Winter 2002 - National Rifle Association

Nine 50.10s, tie shoot two 25.3s, and at last John Pugsleydropped a whole point for 14.1 giving Nick Harvey thespace to take the prize with 15.1. Then – shock horror -finally someone won a competition outright! There were77 possibles in the Wimbledon but only Paul Kent made50.10. There was also the only 50.0 of the Meeting, fromIryna Reder of Cheltenham College. Perhaps it was justa fluke - earlier in the day Iryna had made 50.9 for tenthplace in the Times.The Conan Doyle at 900 yards produced 87 possiblesincluding 50.9 from Angus McLeod and Julian Gould ofWest Suffolk RC. The tie shoot was more of a struggle -24.0 from Angus beat 23.1 from Julian.In the Monday Aggregate there were scores of 150 fromAlice Ogilvie, Kelvin Ramsey and Nick Brasier but SherriGallagher of the USA topped the lot with 150.24. Alice,Nick and Sherri also had full houses in the StockExchange together with John Pugsley; Alice and Nick’s27 V bulls apiece led to a tie shoot where Alice’s 25.5won her the trophy. Three perfect scores in the Brigadier(previously the Nine Hundred Yards Aggregate) fromDavid Calvert, Alwyn McLean and David Luckman; theRAF beating the Army in the resultant tie shoot. GlynBarnett had the highest of the five scores of 200 in theHowcroft Newspaper Aggregate with 200.31. It wasencouraging to see three young shooters only drop onepoint in the three shoots that make up the YoungRiflemans Aggregate; the top shot amongst these wasCadet Peter Law of Dollar Academy with 174.21.Over at the Leader Board Gabrielle had not had the bestof days and Nick Brasier’s 150 gave him a two pointlead over John Pugsley, Tom Rylands and AlwynMcLean.Tuesday 9 JulyThe dismal weather continued with rain showers whichdisrupted much of the first stage of the St Georges.Despite the weather there were lots of possibles - 88 inall with six scores of 75.13 from David Calvert, AngusMcLeod, Bruce Horwood, Steven Thomas, Ali Cross andRobert Steketee of the USA all going into the tie shootfor the Bronze Cross. A perfect 25.5 from Angus wasunbeatable. Five of the above then had to tie shoot forthe Gurkha Appeal; a sudden death finish gave the largeKukri to David.Nick Brasier’s 75.8 meant that there was little change atthe top of the Grand Aggregate Leader Board still twopoints clear of Pugsley and McLean; Rylands droppingone point and one place into fourth.The afternoons matches on Century were all cut to 2 and15 at 500 yards due to puddles which rendered parts ofthe 600 yards firing point unusable (due to the increasedsafety area because of the ricochet hazard from 18 inchesof standing water between 500 and 600 yards).Hertfordshire triumphed in the County Short Seniormatch, despite a lack of 75s, whilst Northumberland tookthe honours in the County Short Junior. The RAF had asolid win in the Inter-Services Short but, twelve pointsbehind, in second place were the UK Cadets, ten pointsclear of the rest of HM Forces! The County Long Range42went to Norfolk with 586.51, beating second placedSurrey by ten points - not surprisingly this also gavethem the Victor Ludorum.Wednesday 10 JulyThe sun finally emerged and the heating promptly gaverise to thundery showers, which fired off at intervalsthroughout the day. Around the showers the wind wasboth strong and variable. Those shooting with 5 minutesleft at 600 yards could console themselves that at leastthey weren’t having to cope with the Corporation.The Bronze Badge and the OTF Short Range Aggregatewent to Canadian Jim Paton for his 105.17, the best ofthe 32 scores of 105 achieved in Queen’s I; other winnerson 105 included Paul Charlton (Volunteer Force), KipMorton (Loder), H Zulkeflee of Malaysia (Faunthorpe)and John Payne (Queen’s Veterans) together with JeffJenkins of Canada on 104 .10 (Admiral Campbell). Thecut for the Queen’s Second Stage was 102.10.In the concurrent team events, the Families went toAndrew and Paul Sykes for their pair of 104s. TheLuckmans (who in the last eight years have had one gold,four silver and three bronze medals in this event) had tomake do with another silver for their collection. OGREcarried on grabbing gold medals with the Rifle Clubswhilst Dollar Academy took the Anstey.Coping best in the Corporation was Richard Stewart ofthe North London with the only 50.9; ten others musthave been thrilled to bits to be able to say “I’ve just got apossible in the Corporation!” One of the ten, IainRobertson of the RAF, had the best of the three 154s inthe RPA (Wednesday) Aggregate with 21 V bulls, JohnsWebster and Bellringer were just behind with 18 and 17respectively. The 500 Yards Aggregate went to GlynBarnett with 185.27 whilst the Donaldson Aggregatewent to Ant Ringer with 180.26. Just one V bull separatedIan Shaw and Nick Brasier’s full houses in the NewZealand Aggregate - 37 V bulls to 36 gave Ian the victory.The Short Range Aggregate, comprising all the 300 yardsshoots, usually has a fairly high set of scores; it was nosurprise to see nine scores of 210. David Calvert of theRAF also usually has a fairly high set of scores so it wasno surprise to see him winning with 36 Vs. David washotly pursued by a name to watch for the future – 20-year old Peter Holden made 210.34 for second place. Butit was not only at 300 yards where David excelled – hisone point dropped in the Corporation together with thezero points dropped in all the other long range shootsgave David a total of 249.30 for the Stickledown RangeAggregate, three points ahead of John Bellringer, JeremyThompson and Iain Robertson, also picking up the PalmaAggregate along the way. However, that point meantthat Geoff Atkinson of Dorking & District RC slippedthrough to win the Elkington with the only 150.Evening brought little respite, and the DonaldsonMemorial Final was shot in tricky changing light andwind varying considerably around about 8 left as cloudsscudded across an unfriendly sky: the result was astraight win for Australian Andy Powell with a 75.9.