Roseville Rifle Club Australia

Mark Buchanan and Tim Walter attended the 53rd National Rifle Championships held at Belmont Rifle Range, Queensland from 15/19 October 2025.

Mark and Tim both arrived about 11.30am QLD time on Tuesday 14 October, Mark having spent the previous night with friends at Cumbalum, near Ballina, and Tim spending the night at the Windmill Motel at Coffs Harbour.

HEXTA electronic targets were used exclusively throughout the Championships and performed perfectly, shooters being assisted with any difficulties by the magnificent small team of ET Assists led by Bob Cramp.

HEXTA made it unnecessary to have scorecards, blackboards, or check-scorers and in addition HEXTA entered the scores for each range and calculated the top 3 scores and the Daily Aggregates.

Two monitors were provided for each target which eliminated the need to swap monitors after each shooter finished shooting.

Wind conditions were variable during the lead-up President’s match and even more difficult during the Kings competition, with fairly quick changes from left to right occurring throughout, with top shooters being caught out at various times.

Good cloud cover made for quite pleasant shooting conditions during the Presidents, and Gazebos were erected in the afternoon which made shooting in the Kings bearable when it became hotter.

The targets are very close together at Belmont making it easier to fire at the wrong target which Tim did for his fourth shot at the opening 300 yards range!

Mark and Tim’s scores on Day 1 of the Presidents were as follows.

Mark had a good day finishing in 15^th place, his opening 48.5 keeping him out of the top 5.

Tim finished in 48^th place which was second last in Target Rifle.

The NRAA decided not to have a B Grade in this competition for either Target Rifle or F-Standard, and Sporter/Hunter were excluded entirely, so Mark and Tim were competing with the best of the best and Tim was happy just to keep out of last place!

Consequently, there were only 85 entries for the President’s Match which consisted of T-Rifle-A (49), F-Std-A (10), F-Open-A (14) and F-TR-A (12).

Tim thought he might have a chance of beating Mark at the first 1000 yards match after Mark scored a 39.1 but it was not to be, with Tim scoring 35.1!

Mark bounced back at the second 1000 yards range, winning the range with 73.6, again showing that conditions were tough.

Mark and Tim’s scores on Day 2 of the Presidents were as follows.

 This placed Mark 35^th in the Day 2 Aggregate and Tim in 47^th place.

Mark was placed 29^th in the President’s Match and Tim in 47^th  place.

Meals were available on the range to shooters in the evening and were provided by our old friends Colleen and Susie Morgan and Peter Turner. They aimed to show that three people could prepare food for the shooters at low cost and high quality, and they were successful in providing for about 38 people on Wednesday and Thursday nights, 50 people for the Friday night roasts and 47 for Saturday night. And they did it for nothing!

They also provided rolls and sandwiches for lunch which was most welcome with the under 25 Teams providing soft drinks.

Day 1 of the Kings Prize saw equally difficult conditions and our scores were as follows.

There were initially 64 shooters in TR-A Grade.

This saw Mark finish in 23^rd place and Tim at 62^nd, Mark showing once again how good he is at the 600 yards range.

At one stage the Chief Range Officer reminded us that the rifle range is a nature reserve and to drive accordingly. Here is proof!

Former Roseville Captain and clubmate Michael Cuda finished 2^nd in F-TR-A with 237.14 with former clubmate Gary Faulkner finishing in 4^th place with232.17.

Day 2 of the Kings saw similar conditions but shot over the challenging 900 yards and 1000 yards ranges. Our scores were as follows.

Tim’s 48.6 at the first 900 yards was his best score of the meeting, finishing in 29th place with Mark just behind in 30^th place.

Tim colour co-ordinated with the great James Corbett who kindly posed for a photo with Tim!

At the second 900 yards, Tim lowered his rifle to rest on his 9^th shot and accidently caught the trigger resulting in another miss! So always remember to open your bolt before you rest your rifle! ☹

At the first 1000 yards range Tim finished with a 3 and resolved not to repeat that at the second 1000 yards range, and finished with a 2 instead, in both cases spoiling what would have been almost reasonable scores.

Day 3 of the Kings was hot, and we were glad we only had to shoot two ranges.

Our scores were as follows.

This saw Mark finish 49^th in the Day 3 Aggregate and Tim finish 60^th, but not last!

In the Kings Mark finished 28^th and Tim finished 58^th.

In the Grand Aggregate Mark finished 25^thand Tim finished 43^rd.

Effectively, there were 60 shooters completing the Kings TR and 44 shooters completing the Grand TR.

The Kings was won by Duncan Muller with an incredible 497.48, a 20-year-old from Mount Gambier Club and the Grand was won by well-known Alex Davies with an equally incredible 932.101 from West Wallsend Club.

Congratulations to both.

Tim Walter