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Bathurst Rifle Club Inc., 2^nd March 2019. 900yds. J. Wilde Memorial Trophy & K. Redding 8/900yds.

            Saturday saw the final round and completion of both these trophy competitions. At the start of the days shooting the flags showed little of the trouble that was to hamper shooters hoping to get in a good score at our longest range. The heat was back again for the afternoon although at times it felt a little humid while wondering if there may be some rain. The flags were seen to change from westerly to easterly and then back again but unfortunately they did not show what the accompanying mirage was doing. Shortly after competition started, one by one the shooters had their turn at trying to make sense of the quickly turning mirage that seemed to have strength beyond its appearance.

           First to the line was F Class shooter Graham Willis who quickly got his stage away keeping his shots in a respectable cluster near the target centre to only drop one point. Then next Luke Engle was keeping his shots close to the X ring until his coach realised that without the use of a scope to keep a watchful eye on the mirage a couple of shots had gone wide and soon 5 points down. Geoff Willis then had his turn with the rifle but without being able to hold good elevation to the group could do nothing to keep up and lost 6 points for the effort.

           Ron Gibson was first of the target rifle shooters and struggled through his first stage with a couple of wild shots that did nothing to keep his score in check dropping 9 points all up. Dennis Lavelle powered through his first stage with only two shots escaping the bull eye ring with his third counting shot making it to the outer limits of the magpie three ring for a loss of only 3 points for the stage. Next up Graeme Bright looked promising up till the last few shots when a couple went stray high left then high right to finish 3 down for the first stage. Steve Williams then appeared to cope well with the conditions to drop only 2 points for his first stage with one high and one right towards 2:30 on the clock.

           Graham Willis then got amongst the worst of the conditions suffering four bull eye fives and an inner four in his second dig as he went from one side of centre to the other dropping 7 points along the way. Luke Engle put in a great effort with his coach using a scope to watch the mirage carefully this time and lost only 4 points with three shots going just over the top and one just under the six ring. Geoff Willis managed to tame his wayward elevation a little this stage but lost as many to the mirage repeating the 6 point loss of his first stage.

           Again Ron Gibson struggled as wayward shots caused some grief with a shot hitting low into the two ring ending slightly better than the first effort dropping 8 points. Dennis Lavelle may have had the worst of the day’s conditions for his next stage as his shots succumbed to the ever changing swirling mirage for a loss of 12 points more. After a reasonable start Graeme Bright also suffered some of the worst during his second stage getting thrown one each into the magpie three and outer two scoring rings to complete the flush of scoring rings hit for 7 points loss. Perhaps it was lucky last down to shoot but Steve Williams managed to keep most shots near where he wanted them for a consistent days shooting and only 3 more points down.

           Graham Willis held off Luke Engle by one point to take away the days F class COW, with Steve Williams five points ahead of nearest rival Graeme Bright getting the Target rifle COW.

           Next week we are back to 300 yards for the start of the W Cutler Cup.

Scores:

L. Engle 111.6 (9) 100

GP Willis 112.7 (6 ½) 98 ¾

S. Williams 95.3 (3 ¼) 98 ¼

GS Willis 108.2 (8 ¾) 97 ½

D. Lavelle 85.1 (12) 97

R. Gibson 83.3 (12) 95

G. Bright 90.7 (3 ¼) 93 ¼

By Geoff Willis

 All scores/plots can be found Here.