Ranger (for a day) Regan Burden tries her hand at the Canadian Rangers C19 Rifle

Ranger (for a day) Regan Burden tries her hand at the Canadian Rangers C19 Rifle

Handling drills at 5 Wing Goose Bay is where her training begins

Taking in target practice with the Canadian Rangers

I recently got the opportunity to try my hand, and aim, with the C19, a customized rifle made for the Canadian Rangers.

The Canadian Rangers are a part of the Canadian Armed Forces reserve — their role is to provide a military presence in remote, isolated and coastal regions of Canada. They receive rifle training annually.

“The handling and firing of the C19 Ranger rifle and our ultimate goal is like practice makes perfect. So the more practice we get our Rangers with the more they develop their abilities to use that rifle,” said Lt.-Col Lenny Dunn.

Dunn, the commanding officer of the 5th Canadian Ranger Patrol Group, says having the Canadian Rangers on the shooting range ensures they understand specific handling drills.

Handling drills is where my training begins.

Master Cpl. Devon Piercey, an infantry soldier with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, has been tasked with running me through the safe handling drills to handle and fire the rifle.

“Your arms are gonna hurt after this and that’s a good thing. That means you’re training your muscles to follow along with your brain. Everything we do in the military has to be muscle memory,” said Piercey.

The master corporal runs me through the training drills until he feels like I’m ready to move onto the real thing.

Sgt. Jeff Keefe, with the Canadian Ranger patrol in Black Tickle, sits by my side during the shooting in case anything goes wrong or I forget what I’m supposed to do. Thankfully, it goes relatively smoothly. I fire two magazines at the target, a total of 10 shots.

After finishing up Maj. Connor Gray walks me back to the range to see how I fared — four of the 10 shots hit the paper. It’s not terrible and they did tell me there was somewhat of a grouping with the shots.

Maj. Gray says they may make a ranger out of me yet and truth be told, it’s tempting.

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Regan Burden works with Labrador Morning from CBC's bureau in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.