The annual Imperial Meeting was held in July at the NRA ranges at Bisley. The early part of the meeting for the Match Rifle competitors, who shoot exclusively at long ranges from 1000 yards to 1200 yards, and some of the cadet shooting was cancelled, due to fires burning both on the range and in the danger area behind the targets. There was significant damage to the number boards above the target and only some very fast work by the NRA allowed shooting to restart on the Stickledown range on the Monday before the start of the Full-Bore Target Rifle meeting. However, throughout the next 2 weeks of the meeting, there were fire watches and bowsers at the ready to identify and extinguish nascent fires before they took hold and spread. In particular, in the morning before shooting started and in the evenings after shooting finished these teams surveyed the accessible areas and dampened down any smouldering areas. Some areas are of course inaccessible because there is unexploded ordnance on the range and so access is forbidden to these areas, even if burning. Luckily, shooting during the Target Rifle meeting only had a few, relatively short interruptions and delays for fire and smoke, and no shooting competitions had to be truncated or cancelled.
However, the heat was not simply being generated from the fires. Throughout the meeting, the temperatures were unseasonably high with a couple of days peaking at 40 degrees. Unlike some other shooting disciplines, the Target Rifle competitors are fully exposed to the elements and so there was trepidation amongst some of the UK competitors about lying in the sun and having to wear a thick leather shooting jacket and one or two layers of jumpers when the rest of the population was being advised to stay indoors. However, the NRA took the unprecedented step of shortening many of the shoots from 15 rounds to count to 7 or from 10 to 7 to reduce the time on the firing point. All this concern about temperature was somewhat puzzling to the foreign visitors from Australia and the US as for them it was pretty much business as usual. Thankfully, the humidity was relatively low and the toll on the competitors was probably less than during conditions in previous years when humidity was higher, although with cooler temperatures. Nonetheless, cooling off was still a difficult task with air conditioning units being a very rare sight anywhere on Bisley camp.
Despite some of the competitions in the Grand Aggregate having reduced number of rounds fired, the leader board had a remarkably familiar feel, with four out of the top 5 being multiple winners in either previous Grand Aggregates and/or the Queen’s Prize. The only one not to have won such prizes was the South African Alexander Coetzee, but his name was still familiar as he had finished regularly in the top 20 in previous visits to Bisley. In the top 25 there were seven overseas competitors, from South Africa (2), Australia (3), Canada (1) and Kenya (1) demonstrating the strength and depth of the foreign entrants. Scotland managed to get 9 in the top 150, with Ian Shaw (41st), Sandy Walker (47th), and Lindsey McKerrell (49th) in the top 50, closely pursued by Patrick Costello (56th) and James Shepherd (60th) out of the 600 plus entrants.
The Queen’s Prize was shot in the usual three stages, and by the time the first stage was shot at short range (300/500/600 yards), temperatures had subsided slightly, so none of the shoots had to be truncated due to weather.
In Stage 1 the wind was slightly tricky and so the qualifying score was around the usual 101.10, with 21 Scots in the top 300, qualifying for the second stage, being led by Alice Ogilvie with a fine 105.15.
The second stage was shot the following afternoon, with Jacqui McQuillan, Kitty Jack, Alice Ogilvie, James Shepherd, Patrick Costello, Sandy Gill and Rory McLeod all qualifying for the final 100, Rory making a maximum score of 150 and taking a 3 point advantage over half the field into the final stage.
As is the tradition, the final stage was shot on the Saturday afternoon at 900 and 1000 yards. Conditions were very difficult, with many of the competitors being blown into the magpie (losing 2 points) or the outer (losing 3 points) even at 900 yards by sudden wind changes. The eventual winner, Miss Alice Good from Cambridge University, had managed to avoid any such disasters and won by a clear point from Parag Patel (the 2017 winner) by one point and a few ‘v’s. James Shepherd finished 37th and Patrick Costello 50th, with Rory McLeod being unable to capitalise on his advantage from the second stage having struggled at 1000 yards to score 63, dropping him to 65th.
There were some notable aspects to this competition: the leader going into the final stage, David Calvert (a 3 times winner) was 71 years old, but the ultimate winner was 23. Fifteen ladies qualified for the final 100 and 3 of them finished in the top 5. Similarly, there were 15 from overseas, with 2 in the top 8, demonstrating the overall diversity of nationality, age, and gender within the top level of competition within the sport.
The other multi-stage competition is the St George’s trophy and 4 Scots qualified for the final stage, again for the top 100. Patrick Costello finished 8th, Rory McLeod 24th, and Jacqui McQuillan 25th, all receiving the special Top 25 badge.
In the other individual matches, Scottish successes were fewer than normal but nonetheless still noteworthy:
Wimbledon TR – Rory McLeod 2nd equal
Duke of Cambridge – Andy Sturrock 4th
Sunday Aggregate – Patrick Costello 5th
Corporation – Patrick Costello 2nd, after a tie shoot
Century – Iain Robertson 3rd
Berryman Aggregate (St Georges 1, Prince of Wales, and Corporation) – Patrick Costello 1st
Patrick winning the Berryman Trophy
The team shoots started with the Inter County Short Range for teams of 8 and shot at 500 and 600 yards. There were no fireworks from the two Scottish teams, with the West of Scotland team scoring 782.95 and the East of Scotland 779.98 finishing 8th and 10th out of the 25 counties. Surrey, the favourites, won with an outstanding 798.119. That afternoon, the National Match was shot at 300, 500 and 600 yards. This match, for teams of 20, was yet more disappointment for Scotland with only one of the team achieving a 105 ex 105 , whilst half the England team had that score. The end result was England winning comfortably on 2076.290 from Wales on 2046.220, Ireland 2038.233 and Scotland on 2030.199.
Next day was the Inter County Long range match at 900 and 1000 yards, for teams of 6 firers. The weather was warm, but the wind fairly benign in comparison from what had gone before earlier in the week and from what would subsequently be met two days later in the international long range match and the final stage of the Queen’s prize. At last there was something of note for Scotland. The West of Scotland team of Ronald Scaglione, Richard Dyball, Claire Halleran, Bruce Logan, Patrick Costello and Linsey McKerrell all shot extremely well and gave the wind coach Lindsay Peden more latitude than usual to get bulls on the left and right by shooting very flat groups. Whilst the team knew that they were scoring well, they were delighted to find that they had won with 595.75 by a clear two points and several “v’s” from Northants, Leicester and Rutland on 593.70, and Norfolk 592.76, beating Surrey (again the favourites) into fourth place with what would normally have been an exceptional; winning score. It is likely that the West of Scotland team set a new record for this competition and, unless the conditions are very benign again in the future, that record score may stand for some years.
The majority of the successful West of Scotland Team - Winners of the Inter County Long Trophy
The final team match of the meeting was the Mackinnon, an international match for teams of 12 firers, and shot at 900 and 1000 yards. The conditions were particularly testing for the wind coaches, who had to try to deal with highly variable and capricious wind changes. At least in a team shoot the firers had the assistance of their coaches, hopefully reducing the incidences of wide shots due to wind, but the same conditions persisted into and throughout the afternoon of the Queen’s final stage and there the firer had to make their own choice and so the general spread of shots was far greater. England shot well to win the Match, but even their scores indicated the difficulty of estimating the wind strength sufficiently well to score consistent bullseyes. They had 1146.115 with Canada 2nd on 1132.98, Ireland 3rd on 1130.113 and Scotland 4th on 1120.84 out of the 8 teams.
In summing up, the prompt action of the NRA to both repair the fire damage on the long range and to take action to truncate the length of shoots in the most extreme heat resulted in another enjoyable meeting for all, albeit not always with the personal or team success sought. Scotland did award some new caps in both the major team matches but, as always, the challenge is to ensure a pipeline of new young talent which can aspire to team places in these matches.
Report by Lindsay Peden, Photos from NRA