and they listen and some of the women are some of the best shooters in the world.
“Women are amazing – I don’t know what it is but whenever I’ve trained women in shooting some of them have gone on to be incredible champions.”
Port Campbell Rifle Club captain Paul Jeffery said hosting Girls with Guns was a great way to boost membership for the club.
“It’s a good way get girls in to the shooting game and hopefully try and boost some membership for our club,” he said.
“We have the clay targets – shooting the clay targets with the shotgun.
“We don’t normally do this type of shooting here but it’s a good way to introduce people into shooting.
“Girls and men, there’s no difference in their ability, so it’s not really trying to get more ladies there or more men.
“Ladies probably don’t get the opportunity because they think it’s a man’s sport, but it’s not really because there’s ladies around that are way better shots than us and ladies have a more natural ability with a rifle than men.”
Besides shooting clay targets with a shotgun, the women were also shooting rifles from a table at paper targets.
Girls with Guns attendee Jocelyn Robinson said she came to the event to step outside of her comfort zone.
“Four years ago, we moved down to this area and there’s a lot of guns and stuff around on properties down here and I just thought it would be really good to get comfortable, get a bit of an understanding and not be so nervous around guns,” she said.
“I also thought, why not? It’s not just a man’s sport – we can come out and have fun.
“When I saw the event advertised, I thought it was a really good opportunity to come out and feel a bit more comfortable and be guided by someone rather than maybe feeling a bit out of place because it was a girl’s specific event.
“I feel good being here and being guided by somebody.”
Anyone interested in getting involved with Girls with Guns can contact Farrah Buckland on 0408 682 632.
Read More: Port Campbell