Below are reports and results from this month’s BR competitions.
Dartmoor
Dartmoor benchrest Rd 3.
Today’s weather forecast looked promising, 3 to 4 mph winds with moderate gusts. But as is so often the case these relatively benign conditions can prove to be far trickier than an obvious steady wind coming from a particular direction. The overall scores were pretty good though and included a 250 and a couple of 248’s, this suggests that near perfect conditions did occur during some of the 20 minute details – but you had to be both attentive, and very patient, in order to avoid releasing shots when the breeze strengthened almost imperceptibly.
Mark Whiteway had a fantastic day, his first ever 250 helped him to an overall win with a very respectable 240:25x. But things are becoming ever more interesting at Dartmoor, with a high percentage of the regular competitors fully capable of achieving the top score on the day.
Improved equipment is probably playing a part, but good scores are being recorded with a very wide range of rifles, scopes, and rest systems. A basic unregulated rifle is as likely to produce the winning score as the most sophisticated target model. Finding pellets which suit the barrel is absolutely critical, the most expensive rifles available will be effectively useless if they are fed with incompatible pellets.
And having found that exemplary batch you can only relax until they’re all gone – then you may have to start the frustrating business of testing all over again. Three of us were comparing notes on our choice of pellets today, we all use QYS but had, quite independently, come to the conclusion that our most recent batches were not quite up to the standard of earlier ones. We agreed that they were not bad, but just a little less accurate than we had come to expect. With benchrest shooting we are quite literally ‘splitting hairs’ – so just a fraction of a millimetre added to the grouping ability of a rifle and pellet combination can easily drop a card score by five or six points.
Paul.S.
West Devon.
Purbeck
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