Today marked the completion of 4 days of the NRA High Power Long Range Championships, the first of the 3 Individual Championships our team is participating in prior to the Palma team match; the next 3 day individual Championship is the NRA full-bore Championship commencing on 3rd August, finishing with the Palma long range World Championships commencing on 10th August. Whilst the previous 3 days included 4 x 20 round shoots at 1000 yards, today saw a traditional Palma course of fire with 15 rounds at 8, 9 and 1000 yards for the Palma individual trophy.
As is often the case (though reportedly less so at Camp Perry), there were some marked differences in difficulty between relays (USA for our details); for example, the second relay at 1000 yards today enjoyed a wind bracket of just 1½ mins of angle ( ½ to 2 mins of angle from the left) whilst the fourth relay struggled with a bracket from 6 to 11 mins. As luck would have it, those of us placed in the top 20 at the end of day 3 were squadded together in the second relay and were therefore well placed to consolidate our advantage. Overall the conditions were varied and interesting, dry, sunny and “comfortably hot” with a wind that swung through 120 deg during the match and varied from very light to strong in strength. There were again some interesting light and sight picture changes. The first relay had the sun behind the targets; in that situation, and later in the day with occasional cloud cover, the aiming mark disappeared into the cream coloured targets requiring use of the full target as an ‘aiming mark’. Anyway, onto the “headline” results for today and the 4 day Championships…..
In today’s Palma match there was just one score of 450. 20 (Jon Rhynard of the USA). Seven competitors, including our own Jane Messer, scored 449.23, with a further 5 on 448, including Matt Ensor (26 Xs) and James Watson (25 Xs). Out of a field of 350 competitors, Jane was 5th and Matt was 10th.
The Tompkins trophy for the aggregate of all four days was won with a score of 1242.58 (ex 1250.125) by Nancy Tompkins. Top GB placings were David Calvert 5th (1241.63), Jane Messer 6th (1240.60), and David Luckman 7th (1239.68); our GB team had a total of 6 top 20 placings. Subject to confirmation it seems that these 3 may be placed 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively amongst competitors using Palma rifles throughout (as opposed to Any Rifle/Ammo and/or optics for all or part of the 4 days of competition). Note that detailed results for all competitions can be found via the link http://competitions.nra.org/championship-results/NRA-national-outdoor-rifle-pistol-championships-results.aspx and under the section titled “High Power Rifle Long Range Championships”.
Tonight we attended the prize-giving for the past 4 days of competition. GB Palma team members were well represented on stage, with 3 major individual and team trophies and – and It has to be said that our team members and prize winners looked exceedingly smart in their No. 1 uniforms on stage in the vast auditorium!
