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Bathurst Rifle Club Inc., 7^th August 2021, N Rutherford Memorial Trophy 800 yards & T W Willman Trophy 900 yards.

          Saturday’s early start to shooting perhaps should have been earlier given the good roll up of shooters to contest both the 800 yards and 900 yards competition shoots held on the day. The flags were showing plenty to think about as soon as they were raised in the morning with the west to south westerly breeze blowing between 10 to 20 kph while continually swinging in direction giving only a few breaks of steadiness more often later in the afternoon. Shooters were pleased with the new firing point surfaces they had been looking forward to using although some will improve as the turf surface surrounding the main area settles.

          At 800 yards Target Rifle shooter Steve Williams saw no problem with the conditions dropping just one point late in his first stage and finishing with a possible to take the honours seven points ahead of Dennis Lavelle and Graeme Bright. Gordon shepherd strayed into the magpie ring too many times in his second stage to finish a further two points down with a four point lead over Charlie Bennett who had a good second stage scoring four centre bulls and Ron Gibson scoring three centre bulls with John Coghill tailing the field after losing five points to a wide shot.

          F Class shooters were again led by a consistent shooting Graham Willis with Geoff Willis and Jeff Eppleston three points behind with mixed results at each stage. Khoby West-Kennett held well to finish one point behind the top three followed by Phil Mahon and then Mal Wright who both had disappointing results for their first stage but improved the second stage with Mal only dropping one point in the second stage to gain the top stage score for the morning.

          After a break for lunch shooters returned to the 900 yard shooting point and if scores are any indication the conditions had deteriorated somewhat although some shooters improved their scores later in the afternoon. Graeme Bright was one to improve later dropping just one point during his second stage to lead the Target Rifle shooters with three points over Steve Williams and then Gordon Shepherd who finished another five points away again straying into the magpie three ring too many times. John Coghill followed next ahead of Ron Gibson and Charlie Bennett.

          Geoff Willis claimed top spot in F Class after a good second stage dropping just one point and scoring seven super centres late in the day with Mal Wright next scoring with better consistency followed by Jeff Eppleston who lost points early on with front rest troubles causing several problems. Graham Willis followed another point away after not grouping as well as expected with Phil Mahon suffering problems with his front rest as well.

          Winner of the N Rutherford Memorial Trophy is Dennis Lavelle (100) and runner up Graham Willis (99.75). Winner of the T W Willman Trophy is Geoff Willis (100) and runner up Graeme Bright (98). Saturdays shooting also saw completion of the K Harvey Trophy with the winner Steve Williams (490.5) and runner up Graeme Bright (479.25). Next week is the second round of the Gilmour Cup from 500 yards.

 by Geoff Willis

Scores 800 yds:
D Lavelle 92.5 (10.5) 100,
G P Willis 114.5 (4.75) 99.75,
S Williams 99.10 (0.5) 99.5,
J Eppleston 111.5 (6.75) 99.25,
R Gibson 86.3 (12) 98,
K West-Kennett 110.3 (5.75) 97.42,
G S Willis 111.6 (4.25) 96.75,
C Bennett 86.4 (10.5) 96.5,
P Mahon 106.2 (8) 96.33,
G Shepherd 90.8 (6) 96,
M Wright 105.6 (8.25) 95.75,
G Bright 92.5 (2.75) 94.75,
J Coghill 79.4 (12) 91.

Scores 900 yds:
G S Willis 115.9 (4.25) 100,
G Bright 95.4 (3) 98,
M Wright 108.4 (7.5) 97.5,
S Williams 92.7 (2) 94,
G Shepherd 87.2 (6) 93,
J Coghill 79.3 (12) 91,
J Eppleston 103.5 (2.25) 88.08,
R Gibson 76.2 (12) 88,
C Bennett 76.2 (11) 87,
G P Willis 102.2 (2) 87,
P Mahon 90 (10) 85.

All scores/plots can be found Here.