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Thurnscoe Rifle Club Mini Rifle CompetitionBy Ross BurroughSunday 19th April saw the first Mini Riflecompetition held at Thurnscoe Rifle Club locateda couple of miles from South Yorkshire ShootingSupplies between Barnsley and Doncaster. Originallya range built for the Home Guard during the war andsince purchased by the club, the range is outdoor andoffers ranges up to 100yds catering for .22 rifle, AirRifle, and Black powder pistol. The club also has sharedMini Rifle in actionaccess to a 100m full-bore range used once a month.Mini Rifle was introduced as an alternative topractical pistol shooting after the handgun banbut for unknown reasons has never achieved thestatus or popularity of the previous discipline. Thecompetition naturally lends itself to .22 semi auto riflesand various types including the Browning Buckmark,obligatory Ruger 10/22 and, increasingly, the newGSG-5 (.22 MP5 replica) are evident at competitions.Earlier this year some of the guys from Thurnscoevisited Worcester Norton Shooting Club on oneof their Mini Rifle Open Shoots to take part andhopefully learn how to stage competitions ofthis type at our own club. Bob Oakley and theguys at Worcester Norton gave us a warmwelcome and gave us a great days shooting duringwhich we learnt all about the Mini Rifle disciplineincluding safety procedures, courses of fire, targets, andscoring. Worcester Norton run these competitionson a regular basis and are extremely experiencedin setting up safe and challenging courses whichprove to be great fun. On our return to Yorkshirewe began the process of gathering the requiredinstructions and equipment necessary to stage thistype of competition ourselves. Sunday saw thisproject come to fruition when we held our firstcompetition.Although starting off overcast the sun graduallyburnt through giving us a rarity in Yorkshire thatbeing a warm sunny day. The range had beenprepared and 3 separate stages set out ready forthe thirteen competitors taking part. After the RangeAction Safety Plan had been communicated to theshooters a walkthrough of the first stage took place.The main aim of this discipline is to challenge theshooter by introducing obstacles and differentshooting stances. The shooter is accompaniedthrough each course by a Range Officer whoensures that the competitor follows all safety andcompetition procedures. The course of fire is timedwith the total points scored divided by the time takento give a final score for the competition. Go too fastand you can loose accuracy or go too slowly andincrease the time taken, the idea is to achieve ahappy medium to give the best overall result.Preplanning also becomes important as somecourses require magazine changes which canextended your time if you are caught by surprisehalfway through shooting a string.The competition started at around 10am and finishedjust before 2pm. The overall results were as follows:1st Dave Wylde 327 points2nd Jeff Steed 292 points3rd Mark Hardcastle 280 points.Full stage results available at www.freewebs.com/thurnscoerifleclubThe main aim of the day was realised aseverybody who took part expressed their enjoymentand are now looking forward to the next competition.This was initially set for June but due to popularityanother may now be staged next month. Ourthanks go to Bob, Gareth and all the guys atWorcester Norton for introducing and instructing usin this challenging and addictive shooting discipline.Prizegiving at the match28 Target Shooter