The 2024 Imperial Meeting Target Rifle events were conducted in very pleasant shooting conditions. The first Friday, on which the Century and Admiral Hutton matches were shot, was unseasonably hot and humid, but it then cooled down to a more comfortable temperature for the remainder of the meeting with only a few sporadic showers. This resulted in very high scoring and also in a few notable wins and high placings for some of the Scots attending.

Wins were recorded by James Shepherd who won the Admiral Hutton after a two-way tie on 50.8 at 900 yards and by Bruce Logan who won both the Berryman Aggregate, which included a fine score of 50.6 at 1000 yards, making him the only person to achieve the highest possible score over the 3 ranges comprising the aggregate and the Hobson Aggregate over the 15 shot shoots at 300/500/600 yards, again with the only highest possible score.

*James Shepherd after winning his shoot-off for the Admiral Hutton*

Meeting entries overall were down on previous years, with around 650 competing in the Grand Aggregate and 750 in the first stage of the King’s Prize. However, there were few competitors from overseas, but those who did attend were of the highest quality. Nevertheless, finishing in the top 10 of any of the open competitions or qualifying with a high score in the multi-stage competitions was noteworthy.

A summary of the results have been provided below:

Individual Competitions

Admiral Hutton 1st James Shepherd
Barlow 3rd James Shepherd
Conan Doyle 8th Bruce Logan
Corporation 5th Bruce Logan
Daily Telegraph 3rd Euan Munro
Duke of Cambridge 6th Angus McLeod
King’s 1 30 Scots were in the 300 qualifiers for King’s 2
King’s 2 7th Rory McLeod, 12th Euan Munro, 18th Richard Dyball, 49th Angus McLeod (11 Scots qualified for the final 100 shooting in King’s 3)
King’s 3 11th Lewis Reid, 17th Rory McLeod, 22nd Alex Hunter, 43rd Angus McLeod
Prince Of Wales 8th Bruce Logan
St George’s 1 5th Mike Barlow, 7th Lewis Reid (16 Scots qualified for the 300 in the 2nd Stage)
St George’s 2 5th Sandy Gill (7 Scots qualified for the 100 in the 3rd Stage)
St George’s 3 7th Sandy Walker, 10th Lewis Reid, 11th Sandy Gill
Wimbledon 2nd Sandy Gill

Aggregates

Grand Aggregate 12th Sandy Walker, 18th Angus McLeod, 33rd Euan Munro
500 yard Agg 8th Euan Munro
Berryman Agg 1st Bruce Logan
Monday Agg 2nd Alex Hunter
Gunmakers 7th Lewis Reid
Hobson Agg 1st Bruce Logan
Northland 6th Alex Hunter
Short Range Agg 7th Sandy Walker
Stickledown Agg 4th Sandy Walker
Sunday Agg 5th Sandy Walker
Tucker Agg 8th Sandy Walker
Weekend Agg 3rd Sandy Walker

Limited Entry Competitions

Amazons (Ladies King’s 1) 4th Claire Halleran
Chairman’s Prize T Class 2nd R E Wardle
Chairman’s Prize O Class 2nd Peter Glen
Conway Fenton (UK Cadets K1) 7th Jamie Scheurl
Foster (St G 1 HM Forces) 5th Sandy Gill

Extra Competitions

Stickledown 5th Peter Glen, 6th Mark Joyce

Inter County Team Matches

In the Inter County team matches at both long range and short range, several Scots shot for their county of birth or residence and so were scattered through many of the competing counties. Nevertheless, both the East of Scotland and the West of Scotland fielded strong teams in both matches and finished 3rd and 8th in the County Short Range and 17th and 7th in the Long Range respectively. In the Short Range match the East team was equal with the winners on score but were counted back to 3rd place on the V bull count. It was pleasing to see that in both the East and West teams there were a number of new faces and that they all shot very well.