Stickledown, Bisley at the end of the day

This annual weekend event in mid May, organised by the RAF TR Club, consists of training sessions in the mornings, a National Matches, (normally a team of 20 firers, coaches and plotters shooting at 300x, 500x and 600x), on the Saturday afternoon and a Mackinnon Match, (normally a team of 12 firers, coaches and plotters shooting at 900x and 1000x), on Sunday afternoon.

The event was blessed with fabulous weather for the whole weekend, sunshine, temperatures in the late teens and a light, gusting wind, which challenged the coaches and kept the scoring interesting!

There were 28 firers and 5 coaches in the Scotland Target Rifle (TR) Squad that attended the weekend, and all firers shot all distances, irrespective if they were selected or not for the team matches.

On the Saturday morning, the TR Squad concentrated their shooting at 300x only, focussing on grouping, wind zeros and team range routines (preparation, checks, shooting, coaching and plotting). In the afternoon, the National match this year was the top ten firers, which was hotly contested.

The final scores with the highest scorer in each team were :

England 1023.108v : Matthew Keel 105.014v
Scotland 1008.099v : Mike Barlow 103.013v
Wales 991.077v : Oscar Farrell 103.009
RAF 990.075v : Paul Newman 102.009v

On Saturday evening, before a well attended dinner, the TR Squad had a ‘feedback’ session to discuss the online sport psychology meeting held on the 30th April, which was sponsored by the STS. The initial psychology meeting given by Alex Wilkinson was well received and there were a number of good suggestions on topics for future online meetings.

On Sunday morning the Scotland TR Squad had a practice shoot at 900x and 1000x, simulating match conditions. This was repeated in the afternoon for the actual Mackinnon Match.

The final 1st and 2nd positions, based on the top ten firers in each team, were :