ACT Queens

On Wednesday November 14, 3 Roseville representatives (Mark Buchanan, Adam Beale and Pat Jacombs) ventured onto the Canberra rifle range for a taste of their notoriously tricky wind conditions, shooting in the R A Rolph leadup event for the 2018 ACT Queens. Fortunately, for the first 2 days conditions were mostly favourable, which led to some good scoring. However, that was definitely the calm before the storm and the Queens event delivered everything that the pundits had predicted!

Pat’s NRAA ranking prior to the event had moved him into A Grade, so he was feeling a bit of extra pressure to perform, now that he was joining Mark with the “Big Boys”! In the lead-up event there were 38 competitors in A Grade and 23 in B Grade. Adam competed in B Grade.

The notable results in the leadup were:

Mark – 1st place in the first match at 500m with 50.9
Pat – equal 2nd in the second match at 500m with 50.8
Adam – 1st in the third match at 600m with 73.8
Adam – 2nd in the Day 1 aggregate with 170.19
Adam – 1st in the fourth match at 800m with 74.8
Mark – 1st in the fifth match at 800m with 75.9
Mark – 3rd in the Day 2 aggregate with 149.22
Adam – 1st in the overall aggregate
Pat – 7th in the overall aggregate (his first A grade badge), just 2 points behind the winner
Mark – 10th in the overall aggregate
Pat – top junior Target shooter

On Friday November 16, Mark, Adam and Pat were joined by Tim Walter (TR/A), Peter Walters and Michael Cuda (F Std/A), and Gary Faulkner, Eva Patrick and Alan Patrick (FTR/A) for the Queens event. 69 competitors lined up in TR/A Grade, 32 in TR/B Grade, 56 in F Std/A and 18 in FTR/A. Conditions weren’t too demanding for the start of the day, but things were about to start heading south! On Saturday, the wind really started to make its presence felt, swirling in from the south-west and moving around like a washing machine as it moved up the range. The flags were regularly facing opposite directions to each other. The more experienced shooters were better placed to handle these vagaries and the less-experienced shooters found the going really tough. The loss of a target during the morning session meant very slow progress on the mound and then a brief storm at lunchtime forced the 2 x 10 shot 800m matches to be reduced initially to 1 x 15 shot match, and then to a single 10 shot match. Sunday was about to put the icing on the cake with some truly bizarre wind conditions for 2 final matches at 600m.

Notable results from the 3 days of the Queens were:

Mark – 3rd in the first match at 500m with 50.8
Mark – 1st in the third match at 600m with 75.11
Mark – 1st in the Day 1 aggregate with 175.26
Adam – 1st in the fifth match at 600m with 50.4
Adam – 1st in the Day 2 aggregate with 144.11
Adam – 1st in the seventh match at 600m with 49.4
Michael – 1st in the seventh match at 600m with 60.4
Gary – 2nd in the seventh match at 600m with 56.2
Michael – 2nd in the Day 3 aggregate with 145.7
Alan – 3rd in the Day 3 aggregate with 140.6
Adam – 3rd place badge for the overall aggregate
Mark – 10th place overall
Michael – 10th place overall
Gary – 5th place overall

In the Grand Aggregate, Adam was placed 2nd (just one point behind the winner) and Mark was placed 3rd.

On a side note, Phil Jacombs discovered a family connection to the Bungendore Rifle Club that has been unknown for over 100 years. If you have a few minutes, ask him about it!

Phil Jacombs

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