Due to the demand for places, the British Commonwealth Rifle Club (BCRC) Championships, held at Bisley on the 2-3 July, was reformatted from its normal course of fire to accommodate more entrants but also factor in the limited availability of ammunition. This resulted in two of the shoots being shortened from 15 shots to count to 10 and allowed the number of entries to be increased to just over 190.

Held only two weeks before the National Championships and shot with the same ammunition as would be used in that meeting, most of the UK top shots attend this BCRC meeting, meaning the competition was very fierce, particularly as some of the Canadian and Australian teams had reached Bisley early specifically to shoot in this meeting.

Saturday was short range day with 4 shoots over the day, one at 300 yards, two at 500 and one at 600. The individual competitions in these Championships are unsurprisingly named after a Commonwealth country, so the first shoot at 300 yards was for the West Indies Trophy. It was won outright by David Luckman (Eng) with a score of 50.9, with Lindsey McKerrell (Scot) and Sandy Walker (Scot) second and third respectively with scores of 50.8. Demonstrating the strength of the field, 5 of the top 8 had each won at least one Commonwealth Games medal and 4 of the 8 had won the Queen’s prize at least once.

The second competition that morning was for the India Trophy, shot at 500 yards, and won by Parag Patel after a two-way tie shoot.

Afternoon shooting restarted at 500 yards for the Africa Trophy, which was won by Mick Silver with a 50.9 after a three-way tie shoot - an excellent score in the conditions, as the wind had become very twitchy and caught out most competitors at least once.

The fickleness in the wind continued for the final shoot of the day at 600 yards for the Canada Trophy, where only 8 scores of 50 ex 50 were recorded. However, of these 3 people had made 50 with 9 centrals, a very fine score. So there was a three way tie between Lindsey McKerrell (Scot), Jim Paton (Can) and Elliott Sewell (Eng), with Lindsey winning after the tie shoot went to sudden death after the first 5 tie shots. The overall aggregate for the day (the Dominion Aggregate) was won by the evergreen David Calvert (NI) with Scots Lindsey McKerrell and Patrick Costello finishing 4th and 9th respectively.

Shooting on the Sunday comprised of two shoots at 900 yards in the morning and one at 1000 yards in the afternoon. The fine weather had persisted, but so had the tricky light winds. In the first shoot for the Falklands Trophy, only 18 scores of 50 were made, somewhat lower than would be expected in such a strong field. Parag Patel (Eng) won outright with a 50.9, the nearest to him being a 50.7.

The second morning shoot, for the Australia Trophy, was won outright by Jeremy Thompson (Eng) with a 50.8, a fine shoot, with only 4 scores of 50 and 13 scores of 49.

The afternoon shoot at 1000 yards was for the New Zealand Trophy and for two-thirds of the field the wind was very changeable, calming down a little for the final one-third of competitors in the last detail.

In the first two details, a score of 70 or more ex 75 was a good result, whereas in the final detail, several scores of 70 or over were achieved, with James Postle (Eng) winning with the only 74 and Patrick Costello coming 4th with one of the three scores of 73. The aggregate for the day was for the Ceylon Trophy and it was won by Nicole Rossignol (Can) with Lindsey McKerrell in 10th, but only one point behind Nicole.

Lindsey won the Rampoor Aggregate by a clear point (this was for the shoots at 300, 600 and 900, the Australia).

In the Open Championship for the Aggregate over the whole weekend, David Calvert (NI) won by three clear points over Parag Patel (Eng) and Lindsey, with Patrick in 15th a further 4 points behind. For detailed results from the event, see PDF file found using the link below.