On a cold weekend in the middle of October a hardy contingent of Scots gathered at Bisley to defend the European Long Range championship.

For those who don’t know, the match is held every 2 years and is for teams of 12 firers shooting 15 shots at ICFRA targets at 900 and 1000 yards on the Saturday morning and the same again in the afternoon. The Sunday morning is one more range at 1000 yards followed by an individual 2 and 15 for those who want to have an individual shoot.

Lyndsay McKerrell, Rory MacLeod, Mike Barlow and Nail Duncan - Photo Credit NRA

The match turned into something of an epic duel between Scotland and England.

At the first range, Scotland took the lead by just 2 points but England won the next by 9 points.

In the afternoon Scotland won both ranges to finish the first day leading by just 10 points and a few Vs, would that be enough?

As it turned out, not quite. England came back strongly to win the last range by 11 points meaning that they won the match by just a single point out of 4500.

James Shepherd and Richard Dyball - Photo Credit NRA

Each and every member of the team contributed to the magnificent effort but special mention should go to Ron Scaglione who finished the match with a marvellous score of 373 out of 375,
comfortably the highest score ever seen in this match in the current format. (Modesty prevents any credit being given to his coach!) That’s on a bullseye only 20” in diameter rather than the usual NRA dimension of 24”.