News
Weekly Review 16/07/2011
Posted on Jul 17, 2011
[b]Bathurst Rifle Club The J Sibera Trophy 16th July 300 yards[/b] On a sometimes, bright sunny day, with just a hint of a rear fishtail breeze, the normal order of the day was restored, after unheralded players had taken out the last two Cocks of the Walk.
Steve Williams set the pace right from the first shot of the day with a super V in a 49.08 first stage which precipitated a return to top form after a couple of off-weeks. Last weeks surprise winner John Coghill again put in a good performance with 49.06 to press Williams and keep the Club Champion honest.
Graeme Bright was not as confident after a dearth of centre bulls eyes over recent weeks but still managed 48.05 to stay in the running, while Gordon Shepherd, Dennis Lavelle and Lawrence Sim all had disappointing starts to their day.
Shepherd, using his second string rifle, couldn’t adjust to the change of gear and included a magpie three in his under whelming 44.01. Lavelle rued his decision the use a small front sight ring as he scrambled to a 45.02 and Sim was at a loss to explain his 38.02, which included a string of magpie threes at eight o’clock.
Coghill was the first to crack, jagging two wide three o’clock inners in a 47.04 second stage. Bright however was not as careless, finishing off his shoot with a 50.04 possible to take the lead. But no one could usurp Williams’ position at the top of the table as he underlined his dominance with a 50.07 second stage, seventy five percent of his shots falling within the 70mm centre bulls eye ring.
Lavelle reverted to his original sight ring and shot 48.02 as Shepherd regained familiarity with his Omark rifle for a 47.05. Sim had the best comeback of the day to shoot 46.04 but was left wondering what caused his poor first stage.
F class also saw a return of familiar faces to the top of the scoreboard with Jeff Eppleston regaining his mojo as F-class pacesetter. With stages of 58.3 and 59.4 he and Williams were mainly responsible for blowing the centre out of both targets, the super V ring almost disappearing. Grahame Willis and daughter Elizabeth, both using a Geoff Willis 0.223 calibre rifle, shot 53.1 first stages before father exerted his authority with a 59.4 to 54.3 second stage.
Jan Sibera had a steady first stage 54.2 before the cold got to him and he fell to a 48.0 final stage. Visitor Bernard Lynch tried out F-class for the first time and started to get the hang of the discipline vowing to return for the next 300-yard shoot.
The J Sibera Trophy will resume on the 23rd July at 500 yards.
SCORES: S Williams 99.15 (2) 100 J Coghill 96.10 (5 ¾) 100 G P Willis (F) 112.5 (9 ¼) 100 J Sibera (F) 102.2 (20) 100 J Eppleston (F) 117.7 (2 ¾) 99 ¾ G Bright 98.09 (1 ½) 99 ½ L Sim 84.06 (14 ¾) 98 ¾ D Lavelle 93.04 (4 ¾) 97 ¾ G Shepherd 91.06 (4 ¼) 95 ¼ E Willis (F) 108.4 B Lynch (F) 92.3
Weekly Review 09/07/2010
Posted on Jul 10, 2011
Whilst the temperature hadn’t improved much from earlier in the week at least the wind moderated for the duration of the shoot. Scores were not spectacular but there were some good performances by the seasons lesser lights.
Foremost among those was John Coghill who hadn’t won a Cock of the Walk since June last year. Coghill has battled to be competitive over the past year but with a new barrel, trigger and front sight he returned to some form with a hard fought, if not lucky win.
Chasing Graeme Brights’ 50.3 possible Coghill shot 49.02 as the rest of the field fell away badly. Steve Williams, Dennis Lavelle and Gordon Shepherd could only manage 45’s, Williams and Shepherd dropping shots at regular intervals, and Lavelle achieving his with a first shot inner accompanied by two magpie threes. Lawrence Sim had a double inner, double magpie start before finding the bulls eye, compiling just 44.01.
Jeff Eppleston with 55.4 looked unlikely to have any competition in F-class after Geoff Willis collapsed with a 46.0 but Aaron Smith was on the verge of producing his best stage to date until he had every shooters nightmare, a bulls eye six on the wrong target.
The second stage was a far more even affair with 47’s being the worst of the scores and 48 the best. Coghill, Shepherd and Lavelle all shot 48.04, Sim 48.03 and Williams 47.03 leaving Bright the only one able to steal the COW from Coghill.
Starting comfortably, Bright had a double inner hiccup mid stage before steadying, but with less centres he needed a bullseye finish to take the win. An elevation error produced an inner four leaving Coghill delighted with the somewhat lucky win, by just a single centre bullseye.
Eppleston despite a moderate second stage 53.4 held on to defeat Willis in F-class. Willis’ 57.0 was the best stage of the day but his inconsistency was his downfall. Smith struck trouble after he used excess ammunition sighting his rifle in. Running out of one batch he reverted to a different batch of ammunition and found the lighter weight projectile totally inadequate for his rifle.
Next week is a lay day due to a PMCC motocross event, the next shoot being the J Sibera Trophy on the 23rd July at 500 yards.
SCORES:
J Coghill 97.06 (5 ¾) 100
L Sim 92.04 (10 ¼) 100
D Lavelle 93.06 (6) 99
G Shepherd 93.04 (5 ¼) 98 ¼
G Bright 97.05 (1 ¼) 98 ¼
G S Willis (F) 103.0 (14 ¼) 97 ¾
J Eppleston (F) 108.8 (5) 94 ¼
S Williams 92.06 (1/4) 93 ¼
A Smith (F) 78.2
...Read More-->
Weekly Review 02/07/2011
Posted on Jul 03, 2011
The mirage flicked from side to side as the rear fishtail breeze played its tricks and the rapidity of movement caught everyone off guard. The common errors were inner fours either side of the bulls eye.
Dennis Lavelle came up with a 48.03 best first stage, using the 5.56mm rifle he has been fine-tuning for several weeks. Gordon Shepherd, John Coghill and Lawrence Sim with 47’s, were caught by the 180-degree changes but not nearly as badly as Graeme Bright who went magpie-centre bull-magpie on his last three shots, for a 45.03. Brights' errors were compounded by his failure to properly reset his sights from the previous shoot.
The second stage conditions moderated and the race was on for the top spot. Coghill set the target with a 49.07, the possible spoilt when he missed a “blink of the eye†mirage reversal and Bright made amends for his first stage failures with a 50.03 but fell one point shy of the lead.
Next up, Shepherd grabbed the lead with a 50.02 possible, but last man on the mound, Lavelle, shot a 49.04 to win his first A-grade Cock of the Walk in twelve months by a slim 2-centre bulls eye margin. Perseverance with an under performing rifle finally won the day.
Sim improved his first stage by a point to win the B-grade COW for the eleventh time in only seventeen full bore shoots but Ron Gibson is still battling to regain competitiveness after major changes to his ammunition. The signs are there however that he is getting on top of the problem, although 89.04 is still far below his best. Clint Mills continues on his learning curve with the club gear but sporadic appearances are not helping his cause.
Geoff Willis set up a huge lead in F-class with a first stage 57.3 completely upstaging his competitors including brother Grahame whose poor elevation was a major contributor to his 51.0. Geoff sealed the COW with a 58.3 final stage as Grahame came home strongly with a 57.5. Aaron Smith is finding that trying to bed down a new rifle and scope at the long ranges is not an easy task although his group is shrinking at each trip to the mound. Jan Sibera got into a muddle and wound the sight the wrong way, he also finding the longer distances not to his liking.
Jeff Eppleston won the Blue Mountains District Rifle Association Champion of Champions trophy at Lithgow last week and produced a great performance to finish second in the NSW state final on Saturday.
The C R Kelly Cup concludes next week at 900 yards
SCORES:
G P Willis (F) 108.5 (13) 100
G S Willis (F) 115.6 (5 ¼) 100
J Coghill 96.07 (4) 100
L Sim 95.04 (4 ¾) 99 ¾
D Lavelle 97.07 (2 ¼) 99 ¼
G Shepherd 97.05 (1 ½) 98 ½
R Gibson 89.04 (8 ½) 97 ½
G Bright 95.06 (1 ¼) 96 ¼
J Sibera (F) 81.1 (20) 84
C Mills 72.02
A Smith (F) 95.0
...Read More-->
Weekly Review 25/06/2011
Posted on Jun 26, 2011
Indicative of the poor scorecards was the fact that the centre bull’s eye count was well down on previous weeks. In fact the best stage of the day, a 49.0, shot by Dennis Lavelle was devoid of even one centre bull. Graeme Bright did a little better in the centre bull stakes but dropped five points in a disappointing days shooting.
Bright won the Cock of the Walk on centre bulls eye count from Lavelle, who was unable to repeat his first stage heroics, but did manage to find the centre on one occasion, finishing a good second on the day. Adam Parkinson continued his good form to take out the B-grade section for third overall finishing well ahead of the chasing pack.
John Coghill, optimistic his new barrel would be the panacea for his ills, was disappointing, with a pair of moderate scores bought about by too many inner fours scattered all around the bull’s eye. Ron Gibson also showed there was still plenty of work to do with his bullet optimization program, and although achieving a handicap possible, his 100 points was more to do with his previous low scores than the days result.
Tim Halloran is limited by work commitments to sporadic appearances, and while holding all shots on the target, his lack of practice was very apparent.
F-class was not much better with large groups, an occasional inner four, and few super V’s appearing on their scorecards. Jeff Eppleston was again the best with a 58.1 second stage boosting a moderate 55.2 first stage. Grahame Willis started slowly but finished on a better note accumulating 56.2 points for 109.4 and second spot. Geoff Willis had a disastrous first stage with numerous inner fours and a redeeming second stage 55.1 was little consolation.
Aaron Smith with new rifle and scope didn’t achieve the instant success he craved, but his group tightened during the day and despite too many inner fours and a magpie three he was encouraged by the final result. Jan Sibera like most of the days contenders went backwards but managed to avoid the dreaded magpie.
Lindsey Moore-Gilbert in just his third full shoot showed improvement with a front rest, but with just peep sights and no telescope, his task of competing with the F-class shooters was always going to be impossible.
The C R Kelly Cup continues next week at 800 yards
SCORES:
G P Willis (F) 109.4 (14 ¼) 100
J Eppleston (F) 113.3 (9) 100
D Lavelle 95.01 (6 ¼) 100
R Gibson 87.03 (13 ¾) 100
J Coghill 91.04 (8 ¾) 99 ¾
A Parkinson 93.05 (6 ¼) 99 ¼
G S Willis (F) 102.2 (14 ¾) 97 ¼
G Bright 95.07 (1 ¾) 96 ¾
T Halloran 66.0 (20) 86
J Sibera (F) 88.0 (10 ½) 82
A Smith (F) 88.1
L Moore-Gilbert 74.0
...Read More-->
Weekly Review 18/06/2011
Posted on Jun 20, 2011
There were no heroics in the first stage but Graeme Bright and John Coghill limited their errors dropping just the one point in stages of 49.04 and 49.0 respectively. Jeff Eppleston and Grahame Willis did best for the F-class shooters as subsequent scores tailed off. There were however no real disasters with only the occasional magpie three making the scorecards.
The buffeting wind caught a number of shooters off guard and the occurrence of centre bulls eyes were few and far between. The cold wind froze more than a few trigger fingers as Adam Parkinson found out. After several misfires Parkinson retired from the mound to identify the problem, which was traced to frozen grease around the firing pin.
Returning to the mound Parkinson scrambled to a 45.02 which kept him in touch with Gordon Shepherd’s 46.03, Dennis Lavelle’s 46.0 and Ron Gibsons’ 45.01. Lawrence Sim, Geoff Willis and Jan Sibera all started slowly, and were left with a mountain to climb to be a threat to the leaders. Willis had only himself to blame as he wound his sight the wrong way for a first shot inner four and he never fully recovered.
The second stage was a repeat of the first with moderate scores being the flavour of the day. The one exception was a brilliant 50.05 possible by Parkinson, shot in near darkness at the end of the day. With great concentration and a warm bolt Parkinson put together a brilliant shoot. Eppleston almost emulated that shoot but a mid-stage bulls eye limited him to a 59.4.
Eppleston (F) and Parkinson (B) easily won their COW divisions whilst Bright with a 48.02 did enough to seal an A grade win. Improved stages from Shepherd (48.03), Lavelle (48.02), Sim (47.02), Geoff Willis (58.6) and Sibera (55.1) were offset by lackluster stages from Grahame Willis (55.3) and Coghill (46.02). Jake Miles, shooting off a rest using only peep sights, had a difficult day and although his group was quite large, managed to keep all shots on the paper.
Other stories from the days shooting were Gibsons’ improved consistency as he reconfigures his bullets, and the introduction of Aaron Smiths new F-class rifle and scope. Imported from the USA, the Remington rifle with Schmidt and Bender telescope will attract keen interest over coming weeks.
Grahame Willis won the F A Wilde Trophy by ¾ of a point from Lavelle.
The first of three ranges of the C R Kelly Cup commences next week at 700 yards
SCORES:
A Parkinson 95.07 (8 ¼) 100
J Sibera (F) 104.2 (20) 100
R Gibson 91.05 (11 ¼) 100
J Eppleston (F) 117.9 (3 ½) 100
J Coghill 95.02 (5 ¾) 100
G P Willis (F) 112.5 (9) 100
D Lavelle 94.02 (6) 100
G Bright 97.06 (1 ¾) 98 ¾
G S Willis (F) 110.7 (8) 98 ¼
G Shepherd 94.06 (1 ¾) 95 ¾
L Sim 90.03 (5 ½) 95 ½
A Smith (F) 84.1
J Miles (F) 65.0
...Read More-->