Who says girls can’t shoot?
I had the pleasure of meeting Susannah's parents at SHOT Show. This was written by her father Dr. Jim Clary ...
Susannah L. Clary, my daughter, now age 19 and beginning her junior year in college shoots F-Class high power.
She shoots a Savage Model 12 rifle custom chambered in 6.5 x 284 Norma by Alan Warner in the US. She uses Lapua brass with a 139 grain Lapua Scenar bullet with 49.4 grains of H4350 powder. It gets out there pretty good at 2,950 fps. The scope is a Nightforce 12-42x-56 NXS with NP-R2 reticle.
She hopes to compete at the Creedmor matches in Ireland in 2011......... for the Irish team or as an individual competitor... and of course, she will be shooting in the 2013 world championships - but, not on the US team, but, as an individual....... she has no time for the prelims across the US with college. And me? I'm her "free-loader" on the ammo.
Who says female shooters can't be good looking? Not me.... and of all things... she wants to be a sniper. She has completed the NRA rifle and pistol instructor's courses, and must now wait until she is 21 to be fully certified. In the meantime, she works parttime at a gunshop and shooting range in New Mexico... just to "keep her hand in". Oh yea, she does hold one record that I know of for high power at 1,000 yards for juniors.... picking that up in 2007 at the US Nationals in Raton, NM (NRA Whittington Center)
Best of luck to Susannah.
) they are recognized in the industry because they are spectacular shooters, regardless of gender.
To the falcon and some others……. check out Nancy Thompkins, a world-class shooter, with many records. There is a reason that we do not see more women in shooting competition, and I will say it straight out……. male prejudice. The Irish and South Africans do not have any prejudices against females in shooting…….. but (and this will get a lot of Americans pi$$ed off at me) in America, the “good old boy” network is alive and well.
There are some notable exceptions of Americans who encourage all shooters,including women, such as Alan Warner, a world class rifle maker from New Hampshire (he made the rifle that Gary Costello used to win the 2009 World F-Class championship), and he also put together Sus’ rifle.
I could go on and on as to how the cards are stacked against the female shooters in the US, but it would only rile folks up…. so, I’ll stop here.
Bottom line…. Susannah shoots F-Class for fun, but it isn’t her “end all be all”…. she has her college to complete, and then she might spend more time shooting targets… and no, she doesn’t shoot with those earrings. In the meantime, she hunts every year with her mother (my bride of 23 years).
And for everyone’s information….. Steve wasn’t paid for the post. He and I met at the SHOT shot in Vegas last January and talked about my own writing for Guns & Shooting Online, and our daughter’s shooting. And, I am not paid by any company or organization for our articles and am not sponsored, and do not accept sponsors on our personal website:
http://home.earthlink.net/~manzanovalph/
My wife and I are retired and are financially independent…. we write for fun and information… we (nor Sus) don’t need the money.
Well, women have been great shots since Annie Oakley. Good to see this young lady follow in that great tradition! Her father is rightly proud of her and I would be happy to shake the gentleman’s hand if I ever met him for introducing his daughter to the shooting sports. If only more men would bring their daughters to shoot! I have several friends of mine from my schooldays whose girls are only interested in the latest fashions and television shows. Susannah is an inspiration to girls of her generation like all other women shooters!
Congratulations to this pretty young lady and I hope she persuades all of her girlfriends to take up shooting. May she win many more medals in the future as well!
Thank you, Steve, for this very encouraging post. Recognizing this young lady’s achievements on a prominent blog like this one is very gracious and nice of you, my friend!
“Reading really is fundamental considering I wrote “world record”.“
Seeing as how F-Class shooting is a purely NRA thing, complaining that she doesn’t have a “world record” is like complaining that the Yankees didn’t really win the “World Series”.
You know, I spent a few minutes typing out a reply to the troll on this page.. but in reality, he/she aint worth the effort.
But just as google material, look up Julie Goloski (i’m pretty sure she has 11 world titles). Her, along with Jessie, Kay, Tori Nonoka among others, dont garner praises because they’re hot chicks (well not JUST because
) they are recognized in the industry because they are spectacular shooters, regardless of gender.
[quote]One more time: Clary holds the Junior F Class Open long range national record. Reading really is fundamental.[/quote]
Reading really is fundamental considering I wrote “world record”.
[quote]Kay’s shot for Team S&W before. Sponsorship doesn’t get much more major than that.[/quote]
Considering who her husband is, that’s not exactly shocking.
I think it’s good to publicize that the shooting sports aren’t just for grumpy old white guys.
gyrfalcon,
Kay’s shot for Team S&W before. Sponsorship doesn’t get much more major than that.
One more time: Clary holds the Junior F Class Open long range national record. Reading really is fundamental.
Ok here the thing about sponsorship in the shooting world.
Getting sponsorships is very rare in the shooting world. You’re not going to make much money or any money from your sponsor. Sponsors provide ammo and/or firearms. They might provide hard cash but that’s a rarity. You don’t get rich out of them like in other sports.
World class shooters make their money from training others, making videos, writing books, and selling their own products.
For example: David Tubb makes his money selling his videos, books, firearms (tubb 2000 rifle), accessories, and private training.
http://www.davidtubb.com/
Josh pretty much summed up what I should have said… You have people like Kay Clark-Miculek that don’t get major sponsorship because they don’t fit the “hot” image various corporations are looking for.
I wasn’t trying to infer this blog was getting paid for anything. Also winning at nationals does not equate to a world record although it’s impressive and takes a lot of work.
140 grains 6.5mm is where the magic happens,
You know when people post that female shooters is an “anomaly” probably never shot a gun before much less in a competitive field.
I think I can see Mr. Falcon’s point. If we were really about recognizing equality between genders this wouldn’t be a big deal. Why should it be noteworthy that a female shooter can be successful? What’s really being said here is, “This person can shoot well, AND SHE’S A GIRL!!! Can you believe a GIRL can shoot this well???” And a decent-looking girl at that.
Giving this attention is sort of like saying, “Girls aren’t supposed to be good marksmen, and good-looking girls especially aren’t supposed to excel, but look what this one can do.”
Or you can look at it a different way as I see it “Susannah for example is a girl who excels at the sport and therefor there is no other reason other girls cannot either, other than society which in many ways prevents this”.
“gyrefalcon”,
Reading is FUN-damental!
See ya at the range!
I bet the reason women can get good fast is they get lots more encouragement from father/brothers/husbands etc than they would if they were guys, simply because it is unusual.
Better yet is she single?
Dear gyrfalcon or anyone who doubts female shooters,
…Jessie Abbate…
The most awesome female shooter alive… and she’s smoking hot too!!!
Where was she when I was 19? Not born yet, unfortunately. Nice to see that not all young ladies spend all their time in the mall.
PROPS!
At my home club, I run the USPSA program but do a good number of IDPA matches, too.
Last fall I did a USPSA match for my IDPA friends by converting some USPSA field courses I’d already used to IDPA by juggling lines/barriers and round counts.
One of our regular USPSAers, a single stack B-and-climbing fast, won the match overall, beating an A-class SS guy with four times the experience and a genuine IDPA CDP expert by a fraction, in a solid field of 44 shooters.
The next match, I did one that was real IDPA, eight close-up, superfast 12 round stages built all walls-and-corners.
I billed it as a carry gun match and set out guidelines for such things: four-inchers less than two pounds.
That same winner won this one, too, in a good 34-strong field of IDPAers, shooting a G19 instead of the usual SS/CDP gun, and by several seconds.
The winner is of the female persuasion and those were the only matches I’ve ever been to won outright by a woman. You might recognize her name from the “Women of USPSA” thing as she is climbing the ranks of Single Stack.
A very good feeling, it was, and I couldn’t have enjoyed any more having been the match director for this.
A longer and more boring account is at http://therangeofficersblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/girl-won-my-match.html
My sister is better than me if I don’t shoot for a while. She has basically no interest in guns. It’s pretty sad.
Very Impressive.
Damm, they’ll even be able to vote next. What is the world coming to?
Cheers – Rusty
She also seems to be very smart. I googled her name and found that she has won science awards and published papers as a high school student. Most impressive.
Statistically your “girl” and women in general are an anomaly in the world of shooting where men virtually dominate. Has your girl or any other women set a world record or won a major event? If not, besides being a woman what’s so noteworthy about her?
Not to pee in your cornflakes, but posts like this just seem like another “babe with gun/s” promotion. Glad you have sponsorship though…
gyrfalcon, I don’t like you inferring I was paid to post this. Why would I need to be paid to post about a friends daughter? Quite frankly accusing a blogger of being paid to write blog posts is hugely insulting.
Seriously, if I had a daughter who was in college, attractive and a great shooter, then I’d be singing her praises to everyone I met too. Well done on producing such marvellous offspring Dr. Clary and good luck to your daughter with her upcoming studies, instructor courses and shooting competitions. Please keep us up to date with her progress.
Not sure about those earrings and the cheek weld though, looks like an accident waiting to happen.
Does anyone?
They’re usually better than us.