1066 Target Sports - Hastings

My father is the worst person to buy for. He is more of a 'go out and experience things' present guy instead of wanting an actual gift to open. But he's pretty much gone everywhere and done everything so what do you buy someone who's done everything within your budget?

I started having a look in different areas and saw that 1066 Target Sports was the number 1 thing to do in Hastings on TripAdvisor. Guns, arrows, shooting. Sounded ideal and the reviews were great plus we could also spend some time down by the beach to and make a day of it. And if the weather was bad it didn't matter because it was all indoors.

On the website they have a range of activities for all ages. You can also hire lanes and bring in your own guns or you can also hire them too at a reasonable price. If you can't decide what you fancy trying out they do taster session where you can spend 30 minutes on the activities. I wanted to try them all so picked the 5 taster sessions for under £30. What this included was:

• Air Rifle
• Crossbow
• Archery 
• Axe Throwing 
• Live .22 Rim Fire Rifle

So me, my dad, Joe went fighting it out on who can get the most points and my mum the trusty photographer. If you didn't know we are all very competitive, hate losing and it can get pretty ugly! 

(Before it got ugly)

How it works is you get a trial run on the activity and then your scoring round. You get a winner in that session and then an overall winner.

Air Rifle

Our first taster session was air rifle. I didn't realise that the sight wasn't one the zooms in and I have trouble looking into the distance so you can kinda guess I wasn't the best at this. However, on the scoring round I hit one target and was so pleased with myself haha. Even got a high five from the trainer. If I'm being honest I was just aiming mindlessly and hoping for the best lol. Wasn't much kick back either from the gun.

Me - 2 points

Joe - 10 points

Dad - 9 points

Crossbow

(I was getting worried I would do it wrong and lose a thumb!)

I did enjoy this one. Mostly because I was good at it! There is a lot of steps to follow with this one when setting the crossbow up which can seem scary but once you get the hang of things it's pretty straight forward. I was able to hit the yellow (the middle) all three times! I didn't realise how much power a crossbow actually had until I fired one.

Me - 27 points

Joe - 23 points

Dad - 28 points

Archery 

(My face is so serious lol)

I had done archery back in year 6 and played it on the Wii. If you are a pro at the Wii believe me it won't help you when doing it for real! I'm a weakling and found it hard to pull it back as far as it needed to go and keep it still the aim. Me and Joe struggled with this on the practice round. He actually shot his over the target! But once the trainer told us where to aim we didn't do to bad. I think my dad may be Robin Hood though as he was getting bulls-eyes.

Me - 24 points

Joe - 35 points

Dad - 50 points

Axe Throwing

You would think just throwing an axe at a target would be simple enough right? It's not ok it's the most hardest bullshit I have ever tried in my life! I just didn't understand the technique you was meant to do and couldn't get the stupid thing to stick into the target. Apparently it was a right laugh to everyone watching though lol. But because the trainer was nice if you got none in the target on the scoring round then you can try one more time and whatever the axe hits first that's your score. Although annoyingly frustrating it was still fun.

Me - 3 points

Joe - 3 points (he also struggled to get the target)

Dad - 5 points

Live .22 Rim Fire Rifle

(All the cards people have shot in half!)

(When the gun blow up on me)

This was the one I was looking forward to the most. You got to try out two different kinds of guns. Bolt action (single shot) and a semi auto (multi shot). Instead of trying to get the most bullets into the bulls-eye they score you by how close your shots were together. If they were all over the place then you got a low score if they were all bunched together they you got a higher score. Obviously because it's me and bad things happen to me one of the guns blow up on me. It didn't hurt was just smokey. But the trainer said there was a one in a million chance of that happening! Glad to be the first aye. We shared this session with 2 other men and guess who got the highest score out of everyone? Me, the only girl the group mwahaha.

Me - 125 points

Joe - 58 points

Dad - 100 points

Overall score

Me - 181 points

Joe - 129 points

Dad - 192 points

The staff were great and I cannot compliment them enough. They made you feel comfortable and get stuck in. And they aren't afraid to give a bit of banter and tease a little. They defo made the experience a whole.

If you are worried this may not be for you, you're to old, to young, not really into sports then stop worrying because you will love this! While I was there I saw a group of women on a hen party, a 7 year old boy with his mates for his birthday and a mix of under tens boys and girl party. Children are allowed to do all session apparent from the live rifle but while the adults are on that session they can go play laser tag!  

We all had a lot of fun and already planning on going back for an hour session of the live rifle where they teach you tricks like shooting a playing card in half and to shoot through the hole of a polo!