The dawn of a new year brings with it a whole host of things to any individual. New Year’s resolutions, plans and projects for the year. Possibly even a need to recover from a hangover. For the full-bore target rifle shooter we are still very much in the “off season”. Many competitors don’t think about picking up their rifle again until towards the end of March.
The members of the 2017 GB Rifle Team to South Africa aren’t afforded any such luxury. With a departure date of 17th March, we have just 49 days until the team must be packed, ready and fully prepared to compete and challenge for the Australia, RSA International and Protea Matches. The Australia match is a particularly serious affair as it’s one of the “Big 5” full-bore matches that any British marksman is eager to be selected for. There are 5 members of our team whose selection for the Australia Match will see them complete their set of all 5. They would join a list of just 99 names of those men and women who have already achieved this milestone.
Anyway…after much preparation and training in 2016, this weekend was the penultimate training weekend for the team. Rather than easing into the year and new season all members needed to try to hit the ground running.
With the challenge laid out, the team gathered at Bisley camp early Saturday morning and motivation was running high. Everyone was eager to get going, keen to catch up with teammates who they hadn’t seen since the previous year, and above all else, everyone was wrapped up to guard against the cold (it is January after all!). Thankfully injuries to the team during the festive break were minor, nevertheless David Luckman and Toby Raincock were sidelined with wrist and trigger finger ailments. After a hearty and healthy, no scratch that… after a hearty breakfast our fearless leader and Captain, Nick Tremlett, greeted us and laid out the plans for the weekend.
The morning would consist of two coached shoots of 15 shots each at 300 yards on International-standard (ICFRA) targets. The ICFRA targets are trickier than those we are used to shooting in UK competition as the bullseye line (scoring 5 points per shot) is just 6.5cm from the centre of the target as opposed to the NRA targets where the line is 7cm away.
With rousing words of encouragement said and multiple layers applied, the team headed out to the range at about 8am.
Even though our first “2 and 15” was used as a “blowing out the cobwebs” test, and therefore not counted, the team certainly did hit the ground running. With only the occasional stray shot hitting the inner (scoring 4 points) ring, the bullseye was well and truly pulverized as numerous scores of 75 ex 75 came off the firing point. At the end of the morning session, it was Al Haley and James Watson on top, each with 75.12 (75 with 12 vee-bulls). The management decided it would be necessary to decide the winner of the day with a tie-shoot on the Sunday; just another way to create a pressurised environment when training.
Our morning outdoors would be followed up with an afternoon in the relative warmth of the Surrey Rifle Association Clubhouse; team kit testing, learning about ammunition from the Captain himself (Ogive anyone?) and electronic shooting simulation training, known as “SCATT” (essentially a camera is mounted to the rifle and dry shots – i.e. shots fired without a live round in the breach – are registered on a PC with a wide arrays of stats – very high tech!).
The evening was spent regaining the feeling in our fingers in the warmth of the North London Rifle Club, with a lovely dinner and entertainment courtesy of Mr. Kelvin Ramsey, teaching us the art of how to be excellent ambassadors for Great Britain. The diarist had some ideas of the obvious points (dining room manners, how to greet royalty etc.), but to be a true ambassador certainly needs to improve on his max plank time…
The following morning Captain Tremlett sent us to 600 yards for two more shoots of 15 shots to count. The bullseye, regrouped from yesterday and confident of some respite, was not afforded any. It’s another smaller bulls-eye than we regularly shoot at in the UK (14.5cm vs 16.5cm) and the vee-bull is tiny (the line is 7.25cm as opposed to 9.9cm from the centre)! A reminder that we shoot at these targets but are not allowed to use a telescope on the rifle.
With calmer wind conditions and a team’s iron resolve, scores were incredibly high for a first training weekend, especially in January. Combining yesterday’s 2nd 300 yards score to the two 600 yard shoots today, the 14 shooting members of the team dropped just 13 points between them – out of a total 3150! Over half of the team scored 225 ex 225, with others very close behind:
| Name | 300x | 600x 1 | 600x 2 | Total |
| Glyn Barnett | 75.11 | 75.12 | 75.12 | 225.35 |
| Al Haley | 75.12 | 75.09 | 75.10 | 225.31 |
| James Watson | 75.12 | 75.10 | 75.09 | 225.31 |
| Parag Patel | 75.09 | 75.10 | 75.11 | 225.30 |
| Tom Drysdale | 75.11 | 75.11 | 75.06 | 225.28 |
| Paul Lanigan | 75.08 | 75.10 | 75.10 | 225.28 |
| Matt Millar | 75.08 | 75.07 | 75.12 | 225.27 |
| Nigel Ball | 75.07 | 75.07 | 75.10 | 225.24 |
| Charlotte Evans | 75.10 | 74.08 | 75.12 | 224.30 |
| Kelvin Ramsey | 75.04 | 75.09 | 74.08 | 224.21 |
| Jon Underwood | 73.08 | 75.12 | 75.13 | 223.33 |
| James Lewis | 75.08 | 75.11 | 73.06 | 223.25 |
| Richard Jeens | 74.06 | 75.09 | 74.09 | 223.24 |
| Jane Messer | 73.05 | 73.08 | 74.07 | 220.20 |
The team rejoiced in seeing Glyn shoot some great groups! Al Haley then went on to win the tie shoot.
In short, (apart from the cold) the weekend was a great success and helps us build towards March. As this diarist enjoyed shooting in the winter so much, he looks forward to going back to Bisley in 4 weeks’ time for our final training weekend in late February. Who knows, it may even snow…
As a team we’re aiming to try and make this tour and the build up to it as accessible as possible. Please check out our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages, much of this weekend was logged and we will continue to post regularly at future training weekends and whilst on tour.
#GBRTSA17
