Roseville Rifle Club Australia

Janet Beale from Roseville Rifle Club shot in her first international competition (Australian FTR team) at Bisley (UK) in the European Championships.

So how was Bisley? Very wet. Mildly wet. Sunny. Heavy wind. Some wind. No wind.  Mirage. Cloud cover. Basically, one of everything. It was so windy that on two different days one of the targets broke. Shooting through heavy rain was also a challenge until they finally closed the range due to visibility. When the rain let up a little, the shooting was back on with 1 non-convertible sighter – but it was still raining hard.

The F-class European Championships had nearly 400 competitors (57% FTR, 43% F-Open) with competitors from 20 countries. Shooting was in “Bisley-3s” (3 to a target shooting each shot in sequence with 45 seconds to fire), with 3 squads per distance across the 46 targets. The shooting was on the infamous Stickledown Range with multiple details at 800yds, 900yds, 1000yds but no short distances. There were 5 days of individual competitions and 3 days of team competitions.

Janet’s best placing as an individual was tied for 21^st at 800yds with 74-7 (out of 75-15) at 800yds. Note that means there were about 200 people in FTR with a score lower than that. Overall, Janet scored 88% in the European Championships which is lower than she wanted but higher than a whole lot of other people given the conditions.

After the Individual competitions were over the Teams competitions began. Overall, the Aussie teams excelled and came home with:

F-Open
o   Gold in the Rutland F-Open Match
o   Bronze in the Euros Teams F-Open Match (8 person team)
o   Gold in the America Match F-Open (8 person team)

FTR
o   Gold in the Euros Team FTR Match (8 person team)
o   Silver in the America Match FTR  (8 person team)

Janet Beale