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Bathurst Rifle Club Inc 25th July 2015 J Sibera Trophy, 600yards

            With our national representatives out of town for several weeks and our F-class State representatives due to disappear in August, local competition will suffer a dearth of talent over the next few weeks leading up to the Bathurst 1000 range shutdown.

           The J Sibera Trophy has seen unusually mild weather grace the range but Saturdays’ conditions were back to the challenging, gusting westerly’s which we so often expect at this time of year. Graeme Bright continues to climb out of his recent slump and again set the level of the challenge with a first stage 49.02 and while not spotting many centres, managed to hold tight within the bulls eye ring for all bar one skinny inner four, half way through his shoot.

           Dennis Lavelle using the smaller and lighter .223 projectile dropped a couple of late inner fours but did well to stay in touch, whilst Gordon Shepherds’ effort included two very late inner fours to add to his two earlier mishaps. Ron Gibson after a long overseas trip seemed to slot seamlessly back into the shooting game with a steady 46.02, but John Coghill reverted to his magpie gathering with a 2 o’clock shocker in his 44.0.

           The second stage saw a repeat of Brights’ 49.02, some improved performances from Lavelle 48.05, Shepherd, 48.03 and Coghill 46.01 but a letdown for Gibson who could not repeat his good first stage form. The end result was a Cock of the Walk winning score of 98.04 for Bright and a B grade win for Lavelle who has now accumulated twenty two wins for the season.

           F-class was a competition at least, with the return of ex club champion Jeff Eppleston from holidays and the Willis brothers challenging for supremacy. Eppleston and Grahame Willis were early shooters and found the breezy conditions a little more difficult than they would have liked. A 55.4 and a 54.2 were not quite up to scratch and when Geoff Willis arrived late on the scene and slotted a 57.1 things looked ominous for the former pair.

           The second stage bought out the best with all three shooting 58’s, Epplestons’ accompanied by 5 X’s, but the damage was done in the first stage, Geoff Willis winning the COW by three points.

           Bright won the J Sibera Trophy by two points from Coghill, 296 to 294. The W & J Brown Shield over three ranges, begins next week at 700 yards 

Scores: 

D Lavelle TRB 95.07 (4 ¼) 99 ¼

R Gibson TRB 89.03 (10 ¼) 99 ¼

G Bright TRA 98.04 (1/2) 98 ½

G S Willis FSA 115.2 (1 ¼) 96 ¾

G Shepherd TRA 94.06 (2 ¾) 96 ¾

J Coghill TRB 90.01 (6 ¾) 96 ¾

J Eppleston FSA 113.9 (2) 95 ¾

G P Willis FSA 112.3

by John Coghill