InterCounty Winter 2024/5 leagues - Scores

Scores and results are now live on the Resuts section of the Web, and can be found here

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Inter-County League 2023/24

Scores up to and including round 6 of the Inter-County League are now published in the Results section of the Website - here

A team are doing well currently sitting in 2nd place - we were top but sadly got beaten by Hampshire in round 6, but there is time yet!

Cheshire & North Wales County Championship 2023

The County Championship is booked for Sunday 25th June, at Appleton Rifle Club.

The entry form is available here, (or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and the closing date is 1st June.

Please enter, and cajole as many of your club mates as possible to enter as well.

There is an impressive array of Silverware up for grabs 

So come along and give it a go - get you name on one of our trophies 

County Averages - Winter 2022/23

As all the Inter-County Winter league cards have now been scored, and reported to the NSRA I am able to share the Winter 22/23 averages and County Ranking.

Congratulations to Mark Parry for his performance and winning the accolade of 'Top Average in the County' (Well done Mark), and congratulations to Warren Bidwell for an improvement in his average of 2.3 points (a trophy will be on its way to you sometime soon), looks like he'll be moving up into B class for the Winter 2023/24 season.

I would also like to congratulate Ian Henderson, and Joe Spain who have won themselves promotion in to the A Team, and to Mark Johnstone and John Brooks who have shot their way into the B Team. Well done to you all.

A huge thank you from me to everyone for shooting your cards in a timely manner, OK we had a few challenges with the Postal strikes over the Christmas and New Year period, but I am pleased to report that we managed to get every score submitted to the NSRA on time. The Results are published on the NSRA Website here.

I would also like to thank the various Club contacts (Peter Elliot, Brian Devine, Peter Bugler, Simon Green, Chris Dunnington) for their sterling efforts to make sure everyone shot their cards on time, and got them back to me promptly, and for stepping up to the plate to find me a couple of reserves when we needed them. 

Now the league is complete I am able to award County Badges to all our 'First timers'  and I hope this will not be just a 1 of for you all,  I will be in touch individually to sort that out.

As we move into the Summer we have a number of County Competitions coming up:-

   1.   BSA Cup - Team of 12 each shooting 2 cards at 25 Yards - No date set for this but I will be in touch once we have agreed date and venue

   2.   County Cup - team of 12, each shooting a Dewar course - No date set, but this will be held at Appleton later in the year, and again I will be in touch once things are finalised

   3.   County Sextette - Team of 6 (not surprisingly), each shooting a Dewar Course Wednesday 16th August at The Bisley meeting, and I will be selecting the Team whilst at Bisley

   4.   County 50M shoot - team of 6, each shooting 60 shots at 50M on Thursday 17th August during the Bisley meeting, and again I will be selecting the Team while I am at Bisley

I would also encourage everyone to come an shoot in the Cheshire Championship over at Appleton, on Sunday 25th June at Appleton Rifle Club, the meeting is run in 4 classes, with some very nice silverware on offer in each class. Anyone who would like more information please speak to either Gavin Scott-Brooker or myself at any time, and we will be advertising the shoot and publicising Entry forms nearer the time. It is a really good opportunity to compete in a friendly Open shoot, so if you've never thought of shooting out-doors before this is a great opportunity for you.

Good shooting for Summer 2023

Neil.

2022 BSA & County Cup Results - Another Successful Year for us!

Back on the 25th September 2022 12 of our County shooters went to Altrincham to shoot the BSA Cup competition, each shooter shooting 2 cards. The results are now in and I have posted them on the members section - Competition Results (here) and as you will see from the NSRA Results Portal we were victorious with a team score of 2,327 some 13 points ahead of Suffolk (OK so they were the only other County to send in any scores) but this is great news as it is our second victory in as many years, which is an excellent performance by all our Team, many congratulations to them all. We will be receiving medals rom the NSRA at some point (but we do need to bear with NSRA Competitions Department, as they are very short staffed at the moment, so there may be a bit of a delay in getting the medals, but as soon as I receive them I will distribute them round the Team Members). It is also worth noting that Simon Green was the highest individual scorer in the team, and therefore wins the Mini-Derbyshire Trophy - Congratulations to Simon for an excellent 197 ex 200 (Done the hard way I would have to say - 97, 100!!)

Prior to that on the 17th September 12 shooters went to Appleton to shoot the County Cup competition, and I have also posted the final results as above (here), and you will see on the NSRA portal the the Team won Section B of the County Cup Competition for the 3rd consecutive year (2019, 2021, & 2022; there being no competition in 2020 - Thank you COVID 19!!) - A great achievement in deed (and again Medals will be with us at some point, and I will distribute them once I have received them from the NSRA), again congratulations to everyone who shot the County Cup for us. I should mention that our team score of 4,654 not only won us Section B but wold have topped Section A by 8 points which is excellent . Our top scorer (Simon Green) shot a very impressive 396 ex 400 and will also collect the Brockelbank Salver to go alongside the Mini-Derbyshire Trophy (above); but it is worth noting that Mark Parry, Mike Arnstein and myself were only just behind Simon scoring 393 each!

Overall that is a brilliant set of results for us, and to be able to say that we have won the County Cup three years on the bounce is fantastic, so lets hope we can keep up the good work in 2023. I will be announcing dates and teams for the BSA & County Cup Competitions later in the year, and will probably be looking to shoot them sometime in late Summer again this year - so watch this space 

Brilliant results, well done everyone

Neil Almond - Cheshire & North Wales Captain.

Bisley 2022 and beyond

The much awaited Bisley 2022 meeting took place between 13th and 20th August, and was billed as Bisley 100, it being 100 years since the first Bisley Championships were held.

As ever many Cheshire & North Wales Shooters attended, and we entered County Teams in the Sextette and 50M shoots, and members of Appleton Rifle Club represented the County in the Astor competition. Sadly for us it was a year of 'Almost but not quite'.

The Astor Trophy was the first of the County competitions to take place and was shot on Saturday 13th, in what looked like reasonable conditions! Our team comprised Neil Almond, Mike Arnstein, Alan Bain, Simon Green, Mark Parry and Harry Creevey but sadly we only managed 4th place .

The County 50M shoot was run concurrent with Competition 5 this year, and the Cheshire & North Wales Team of Neil Almond, Mike Arnstein, Simon Green, Mark Parry, Gavin Scott-Brooker and Shelbie Marsland only managed 7th place.

The final county competition of the week was the Sextette which was shot on the Friday in some pretty horrendous conditions - it was Bisley wind+, and our Team of Neil Almond, Mike Arnstein, Simon Green, Mark Parry, Gavin Scott-Brooker, Shelbie Marsland managed 4th place - so the best result of th week for us as a County.

Notable high-spots for individual shooters during the week included Gavin Scott-Brooker winning the Eley Final (C Class) and Anna Maughan coming 5th in B Class. the Eley Final was shot on the first Saturday

Anna also won promotion from B to A Class in the Aggregate, finishing in 3rd Place, and collecting a selection of trophies along the way, sadly Anna was unable to attend the prize presentation, so I don't have any photos of her with her trophies 

In The Earl Roberts both Simon Green and Neil Almond made the final finishing in 10th and 17th places respectively, and Gavin Scott-Brooker made the BoBS Final finishing in 7th place overall.

There were other notable successes for Appleton members, although not specifically Cheshire & North Wales shooters, but I cannot get away without mentioning Jade Allen and James Meekin who won D and C classes respectively and collected a vast array of silverware between them.

Sadly all my attempts to get them both to move into Cheshire have so far been unsuccessful!

I think for everyone who attended Bisley 100 was great fun, and it was really good too be back at the National Championships after a two year enforced lay-off - thank you very much Covid!! And I am sure we are all looking forward to Bisley 2023, which happens to be the Centenary of the Earl Roberts Championship, and I would encourage you all to enter 

Moving on from Bisley 100, there is one other success that must be mentioned and celebrated, in September the CSF (Commonwealth Shooting Federation) Championships were held in Tondu (Wales), the CSF Championships are effectively a pre-cursor to the Commonwealth Games, and in past years medalists at the CSF Championships were (typically) chosen to represent their country at the Full Commonwealth Games; sadly as you are all aware .22 Rifle Shooting did not feature in the 2022 Games, and it looks like it won't be part of the 2026 Games in Brisbane either, however, at the CSF Championships Mark Parry was representing Team Wales in the .22 Prone event. After a hard fought Final Mark came to victorious shooting a 10.9 and a 10.8 on his last two shots, pushing fellow Appleton ember Alan Bain (Team England) into the Silver Medal position. Mark also picked up a Team Silver medal for Team Wales. So I think it is fair to say that Cheshire & North Wales made a fair showing at Commonwealth level!

Lets hope that 2023 brings more success for our County and hopefully we can get even more County Members attending Open meetings next summer!

County Championship 17th July 2022

24 competitors attended the County Championship shoot at Appleton, on a rather hot and 'sticky' day. Sadly 3 people had to pull out due to the dreaded Covid, and a further competitor was unable to attend due to a car accident (she is OK, not so the car I understand 😪) That aside the competition went extremely well, and we must thank our County Stats Officer (Gavin Scott-Brooker) for all his efforts.

I would also like to extend all our thanks to Appleton for allowing us to use the facilities, and especially to Neil Gibbons for all his efforts in preparing the range beforehand, and all the work he did on the day with scoring, and general admin to ensure everything ran smoothly. I should also mention Wayne Davies who acted as Chief Range Officer throughout the day, and ensured the smooth and safe running of the ranges.

This year we had a number of new competitors, for some this was their first foray into Out-door shooting, whereas for others it was just their first County Championship, and I would like to say well done to everyone who attended, and from the various comments I heard during the day I think everyone had a great time - whether or not they walked away with any Silverware -

That's what was on offer on the day. Sadly the Silver Trophies have to be given back after a year, but they will be engraved so anyone who wins a Cheshire Trophy will have their name immortalised for ever 😀

The competition runs as a Double Dewar course (thats 40 shots at 100 Yds and 40 at 50M) - this equates to 2 hours shooting, plus however much of a break is taken between distances. I managed to get my shooting done and dusted by 12:00 so I could help with the organisation - which actually was well in hand by the time I'd packed my gear, so I was able to keep a weather eye on what was going on and chat to a few people about the shoot, the range, and their feelings about the day (oh and I did do a bit to help out taking shot cards to stats an .... Oh no that was about it really 😀 It did leave me free to take som photo's though, especially of the winners (see below)

OK, so the Boring Statistical bit:

A Class was won by Simon Green with an aggregate score of 788 ex 800; I came second after a count back on 100 Yds (well a fairly distant second to be honest) with a score of 774

B Class was won by Adrian Henson with a score of 771; and Eddie Thorn (Snr. I believe!) was second with a score of 768

C Class was won by Mahinda Kularatne on a score of 726; with Peter Elliot second on 719

D Class was won by Warren Tidwell with a 725; and Jim Delaney came second on 723

The Ladies was taken by Jane Newing with a score of 774; the Juniors by Shelbie Marsland with a 759; and the veterans by Mike Arnstein with a 771

In the Club Pairs Sunderland (Messers. D & D E thorn) were victorious with a score of 1532; and Wilmslow A (Messers. G Scott-Brooker, and N Almond) came second with a 1531 - Very close competition there!!

The Club Team of 4 was won by Grange (P Elliot, W Tidwell, J Delaney & J Diamond) with a score of 2855, some 200+ points ahead of Wilmslow (J Redwood, M Kularatne, J Beck, A Henson)

Therefore the Cheshire & North Wales County Champion for 2022 is Simon Green - our congratulations to him for an excellent shoot.

The bad news for all the winners is that they have to make sure the trophies are cleaned before returning them to me next year. Oh yes and all class winners will automatically be 'bumped up' to the next class for the Championship in 2023 🙄

I have several photos of the winners of all the competitions  if anyone would like a copy of their photo please email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and I will happily forward a copy:

Finally I hope everyone enjoyed their day at Appleton,and hopefully we will see you all again next year for the 2023 Championship - and please feel free to tell everyone at your club what a great day it was, and maybe share this final photo undertow title of "Look at what you could have won!"

The full Results from the day can be found here, anyone who is not currently registered to use the Members Only section of our site can register here which will give you full access to all the Members Only content.

Finally Thanks to everyone who took part in the Competition, making it such a successful day 

Neil Almond

Cheshire & North Wales County Captain.

Cheshire & North Wales County Open Shoot - 17th July 2022

The County will be holding its annual Open Shoot, kindly hosted once again by Appleton Rifle Club

on the 17th July 2022. 

The format will be a Double Dewar Course of fire, with classes D to X, Juniors, Ladies, Veterans and Pairs 

It is an open meeting with Prizes awarded in Each Class and Confined Silverware Trophies to Cheshire Residents and award of the County Medal. 

The meeting will be un-squadded and refreshments will be available at the range throughout the day. First detail will be 10.00am and the last detail at 3.00pm and the Competition will be run in accordance with normal NSRA rules. 

Always a popular event and everyone will be made very welcome - so please do consider supporting the shoot. 

Entries are by advance entry only again this year - and entry forms can be obtained from our Stats Officer Gavin Scott-Brooker at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

We'll see you there! 

2020/21 Inter-County 25 Yard leagues

Well after all the weirdness in the world last year and into this we have finally got to the end of the Winter 2020/21 26 yard league, and the final sets of cards will be in the post to the scorers over the next few days.

I must say a big thank you to everyone who has shot their cards for me in what have been very trying circumstances. I have had to draft in a couple fo reserves, as one or two people have been unable to access a 25 yard range, so again, thanks to those people who filled in for us (mostly at the last minute).

I am sure we will not be the only County who have struggled with range availability, so I think there may well be some 'odd results' when we get to see the final scores! As usual I have scored the cards 'by eye', and have published the estimated scores in the results section of the Website here. Once I get the Final scores from the NSRA I will of course update the details to show these.

I think a special mention should be made for Simon's perfect 500 ex 500 - an average of 100 for the Inter-County league, is clearly one that may be equalled in the future but obviously can never be bettered! So well done Simon, keep up the great work 

The next County Shoots will now be the BSA and County Cups which I will be sending out details for over the next few days, but we have a bit of breathing space as neither need to be completed till much later in the year.

So once again thanks to everyone in all our teams for your efforts to get your cards shot and get them back to me 

Neil.

County Cup 2020 Results

Finally the results for the 2020 County Cup shoot have been published.

Those of you who shot in the team may vaguely remember a Socially Distanced Shoot over at Appleton, where half of the Team shot in the Morning, and the other half in the afternoon? Plus couple of our 'stalwarts' who were unavailable on the day shot their cards later in the week, which was all allowable under the modified rules for 2020 due to the Pandemic.

We finished in a credible 3rd place in our division, and as you will see from the scores we picked up several points over my estimates - either the scorer was very generous or I need to get way better at estimating scores!

If I didn't actually thank everyone for their efforts at the time then, I will do so now, and if I did, well I'll say it again anyway - Thanks to everyone who attended and shot for us.

You never know we may actually be able to all meet up and shoot together as a team again at some point - fingers crossed eh?

You'll find the full set of results here

Good luck to everyone as and when we get to shoot again, and stay safe

Neil Almond - Rifle Captain

Winter 2019/20 Inter-County Leagues

After all the issues with Covid this year, I have finally received the Final results for the Inter-County Leagues from Winter 2019/20. I think we were very fortunate in that we had all shot all the cards prior to the Lock-Down back in March this year, unfortunately a number of other Counties had not achieved this, so as you probably know the NSRA extended the deadlines to the End of September this year. As that deadline has now passed all the scores are now in and I have updated and published the final results for The Inter-County League, The Reserves League, The Veterans, and The Ladies League here

As you will see we didn't do quite as well as the previous year, when as I am sure you'll all remember we won all 3 leagues! Of course this year we were placed in higher divisions so managed a Runners-up place for the Inter-County League (610), 3rd place in the Inter-County Reserves League (611), 5th in the Veterans League (605), and 3rd in the Inter-County Ladies League (612). So overall we had a very respectable return for all our efforts during the Winter.

I would like to personally thank everyone for their efforts in shooting their cards during the Winter 19/20, and also for the fact that you all got your cards back to me on time - given the disparate nature of our shooters that is no mean feat.

Once again this year there were some excellent personal performances and I would like to mention especially Anna Maughan (14) who topped the averages in the Reserves League (and in fact was 11th highest average across the County), and to Abby Warren who topped the averages in the Ladies League (and came 2nd overall to Simon in the Inter-County League). 

Moving into the Winter 20/21 Season, as you are all probably aware the format for the Inter-County competitions has changed slightly, and rather than a "Main Team" of 20 and a "Reserves Team" of 10, this year its all teams of 12, in a single league and each County is able to enter as many teams as they like. It looks like we will only be able to enter 2 Teams in the League this coming Winter, as a number of our shooters are either shielding, or are members of Clubs that are yet to reopen following the Covid Shutdown, but the good news is that we will be in the Leagues, and therefore keeping the County Name at the forefront. The NSRA have also recognised that many Clubs are still working under very trying circumstances, so have proposed that the shooting dates be changed, and rather than insisting that each round in 2 weeks after the previous one, they have set 2 cut off dates, so Rounds 1 to 5 must be shot by February 2021, and Rounds 6 to 10 by March. So once I have entered the Teams, and received the Stickers I will update everyone as to when we need to shoot our cards by, and all I would ask is that you all make sure you get each card signed, witnessed and dated, and that you shoot them in order - i.e. don't shoot round 3 before round 2 for example.

The Final League tables for the Winter 2019/20 Season are as follows:

So a final thanks again to everyone for their efforts during last winter, and lets hope the scamming season can be even more successful.

Cheshire & North Wales County Rifle Captain.

2020 County Cup shoot

On Saturday 12th September this year the Cheshire Team got together (well most of us anyway) to shoot this years County Cup competition (One we did especially well in last year, coming second). Due to the current situation with the Covid Pandemic the NSRA had relaxed the rues a little this year, and rather than insisting that the whole team shoot at the same time on the same range we were able to stagger shooting over more than 1 day to ensure social distancing. This meant that of the 12 Team members 10 shot on the Saturday, and the other two managed to shoot during the week.

Team shoot with social distancing look a bit like this:

Alongside the usual suspects in the Team it was really good to see some new faces, and I would especially like to mention Anna Maughan, who at the age of 14 is (I believe) the youngest shooter to be picked for the County, and she was really proud to receive her County Badge, and I am sure she will join me in thanking Jim for acting as chauffeur, and spotter! 

I would like to thank everyone who shot for us, and a special thanks to Abby who came along as a last minute reserve when Martin was unable to shoot due to an injury, and also to Nick who filled in for Pete who had also sustained an injury.

The conditions weren't too bad for most of the day, and the 'squadding' that we had put in place worked extremely well, so again a big thank you to everyone for following the 'rules' to turn up, shoot and go home, sadly this meant we did not get to catch-up and have a good chat; but hopefully it won't be too long before we can all have a proper catch-up and social - fingers crossed.

I'd also like to thank Neil Gibbons for opening up, and generally keeping everything running smoothly as ever  As a county we are very fortunate to have such a good range to shoot on, and hopefully once we come out of the back of this pandemic we will all manage to get more shooting in, and hone our techniques further! One or two of the team did say that they were a bit rusty having not been able to get any training or practice in for 6 months or so; so all I would say is thanks everyone for making the effort 👍🏻

The closing date is the end of September, so I will be posting the cards later this week, then we will have to await the results, but in the meantime my estimated scores are:

Our congratulations go to Simon for an excellent shoot, and ensuring he retained the County Salver, which I will present to him next time I see him at Appleton, not quite the same as having it presented at the shoot with the whole team there, but we live in 'interesting times' at the moment!

Cheshire & North Wales Rifle Captain.

The County joins Social Media !

We are pleased to advise members that the County now has a social media group on Facebook  - please join us and help support and fly the flag for your County Association ! 

Cheshire & North Wales RPA Group

The 2020 Cheshire County Championship Open Shoot - Entries now invited

The Annual County Open Championship will be held on the 14th June 2020 at the beautiful Appleton Range near Warrington - arguably one of the best ranges in the Country.

This will be a double dewar unsquadded open, open to all comers, with presentation of Silver Trophies to the winners of each class (Cheshire & North Wales residents eligible for Silverware only - Wining competitors from outside the County will be presented with alternative prizes)

Classes X/A, B and C, Junior, and Veterans; club pairs 

First time entrants to the County Shoot and Juniors eligible for 50% discount on entry fees.

Light Refreshments available at the range all day. 

Now as if this isn't enough to get you downloading and filling in the entry forms from the link below, we are also for the very first time staging a separate 50m Championship Shoot on electronic targets with decimal scoring, which will be squadded with multiple squads during the day. This can be entered as well as the Double Dewar. Advance booking is essential to secure your place and avoid disappointment as numbers for the 50m Championship are strictly limited  

DOWNLOAD YOUR ENTRY FORM HERE 

Cheshire attend Staveley - January 2019

Inter-County Knock-Out Round 2

Happy New Year to everyone

Well Cheshire & North Wales has a brief run in the Knock-Out competition, the NSRA Scores are back for Round 2, and we were well and truly beaten by Hampshire  Our score of 1940 was swell behind Hampshire's 1963! 

The results are posted in the Results Section of the Members Area of the Website (here).

The Inter-County league, Reserves, Ladies & Veterans are also posted, up to Round 5 for the Veterans, Reserves and Ladies, and I will do the main team as soon as I get the last card back for Round 5 

Good shooting in 2020 everyone 

Inter-County Knock-Out Round 1 Scores UPDATE

I have just received an update from the NSRA for the Knock-Out scores, and they now have a score from Cambridgeshire, however as they only scored 1937 against our 1942 we still win through to the Second Round.

I have amended the results sheet (here) to reflect this.

Inter-county Round 2 Estimated scores posted

I Have just posted the Estimated scores for the Inter-county leagues here.

Once again I have scored every squeaker as being out at the moment, so please don't feel hard done-by if my estimate is lower than your own. It is my way of ensuring I will know exactly when to challenge 

Once again we have shot to our Team average except for the Ladies team who smashed their average by 1.5 points, so well done everyone (especially the Ladies - you have shown the rest of us up!), and keep up the good work

Neil Almond - CNWRPC Rifle Captain

2019 BSA Cup Competition

I have received the confirmed scores from the BSA Cup that we shot back in April this year at Marple Rifle Club, and although we picked up 4 points on my estimate I am afraid it doesn't make happy reading, as we finished in last place in Section B with a team score of 2,304; whereas Kent (The section winers) managed a Team score of 2,345, so sadly no medals or anything for us in this one  Both the Team and Individual scores are posted in the Members Section under Competition Results here

The 2020 BSA Cup will be taking place at Marple again and I will announce the date and times early next year, but hopefully we will manage to shoot it sometime in April again, although I have yet to discuss range availability with Marple

That aside, I'd like to thank everyone who attended the shoot this year, and I hope I can count on your support again next year.

Neil almond - County Rifle Captain

Inter-County Knock-Out Round 1 Scores confirmed

I have today received the confirmed scores from the NSRA for our Round 1 Knock-Out competition, and I am delighted to report that we beat Cambridgeshire - OK they didn't actually send any scores in, so we won by default, but at the end of the day in a Knock-Out competition a win is a win no matter how its achieved.

The full set of results are as follows:

My congratulations to everyone in the team (the individual scores are here), and I will get the round 2 cards out as soon as I have the details from the NSRA - I have no idea what the date will be as yet, so watch this space

Well done everyone 

County Knock-Out estimated scores

Our County team has just shot Round 1 of the Inter-County knock-out league against Cambridshire, and the cards were posted off to the official scorer today.

The scores are available on the website here but overall we were within a quarter of a point of our entered average, so a really good team effort all round.

I will post the confirmed results as soon as I have them back from the NSRA.

I will also be posting details of the 3 County Teams on a regular basis, with the last day of shooting for Round 1 being Sunday 27th October, so watch this space 😀

Good shooting everyone 

Neil.

Cheshire go hunting Dragons in Tondu!

The Dragon shoot is held at Tondu range near Bridgend. It's a well ran, well attended, last electronic match of the year (well it was before Appleton got its electronic targets!!)

It was an early start for defending pairs Champions Mark and Simon. We nervously drove into Wales, Mark did the talking at the Welsh border and we were through, leaving the rain behind us.

It was a pleasant day at Tondu range, the Welsh had brought out the big guns with reigning British Champion Theo Dodds and Commonwealth Champion Dave Phelps attending, but it was Richard Lay (ex Ellesmere college shooter) who was to win the day with an excellent score of 619.5 especially considering he was also shooting the Welsh airgun championships the same weekend in Cardiff!

The weather was good with the sun out, but whilst the wind wasn't strong it was certainly tricky with rapid changes in direction and some gusts.

The match was shot on electronic targets with Mark and Simon scoring 613.1 and 617.1 respectively, not enough for any individual honours but enough to defend the previous year's pairs victory, with Richard Lay and Theo Dodds finishing one point behind.

Simon & Mark with their Dragons - Congratulations on defending the pairs Championship.

Both Mark and Simon had an extra shoot later in the day but neither could improve on their earlier scores. The long day had taken its toll.

The range is a great facility with megalink  electronic targets that are smoothly ran by the organisers, as ever a friendly welcoming environment, with people pleased to see competitors traveling so far, you'll always be welcomed!

Simon Green.

Cheshire and North Wales at Bromyard - 28&29 September

Cheshire & North Wales do Bisley 2019

August 10^th to 17^th 2019 saw the Bisley Rifle meeting taking place, and despite lower numbers that the NSRA would like to see at their National Flagship meeting Cheshire & North Wales went to Surrey in force. In all 18 Cheshire & North Wales shooters competed in part (or all) of the 10-day event.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Bisley Meeting, it can be divided into two distinct parts – there is the Weekend Aggregate, shot over the first Saturday & Sunday; and the Week Aggregate shot between the Monday and the Thursday. The Weekend Aggregate comprises 60 shots at 50m and a further 60 shots at 100 Yards. The course of fire for the Week Aggregate is 140 at 50m and a further 140 shots at 100 Yards – quite a marathon really especially for those who chose to shoot both the Weekend and Week Aggregate. There are also 2 different ranges that we shoot on at Bisley, the vast majority of the competitions are shot on Century range, with some (like the Double English Match) being shot on electronic targets at the Lord Roberts Centre.

The conditions were ‘challenging’ to say the least, and even in X class there were a number of us who visited the 7 ring at 100 yards – it really wasn’t difficult, just look at the wind-flags in the picture below, and note how the sand is blowing off the stop-butt.

Thursday also saw a day of pretty solid rain – I mean it rained all day, not that the rain was impenetrable! But brollies, wellies and waterproofs were definitely the order of the day!

Setting that aside, Cheshire & North Wales entered teams in all 3 of the County Shoots: The County 50 Meter; The County Sextette; and The Astor.

In the County 50m – Simon Green, Neil Almond, Mark Parry, Nick Clark, Carl Taylor, Shelbie Marsland, finished in a credible 6th place with an aggregate score of 3,467. The match was won by Hampshire with a score of 3,491.

In the Sextette we fared slightly better finishing in 5^thplace with a score of 2,263 against the winners Essex on 2,283. Our Sextet Team was Simon Green, Neil Almond, Mark Parry, Mike Arnstein, Carl Taylor and Gavin Scott-Brooker.

In the Astor Trophy (a Dewar Course) however, we did somewhat better winning the trophy (which will be on display at the Appleton & County AGMs later in the year), but our team of Simon Green, Neil Almond, Mark Parry, Nick Clark, Alan Bain, and Shelbie Marsland made a score of 2,292 to tie with Middlesex, but took the title due to a better 100 yard score!

Individually a number of our members won prizes and collected various accolades throughout the week, including 3 Finalists in the Earl Roberts British Championship and 1 in the BoBs Championship final.

A number of the attendees were at their first Bisley meeting, and despite the weather and the somewhat daunting course of fire all did exceptionally well, and I hope we will see them, along with many others at Bisley again next year. The Dates for your diary for the 2020 Bisley Meeting are 13^thto 22^ndAugust!

Full list of Cheshire and North Wales Attendees:

As far as prizes for the individuals were concerned

Simon picked up the silverware in 4 competitions, finishing in an excellent 3^rd place overall in X Class, winning the Any-sights as well as Competitions 1 and 3, he also made the Roberts Final, finishing in 3^rdplace, securing English Long-Range Championship to boot

Alan ended the week on a definite high finishing in 3^rd place in the Bobs Final, and wining promotion to A class, as well as finishing within the top 10 in each of the 6 individual competitions during the week

Anna’s 5^thplace finish in C class will also win her promotion into B for next year’s meeting, and she also picked up 2 bronze medal places in the Weekend competitions.

For Shelbie her first Bisley was also very successful, and it saw her win the Junior Championship, as well as finishing 3^rdin Class, so she too will be competing in B next year. Shelbie also made her debut in the County Teams, in both the 50M team and the successful Astor Team

Matt also picked up silverware for his excellent shoot in Competition 8 during the weekend aggregate and finished in an excellent 5^thplace in the week Aggregate, to back up his 3^rdplace finish in the Weekend Aggregate.

Gavin followed up an excellent performance in Scotland with a top 10 Aggregate finish, as well as being part of the winning Astor team

Shannon breezed into the Roberts Final as well, and secured the British Junior Long-Range Championship as a result

Neil & Simon won the Club Pairs in the Weekend Aggregate, and despite an amazing 399 from Simon on his half of the Week pairs only managed a Bronze in that Competition.

3 of our members in Simon, Mark and Carl represented their Countries in the Home Countries International on the Thursday afternoon, obviously Mark & Carl shooting for Wales, and Simon for England.

In the Champion of Champion Shoot at the Lord Roberts Range on the Wednesday afternoon Neil managed a respectable 13th place out of the 31 Counties represented. Neil also made the Roberts Final finishing in 14^thPlace. 

Finally for anyone who read my Scotland report you may remember that Mark had 'bragging rights' having finished up 19 posts ahead of me overall, well he retained these bragging rights but his margin was cut to a single point over the entire aggregate! 

A full set or Results from the meeting are available on the NSRA Website here

Neil Almond - CNW Rifle Captain

Cheshire & North Wales attend Sywell

Brendan Newport - Cheshire & North Wales