Below are results and report from clubs around the region.
Dartmoor
Dartmoor benchrest – round 6.
The day’s horrendous weather forecast was probably responsible for the slightly reduced field which had gathered to contest round 6 of our club competition. The match began at 9.00, just as the predicted heavy rain arrived, accompanied by a strong gusting wind. These conditions set in for the day, so no one was expecting high scores.
The results bore this out, as anything over a 240 was good going. The wind flags were practically useless as they were constantly oscillating, and generally disagreeing with one another. Listening to the wind proved to be the most effective method – shooting only when the volume had been turned down a little! Dave Taylor somehow managed to buck the trend, his winning score of 729:23x was significantly higher than anybody else’s – and quite exceptional in today’s weather conditions. He has obviously found a pellet that is compatible with his new Steyr.
Benchrest matches inevitably involve some waiting around between details. Rob suggested that we introduce an informal 50 metre BR competition to make use of this time. He had been given a quantity of the WRABF 50 metre cards which are used in the .22 rimfire matches – these have diagrams of a similar size to the 25 metre cards but the 10 ring measures 6.5mm.
The ‘rules’ are simple – £1 in the pot, winner takes all. One card to be shot from the zero hut, no fancy rests allowed – just the sandbags provided by the club.
A combination of high winds, heavy rain, and low light levels made this first competition somewhat challenging. Despite having zeroed my old Shamal at 50 metres in preparation for today’s event I found myself having to aim high, and halfway across an adjacent diagram in order to coax the pellets into the correct box. Mike Smith achieved the top score of 194:0x but the lowest score recorded was just 100:0x. This illustrates the degree of difficulty. We are definitely going to have another go at this, hopefully in more favourable conditions, but I suspect that it will remain as purely a ‘fun’ event as consistent extreme accuracy would only be possible in virtually wind free conditions – and that never happens at Dartmoor.
Callen had kindly volunteered to undertake the scoring today, this can be a very easy job when conditions are perfect – just subtracting a few 9’s from the total. But he really had his work cut out today, soggy targets, with lots of 7’s and 8’s, and that was just the regular 25M cards. The 50M ones were an absolute nightmare! Multiple shots in one box – none in the next, and several shots fell between boxes. The outer two rings on these 50M targets are solid black, so a shot landing here is very difficult to see without a top quality scope – several competitors failed to spot hits landing in these outer rings and took a second or even third shot at the same diagram. The rules state that the lowest scoring shot within ‘the box’ will count, and that one point will be deducted for each infringement.
Paul.
Purbeck Results.
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