Roseville Rifle Club Australia

The NSWRA 146th Annual Open Championships 2022 (the 2 day lead up “McIntosh” followed by the 3 days “NSW Queens”) was held 7 Sept 2022 to 11 Sept 2022. However, half way through, the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was announced. The news came to Australia in the wee hours of Friday 9 Sept which was the first day of the “NSW Queens” event. The decision was made by the NSWRA Board to continue the competition and to hold it as the “NSW Queens” in her honour as the 5 day Open Championships had already commenced on the Wednesday. A minute of silence was held before shooting commenced on Friday. Later, we were advised that the NRAA will be meeting in the near future to discuss which of the upcoming “Queen’s Prizes” will be held as such and when the changeover to the “King’s Prize” will formally come into effect, but the impact that Her Majesty’s death has had on the shooting world is far-reaching.

On a lighter note – the Roseville shooters tried hard in what can only be described as extremely trying conditions…and the scores were astonishingly diverse across the various details with most people experiencing both highs and extreme lows throughout the competition. Consider that on McIntosh day 2 we shot 2 details at 800m, at the first detail the people had about 9 min of wind, the second detail we had 12 or more minutes of wind. Needless to say, the marquee that was brought in for the presentations on the outside deck disintegrated with Thursday night’s wind. Then, on the last day of the Queen’s we shot at 800m again but with just 1-3 min of wind which was quite twitchy causing a lot of shot scores of 3, and some 2’s even in A grade. It wasn’t just wind, there was also rain, sun, heat and cold and everything in between (and for some of us that was all within the same detail).

Consider also that the winning target rifle A grade scores were Jim Bailey (Queens) on 492/500 and Steve Negus (Grand Aggregate) on 864/875. Needless to say, when these world-class shooters drop that many points in a Queen’s and yet still win, the conditions must be incredibly tricky for mere mortals to figure out.

Our Roseville competitors persevered in the conditions in what was the final “NSW Queen’s” for the foreseeable future:

Target Rifle A-grad

• Adam Beale (Queen’s 98.98%): 600m – 1st place range prize, Queen’s Day 2 – 2nd place, Queen’s Badge #13
• Mark Buchanan (McIntosh 98.66% and Queen’s 98.78%): 800m 1st place range prize, McIntosh Day 2 – 1st place, Grand Aggregate #9 badge.
• Angus Martin (Queen’s 98.17%)
• Alan Patrick (McIntosh 97.32% and Queen’s 95.12%)

Target Rifle C-grade

• Nigel Russell (McIntosh 88.23%): 500m & 600m & 800m Macintosh 1st place range prizes, McIntosh day 1 – 2nd place

FTR

• Eva Patrick (McIntosh 95.87% and Queen’s 93.92%): 500m Macintosh 1st place range prize, McIntosh day 1 – 1st place
• Janet Beale (McIntosh 98.62% and Queen’s 95.48%): 800m Macintosh 1st place range prize, McIntosh day 2 – 2nd place, 800m Queen’s 1st place range prize, Queen’s day 1 – 3rd place.

Janet Beale