Framlinghamian 2023-2024 Single page - web 144dpi - Flipbook - Page 268
SOF | OF SPORT: RIFLE CLUB
the sun. So, a light left wind at 8am turns
The next seven days constituted the
into a stronger wind by 11am, and comes
South African Bisley Union Meeting, the
from behind, 昀椀shtailing for a while before
equivalent of our Imperial Meeting, a
establishing into a right wind. The African
mixture of individual and team events, with
mirage is so thick it can be detected with
up to four shoots each day. This became
the naked eye and is very helpful for
exhausting in the heat. Whilst James and
detecting direction. But often the wind was
I had our moments of glory we were both
di昀昀erent in di昀昀erent parts of the range, and
disappointingly inconsistent. Our foray into
anyway would quickly alter whilst on aim.
team shooting for the Vice-Presidents Cup
resulted in an embarrassing defeat by the
Interruptions from wildlife are not
GB Under-25s, but perhaps not so bad
uncommon. Whilst the trajectory of the
as they later went on to become World
bullets is well over them, they block your
Champions in their age group.
sight picture. Wildebeest and ostrich
were frequent visitors, and as the range
In the Republic of South Africa International
is a nature conservation site, accidental
match, the GB Veterans came third to
dispatch would cause great distress.
South Africa and Australia. In the Tony
Loughnan Memorial Match, GB Veterans
came second to Australia. Happily, a GB
Palma member Parag Patel won the SABU
Championship, and was cheered from the
range.
With the end of the SABU Meeting began
the World Championships. These were all
shot at long range, that is 700, 800 and
900 metres, and all on the punishingly tight
International Confederation of Fullbore
Don’t shoot the wildlife!
Ri昀氀e Associations (ICFRA) targets. A minor
transgression which at home would cause
you to drop to the inner (scoring 4 points)
might take you easily into the magpie (3
points) or even worse the outer (2 points).
With these 昀椀ckle African winds, it was not
unusual to see targets “sawn in half” with
shots left and right across the waterline,
and re昀氀ected in the consequent scoring.
This meeting lasted for three days, with
three shoots per day. At the end a shooto昀昀 between the top ten resulted in GB
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