Walking onto the Mons range at Borden, it’s always a great pleasure to see the waves of grasshoppers springing up around your feet from every tuft of grass, there are many thousands of them (what is the collective name for grasshoppers – a bounce?).

Having spent the evening drying out wet kit, we were greeted with more rain as we arrived at the range, so all our hard work was soon undone as we ventured out into the drizzle to shoot the Letson at 500 yards and our kit was soaking again in minutes. A certain submariner was particularly pleased with the damp conditions as others grumbled about the incessant rain.

Our tent city is becoming more sophisticated as we erected a wall of umbrellas to stop the rain from blowing into the gazebos. Other teams thanked us for bringing Bisley weather with us.

We then fell back to shoot The Letson 600, the delayed Norm Beckett at 900 and then two more 1000 yard shoots to finish the day.

The winds were not as severe today, although one team member pointed out that they all appeared to have all fallen out, as they had turned their backs on each other and were facing in different directions at once.

The day on the range ended in the car park with Kings Prize winner Brandon Green making some running repairs to Toms rifle which had warped in the deluge.

After a long, hard stint of five ranges today, it was back to base for a quick pizza stop before heading out to a team reception to meet up with members of the other international teams. There was great camaraderie before we all went our separate ways to prepare for the team matches which start in earnest tomorrow.

JB