SHOPPERS looked puzzled yesterday when the sound of rapid machine gun fire echoed round a busy town centre.

The automatic weapons, which could be heard clearly in Barnard Castle, County Durham, came from the Battle Hill firing range, three miles away.

Troops regularly go there to practise with rifles, but yesterday a squad from an Army engineering unit based in Ripon, North Yorkshire, were testing an array of machine guns.

As troops packed away the weapons, a sergeant said: "The range is usually used for single-shot weapons, so I suppose people thought it strange when they heard machine guns. But it was a normal day's training for us, although not especially connected to Iraq or anything like that.

"We took all our usual safety measures so there was no danger to residents or farm livestock. The sound probably carried a long way because the weather is calm and clear."

A farmer living near the range said: "We get so used to rifles being fired that we hardly notice them. But it is certainly unusual for machine guns to be used here."

As well as being used by troops, mainly from Catterick, the range is also used by RAF and police marksmen, and Army cadets.