Essex open 2016 at Springfield  :by David Clark

Yet another shoot for myself, Helen and Andrew to attend the Essex open at Springfield this is sponsored by the Airgun Center in Rayleigh Essex.

First some history of this shoot which was introduced by Springfield airgun club two years ago which catered for both FT and HFT shooters and previously won by Craig MacDonald in 2014 and Barry Warren in 2015. The Airgun Center sponsored this event and put up the raffle prizes of a £300 voucher for 1st prize £200 and £100 vouchers for 2nd and 3rd respectively. Helen and myself have attended this shoot each year and the first year I was lucky enough to with the £300 raffle prize. Last year Andrew and Simon Martin joined us Simon shoot well and after a shoot off with Barry Warren was placed second.
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Anyway enough about the past this is another of the shoots we look forward to as Springfield is one of our favourite grounds to shoot. Forecast for the day was dry, cloudy with a 13 mph wind. I had set up my second EV2 with another scope and was determined to use this rifle to prove the set up. Helen and Andrew picked me up at 7.45am Sunday and it was time for me to load the rifle into Helen’s truck. Much to my disgust I just couldn’t take an unproven set up (EV2 No.2) so in went old faithful known as number one EV. Off we set and I ask Andrew if he was brave enough to bring his springer to which he replied yes and from this point on I wished I’d picked up the other rifle EV2 No.2. Oh well we are on our way now even though Helen did offer to turn round, no its too late I replied. We arrived in good time and parked up in the field a short walk from the course. After booking in we said a few hellos then walked round the course which as promised was quite a bit different to previous shoots with a new section up the stairway to hell leading to the field of doom as its now called. Targets 1 to 8 where in this field section.
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​Time for the briefing and allocation of lanes I was partnered with David Elvin, off we went to our allocated lane 9 and awaited the start signal. As FT’ers use there scopes for range finding and HFT shooter’s don’t they went first I can’t really remember how I did until I went out into the field of doom but at this point David was one target ahead of me at this stage, and I have no idea how Bob the HTF shoot was doing as even when they miss the kill they get a point. So with one target to make up and 8 targets in an open field, no problem just like shooting at our ground. David nails both ,first shot for me target 1 just outside left and a little breeze I release the shoot dink damn thing lands on my cross hairs, so swing round for target 2 this target was a bit further out and at a different angle to the first one so again 10 outside left edge of kill and again the pellet lands one pellet to the right of my aim point. On to lane two again David nails them both so its my turn again with the grass bend over at 35 degrees best stay in the kill for this one, down it goes right me thinks I know exactly what to do on the next one which of course was wrong I didn’t I dinked it. Next lane kneelers great I like these not too far away so shouldn’t be a problem again David nails both my turn and down goes the first one swing round to the next one and even though I thought it was a good shoot the target stayed upright. Now to the last two targets outside and again David makes the right decision and they both fall for him, I switched off at this point as id missed too many targets to put in a competitive score.
​A few more lanes inside and with David missing a few in the wooded area giving me the opportunity to pull some back and catch up but I failed to take advantage of the situation only managing to pull a few back to within one target by the last lane which was a standing lane. With a stiff breeze David nails them both I get the first one and struggle with the last one and release the shot as I couldn’t hold it on target any longer. So David finished two targets ahead of me with 31 to my 29. Time to go and see how Andrew and Helen have fared, Andrew had a few problems with his poi shifting so dropped quite a few targets before working things out and finished on 16. Helen comes towards us and declared her score of 36 ex 40 a good score any day of the week, but we are shooting against a few AA graders so could they produce a better score than Helen. With the score cards handed in we await the results three AA shooters get called for a shoot off at this point we realise Helen has won the day and is now the new Essex open champion with a big bit of glass trophy and a huge shield to prove it.
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ETL 80

A few of us had been looking forward to this shoot knowing that the format of 40 targets in the morning stop for lunch and then shoot another 40 in the afternoon would make for a long day. Anyway four Midshires shooters attended myself, Helen, Andrew P and Simon, we where joined by a few of our fellow Fenland shooters. The day was forecast to be very warm with little wind. We arrived with plenty of time for a chin wag and a plink Helen disappearing to the plinking range ahead of me and Andrew and as usual we both spent to long chatting and nearly ran out of time for some zero checking.
With the whistle being blown for the briefing and us still in the car park filling rifles and preparing ourselves the score cards where handed out to our shooting partners, Helen being paired with Peter Edwards son of my partner for the day Peter Edwards know to us as granddad, Andrews partner was Dan Ely one of the UK’s top shooters so a chance for Andrew to learn from a master, i can't remember who Simons partner was.

There was two 40 shot courses and both me and Andrew started on the yellow course and Helen and Simon on the blue course. I started on lane 11 and well bagged the first two targets then on to next lane a long one and a closer one the long one i assume i under ranged and got the wind wrong as it landed low and right the shorter one fell so 3 out of 4 so far. Andrew started on the lane ahead of me and showed Dan how to knock them over getting the first two and then knocking his rifle which actually had the effect of knocking it back to his original settings. Anyway it wasn’t long before Dan was knocking over the ones Andrew was missing, so we finished the morning session as follows me 34, my partner 28, Andrew 32, Dan 39, Helen 33 her partner 32, Simon on 36. Off to the car we go for some lunch and a review of our performance, so far it appeared that the yellow course was proving to be the tougher of the two with many of the good shots having had problems some of it associated with the heat because most of the course was out in the open in full sun. Lunch time finished and after a few minutes chatting to our fellow Fenlands shooters we started the other course. Helen and Simon in the wooded area benefiting from some shade for a good proportion of the course, myself and Andrew out in the sun we both started badly in a hit one miss one fashion

Andrew then cleared the knelling lane while sitting on his bean bag so had to take two Fat zeros for that lane. Fortunately my positional shooting did not let me down missing only one of my positional shots all day. Then we get out into the bowl in full sun with a nice cooling breeze every now and then. I managed to finish the yellow course 7 down for a 33, Andrew 30, Helen 31 and Simon finishing with a fantastic 36. So after adding our scores together me finishing third with 67, Helen 64 and Simon 69 in A grade, Andrew finished second on 62 in B grade. Simons score got him into a shoot off for 1st and 2nd place losing out to Simon High on a standing shot.
Video below shows the days events.

Winners list..

Grade AA

Name Club

Simon Evans             Harriers 74
Dan Eley Kent            Woodsmen 73
Simon Ayers              Broadlands 69
Dave Croucher           Kent Woodsmen 69
Simon Pattle               ETL 68
Keith Allen                  ETL 67
Nathan Reeve             Cromer 67
Red Gallagher            Anston 67
Richard Osbourne     Springfield 64
Mark Johnson            Broadlands 63
Steve Carter                Iceni 63
Dave Hatfield              Beechwood 35
Rob Walker                Springfield 33

Grade A

Simon High                 Iceni 69
Simon Martin               Midshires 69
David Clark                  Midshires 67
Ian Young                    Springfield 65
David Elvin                   Broadlands 64
Peter J Edwards          Springfield 64
Helen Carragher          Midshires 64
Barry Macdonald         Springfield 63
Colin Eaton                  ETL 63
Andy Mason                Springfield 62
Edwin Cable                Broadlands 58
Sam Barr                     Tawd Vale 57
Kathy Johnson            Broadlands 55
Jason Cheeseman       ETL 55
Kyle Hampton              Cambridge 45
Jason lockett                ETL 44
Roger Lait                     Cambridge 40
Phil lawrence                Springfield 34
Danny Roff                    Rochford 22

 

Grade B

Barry McGraw                Beechwood 65
Andy Pearson                 Midshires 62
Dave O'Connor               Springfield 61
Alison Mansfield             Lea Valley 59
Andy Barnes                   Hereward 55
Peter T Edwards             Springfield 49
Peter stickings                ETL 48

 

Grade C

Paul Gallagher                 Anston 66
Harry Farrow                    ETL 56
Adrian Coe                       ETL 54
Gary Keogh                      ETL 54
Dave Mansfield                Lea valley 54
John Lloyd                       Iceni 52
Barry Simpson                 Iceni 51
Alan Reeve                       Cromer 39
Leann Mason                   Springfield 24

Well Saturday arrived I've been looking forward to this one as I missed the first round I arrived at the club about 8.20am to the sight of two red kites hoovering in sky. Our Russell Webb was going to come today and take some pictures for a magazine article he was going to submit to Airguner for publishing.
Simon arrived next and we got on with setting out a course, keeping many of the targets close as we where expecting winds around 20 mph I was aware that I had put out a few reducers so when the other members arrived I suggested that the rest of the course be set using full size kills. Helen was obviously feeling very confident as she placed a 25mm target out at near full distance, she later changed it for a full size kill but now having seen her score I don't think a 25mm kill would have caused her too  much concern. Well after a short chat about next years winter league grading we got under way. My shooting partner for the day was Andrew and the wind was clearly left to right our first target was number 1 a close 25mm reducer which shouldn't have caused too much of a problem but we both missed it Andrew not giving enough wind and me over cooking it. We both missed the next one and got the third. On to the next lane a kneeler Andrew cleared it and I made achieving a good score even harder by missing all three of them so after 6 targets I have one X on my card, omg me thinks. Then its Andrews turn to make FT look hard missing 4 out of the next 6 targets, fortunately I only dropped one of the six. I was giving about six inches of wind and in one case the target took another 3 inches. After both of us getting 2 of the 3 standers we moved to other end of the course to find that the wind was very different and seemed very tame in comparison to what we had just experienced especially as it was out in the middle of the field. We only needed to be just outside the kill for a knock down. Andrew finished on 17 and I managed a 20 to my surprise. Score cards came rolling in with a few very good scores for the conditions. I needed to collect Helens card as she had started checking her spring out the next round, so I asked her how she did hoping that it was less than mine only to find out she got a staggering 26 my immediate response was how the hell did you do that. So well done to Helen and thank you for making our scores look worse than I think they should be. So well done to those that attempted the course including Carl on his second visit to the club. A big well done to Ray with a pb of 21 (joint second today) with Simon Martin. Please refer to the competition section for full scores.
​Andy’s video.
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Mid shires 40 Open  by David Clark

After about 3 hours of setting up on the Saturday afternoon we had finally set out a course that was a bit different to anything we had done before. Helen and Lori with a little extra help spent a lot of time setting up 4 of what I like to think of as the best targets on the course, where set behind the mound shooting over the pond.

Well the day arrived I was first on the scene closely followed by the burger van, which was sited near the water tap. The course was checked while the caterers fired up the burco boiler and tea and coffee was soon on tap. we had 32 entrants and the start whistle sounded at 9.57am three minutes ahead of schedule. When we started there was very little if any wind and expressed my concern that the course was to easy and needed some more longer range targets. As I progressed round the course it was very obvious that the there was not many misses on the targets. As the day went on then wind became a little more noticeable although very light it had habit of dropping then changing from left to right. Personally I only found it necessary to come out of the kill a few times straight down the middle would have netted most people a score of 20. I started on target no 36 managing 11 hits until my first miss on target 7 my first standing lane then after another 20 clear targets I arrived at the last of the two standing lanes in hit the first short one and missed the next one the next lane I made a bad shot pulling the shot to miss a 42 yarder, thankfully they was my last miss and I finished on a very good 37. As I left the course I was still concerned that a clearance was on the cards as we had a few of the regions top shots attending as well as a few from other regions. Anyway as you will see from the scores 3 people finished on 37 Mark Johnson, Helen Carragher and myself all from the Fenlands region. Then it was time to sample another cup of tea and a burger the tea was as good as the first one I had and the burger was offered with chesse, fried onions, lettuce and tomato I declined the fried onions not wanting to create wind where it wasn’t wanted and have to say the lettuce and tomato went down very well in the burger and if I had to award points it would be a nine out of ten. I have yet to catch up with Lori but having seen the sausage and egg roll she was holding I would guess she is still working her way though it.

I can’t write much about the British Championship held on Saturday as I wasn’t there however Colin and Lori did shoot. Colin scoring an impressive 33 ex 40 and Lori achieving a score of 23.

Sunday 6th April Inter Regionals

This competition is the 9 regions within the BFTA shooting against each other this is in reality a two horse race between MFTA and NEFTA so the other regions are shooting for the remaining places. The course is 40 target with 2 lanes of standers and 2 lanes of kneelers

Seven of our members had qualified to shoot for the region the remaining eight places were made up of shooters from the other clubs in the Fenlands region. Most of us arrived with plenty of time to walk the course and check our equipment.

Below is the order that we shot in and our scores (which includes all Fenland clubs)

So What Went Wrong????

Did it all start with being drawn in group 13? - NO

Was it the socialising with the Fenlands team on Saturday night and the Black sheep bitter? NO

Was it rubbish shooting – not exactly most of my shots were well executed.

Was the Steyr playing up – NO

So how did I get such a rubbish score?

On the Saturday at the British Championships I put in a very reasonable 33 ex 40 (89%) despite missing the long kneelers whilst standing, beating many respected shooters. I missed a relatively easy shot when only 3 down and then proceeded to get the hump and miss the next two kneelers. Despite this I still managed to finish 28th out of 118.

On Sunday I shot just as well but my score was cr?p – So What Went Wrong?

Did I listen to the shooters leaving the arena – Yes a bit

Did they all say there was more wind than they expected – Yes

So after the shoot I consulted a few shooters who had done reasonably well.

Mark Johnson – he got the best Fenlands score which, although he shoots consistently well, was a bit of a surprise. He said that he rarely came out of the kill just favouring the left or right side.

Steve Lanyman – He put in a good 32. He noticed that some of his shots were going straight so generally shot inside the kill.

Cliff Bert – Always does well. He only got 22 a surprisingly low score. He was coming out of the kill and by the time he realised his error it was too late.

Roger Moy – Consistently does well, only got 19 - Same thing as Cliff.

Nick Larty – Consistently does well, only got 16 and wasn't a happy bunny - Same thing as Cliff.

So I could see a pattern emerging. I was outside the kill for most shots and unfortunately with the targets so peppered couldn't see where my pellets were landing. I just made the situation worse by giving more windage. Why I just didn't come in a bit I'll never know.

Any lessons learned? I hope so:

• Get a better wind indicator – calibrated to give an indication of wind strength
• Try to get an early session with clean targets.
• Trees have a marked effect on reducing the apparent wind speed, so take this into account.
• If you keep missing try aiming at the kill zone.

Not a good year for Fenlands, Oh that we had a ground like Redferns to practise on, an undulating wood not a field.

On the 16th march the Midshires  Field target chaps and chapets turned out for the Fenland Championship shoot and the presentation of the winter league trophies.

The shoot was a 40 target shoot with 12 of us competing against the rest of the Fenland region, it was also nice to see Bill with his camera digitally recording the day. I think we are all looking forward to seeing the pictures. It was a warm, pleasant sunny but breezy day the course was set out in 3 sections so the wind was coming from different directions. We didn’t disgrace ourselves with 4 of our shooters finishing in the top ten for the main shoot and one in the open class.

The results of the Fenland Championship  

Main shoot

Saturday 12th October

The weather looked like it was going rain on arrival anyway Bill set up 3 paper targets at 55 yds for a fun grouping and scoring shoot (scoring will be as the Americans do it) the wind was light and did’nt cause to much of a problem, results should be available soon. Coypu were also put out and 16 names went into a hat and teams of two were drawn out. This fun shoot was a timed shoot and each person shot the 5 coypu as quickly as possible and the time will be added to your team members. Those shooting multi shot had an advantage over single shot and also some of us got teamed up with a spring gun, still it was only for fun, again results will follow. 

Some people (who will remain nameless) re-set there zero for the 55 yard shoot and forgot to change it back for the coypu  shoot .

James had two goes not because his first go was rubbish, it was because another nameless person sat on the timer and reset it.

A good turn out with 20 plus shooters, the rain held off with the sun making a welcome appearance.   

FFTA AGM Shoot 13th Oct 2013-10-14

Colin, Lori, Helen and myself travelled to Norwich for the AGM shoot at Broadlands the journey was to say the least wet the rain eased off as we approached Norwich. We arrived at Norwich United F.C for the Fenlands AGM and more importantly bacon, sausage and egg rolls. Colin and Lori went for all that was on offer myself and Helen showed some restraint and just had bacon rolls cake was then brought out  Colin was unlucky enough to have a plate of cakes placed in front of him, Helen chose to sample the lemon drizzle cake and I had a the other cake on offer (fairy cake I think). Anyway the rain had stopped and we made our way to the 40 shot course. I must point out at this point that Helen would have been quite happy to stay at home. We had a quick plink/zero then we proceeded to lane 5  to wait for the whistle to start shooting. The rain stayed away with only a drizzle for a minute or two. I shot better than my recent outings but still a lot of room for improvement finishing on 33 ex40. Helen managed to keep her shooting together until we reached the kneeling lane (lane 12

I think) and she nearly messed the lane up ranging on the wrong target and then continuing in the seated position, luckily I noticed this before she let the shot go. Helen  changed her position and  proceeded to knock another two down. Then another two and so on finally we arrived at the last lane target number 7 and 8 , target 7 fell  leaving Helen needing target 8 for a clearance this one she missed (I swore for her) and finished on 39 ex40. We met with Colin and Lori in the car park and Colin announced that he missed one of his standers and also finished on 39 so a shoot between Helen and Colin was inevitable this turned out to be for 1st and 2nd place. The shoot off went straight to standers and Colin came out on top giving him 1st place and Helen 2nd. I had a 3 way shoot off doing standers for 10th place and managed to win the shoot off by one target. Lori finished on a respectable 31 just outside of the trophies. I have asked for the full results to be sent to us for Mike to put up on the website. A group photo will also be available shortly.  

Just a little information to let all the Midshires members know how our Field Target team has performed over the year in various national competitions.

April 2012 British Championship 6 of us took part with Colin putting in the best score of 35ex 40 to rank him 45th

Lori and Steve Allen were close behind on 34 each

Phil Hollis and Clive Pearson on 33 each

And Davey Marshall on 32

Inter Regionals 5 of our shooters qualified to shoot for the Fenlands region at the annual Inter-regionals, with an additional 2 getting to shoot for the region. Best of our bunch was Phil and Colin both finishing on 32 ex 40 each

David Clark on 30, Steve Allen and Davey Marshall on 28, Helen Carragher on 27 Lori Richardson on 26

GP series

These are national competitions hosted at different locations around the UK, including Honiton, Bridgend and Barnsley. Each round  consists of 50 targets, with shooters competing in various grades. There are 9 rounds with the best 6 counting. These are considered to be among the hardest of field target competitions with at least 150 shooters taking part in each GP

GP 1

10 Midshires shooters took part with the following results

Grade A Phil and Colin finishing 3rd and 4th on 39 ex 50 respectively

David C and Davey M on 33

Steve A on 31

Andrew Coleman on 30 and Helen on 27

Grade B Clive Pearson on 33

Lori on 29 and Peter Cook on 21

GP2 6 Midshires shooters took part

Grade A Colin finishing 2nd on 40

Andrew on 37 Phil on 35 Steve on 32 Helen on 31

Grade B Lori on 30

GP3 Grade A Colin on 40 finishing 8th Andrew on 37 and Helen on 33

Grade B Peter on 29

Lori on 25

GP4

Grade A

Andrew and Colin on 40 finishing 7th and 8th respectively

Helen on 39

Grade B Clive on 34 and Lori on 28

GP5 Grade A Helen and Colin on 41 each finishing 1st and 2nd respectively

David C on 34

Grade B Lori on 35 and Clive on 26

GP6

Grade A Colin finishing 8th with 36

Helen on 30

Grade B Peter on 31 and Lori on 29

GP7 Grade A Colin finishing 11th with 41

David C on 36

Helen on 35

Grade B Lori on 31

GP8 Grade A Colin finishing 10th on 39

Helen 37 David C on 34

Grade B Lori finishing 3rd on 37

GP9 Grade A Colin finishing 1st with 46

Helen and David C with 36 each

Grade B Lori finishing 2nd on 39

    Overall results for the GP series Colin won the Grade A with Helen finishing in 17th place

Lori took 7th place in Grade B

Congratulations to all 3 shooters a fantastic achievement shooting against some of the country’s best shots

The BFTA Masters 3 took part

David C finishing just outside the trophies in 11th place with 37 ex 40

Helen on 34 and Clive with a borrowed gun on 16

Grades in FT

These are calculated as a percentage of the top score on the day. They include scores in Winter League competitions as well as GPs and some other Opens. The last 20 scores, or less, is averaged to work out your grade.

Colin Richardson has now reached the highest grade AA and is our club’s first AA grade shooter. Congratulations Colin!