Roseville Rifle Club Australia

Archive for 2016

On behalf of the Roseville Rifle Club Committee I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Festive Season, and a safe and wonderful New Year.

Phill Hodder

Club Captain

I woke on Saturday morning to a dismal and cold rainy day. Not a good start! Arriving at the range a couple of hours later and opening the club house, I found a note from Dmitri asking for help down in the butts. Headed off to meet him, only to see him returning having doing some maintenance by himself. I was too late.

As Roseville is still duty club there’s plenty to be done. Time to put the rest of the flags out. Thankfully the school boys were practicing at 300M so those four flags were up already. Others helped with getting both our normal club equipment to the mound and butts and also the District gear in place as well. Ian Palmer did the first Butt’s Officer to be relieved by Allan Humbert. A boring, but necessary job.

By noon, the weather had cleared and although cold, there was a gentle wind and there were long glimpses of sun. As there was 16 competitors they were divided in to two squads. Unfortunately Gosford were unrepresented in target rifle. Each Club Champion shot on their club’s targets at each of the four ranges. Roseville represented by Phill Hodder (TR Senior), Angus Martin (TR Junior) and Graham Coote (F Standard).

Despite everyone’s best efforts shooting started by DRO Doug Bowen on time at 1pm!

300M. There were signs of first range jitters amongst the Senior shooters with dropped points and uncharacteristic large groups. Leading the charge was Richard Jones (Manly) 49.5, Geoff King (Hornsby) 49.4, John Alp (North Sydney) 49.3, Phill 48.4 and Adrian Bonanni (Hornsby RSL) 47.3. Juniors were headed by Angus 46.3 from Calum Mansfield (Manly) 40.1.

Now to F class. Standard: Graham blitzed the field with a well executed 60.5 (58.8mm group) followed by Adrian Siebel (Hornsby RSL) 58.5 (89.5), John Leask (North Sydney) 57.5 (115.1), Terry Howell (Gosford) 57.3 (80.7) and Alan Ashworth (Hornsby) 56.3 (94.5).

Standard Junior: Harry Brotherhood (Hornsby RSL) 56.3 (120.9) ahead of Mariette Rigby (Gosford) 52.1 (175.7).

F-Open: Alan Bowyer-Tagg (Hornsby RSL) 60.4 (58.8) leading by a count back from Phil de la Rue (North Sydney) 60.4 (59.0).

500M. Targets are intermittently in and out of shadows making sighting difficult. Despite that the shooters seemed to settle down to business. Phill kept two bull sighters (coincidentally his maximum grouping) and a dodgy line cutting ninth shot resulted in him leading with 50.7 (227.8) from Geoff 50.6 200.5, Adrian 50.5 (194.3), Richard 49.4 (259.9) and John 49.3 (200.8). Calum 48.3 (291.7) leading Angus 47.4 (313.3).

F-Std: Terry 60.6 (107.8), Adrian 60.5 (with a marvellous 82.1!), Graham 59.5 [caught by wind?] (124.1), John 59.3 (138.6) and Alan 55.1 (204.2).

Junior: Harry 57.4 (162.8) just beating Mariette 57.2 (206.1).

F-Open: A reversal with Phil’s 60.5 (95.1) beating Alan 59.7 (128)

700M. The sun is getting lower now and often at this time of year it is a real problem, particularly at longer ranges. Thankfully this year there is a large cloud covering it. Clapping was heard from the left most target when John put in a fantastic 50.10 (199.1). Phill cut a bull sighter, thus improving by ending on a super centre for 50.8 (228), Richard 50.6 (425.6), Geoff 50.5 (392.9) and Adrian 49.4 (399.6). Angus fired a fine 50.6 (325.7) beating Calum who lost one to the wind 49.5 (367.1).

F-Std John took out this range 60.7 (190.6) from Adrian who had the tightest group 60.6 (156.4), Graham 60.6 (202.6), Terry 60.5 (207.1) and Alan 58.5 (265.6). In the Juniors it was Mariette’s turn 58.5 (238.5) followed by Harry 56.3 (332.7).

F-Open: An extremely tight group by Phil gave him the range with 60.6 (154.3) while Alan had troubles including an expensive miss 50.2.

This is how everyone went in to the final range:

A pretty tight competition in Target Rifle and F Class Standard with several in each class within striking distance of the leaders.

800M. The heat is on. This will test each of the shooter’s ability in keeping calm and concentrating on just the current shot. Phill keeps two bull sighters, a good safety move. Part way through and Ian Palmer whispered in my ear that Geoff had dropped two inners! That meant that he was in with a chance, but so were others. In the end Phill prevailed scoring 50.3 (455.6) and third at that range. Richard first at 800M 50.4 (416.7), John also 50.4 (406.5) Geoff 48.4 (388.1) and Adrian 48.0 (534.9). Angus showed his true colours with a magnificent 50.8 (339.5) from Calum 48.2 (439.0). A terrific way to finish.

F-Std: Graham cemented his lead with a terrific 60.6 (an extremely small 138.5), then Terry 59.5 (206.9), Adrian 58.3 (273.2), John 57.4 (353.2) and Terry 55.2 (317.7). Harry gained a further point on Mariette, 56.4 (376.3) and 55.0 (348.5) respectively.

F-Open: Phil topped with a great 60.8 (169.2) with Alan 7 supers behind 60.1 (237.8)

Don’t worry, he survived..

The final table looks like this:

Thanks to all those who helped set-up and take-down the range, manned the butts, acted as scorers and supported all the Club’s Champions. Thanks also to Dmitri and others who ensure our targets are in top condition, to the NSDRA for hosting the event, and to Adrian, our District Statistician.
It was a shame that there wasn’t a bigger attendance from all clubs to witness a great contest by all shooters and to celebrate the winners and all competitors.

I am proud to be a member of our club, the winners of three prestigious grades and particularly proud of my son. Well done Phill, Angus and Graham.

Uncle Mike

Gary Faulkner, Phill Hodder, Allan Humbert, Dmitri Kazakov, Tim Walter and Peter Walters attended the Wingham Rifle Club Open Prize Meeting over the weekend of 11 and 12 June 2016.

Left-to-right Peter Walters, Allan Humbert, Dmitri Kazakov, Gary Faulkner, Tim Walter, Phill Hodder

All shooters except Phil shot the 2 x 15 sweepstakes match at 600 yards on the Friday afternoon. (results not known except Tim 70).

The competition commenced on Saturday morning at 600 yards, followed by 500 yards and then 400 metres.

On Sunday the shoot commenced at 500 yards, followed by 600 yards and then a 2 x 15 shot match again at 600 yards.

Results were as follows:

Congratulations to Gary Faulkner for finishing 4^th in FS A, two places behind his Dad, John, who used Gary’s other rifle!

Congratulations to Allan for finishing 2^nd in FS B and winning a range along the way.

Congratulations to Dmitri for finishing 5^th in TR A, placing second in both the last 2 ranges to finish one place ahead of the great Duncan Davies! Entry number 13 turned out to be lucky.

Dropping just one point over the entire meeting was a great achievement, some say assisted by rocket fuel the night before, and despite being woken early in the morning by a cry from someone in the park needing some attention!

Commiserations to Phill who was disallowed a V bull at the first 600 yard match on Day 2 when it was adjudged to be a shot on the next door target, even though no extra shot was claimed by the shooter or scorers on that target, and notwithstanding that Phill did not ask for his target to be examined after firing his shot.

Clearly, Phill’s scorer and check scorer were not paying proper attention and the fact that both were scoring with binoculars instead of scopes contributed to Phill losing a shot. The range officer seemed to be relying more on information from the markers, rather than the scorers, who clearly did not know what had happened.

Dmitri 5th place on the Board

Allan receiving his prize

Tim managed a few centres on Day 2 but had a bad final range to take out the wooden spoon in TR A! Less red wine Tim!

Good dinner after the shoot is always good

Dancing after good dinner is good too…

Great to see our new member, Peter Walters and his wife, attending his first prize meeting with Roseville.

Complete results are available here.

Thank you to Wingham Rifle Club on a well organized and very fully catered for Prize meeting.

Tim Walter

Target Rifle

The 2015/16 Arn Hammond Teams competition started off as a very tight affair with Hornsby 1 just pipping Roseville 1 at 300m with 341.29 to Roseville’s 341.25. Roseville 2 came in 4^th with 328.24 to North Sydney’s 3^rd place of 330.26. And so the scene was set for a tight contest to come over the ensuing months.

At 400m, Roseville 1 responded to the wake-up call and took a decisive 12 point lead with 343.30, and Roseville 2 also kicked into gear with 341.32 to bring them up to 3^rd position overall.

Team 1 (left-to-right): Stephen Tofler, David Hollister, Phill Hodder, Dmitri Kazakov, Angus Martin

But it was at 500m that Roseville 1 really got a kick along, with 350.36 out of the possible 350.70. I was the poor performer on that day, being cut with only 70.5! I must say, I’m happy to be in a team where I get cut with a 70. The lead after than performance was 19 points, and Roseville No.1 kept their lead until the end.

The focus then was on the Roseville 2 team. Could Roseville possibly come in with a 1-2 finish? At 500m they found themselves in 3^rd place to Hornsby 1 by 6 points. It was possible. So at 600m Roseville 2 put in a creditable performance of 334.17, to whittle the margin behind Hornsby 1 to 1 point, and ahead by 9 centres. The Roseville 1 team extended their winning margin to 29 points, keeping them well in command.

Team 2 (left-to-right): Jon Marriott, Richard Lund, James Martin, Ian Hutchinson, Mike Hodder, Lachlan Martin, Andrew Martin, Daisy Martin, Angus Martin

At 700m, Roseville 2 pulled out all stops to outperform Roseville 1 by 344.35 to 343.38, and beating their rivals Hornsby 1 by 8 points to move clearly into second place. So Roseville 1 & 2 were running 1^st and 2^nd, by a margin of 7 points from Hornsby 1, with just 800m to go.

In this final stage Roseville 1 fell into complacency with their 29 point lead, and let Roseville 2 beat them once again, 345.43 to 345.39. Not what I’d call decisive, but Roseville 2 certainly let Roseville 1 know who won.

The Handicap results had the same first 3 placegetters, but in reverse order. So the final results after all 6 ranges were:

F Class

Roseville fielded just one team in F Class, and that was all they needed. It was in F standard, with only North Sydney, Gosford and Hornsby RSL fielding F Open teams.

F-class Team (left-to-right): Graham Coote, Allan Humbert, Ian Palmer, Mike Cuda, Gary Faulkner, Robert Kozminski

The F Standard team exerted their superiority from the outset, with their dominant 330.28 at 300m to take the initial lead of 5 points from Hornsby RSL No.1. At 400m they extended this lead to a whopping 23 points, and then again at 500 extended it to 28 points. At 600m they picked up a further 11 points leaving them at 1298.87, ahead of Hornsby at 1252.53.

However at 700m, Roseville scored a great 324.22, only to have the North Sydney team come from nowhere and challenge them with a 324.19. This still left them with a comfortable lead of 51 points.

After completing a clean sweep and winning every range, Roseville took out the F Standard Arn Hammond Teams competition by a convincing 60 points. Final results were:

2015/16 EM Nye

The EM Nye match these days, is conducted using the 300m, 400m & 500m of the same teams matches as the Arn Hammond. Roseville took out both the Target Rifle and the F Standard in this competition, with the results shown below.

2015/16 AJ Leighton

The AJ Leighton match is also conducted at the same time, using the 600m, 700m & 800m results of the Arn Hammond. Roseville again took out both the Target Rifle (1^st and 2^nd places) and the F Standard in this competition, with the results shown below.

Final results for 2015-2016 years

Congratulations are to be given to all Roseville team members who continued the Roseville tradition of exceptional results.

Stephen Tofler

Roseville Rifle Club participated in the Cessnock Rifle Club Annual Championships on the Sunday 22^nd May.

Target Rifle; Phill Hodder

F Class Standard A grade; Michael Cuda, Allan Humbert

F Class Standard B Grade; Peter Walters

F/TR A Grade; Gary Faulkner

The weather was perfect. It was sunny with a gentle, at times fluky, breeze travelling down the range from behind the shooters. This led to some luck for some shooters when conditions were still.

The atmosphere was very friendly. There was to be three, 10 shot 600m shoots. The first lot of shooters began their shoots with Peter, Phill  and Allan having their best scores for the day. The incidence of unexplained poor shots increased and the first shoot was cancelled due to Kongs electronic target problems.

The host club reacted positively and quickly with some members giving up their shoot to manually score the targets. With the exception of a couple of competitors in the 80 plus roll up, everyone was very patient as the Cessnock members changed the targets. The shoot was reduced to two, 10 shot 600m shoots due to time constraints. The atmosphere remained happy and it is a credit to the Cessnock Club for overcoming some serious disruptions to their day.

Roseville Rifle Club represented itself handsomely.

Phill; 5^th in Target Rifle A Grade 98.10

Michael; 1^st in F Class Standard A Grade  119.12

Allan; F Class Standard A Grade 104.2

Peter; 1st in F Class Standard B Grade 113.7

Gary; 2^nd F/TR 114.9

As a new member, I should point out that Gary spent the previous Wednesday with me sorting out a lot of my problems. Credit where credit is due.

A special congratulations to Michael. This was his very first win in F Class Standard A Grade in a Championship shoot! Your smile said it all.

Peter Waters

Roseville Rifle Club brings home the bacon …..

Five intrepid Roseville members made the annual pilgrimage to Mudgee to compete in the 94^th Mudgee District Rifle Association Open Prize Meeting.

Phill Hodder, Allan Humbert, Dmitri Kazakov, Michael Cuda and Tim Walter together with Tim’s son Ian and his partner Kris, enjoyed each other’s company and the hospitality that the beautiful town of Mudgee had to offer.

Day 1 on Saturday at 500yds started well for Phill in Target Rifle A Grade, shooting strongly in all stages with 50.6, 50.5 and 50.6, the last match coming 3^rd as well as finishing clean in 3^rd position in the daily aggregate with 150.17.

Dmitri unusually dropped a few points with 48.4 followed by 50.6 and 47.2 and finished with 145.12.

Tim performed well in Target Rifle B Grade with 48.2, 47.0 and 46.2, coming 3^rd in both the first and third matches and finishing with 141.4.

In F – Standard A Grade Michael shot 59.6, 57.4 and 60.3 coming 3^rd in the first stage, 2^rd in the last stage and 2^nd in the daily aggregate with 176.13.

Allan stole the show in F-Standard B Grade shooting 60.6, 60.8 and 59.3 taking 1^st position in all 3 matches and easily winning the daily aggregate with 179.17.

Day 2 at 600 yds on Sunday proved a more little tricky, especially later in the afternoon when the winds picked up.

Phill shot 49.7, 50.7 and 47.3 taking 2^nd place in the second match and finishing the weekend with 296.34 in the grand aggregate and wining a badge.

Dmitri scored 49.4, 50.4 and 48.4 finishing with a total of 292.24 for the weekend.

The great Duncan Davies (West Wallsend) won the grand aggregate with 299.42 which was particularly impressive after also taking 1^st place last year.

In Target Rifle B Grade, Tim recorded 47.4 in the first match taking 3^rd place, 48.2 taking 2^nd place and 46.2 to finish in 2^nd place in the last match and in grand aggregate with total of 282.11.

In F-Class A Grade Michael took 3^rd place in the first match with 59.1, followed by 57.3 and 53.2 and finished 3^rd in the grand aggregate with 345.21.

Once again Allan blitzed F-Class B Grade despite blustery winds recording 59.3 taking 1^st place followed by 51.4 and 58.2 to take 2^nd place and finishing in 1^st place in the weekend grand aggregate with 347.26.

Lithgow Rifle Club’s Brett Bond took 1^st place in F-Standard A Grade in the grand aggregate with 355.31 proving his dominance in “Forky Stick” – as with Duncan Davies, he too won last years aggregate, making this a back to back win.

Once again Roseville Rifle Club brought home the bacon with lots of badges being won and a good time had by all….

Mike Cuda

Mark, Phill, Jon and Gary shot the MDRA Festival of Sydney OPM at Anzac Rifle Range on the weekend of 23-24th Jan.

The first range 500m was shot in strong winds from the south/south east, Phill had a strong start with 50.7, Mark 50.5, Jon 47.3 and Gary claimed 2nd place with 60.4. The 2nd 500m saw Phill win the range with a great shoot 50.8! Conditions got a lot tougher as the day went on and scores were not as high. Mark showed his wind reading skills to finish 3rd in the Day 1 Ag 198.23, Phill was 12th 196.25, Jon 187.14 and Gary 4th in FTR 228.13.

Day 2 saw easier conditions and scores were high. Phill was the star on Day 2 with great scores of 75.11 @ 700m, 50.7 @800m and 75.7 @ 800m. Mark shot 73.9, 50.4 and 75.8, Jon scored 75.6, 48.4 and 72.1, Gary shot 90.7 to win that range, 57.5 and 88.3 to win that range and came 1st in the Day 2 Ag.

Final placings for weekend saw Phill in 5th position with Mark and Jon a little further back. Gary claimed 3rd position overall, well done Gary!

Roseville Rifle Club showed its strength again and a good time was had by all.

Results can be found at http://www.nraa.com.au/mdra-optimus-festival-of-sydney-opm-2016-nsw-results/.

Gaz

Phill’s badge

Gary’s prizes