However, there are doubts outside from outside the party that the Shooters can turn their success at some NSW regional elections into federal seats in the near future.

The Shooters pulled in 10.8 per cent of the primary vote across booths in the Snowy Valleys, compared to just over 5.3 per cent across the whole of Eden-Monaro ahead of the official declaration of results on Monday.

With a primary vote as high as 19 per cent in Tumbarumba, the Shooters candidate Matthew Stadtmiller was firmly in third place behind the Liberal and Labor candidates and ahead of the National Party in the Snowy Valleys.

"It's probably because there are a lot of people up there who know who I am because I have been fighting against forced mergers for five or six years now at a state level," Mr Stadtmiller said.

Mr Stadtmiller said complaints about delays in firearms licence applications could have played a role in the result, depending on the number of firearms owner in Snowy Valleys.

"I know there is a good hunting and fishing community up there. I went to Adelong just last week and couldn't get over the support from a number of locals at Adelong," he said.

"I think they are very much behind the party because they have given up on the major parties."

Mr Stadtmiller also credited the Shooter's efforts to pass legislation around the Murray Darling Basin and water allocation in NSW Parliament as helping inspire support the the federal byelection.

Adelong newsagent, ammunition dealer and farmer Sean Ryan said the party's support had come from how they had "positioned themselves" as "biased for the bush".

"I think it's really starting to resonate with people," he said.

"You have also got Shooters MPs in [NSW] Parliament and people can actually see that it's not all talk.

"I think their supporters have come in from both side of politics; it's not one side abandoning their party."

The National Party came in third place in the vote count for Eden-Monaro as a whole, at 6.38 per cent of first preference votes.

Nationals federal director Jonathan Hawkes said the party "ran a strong campaign in a challenging environment and its candidate Trevor Hicks "worked hard to get around the electorate and meet as many voters as possible".

"Obviously we were disappointed with the result but with a field of 14 candidates and the Labor Party spending many thousands of dollars on advertising, it was always going to be difficult," Mr Hawkes said.

When asked about the Shooters' results, Mr Hawkes pointed to the National Party's longevity in regional areas.

"Noisy, protest parties like the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party will come and go, unlike the Nationals who remain a vibrant, strong political party after 100 years," he said.

"However, voters need to understand that a vote for parties like the SFF will not benefit them as they will never be a part of government nor a part of cabinet that makes decisions on local projects that help create jobs."

University of Sydney politics lecturer Stewart Jackson said the Shooters might be able to appeal to voters on issues in their own region but might struggle to compete on the federal level.

"People might even view the Shooters as a state party. You can see the difference between results when you go from state to federal," he said.

Dr Jackson said an example could be seen in the failure of former South Australian senator Nick Xenophon to move from federal to state politics.

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"People just didn't perceive him that way. He was trying to parlay a 22 per cent level of support into a state result and crashed and burned," he said.

"The state level is about producing results. Why would you want the shooters at the federal level on big picture stuff if you wanted them at the ground level to produce stuff in local electorates?"

Dr Jackson said Shooters' level of support could help them bargain with the major parties over preferences after their how-to-vote cards assisted Labor in Eden-Monaro.

Charles Sturt University associate professor in political science Dominic O'Sullivan said there was the potential for the Shooters' preference votes to make a difference, given the narrow gap between them at fourth place in the primary vote and the National Party in third.

"Given the Nationals didn't poll well and the Shooters almost beat them, it's obviously a matter of concern for the Nationals," Dr O'Sullivan said.

"If they had picked up a few of those votes and their preferences had gone to the Liberals, it could have made a difference.

"The Shooters picked up three seats at the NSW election, there are clearly people in some of those very conservative electorates who are not going to go Labor but are looking for somewhere other than the Nationals."

Dr O'Sullivan said the Shooters had yet to replicate their results in the NSW state election at a federal general election, possibly due to conservative voters who did not want to risk Labor forming government.

"Even if the Shooters don't become a major force and don't take several seats from the Nationals, they can still do them harm in marginal seats by taking just a few per cent of the vote," he said.