Roseville Rifle Club Australia

In May, the North Queensland Rifle Association’s (NQRA) Kings and lead-up “Wilson” event was followed by the F-Class teams event. These were shot just outside of Townsville at the Hervey’s Range Shooting Complex. Townsville in North Queensland is a long trek from Roseville – some 2000 km. Driving takes a couple of days, or the alternative is flying with your rifle but that still means someone has to drive your ammo up (you can’t fly with too many rounds). But what is it like to be there? We are talking snake country – check out the sign! And of course a stray cow or two had to be ushered off the shooting range at the odd time. It was sunny and warm at one of the prettiest rifle ranges – it has a mountain as a fairly awesome and solid stop-butt. Best part about being there was being away from the Sydney rain!

Due to the F-class teams event following the NQRA Kings, there were a lot of entries in the Kings >> Target Rifle = 26, F-Standard = 42, F-Open = 53, F-TR = 34, Sporter Open = 17. So all up 172 competitors – quite a good turn out.

In the Lead-up and Kings, Roseville’s sole competitor was Mark Buchanan. He did us proud clocking up 7 possibles (50 out of 50) in the sunny warm conditions over the 5 days. For the leadup, “the Wilson”, Mark’s best detail was a strong 50-7 but it was hard to beat Steve Negus who scored 50-10 on that particular detail. It was a very tight competition, and after the two Lead-up days, Mark was only 2 points behind the winner Steve Negus. Well fought Mark; maybe next time. In the Kings, Steve Negus again prevailed – but Mark showed his mettle with some very good shooting.  The Hexta target systems was a solid performer, too bad the tablets at the mound struggled in the warm sunshine – but that issue was resolved.

In the F-Class teams event, Janet Beale was the only Roseville competitor (but quite a few friends from the Hornsby range in the other NSW teams). In this competition, Janet was shooting F-Standard. Janet’s best shoot was a 90-10 at 700m on day 2 which helped her to become the top scorer for the team on Day 2.  Alas, the Queensland F-Standard team coached by Andrew McKillop was just too strong leaving the rest of the field in the dust. The NSW F-Open team had their turn on the podium (Go the Blues!). The NSW F-TR team performed strongly but no podium finish. Team shooting is just that – it is a team – so while every individual does what they can, there is no “I” in TEAM. Maybe NSW will clinch it next time? Roseville has some strong F-class shooters so lets see what the future holds.

Janet Beale