The NRA hosted its 154th Imperial Meeting at Bisley in July and as usual had competitions for a wide variety of shooting disciplines. This short report however covers only the Target Rifle competitions.

The level of overseas entrants is gradually returning to pre-COVID levels, with Official Teams from Canada and Kenya, and an unofficial team from Australia of about 30, together with individuals from several other countries. However, the overall entry to the whole meeting continues to fall slowly year on year caused partly by age demographics but also the increasing costs in participation in the sport. For this meeting, there seems to be no standard weather. In recent years, it has been hot and sunny with light to moderate winds and so those arriving with that in mind were to be both disappointed and caught unprepared. The strong winds and cool weather from the outset, with occasional showers, set the tone for the whole meeting.

The first two and a half days of the meeting (Thursday, Friday Saturday) are traditionally warm-up shoots for both teams and individuals. On the Friday, the Astor County Championship for teams was held, but the team from East of Scotland fared badly and finished 18th out of 20, although there were Scots distributed across several of the other teams, with 2 in the team finishing 3rd. Later that day, the Century and Admiral Hutton were shot in light winds but in rain that hardly abated for more than a few moments, leading to many questions about personal enjoyment and sanity in getting wet more than once during the day. Nonetheless, Sandy Walker won the Admiral Hutton trophy outright with a superb 50 with 10 v’s and Mike Barlow was equal fourth.

Over the past few years, the competitions which are included in the Grand Aggregate have varied, as the programme was initially restructured for Covid and subsequently to allow participation by reducing days off work to compete. This year, it was expanded further, including the Donegall, which had been included in the past couple of years, but reinstating the King’s Prize, making it the largest Grand Aggregate ever. So, for 2023, it all began on the Saturday morning, in very high winds. By lunch time, it was obvious that the targets were struggling to withstand the wind, with several of the long-range targets being broken that morning. So, a decision was taken to cancel shooting for the rest of the day, which meant that the Daily Telegraph was not shot at all, and those who had fired in the morning session of the Conan Doyle at 900 yards found that it also was cancelled and that their scores were not recorded, as the other half of the competitors would be unable to participate.

Shooting resumed on the Sunday, with the Alexandra, Daily Mail and Corporation all still being shot in very high winds and still gusty conditions, albeit slightly lighter than Saturday. These high winds continued into Monday in the Times, Prince of Wales and Duke of Cambridge, but at a slightly lower level than the Sunday. Throughout both days scores were generally lower than years gone by, but there were still people making 50’s and 75’s, just far fewer than previously, Alice Olgilvie managed to come out on top on Monday, winning the Monday Aggregate. Thankfully the rain held off both days, as it would have been very miserable otherwise with both strong winds and rain together. By this stage, the overseas competitors were showing their class, with 5 from Australia and 2 from South Africa occupying the top 7 places in the Grand Aggregate.

Tuesday saw the first of the multi-stage competitions, the St George’s, being shot at 300 yards, together with the Wimbledon and Lovell. Thirteen Scots qualified to shoot in the final 100 of the St George’s, despite the qualifying score being the lowest for many years. Scoring continued to be low, despite the winds returning to more normal strengths, albeit with constantly changing direction.

Claire Halleran being awarded the Amazon Trophy, Top Lady in King’s 1 by Dick Rosling

The first King’s prize for 70 years was shot on the Wednesday. For most of us, it was hard to change the thought process to call it the King’s after for living memory having referred to it as the Queen’s. Also on that day, the final long-range shoot in the Grand Aggregate, the Lovell, was conducted to close out the new marathon Grand Aggregate competition. Twenty Scots qualified for the second stage of the King’s. Meanwhile focus turned to the fantastic Australian achievement of taking the top 3 and 7th position in the final of the Grand Aggregate, with a South African 4th, which left only 2 in the top 7 places for an Englishman and an Ulsterman. Scotland had only one representative in the top 50 of the Grand Aggregate, Claire Halleran. Claire also collected the Amazon prize for the top Lady in King’s 1, Mike Barlow won the Stickledown aggregate and Alice Ogilvie collected first place in the Northland aggregate.

Team matches were now the main focus, other than for those shooting in second stages of the King’s, St George’s and the Donaldson Memorial. Wednesday afternoon was for teams of 6 in the Inter-County Long Range Match at 900 and 1000 yards. West of Scotland (Captained by Simon Dickson and coached by Lindsay Peden) didn’t quite manage to retain the trophy from 2022 and ran out a close 2nd to Norfolk, whilst East of Scotland were 17th in a field of 28 entries.

Thursday was mainly short-range team matches. The morning match was the Inter-County at 500 and 600 yards for teams of 8. The West of Scotland finished 6th and the East 17th ex 27 teams. In the afternoon, the National Match was held, for teams of 20 firers from each of the Home Countries. Scotland finished 2nd to England, who were a huge margin ahead of all the home countries, perhaps reflecting better coaching in tricky conditions but also the ability to shoot good scores at 300 yards, something the other three countries failed to do. Of the thirteen Scots shooting in the St George’s second stage, only two qualified for the 3rd Stage and in the final for the Donaldson Memorial for the top 100 there were 7 Scots shooting.

Friday morning saw Scotland competing in the Combined Services Match (not an NRA match) between a team from the UK Armed Forces against teams from the Home Countries. It is historically and continues to be a very friendly match and one which the Scottish squad use for developmental purposes both for coaches and particularly younger firers. RAF (UKAF) beat England with Wales 3rd and Scotland 4th. In the afternoon, the 2nd stage of the King’s prize was shot, with 6 of the 20 Scots taking part making it through to the 3rd stage for the last 100.

The final day of the meeting is for the blue riband events and the one on which spectators are actively encouraged - so a good weather forecast is always welcome. On this particular day it was ominous. The Mackinnon Match for international teams of 12 firers was held in the morning under gloomy skies and with strong capricious winds. Although England won the match by two from Australia, they did not have a single 50 on their board and only two 48’s at 1000 and this is testament to the difficulty of the wind. Scotland finished a disappointing 6th out of 10 teams. Fortunately for the team shooters, it only started raining after the match was ending, but for those shooting later in the final stage of the King’s it was a sign of what was to come.

The rain continued throughout the final stage of the King’s Prize. The wind was far less capricious than it had been during the morning as there seemed to be very few shots on the white part of the target outside the black aiming mark. It wasn’t the best day for spectators, as the individual scorecards, being kept behind the firers to allow people to see the progress of the shoot, were effectively obscured by the need to keep them under a plastic weather protection sheet, so it was difficult to see what was going on, other than by reference to the large electronic scoreboard at the top of the range. The scoring overall was pretty consistent with few train crashes. Four out of the top 10 places were taken by overseas competitors, including the Grand Aggregate winner, Steve Ngus and his wife 9th and 10th respectively. However, the winner, Chris Watson from Wales, shot very well to win, with the only 75 ex 75 at 1000. Of the 6 Scots shooting in the final, two finished in the top 50.

For the Scottish competitors the meeting overall was probably disappointing, with notable success only really for Sandy Walker in taking home some silverware. Perhaps, against intuition, Scots prefer warmer weather? So ended another Imperial Meeting, with its cooler temperatures and higher winds than for many a year, and with those from far away showing us it should be done.

Detailed results can be found on the NRA website https://nra.org.uk/results/liveresults/ but a synopsis of the successes of the Scottish competitors follows (apologies to anyone who has been inadvertently omitted):

Report by Lindsay Peden

Grand Aggregate

· 33rd Claire Halleran

· 69th Mark Wrigley

· 75th Lewis Reid

· 76th Alex Hunter

· 80th Sandy Gill

· 81st Rory McLeod

Admiral Hutton

· 1st Sandy Walker (50.10)

· 4th Mike Barlow

Alexandra

· 15th James Anderson

Century

· 10th Patrick Costello

Corporation

· 3rd Rory McLeod

· 8th James Shepherd

Donaldson Memorial 1st Stage

· 7th Iain Robertson

Donaldson Memorial Final

· 11= James Mehta

· 11= Jon Sweet

· 13= Alex Hunter

· 13= Iain Robertson

Donegall

· 17th Sarah Rennie

Duke Of Cambridge

· 5th Alex Hunter

· 12th Alice Ogilvie

· 14th Claire Halleran

· 19th Iain Robertson

King’s Prize 1

· 9th Claire Halleran (winner of the Amazon, top Lady in King’s 1)

· 11th Alice Ogilvie

King’s Prize 2

· 16th Lindsey McKerrell

King’s Prize 3

· 23rd Bruce Logan

· 45th Simon Glen

· 55th Claire Halleran

· 63rd Ian Shaw

· 69th James Shepherd

· 84th Lindsey McKerrell

Lovell

· 2nd Lewis Reid

· 23rd Claire Halleran

Monday Aggregate

· 1st Alice Ogilvie

Northland

· 1st Alice Ogilvie

Prince of Wales

· 6th Sandy Gill

· 9th Alice Ogilvie

St George’s 3

· 6th Sandy Gill

· 47th Lewis Reid

· 51st James Shepherd

· 60th Richard Dyball

Times

· 15th Stephanie Dick

· 22nd James Anderson

Stickledown Aggregate

· 1st Mike Barlow

· 12th Lewis Reid

Wimbledon

· 11th James Mehta

Inter-County Long-Range (ex 28 counties)

· 2nd West of Scotland

Inter-County Short-Range (ex 27 counties)

· 6th West of Scotland

Inter-County Victor Ludorum (Long + Short)

· 3rd West of Scotland

Mackinnon (ex 10 countries)

· 6th Scotland

National (Home Nations only)

· 2nd Scotland (but beating Ireland into 3rd place by V bulls)

Universities Long Range (ex 12 teams)

Scottish TR Competitors at the NRA’s 154th Imperial Meeting

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