NRA Journal - Spring 2007 - National Rifle Association

As the evening wore on those of us that neededsleep went to bed leaving those well practised in theconsumption of the European Port Lake to carry ontheir good work.If you think that this sounds like jolly good fun andyou want to join in, you can. Your best bet is to helpwith the gallery rifle shoots, which will get your nameon the invitation list. And if you are not sure that youwill be available, the next ROs shoot is booked forSaturday 1 December 2007.I for one left Bisley a very happy man. As a result ofmy efforts at the individual log chop I won the freeentry to the Spring Action Weekend. I am making alist of all the events I am going to enter. If I start nextweek I should be finished by the end of June!Brian, Jane and John. Santa’s little helpers?Classicsby Rae WillsThis article is a ragbag of bits and pieces. For the firstitem on the agenda, I still need help, and I am repeatingmy request made in the last edition. To explain to anynew readers, for the past few years we have hosted theNRA Percussion Revolver Championship as part of theImperial Historic Arms Meeting. Although it attractsrelatively few entrants, they are the best, and it is achallenging series of practices, requiring weak handshooting, snap shooting skills, and those of precisionslow fire. To enable these competitors to enter moreof the events during the Meeting, it was suggested itmight take place at some other time, perhaps even aspart of another event. However, at the present timeno alternative has been found as initial suggestionsproved impossible. One possibility might be to see if itcould be held on the afternoon of the Friday before butthat very much depends on range space and whetherall (including a dedicated team of scorers and ROs)can come early to the Meeting. So if anyone has anyideas for this Championship, do let me know.It is now a distant memory back to the TrafalgarMeeting, but my usual thanks to those who take on theburden of running the event, leaving me free actuallyto do some shooting. At this distance of time I cannotremember much, except I think I was lucky dodgingthe worst showers. In fact, I had a very successfulMeeting, including one personal best, so if it hadpoured all day and I had only a bag of crisps for dinner,I do not suppose I should have noticed. My problemis how to do as well next time!A whole year ago, I mentioned that a review of targetspermitted at Bisley was being undertaken. A finalrecommendation from the working party is now on itsway to the Trustees. My thanks to all who helped me,not the least David Clark for publishing his illustratedbook on Historic Targets at just the right time.Roger Cook, the secretary of FESAC, is now living inFrance but remains the UK representative. If anyoneneeds to contact him whilst he gets settled in they cando so through the HBSA or me. FESAC does sterlingwork dealing with proposals that come from Brussels;the most recent example was seeing that, as far aspossible, a proposed EEC definition of an antiquefirearm did not cause problems for us.I know many of you regularly shoot on the continentand quite a few have firearms at Belgian Clubs;unfortunately the Belgian Government caught a verybad case of the knee jerks after a shooting and, as aresult, has passed, in great haste, a new law requiringmuch stricter regimes and practically everythingneeding registration.The Police in one region misread the new law andseized all firearms at the clubs in their area. At present,it is all a bit of a mess and challenges by shootersare now going through the courts. If you have anyproblems as a result, we can put you in touch, throughFESAC, with the local representative. The fact thatRoger Cook speaks fluent French is a bonus as I knowthe Belgian concerned does not speak much English.Changing topics to happier things, I know quite a fewof you are interested in old and long-closed ranges,and whilst undertaking recent research, or morecorrectly doing anything rather than getting downto writing this, I found MoD Lands have publishedcopies of quite a few of the relevant old byelaws onthe internet. Most do not have plans, but often listlandmarks enough to work out the layout.www.defence-estates.mod.uk/byelaws/Internet/Intro.htmlI have just been through the trauma of my FACrenewal, and although it took a long time to get the17