Today, October 7th, saw Dartmoor hosting the second annual SWEFTA shoulder to shoulder benchrest final. This was the culmination of seven rounds of competition which have taken place within three individual clubs – Dartmoor, West Devon, and Purbeck. The top six shooters from these club leagues had qualified for a place in the final.
The weather conditions were probably just about ideal, warm and dry with a modest but switchy breeze which strengthened noticeably during the day. Reading this wind and applying the correct amount of compensation was, as usual, the critical factor in deciding the outcome. It was noticeable that there had been some considerable ‘upgrading’ of equipment since last year’s final, dedicated BR rifles along with quite a number of superb adjustable front rests and heavy rear bags were very much in evidence.
The overall scores were of a very high standard, with eleven of the eighteen competitors achieving over 720. Mike Smith was this year’s worthy winner with a superb 741:34x, second was Paul Salmon on 738:29x, and third was Purbeck’s Martin Hubbard with 733:25x our scores actually compare favourably with some of the best benchrest shooters in the UK – not bad considering the relatively short time we’ve been engaged in the discipline.
The ‘X’ count was used today to separate Rob M and Paul R – both on 731, together with Allistair and Phillip – both on 727. At this level of competition every point and every ‘X’ can be critical.
Sean Quigley started well, leading the first squad with a marvellous 247, then the wheels came off due to an unforgivable error – he had neglected to put air into his nice new XTi50 resulting in a second card scoring 231. Hopefully he won’t be doing that again!
Although this was an ‘individual’ event we all felt that a club team category should be included in future – just as we do with FT and HFT. There was definitely a ‘team spirit’ in evidence today which made it all the more enjoyable.
UPDATE ………. Chris Jones has very kindly offered to donate a benchrest team trophy, to be awarded annually. And Crackshot have generously offered to award a £50 voucher to the winner of the 2024 shoulder to shoulder final.
A huge thank you to Callen for undertaking the scoring, and to Malcolm for keeping things running smoothly by steering each competitor to the correct bench at the correct time, and ensuring that targets were posted on the corresponding frames.
Paul Salmon.
Results below!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15pRFvw7NL9wso6sJKHKUx_9PrQk8xX2e/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110065892342630475966&rtpof=true&sd=true
No comments yet.