Below are reports and results from Dartmoor, West Devon and Purbeck clubs.
Dartmoor.
Seventeen of us contested round 7 of our Dartmoor club league yesterday, included in our number was Tom Jacobs – a very dedicated benchrest shooter who had travelled down from his home in Chard to experience Dartmoor’s typically diabolical wind conditions. He was in for a treat – we all struggled to outwit the usual rapidly changing conditions. The forecast was for 13 mph winds with 30 mph gusts, which would have been manageable if it had come from the same direction, but we endured the usual maelstrom – a rapidly fishtailing wind with very few ‘calm’ periods. Even Tom’s four carefully positioned flags weren’t much help in conditions like this – a good pair of ears were probably more dependable.
We were able to examine some wonderful kit yesterday – Mike Foster’s new Lenzi rest is truly a work of art, and Tom had brought along a beautiful SEB neo rest together with a set of his latest design wind flags, each incorporating it’s own ball and socket head and spirit level.
Recent scores at Dartmoor have been pleasingly close and yesterday was no exception, after seven rounds the top two places are separated by a mere 4 points, the ‘X’ counts are identical.
We have now completed the seven rounds necessary for selecting which of our members will compete in the SWEFTA head to head final. The association has provided a perpetual trophy (pictured) to be awarded to the annual winner. Just three clubs were represented at our inaugural competition held last year, it would be great to see a few more involved in the 2024 event.
We had another crack at our 50 metre ‘fun’ competition yesterday, the conditions were not quite as impossible as they were last month – Simon Houseman took an early lead by smashing the 200 point ‘barrier’, and his 205:1x looked unbeatable – right up to the last moment when Rob Meatyard snatched victory with a stunning 205:3x. The lowest score was a 162 – much better than last time. Genuine precision shooting using an 11 ft lb air rifle at 50 metres, in an unpredictable gusting wind, inevitably contains a very strong element of luck. We are all desperately hoping for a rare relatively wind free day – so that we can really test both our skills and our rifle’s abilities.
It is worth emphasising again that expensive specialised kit is not needed to take part in benchrest competition, certainly not at club level. The best equipment is nice to have – but it won’t guarantee good scores, the shooter is still, by far, the most important link in the chain!
Paul.
West Devon.
Nigel Palmer wrote:
Great turnout at today’s BR comp with eleven taking part.
With a very calm start to the day I thought we were going to see some record breaking scores, Sean Quigley having a great first round with a 248 ! As the morning went on the breeze picked up which made high scores hard to come by. Unfortunately Sean went from hero to zero in round two by shooting the top two rows of his neighbours card who happened to be shooting from the bottom so didn’t notice 
.
.The eventual winner was Liam Vickery on 729 fantastic result from a young man who seems unstoppable at the moment.
Sean had best card.
Once again thanks to everyone for mucking in to make shooting BR a very entertaining day.
Purbeck Results.
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