Over the weekend of the 11th and 12th March, both Dartmoor and West Devon held their first benchrest rounds. I wasn’t able to attend either shoots so I have posted a short write up by Paul Salmon and the results from Dartmoor, and a cut’n’paste from Nigel Palmer’s Facebook post along with the results.
Purbeck are also shooting the SWEFTA competition and I have received their scores today, 28/3/23 and posted them below.
Dartmoor.
Despite the bitterly cold weather, the first Saturday in March saw fifteen Dartmoor members assemble to take part in the first round of this year’s club BR league.
The recent strong easterly winds were still predominant, but were regularly being challenged by the south westerlies sweeping in from the Atlantic. This made for some very tricky conditions, during which constant flag watching was absolutely essential.
Mike Smith elected to shoot only when the wind was blowing from the left, bravely pointing his Ataman right out into the six or seven rings consistently. His remarkable winning score of 742 confirmed that this this had been the right call. There were virtually no ‘lulls’ in the wind, it was either from the left or from the right – with the changes occurring instantly.
Another notable score of 731, his best to date, was achieved by Alistair Teague, who has only been shooting the discipline for a very short time. His score was matched by Rob Meatyard who had recently been successfully experimenting with his Steyr, Bald Eagle rest, and the ‘light touch’ technique favoured by so many experienced benchrest shooters.
Simon Houseman brought a beautiful new SEB mini X rest to the proceedings, he is the latest Dartmoor shooter to invest in a superb micro adjustable rest and heavy rear bag. The club now has seven regular competitors using these, and three of them were actually constructed by Mike Smith – who is as competent an engineer as he is a shooter! We are also beginning to see more dedicated benchrest rifles in use, vestigial rear stocks, wide front plates, and fixed high magnification scopes. Chasing those X’s can become addictive.
West Devon
Today saw the start of our summer benchrest comp, unfortunately only five were able to attend due to other commitments. The usual Devon winds were blowing leading to some inconsistent shooting and never quite sure where to aim! Steady eddy Read took the money for best card (but left for club funds) and I took the overall win by just one point!!! Steve’s scores are starting to look promising with his FX more than capable of shooting 10xs. Father Graham got himself a new moderator/air stripper but unfortunately couldn’t repeat his performance from last week. Crystal improved when she was using a rig with which she could see the targets but unfortunately this was her fourth card so couldn’t be used for the comp (yes I’m mean).
Purbeck.
I don’t have a write up for Purbeck but it is worth noting that Martin Hubbard recently attended the Brass Monkey BRUCK competition held over two days at Portishead Club and finished with an outstanding result of third overall on aggregate from LV and HV classes. Well done Martin.
Brilliant write up Paul. Was a challenging day and everyone did exceptionally well considering the conditions. The club scores as a whole have been increasing over the last couple of years with more of our shooters constantly breaking there own PB’s.