Once he started plunking away at tin-can targets at the age of seven, Donald Sewell was to became a living legend in rifle shooting.

Sewell’s been capped 15 times by Canada as a member of its national team. However, his crowning glory came in 1991. That’s the year he won the St. George’s Cross at Bisley in England with a perfect score.

In a competitive sport that requires very refined and complex small-muscle movements, Sewell’s performances have been Herculean. One can only imagine the amount of weight or tonnage he has raised to his sturdy shoulder over the years when you add up all the times he has taken aim and squeezed the trigger on the competitive shooting range. Fatigue is not a factor in Sewell’s artillery, as exemplified by the number of perfect scores he chalked up on ranges throughout the world. Using unshakeable hand-eye co-ordination, twice he scored a perfect 400 score as four-time member of the Canadian Dewar small-bore team.

That was more than 30 years ago, which coincided with his switch to full-bore competitive shooting. It was on the full-bore rifle range that he shone. It was also where he met his wife of 26 years, Doran. He swung into full-bore with aplomb, winning silver medals twice and a bronze once in the Palma Match - the world long-range shooting championships for 800, 900 and 1,000 yards.

Don Sewell’s accomplishments are numerous and he was always in the forefront of his sport. He had to turn down a chance to shoot in the Commonwealth Games twice, once in 1966 due to work commitments and the other as recently as 1990 when he underwent a shoulder operation. Unruffled and with a youthful eye behind the sights, the ageless Sewell stayed on top of his lifelong sport of competitive rifle shooting. He was also inducted into the Canadian Shooting Hall of Fame.