News

Bathurst Rifle Club 17th April 2010 The Captains Trophy 900 yards

          After the first two 900 yard rounds of the Club Championship were bedeviled by highly unfavourable weather conditions, Saturdays perfect weather offered shooters a rare chance to dominate the longest of the ranges at the home of the Bathurst Rifle Club. Whilst there were some good stories out of the day's competition, with most of the previous scores being consigned to the cutting table, not all were happy with the end result.

          Gordon Shepherd using the "new improved" .308 ammunition plied his wares well with a pair of 49's with 9 central bulls-eyes to take out the days Cock of the Walk. Shepherds disappointment at not achieving a possible was further magnified when Dennis Lavelle using his smaller .223 calibre was able to achieve that feat at his second visit to the mound. A 47.05 first stage however, prevented Lavelle from toppling Shepherd from the top position. Lavelle appears to have finally overcome his ammunition problems and is looking forward to mounting a serious challenge to his bigger bore competitors. 

          John Coghill and Graeme Bright, while well adrift of the leading pair, had their own competition with Bright, after giving up a one point lead, getting the edge on Coghill with a superior second stage 48.03. Brights’ woes continued with wild shots and poor elevation causing him to rethink all aspects of his shooting. Coghill on the other hand was just grateful to finally get some consistency in his scoring. 

          Jan Sibera and Keith Redding were out of sorts and hardly troubled the scorers although the markers had plenty of exercise spotting the shots on the big target. Sibera won the B grade with one of his lowest scores in recent years.

          F class saw a boil over with Graham Willis taking out his first COW since taking up target shooting in January this year. Willis set the day up with a 58/60, making it very difficult for Jeff Eppleston 52, Geoff Willis 46 and visitor Dan Breckenridge 48, to mount any sort of real challenge. 

          Willis almost threw away his lead with a very rough second stage 49 which included 3 inner fours but none of the trailing trio could mount a significant challenge. It was a disappointing day for the F class shooters as the calm conditions dictated that high scoring would be the order of the day.

          The Captains Trophy was a very close competition with three contestants scoring the maximum 200/200 points. The percentage of handicap used dictated that Lavelle (70.6%) scraped in ahead of Shepherd (72.7%) and Geoff Willis (89.5%).  

          Late News; There will be a 300yd shoot next  Sat.24th April due to the conflicting event being cancelled. 

          Shooting on Saturday 1st May will be a special 600-yard match incorporating the Tasmanian Postal shoot with the L Williams Cup.                      

SCORES:

D Lavelle 97.09 (4 ¼) 100

G Shepherd 98.09 (2 ¾) 100

G S Willis 103 (19) 100

J Coghill 94.05 (4 ¾) 98 ¾

J Eppleston 105 (13 ½) 98 ¾

G Bright 94.05 (4 ½) 98 ½

J Sibera 83.04 (14 ¾) 97 ¾

G P Willis 107 (10) 97 ½

K Redding 66.0 (20) 86

D Breckenridge 102/120