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Bathurst Rifle Club Inc. 24th March 2018, W Cutler Cup, Championship and QVM, 600yards

            The weather conditions were almost perfect with just a whisper of breeze, nominally from the west, and the light was bright and even. But almost from the first shot it became apparent that there was something disturbing the serenity of the day.

            It’s not unusual on such a day for shooters to hone right in on the bull’s eye from the first shot but this was not the case as many competitors took more than their two sighters to centre on the target.

            Steve Williams was one who read the conditions well converting all of his sighters and that was a good indicator as to how the day would turn out. Gordon Shepherd was the only other shooter to save both sighters but only in his first stage. Williams experience won the day despite him dropping a point near the end of each stage. Nick Cock matched Williams in the first stage but dropped two points in his second stage whilst Graeme Bright and Gordon Shepherd battled out third spot with both having identical stages, Bright getting the nod.

            John Coghill managed to keep 6 shots in the bull without a single centre bull, whilst Ron Gibson also hit the bull on six occasions which included three centre bulls but included two outer two’s to boot. The second stage was a turnaround and despite Coghills' inability to move his group into the bull his 43.0 was sufficient to hold Gibson out.

            F class seemed to have a tougher time than the target rifle contingent and whether it was the subtle changes of direction of the breeze or the mirage flip flopping in front of the target the scores were only moderate. Grahame Willis did best with an average shoot of 111.6 but he was one who lost early points with his first business shots. Geoff Willis was coaching Troy Croaker from Scone, studying at CSU, and it seemed to affect his own performance.

            Croaker who has had previous clay target experience tried the club’s scoped .223 and after a couple of coaching errors in the first stage showed his ability with the best F class stage, a 57.4. Phil Mahon didn’t come to terms with the conditions and his group was quite large hitting the super bull’s eye on just the one occasion.

            Gibson won the W Cutler Cup from Williams.

            The next shoot will be a 700 yard Championship and K Redding Trophy on 7th April.

Scores: 
G Shepherd TRA 96.05 (5 ½) 100
J Coghill TRB 89.0 (12) 100
R Gibson TRB 87.05 (12) 99
S Williams TRA 98.06 (1) 99
G Bright TRA 96.05 (2 ¾) 98 ¾
N Cock TRA 97.09 (1 ½) 98 ½
G P Willis FSA 111.6 (5 ¾) 97 ½
G S Willis FSA 105.3 (6) 92½
P Mahon FSB 96.1 (12) 90
T Croaker FSB 106.5

by John Coghill