2024 Bisley National Meeting Report (9-17 August 24)
Mid-August saw the annual Bisley Week meeting for smallbore rifle shooters. As usual, this gave challenging conditions for the 350 or so shooters who took part, including 20-30 Scottish shooters.
Scorching sun (35°C) on Monday, rain/drizzle on Wednesday and strong winds on Thursday combined with changing wind directions throughout the week all made for the usual Bisley week Century Range challenge.
The meeting starts with the Inter-Region match on Friday, then a weekend aggregate, with a championship aggregate through Monday to Thursday and the Earl Roberts Championship on Friday/Saturday. The home countries internationals are held on Friday afternoon, based on the qualification scores of the championship aggregate.
Competitions are run at 50m and 100yards through the week, in classes X and A-D, with competitors squadded alongside one another to match abilities. There were also a few rapid shoots, competitions on small aiming mark targets and some benchrest events. This is indeed and Event that is open to all abilities and ages!
Scotland entered two teams to the Inter Region match on the Lord Roberts electronic targets (A-team: Lenny Thomson, Bill Baird and Robin Law, B-team: Robin Thomson, Sheena Sharp and Bobby Spence). Lenny and Bobby both finished in the top ten, while the B-team beat the A-team!
The first weekend involved 3 cards of 20 shots at each distance for the weekend aggregate – notable performances included James Paterson in 20th place (X class) as the leading Scottish shooter, while Charles Allan was 14th in A-class.
The juniors showed how it was done with Frankie Calder and Kirsty Scott finishing 3rd and 5th in B-class and Annabel Aitken finishing 4th in C-class. Many other great performances in B, C & D classes, especially considering the limited experience of Century Range and the competitions.
The Champion of Champions (CoC) shoot was held on Sunday – the county champion from each county shooting side by side at the Lord Robert Centre on the 50m electronics. Scots - Robin Law (Forth & Clyde), Tom Ralph (Lothian & Borders), James Paterson (Yorkshire) shot in this competition, but it was Lenny Thomson (Aberdeenshire) who came out on top to win the coveted CoC title with 592 and 41x out of 600.
Very Well Done Lenny.
The Championship Aggregate involved 14 targets (7 at 50m and 7 at 100yds, shot through the week), with Lenny finishing as the top Scottish shooter in 10th place (James Paterson 20th, Robin Law 24th and Bill Baird 29th also in the top 40 in X-class to get qualification for the Dewar trials next year).
Tom Ralph was 7th in A-class ahead of Bobby Spence (14th) and Charles Allan (22nd). Robin Thomson, Ian Henderson and Ian King were 12th, 17th and 19th respectively in B-class, while David Thompson was 6th in C-class with Gillian Piggot in 17th.
The Scottish team for the Home Countries Internationals was selected based on the scores from the championship aggregate, with particular congratulations to David Thompson and Ian Henderson who earnt their first full Scotland cap. The full caps list is now updated here.
The mixed team of 10 and Men’s team of 5 both came up short against an impressive England team that had 16 of the top 20 in X-class to pick from, but more pleasing was a comprehensive win over Wales. The men’s team of 5 was just 8pts off the England total and were very close to the win.
Home Countries Scores
| Main Team of Ten (ex 4000) | Men’s Team of Five (ex 2000) | ||||||||
| England 3887 | England 1944 | ||||||||
| Scotland 3827 | Scotland 1937 | ||||||||
| Wales 3774 | Wales 1905 |
To round off the week, the 1st stage of the Earl Roberts British Championship across all the classes began on Friday morning, with 120 qualifiers for Saturday morning and the top 20 shooting in the showcase event on Saturday afternoon.
James Paterson and Robin Law qualified for the ‘Roberts final’, with James in 5th place and Robin in 19th in a very high quality field of shooters.
It was a thrilling and challenging week as is normal for Bisley. No two days are the same and the event gives the chance to compete against the best shooters in the country.
Next years meeting will have a team from the USA taking part for the GBR v USA Roberts match, which is held every 8 years.
Dates are confirmed for 9-16th August 2025 – I hope to see you all there.
Report by James Paterson, SBR AMG Chair
Back row (l-r) Lenny Thomson, Bobby Spence, Bill Baird, Robin Thomson, Ian Henderson, Sheena Sharp,
Front row (l-r) Robin Law, David Thompson, Bill Hamilton (Sec), James Paterson (Capt), Charles Allan
Bill Hamilton did not shoot in the team
Back row (l-r) Bobby Spence, Lenny Thomson, Bill Baird
Front row (l-r) Robin Law, Bill Hamilton (Sec), James Paterson (Capt)
Bill Hamilton did not shoot in the team