Carefully and methodically, Daniel Young, one half of Victoria's Shooters and Fishers party, adjusts his Winchester rifle while his upper house colleague, Jeff Bourman, watches patiently.

He draws breath and pulls the trigger. There's a reverberating crack as the shot goes wide, several inches from the centre.

"I'm used to shooting things that move," jokes the avid duck and quail hunter.

It's probably not the typical morning you'd expect to have with two Spring Street MPs, but then again, the Shooters and Fishers pride themselves on being "ordinary" blokes – not your typical politicians.

Bourman, 48, is a former police officer and IT contractor, who only decided to run for parliament a few months before November's poll, fed up that gun control was placing onerous requirements on law abiding people who simply wanted to enjoy their chosen sport.

Young, 26, was a tradesman working in steel fabrication but decided to contest the election too, largely in a bid to help Bourman establish the party in Victoria. Thanks partly to a series of complex preference deals, both were elected within weeks of the party being registered - despite only having a fraction of first preference votes.

"Neither one of us was expecting it," says Young, whose victory came two days after the birth of his first child, "but we're both going to make the most of it while we're here."

But who exactly are Victoria's Shooters and Fishers and what do they stand for? After all, electoral success has catapulted the pair into an influential block of crossbenchers in the upper house, where the Andrews Government only holds 14 out of 40 seats.

This means in order to pass legislation not supported by the Coalition, Labor needs to wrangle at least an extra seven votes, including five from the Greens, and at least another two from the remaining five micro-party MPs: a disparate group comprising Bourman and Young, the Sex Party's Fiona Patten, the DLP's Rachel Carling-Jenkins, and James Purcell from Vote 1 Local Jobs.

The duo know they're in a powerful position, but insist their aim is not to create the kind of chaos voters witnessed under the last parliament, when independent MP Geoff Shaw continuously held the Napthine Government to ransom.

"I think there was an expectation that there would be some fireworks, particularly when you think about what's going on in the federal Senate," says Bourman.

"But it was never our intention to become anything like that, for the simple reason: that's not what we're there to do. We're not there to grandstand; we're not there to get in anyone's way. We're there to look after the shooters, fishers, and country people. As long as we keep our eye on the target, it's going to be a very productive four years."

Some have been surprised by their approach, particularly those familiar with the party's recent history in NSW, where balance-of-power status in the upper house - shared with Fred Nile's Christian Democrats - provided MPs Robert Borsak and Robert Brown with ability to thwart the agenda of the O'Farrell/Baird governments.

Bourman (who represents eastern Victoria) and Young (who represents the state's north) have sided with the Andrews government on almost every occasion so far. They have voted against Labor only three times: firstly in an attempt to force the release of east west link documents; secondly on the repeal of move on laws; and thirdly on a minor parliamentary procedure.

But politics is fickle business: Andrews' plan to sell the Port of Melbourne, for instance, is likely to be opposed by the Shooters and Fishers as well as the Greens, which could end up hindering his infrastructure agenda should the Coalition decide to play hardball. "We'll give the government the chance to make its argument, but it would have to be a bloody good argument," says Young.

It is also unclear where the pair stand when it comes to social issues. Neither contributed to a recent debate brought on by the Greens to refer the issue of voluntary euthanasia to the Law Reform Commission, and both are equally ambiguous when it comes to Andrews' plan to allow gay couples to adopt in Victoria.

"It comes down to a common sense approach," says Bourman. "We just want to look at things from an average point of view, and think about how things work for the average Australian."

What is certain, though, is their stance when it comes to shooting, fishing and the great outdoors. They want more access in national parks for hunters, trail bikes, and four wheel drives. They want a comprehensive review of gun laws, which they say have gone too far in the wake of the Port Arthur Massacre. And they claim their party is "more conservation-oriented than the inner-city Greens".

"You've got people who are very in tune with what happens in the bush and in the bay, because we've spent our entire lives out in the countryside and we've done a lot of work with groups such as Field and Game to pursue conservation efforts," says Young, citing bird breeding and nesting programs as a case in point. "Yes you could say that as a hunter I've got a vested interest, but that just makes me even keener to make sure those places are looked after properly."

A love of shooting and a shared frustration with firearm restrictions led to the pair's chance meeting at a gun auction last October. Bourman obtained his gun licence in 1985 – pests such as foxes and rabbits are his "speciality," he says - but had become increasingly incensed by the amount of regulations imposed by successive governments.

Months before November's poll, he got in touch with NSW's Robert Brown through an online hunting forum, and the pair began discussing the idea of setting up a Victorian branch. Registering a political party isn't easy, mind you, and Bourman and his wife Nicole (who also ran for an upper spot) had to find at least 500 bona fide members in order to be approved by the electoral commission. Young was one of their early recruits.

Now the youngest member of the Victorian Parliament, Young says hunting in his blood. He started attending duck openings with his father at the age of six, got his firearms license at 12 (the minimum legal age in Victoria) and has taken part in hunting season ever since. "That's my Christmas," he says.

In person, both men are affable, knockabout blokes, who clearly have a good sense of humour. On April Fools' Day, for instance, they issued a joint press release with the Sex Party announcing the two groups would merge to form a new political force: the Sex Pistols. "I couldn't think of a better marriage than that of pellets and porn," it joked.

But they believe their party is misunderstood, with falsehoods created by "certain groups" such as the animal welfare lobby, or those wanting tighter gun laws, particularly in the wake of events such as the Sydney Siege. "That's probably the biggest thing we want to educate people about," says Bourman. "There's a difference between someone who shoots legally for an enjoyable sport, and someone who has firearms for the purpose of illegal activity."

As for what they hope to achieve between now and the next election? Gun reform, greater protection for game hunting and, as Bourman puts it, "an injection of sanity" at Spring Street. "If we can walk away and say we've brought the common-man approach to the parliament, then we've done well."