As all good nutritionists will tell you, if a cereal is multi-coloured, it probably doesn’t contain entirely natural ingredients. As all good diarists will tell you, if you eat a multi-coloured cereal before a day’s shooting, it probably won’t help your scores.
Post-breakfast, members of the team followed the usual routine of ferrying shooting equipment and rifles to the waiting waggons. The diarist is still surprised to find himself in a country where no one bats an eyelid when large numbers of firearms are being carted around a hotel car park.
The course of fire for the day was exactly the same as before, with 2 sighting shots and 10 shots to count at 300, 400, 500 and 600 metres. By now, the team were beginning to understand the idiosyncrasies of the wind at the range: a fully sheltered left-hand side and a mostly sheltered right-hand side, at least up to the 500-metre firing point, meant that right wind dominated calls, even when shooters were faced with left-hand mirage in their scopes. The situation was further exacerbated by eddying currents, caused by breezes rolling down the sides of the surrounding mountains and onto the range. GBRT’s Angus McLeod conducted some intense scientific analysis of the phenomena, by releasing small amounts of grass at various points around the range and observing the results.
The team’s acclimatisation meant that a home range advantage was somewhat diminished for the Canadian shooters, a fact which was reflected in the day’s results. The winner of the 300-metre competition, the Duff Stuart, was GBRT’s Jon Underwood, with 50.9. Second and third were Jon’s teammates Angus McLeod and David Calvert, both scoring 50.8. The Past Presidents match at 400 metres was won by GBRT’s James Mehta, with a score of 50.7. Canadian father and son duo Robert and Don Pitcairn took second and third place, Don just beating his father’s 50.5 with a 50.6. The Flintoft Memorial competition took place at 500 metres and was won, again, by Jon Underwood, with his second 50.9 of the day, a most impressive feat, especially on the unforgiving ICFRA target face. The final match of the day was the Vern Barclay, held at 600 metres. Statistics are not yet available for this competition.
Although the range at Chilliwack is unrivalled in terms of its surroundings, many of the firing points are contoured in such a way that finding a stable shooting position on them is a challenge in and of itself. On the whole, butt marking has been of a high standard, with a couple of curious incidents, most likely arising from tightly overlapping groups on small target faces.
Having had another day of high-quality shooting in sunny and dry conditions, the team returned to the hotel for some hasty ablutions, before heading out to an evening dinner function, organised by the BCRA. The dinner was hosted at the “Halcyon Meadows” development in Chilliwack. When the diarist quickly Googled this establishment and read that it describes itself as “an adult oriented 45+ gated community”, he wondered what to expect…However, what transpired was (reassuringly) very different from the image, which had formed in the diarist’s mind. The BCRA put on a sumptuous buffet, hosting both the visiting American and Great Britain Rifle Teams in style. Multiple speeches were made during the course of the evening and, by the time that the last marshmallow had been dipped in the chocolate fountain, there was nobody left to thank. Guests departed, replete, with some GBRT members rushing ahead to where their vehicles were parked nearby as, apparently, the car park was locked down at dusk. Crisis averted, the team returned to their five star lodgings in order to sleep, perchance to dream, of v bulls and victory.
Tomorrow sees the final two individual shoots of the BCRA meeting, followed by a team match, all shoots being held at 600 metres.
Lollipop awards (Day 4):
Good – Ellie Joseph, for her work on transcribing results onto the website.
Bad – Simon Carson, for refusing to heed the directions of his van’s passengers on the way home from Halcyon Meadows, ending up in an inhospitable cul-de-sac, from which a hasty retreat had to be beaten.