Roseville Rifle Club Australia

“To be Belmont’d” a verb that means that the Belmont shooting range wind exacted perilous revenge on unsuspecting non-Queenslanders beating them into submission and proving that yes you can score an outer 2 on LHS followed by an outer 2 on RHS even if you are a titan of shooting.  Belmont is certainly not Hornsby Rifle range – and when the Belmont wind gets up you know it. Belmont saved the worst of the winds for the final 1000 yds on the last day and, to say it carved up the field, would be an understatement. Yet some lucky people found the hole and creamed the result leaving others in their dust and upending the order that had been established over the competition. The conditions, particularly at 1000 yds, favoured those that could “machine gun” (mostly F-Standard and F-Open) through it all or who found that proverbial hole or who knew the range the most (home range advantage!).

This was a large competition – one of the largest in recent memory with 276 competitors which translates to 9 people to a target and over 30 targets in use. There were competitors from Japan and New Zealand plus some shooters from WA who all travelled great distances to be at this competition.  In particular, the TR-A grade competition was a beast with over 100 competitors.  Hard to shine in that crowd! The field was 55% Target Rifle which meant a slow progression through the shooting order. It also meant a few late modifications to the shooting program – but everyone took it in stride. The cold mornings were a bit of a surprise (8c!) and most days it was back to shirt sleeves by mid-afternoon (but not on the last day due to the wind).

Our three Roseville competitors in the QRA “Lead up” and QRA “Kings” shot well considering the conditions thrown at them and the calibre and sheer numbers of competitors they were up against….but each were “Belmont’d” at the 1000 yd range. So lets focus on the positives:

Mark Buchanan (TR-A) – across the 15 details in the competition he scored 3 possibles and had an awesome count of 71 V-bulls in some tough conditions

Dmitri Kazakov (TR-B) – three 1^st and three 2^nd places in details, a 1^st and a 2^nd in a daily aggregate, 1^st in the Leadup, 8^th in the Kings and 2^nd in the Grand Aggregate

Janet Beale (FTR) – one 1^st place and one 2^nd place in details, 5^th in the leadup, 9^th in the Kings and 6^th in the grand aggregate.

Great shooting and well done on coming home with some prizes.

Janet Beale

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