Winter 2002 - National Rifle Association

The Beckingham Charity PR ChampionshipThis is the fourth year that the Gun World Shooting Clubhave put on this practical rifle championship event.There are two other matches shot at the same time, theRolls Royce Sporting Rifle and the Beginners Challenge.All three matches are part of their annual charity shoot,the Beginner’s Challenge taking place at another rangeon this very tidy complex which is situated just outsidethe village of Beckingham.All funds collected are donated to two charities: theArmy Benevolent Fund and Cancer Research UK. Thisyear they received nearly £1000 between them. Thisarticle would not be complete without mention of, andthanks to, the number of hard working volunteers whogave up their day for these two worthwhile causes.Overall the day was well organised with an all daybarbecue supplying, for small donations, cups of tea andcoffee, bacon butties and cakes. These were all donated,I hasten to add (having overheard a conversation on thesubject), by Christine Brown, the lady slaving over thebarbecue. The ladies on the stats (as always) beaveredquietly away doing a marvellously efficient job of sortingout the scores. There were a large number of trophies,which were presented to the winners and runners upby Major (Retd) Laird L Walker QGM, Commandant HQEMTA.Beckingham is a very well groomed 600 metres rangewhich is, as is becoming more common these days, acombined Gallery and Electronic Target range with thelatter consisting of two targets per lane for each of the12 lanes. The range itself is situated in a very picturesquespot with a large lake/pond on the left (looking towardthe butts) and on the right, in the near distance, a villagechurch.Unlike the previous three years which went exceedinglywell, the event was beset by a series of time consumingproblems which were eventually overcome, albeit losinghalf of the final stage due to running out of time. Thelessons learnt will be acted upon next year. Thecompetition was planned to consist of two stages shotat 600 and 500 metres using gallery targetry with theremaining stages to be shot on the electric targetry. Inthe event all stages were shot using the gallery targetry.The shoot was preceded by a brief two minute zero at600 metres. This is always of use as a check on zero andwindage to set everyone up for the day.The first stage, shot from 600 metres, had five 10 secondexposures of a figure 11 and figure 12 followed by afurther five 6 second exposures of the same targets. Thetime away between each exposure was 10 seconds - inother words it was long range snaps. Shot from pronesupported, if your zeroing session was spot on, therewas nothing to stop you doing well. Apart from thewind, that is, which started by being almost non existent,but built up to a nuisance by the end of the day. PeteWilliams took this stage with Phil Woolley in secondand Steve Oakland in third.Stage 2 was shot from 500 metres and from the proneunsupported position with no more than ten rounds ineach magazine. Unsupported in PR means no bipods,bags or resting any part of the arm forward of the elbowon anything; slings however are allowed. Competitorsreceived ten 6 second exposures of the same two targetsas at Stage 1. The away time varied between 5 and 15seconds. This was obviously to Mark Bradley’s likingas he thrashed the rest of us being some 50 points aheadof Neil Beeby in second place, with the rest of the fieldbeing led by Matt Greenall.The third stage had competitors at 400 metres with 20loose rounds in hat or bag, and two magazines. Shotfrom the prone supported position, the trick to this onewas not losing count of your rounds and finding yourself(as I did), with one round up the spout and no roundsremaining in a magazine at the beginning of an exposure.There were ten exposures, the first of which was 20seconds and the remaining nine of five seconds each.Stage 4 consisted of a rundown from 400 to 300 on theappearance of figure 11 and 12 for 60 seconds, adoptingthe prone unsupported position and engaging with tworounds. There were a further two 6 second exposures tobe shot from the same position. On completion,competitors had to adopt the sitting position for the nextthree exposures (6 seconds per exposure). This wasfollowed by a final positional change into the fire trenchsupported for a final four exposures of 6 seconds each. Isomehow managed to end up with six rounds over - notgood as I had ample time to use them on completion ofthe run down.Stages 3 and 4 were scored together to save time. So theshooter having the best combination, on the day, ofdexterity, fitness and accuracy was Garreth Biddle withPete William and Matt Greenall in second and thirdrespectively. This was a closely fought combined coupleof stages with only five points separating the top three.Overall winner was Pete Williams who also took theVeterans (50 and over) prize followed by Mark Bradleyand Phil Woolley. Top Lady went to Jennie Hunter andtop Tyro went to Richard Hickman, with Craig Oldfieldgetting the Beginners Challenge trophy.Thanks go to Russell Harris of the Gun World ShootingClub and his team and members, as well as the rangestaff, for putting on these competitions which countedfor the League. A special mention goes to the followingcompetitors for their actions and improvisation whichenabled the majority of the courses of fire to take place -Terry and Jennie Hunter, John and Ann Nightingale,Dave Green and Mark Bradley.For information about future competitions please contactPost: PRNL, 52 Roping Road, Yeovil, BA21 4BETel/fax: 01935 474064.E-mail: prnl@practicalrifle.co.ukWeb site: www.practicalrifle.co.ukAlternatively subscribe to the PR Newsletter by sending£6 to the above address (please make cheques payableto S Beard). Please note that all the Practical Riflechampionship competitions are open to all and thatsubscription to the newsletter is not a requirement.15