Four Nation BR Rimfire Open

For a full run down of scores on all classes which include:

Sporter Class

Light Varmint Class

Heavy Varmint Class

Click on image for full results

URGENT MESSAGE!!

I'VE BEEN ASKED BY THE SECRETARY OF ERABSF TO POST THIS MESSAGE ON HIS BEHALF.

Hello Gentlemen,
The time has come to send me the basic information about your country's entry to the 2013 European and World Cup Championship, with information about how many shooters you will bring for each class. Unfortunately a few countries failed to inform me if their intentions are to enter in the survey we sent out recently, so I have to stick to the original calculation based on number of relays (6 per day), benches available (40), length of the competition and number of countries. The maximum of shooters per country and class is 6, but this could increase for specific classes - if fewer countries enter or they only send a small team. I need to leave some reserve places for those countries that have not given me required answers and for possible new members. If these places are not taken they will be allocated to other countries.

Therefore I suggest you all keep reserve shooters that may be called upon, after we have precise registrations - please see below.

The deadline for binding registration of shooter places is 31.7. 2012 (it is 9 months from now and more than half of summer season for qualification). And it is the latest date for me. The required information is as follows:
Your Country details.
What class (s) your country will enter and how many shooters intend to shoot that class.

The country (countries) that fail to send in these information before 31.7.2011 will not be admitted to the competition (goes for new members as well) and free places will be divided to other countries. Reminders will be sent out.
Please confirm this email.

After last years experience with transfers and hotel, we will be able to offer the same service again in 2013.

Ladislav Ninger
Match Director

UK Nationals 2011

It’s been a busy year for British shooters what with the WRABF World Championship only a couple of weeks back and now we've just had the 2011 UK Nationals that's run by the UKBR22 Association.
This saw the return of the nationals to Portishead shooting club in North West Somerset. The club has an outdoor 6 lane 50m range and a indoor 25 yard 4 lane range. Numbers were down a little this year but that’s no surprise in that the British Team members had spent a lot of money going to America for the worlds and are also all shot out after a grueling 8 days in extreme hot weather.
But we saw some new faces at the event which was great news that had come along to the event. The association has around 160 members and the competition is an open one so others could come along.

This year for me was an important one as for those that know me personally know that I'm disabled and have gone through a lot in the past twelve months with operations on my spine and stuff, this meant that I wasn't able to attend the Europeans last year and the Worlds this year. There was a match earlier in the year that I was able to take part in before having to go back into hospital which was great fun and a good practice for some of the British team members that came down. Last year I had a new rifle built by Steve Kershaw and hadn't shot it much before the Nationals that was held at Paul Lane club, but I went along to the event and managed to win a few medals but also the aggregate trophies for both LV and HV which is a first.

Having to hand back the trophies this year I had no expectations of winning any of them again this year. It's not a lack of confidence but you have to be in the gold or silver position to have a chance of winning them, and we have some great shooters to go up against and I've not really had much time what with hospital to do any kind of training for the event, so with all those odds stacked up against me, I'm sure you understand were I'm coming from.

At the end of the practice day the Sporter class was shot, there are a few now that are taking up the Sporter class which is a entry point to get into benchrest. I think the idea for UKBR22 is to have a factory rifle that competitors can pick up off the shelve at a gun shop and just shoot and I hope that more will think about this when they look at the sport for something new to shoot.

Saturday was the LV 25 yard and 50m and the conditions were very different from the day before at the practice. The 25 yard indoor was good for me but my nearest player, Brian Kelly unfortunately dropped a shot and in 25 yard indoor that kind of game over as many can shoot max scores and its down to the X's. Young Scott Grayson piped me by two X's to take the gold medal, on the outdoor Brian and myself had managed to drop only ten points in the two card match and Brian took first place with four more X's than myself. This is what I love about this game as you can shoot so near to competitors and it comes down to the X's that will make the decider, it’s very rare to have two with the same amount of X's but this did happen during the weekend and then it’s a count-back. So with winning the Silver in the 25 yard and picking up the Silver in the 50m I managed to retain the LV aggregate trophy, this was a big shock to me, but that's part of the game and was happy to bring the trophy back home.

Some may remember that last year I did a piece in the Target Shooter magazine about my rifle, in which I went against the grain in some respect and did something that I don't know anyone else has ever tried or has done, and that is having a rifle that can have interchangeable stocks. So it’s one rifle that has two stocks, one for HV and one for LV. I use the Anschutz 1913 as its only uses two action screws and can take less than five minutes to change the stocks over. The rifle has a Harrell tuner fitted with a 5oz weight fitted and it doesn't need to have the tune reset for each of the stocks. Some thought I was nuts but it was my decision and Steve Kershaw went along with the idea, now I can say that this does work and can win medals as on the Sunday we shot the HV and won the Gold for 25 yard and Silver in the 50m which amazingly allowed me to retain the aggregate trophy for the HV.

So I've set the record high in winning both trophy's two years on the trot, it wasn't easy in any shape or form. On the Sunday afternoon all I had left to shoot was the HV 50m, shooting these two last cards were make or break for the trophy and I knew in my head that I had to dig deep to find every single shot on the card.

I sat alone so to figure out what I needed to do and the chap came along to apologies and I just was not up for conversation and just said forget about, now it’s all over and done with  and I don’t hold grudges, but I hope if he's reading this to remember to keep looking for his competitors ID number before he shoots any cards in the future, that way mistakes like this won’t happen. As I sat there the heavens opened on the next relay which was shooting HV and they found it difficult to shoot in the rain and their cards were low scoring but it didn't mean I was out of the woods!

As we started to set up I was informed that one of the guys had dropped his rifle and was going to shoot to see if could sight the rifle in, well this gave me some time to still figure out what I had to do but then I found out that I was the same guy that shot my target had now dropped his rifle and messed his scope up. As I sat there I could see he was having problems in fact they were big ones as his shots were not even hitting the card. I then offered to help him out see if I could zero his rifle, his turrets were all over the place and in a few minutes I had it on the target but the scope was unstable and moved off point of aim. So the gentleman was lent a riffle and the RO made sure that he could see his pin number :) So anyway time to focus, in my mind I had to hit a 250, when you are at this point your head starts to rule things like not believing you can do it. You have to think about it logically in that this is a blank card, there are 9n's on the card so you have just as much chance to hit a ten as everyone else can, but what will make the difference is the X's. So you focus on them as your target, you remind yourself that the scope needs no adjustment, your barrel is up to temperature, all is in your way is the flags and the wind and you have loads of time to take 25 shots. Well after 30 minutes I shot a 247 and not sure how many X's, but I was happy with my card and the three shots just a hair away from being 10's, I had did my best and pulled back as much as I could to be maybe in with a chance of a medal, even though it was a BIG maybe.
When the results were released I was shocked as the top three had all shot a total of 490, including myself! I had finished with a silver just being beaten by two X's, how crazy is that, and the third place man four X's behind me. It's easy to dissect things after and say just if that one shot was a ten it would of been mine, but that’s the game and I love it.
I think to myself as how I started out to where I am now, I've succeeded to become one the UK top shooters and even though I'm disabled it doesn't hold me back, I have a great rifle and that thanks to Steve Kershaw who is also part of this as he built the rifle.

I except that it can’t last forever and someone will come along and beat me, but that’s fine as we all shoot and win and have our five minutes of fame in life. But I will go into the hall of fame for 2010/2011 so it’s in print there for time.
The UK is very different from some countries in that we are still very young in the sport, but with that said we have more people that are taking up the sport, which is great but here are few things to think about.
If you have a sporter rifle or a prone rifle then you are half way there, all you need to do is stick on a scope and shoot off a sand bag to get started and see if this is for you. There are lots of things to learn about the sport and there are plenty of sites around to help you learn things but some are very technical in the detail that’s given out that can be over bearing to some.

Once you have the rifle and if you do invest in a front rest then that’s the point to look at some of the principles of the sport so that you can take it to whatever level you want to.

Sitting behind a rifle and aiming it at a target won’t make high scores, so you need to look at other shooters either at your club or on the internet by way of looking at photo's or video to see how some of the top shooters actually sit. Being in a wheelchair does reduce the way that you can sit at a bench, but the important point is to get into a position that is comfortable and relaxed. If there is any part of your body feels that it’s not relax or is straining then you need to look at this and find a way of being relaxed by changing the position of you height on a set if you feel to short or tall on the bench. Look at the position of your legs in how you have them situated so that your body has the right balance. Your arms  and hands are just as important, lots of shooters now use a bag of some type for their elbow. As we now this is one area of the body that roles when its placed on a flat surface, so the use of a bag with either sand, beads or gel can be used for the elbow. You can go as far as having bags to rest your trigger hand on as some people sometimes get the shakes if they are trying finger pinching because they don't have something to hold on to.
Setting up the front and rear bag is very important so that it all three components i.e. rifle, front rest and rear bag are running in a straight line, if the rifle is off to one side then it won't give a true shot and will be off.
Your scope should be set correctly and the way that you can make sure you are see the correct picture is to look through at the target and then raise your head upwards and then bring it back to the scope, if it’s off then you’re not on the target correctly and will give you a false shoot.

Wind flags are so important to help you read the conditions before taking the shot. lots of guys make their own devices to save some money and there are some blueprints around on the net to allow you to make your own. Reading the wind is an art and everyday is different and doesn't matter how long you've been shooting in the sport, you learn something new each day. The great thing to help you is having sighters on the card, so use them as much you need to. when you have a formation of the flags and hit the sighter and if it lands let’s say in the 9 at 10 o'clock, then you know that your high and need to placer the cross hair in the opposite direction which would be in the 9 at 4 o'clock to bring the shot back into the ten ring. If the flags are constant for a couple of shots then you may find it better to shoot them slightly quicker till things change. If the wind really kicks off a storm and your only ten minutes into your time then relax, sit back till you feel comfortable to start shooting again, even if this means your sat there for five minutes doing nothing. When you have finished a row of targets and move up or down to the next row then use the sighter to see where it going to land, the reason for this is that you are raising the rifle up or down so the trajectory will be different and you made to compensate. Sometimes when shooting a card you get the gut feeling that your next shot is not going to make the ten, this could be for a number of reason, like a change in one your flags, a gust of air in your face or just not comfortable. It’s better to hold off and put that shot into a sighter and if it goes off the ten then you know you know you've made the right called and really boost your confidence on the card.

These are just some pointers to shooting a card and there is so much more, this is why it makes this sport interesting and a challenge and I think the word challenge says it all. I’ve shot other disciplines even though in a chair and have found nothing more challenging than this sport. Some people like big guns and big noise were other like the quieter stuff like air rifle, but you can have the best of both worlds if you like air rifle and rimfire as both can be shot in .22 benchrest.
Its only in the last couple of years that the sport has grown to the European and World stage and that is thanks to a handful of people that have worked hard to bring it there.
UK rimfire benchrest is down to the thanks to a man called Pat Phelps that lead the way with the help of others and then Carlo Callicato of Italy was the first man to put together the first Europeans and then went on to put on the first Worlds. Carlo has played a huge role in world of our sport and it was down to his dedication that it happened.
We are now in a great position with the sport with federations that have been born to make the sport European and World class with the ERABSF and WRABF looking after the future of the sport so that it can grow. who knows maybe one day it will be part of the Olympics which for the old timers that had a part in making the sport happen can be proud of its future.

News updates from the WRABF World Championship

Day 7 of the WRABF World Championships and the Rimfire Light Varmint 50m

It’s almost coming to the end of the championships as on day 7 see’s the Light Varmint 50m match and as a Brit I have to say I’m well pleased to see Great Britain’s Carl Boswell pickup his first Gold medal of the competition and the first in the 50m Rimfire to hit a maximum 250, fantastic job mate and well deserved. Carl finished with a score of 747 and 41x’s followed by America’s Greg Davis getting Silver medal with 745 and 36x’s and Dan Killough picking up yet another medal with Bronze and a score of 742 and 36x’s.
In the running was USA’s Joe Besche also with a score of 742 but finished 34x’s putting him in 4th place, Fred Sears and Ken Fulghum both scored a 741 but Fred took 5th place with 42x’s. Down the leader board from 7th was Bill Hindgardner, Tony Harper both from USA, Australia’s Brett Wilson finishing 9th and for Europe, Italy’s Giuseppe Mesoraca making up the top ten.
To make up the top twenty was Todd Wooten of USA, Richard Strouse of USA, Franco Vito of Italy, Bill Collaros of Australia, Tim Miller of USA, Ulla Murisoja of Finland, Juhani Tulppo also of Finland, David Kenimer of USA, Tapani Nousianinen of Finland and finally Renato Contarato of Italy. Congratulations to all of them.
In the Juniors South Africa’s Mario Coetzer picked up Gold followed by Joe Oates of USA, Silver medal and Great Britain’s Jake Healey finishing with the Bronze medal.
A total of 71 competitors took part in the Rimfire Light Varmint 50m competition and must have been another grueling day for all as the temperature still stays high, but the end is in sight with just the Heavy Varmint 50m competition to take place.
For those that have been shooting for the last seven days every day must be exhausted by now and should be looked at as real athletes to have done what they have, hats off to every single one of them have taken part.
So tomorrow is the last day of shooting and I am sure that everyone will be glad but sad at the same time that it’s nearly all over. So for the latest updates keep watching the News section of the Benchrest Show

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Day 6 0f the WRABF World Championships Rimfire Sporter 50m

Its day 6 of the competition and the little Sporter comes out for the 50m distance and temperatures have been close is not over the 100F in this competition and what with the magnification on the Sporter Class only being 6.5, it’s a wonder that competitors have been able to see their targets through the heat haze!
Well the top six certainly did manage to see their targets but it was to the wire on who took what in the medals with USA’s Dan Killough shooting a 737 and 23x’s taking the Gold medal and just one point behind was Greg Davis 736 and 29x’s picking up the Silver medal and then just behind Greg was America’s Tony Harper with a score of 735 and 24x’s getting the Bronze medal, What a fantastic finish by all three!
In fourth, fifth and sixth were America’s Jim Pepper, Tim Miller and Bill Hindardner. Jim and Tim both scored a 733 with Jim hitting 36x’s and Tim hitting 28x’s. There was just one point in it between Bill and Australia’s Brett Wilson, with Bill scoring a 731 and 25x’s and Brett scoring a 730 and 25x’s, that one is real close to call with both of them hitting the same amount of X’s.
America’s Richard House went up against Australia’s Clinton Sondergeld  with a sore of 729 and 31x’s – 726 and 29x’s followed by John Patzwald with a score of 735 and 32x’s also of Australia to make up the top ten shooters.
In the Juniors South Africa’s Mario Coetzer picked up the Gold medal with a score of 723 and 23x’s, Great Britain’s Jake Healey took Silver with 720 and 22x’s and finally Coenie Schoonwinkel also of South Africa winning Bronze with 703 and 18x’s. I think that there are some proud dad’s at the event seeing their kids picking up World medals.

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Day 5 of the WRABF World Championships Heavy Varmint 25 yard.

It’s the last day of the 25 yard and the big guns have been out shooting the Heavy Varmint competition and team USA have taken back the advantage with a 1,2,3,4 win over the competition.

Tim Miller of USA took the Gold medal this time round with a 750 and 58x’s, followed by USA’s Jim Pepper with a score of 750 and 52x’s picking up the Silver medal. Dan Killough just piped Joe Besche for the Bronze medal with a score of 750 and 49x’s beating Joe by 2x’s. Congratulations to these very well known guys of the USA team.

Australia’s Richard Lightfoot put a great score of 750 and 44x’s and coming 5th with Italy’s Pino Leone 6th close on his heals with just 1 X behind Richard, and just behind Pino was Great Britain’s Carl Boswell 7th, again 1 X behind and then South Africa’s Niekie van Dyk 8th 1 X behind Carl. That’s four competitors just beating each other by one X, how close can you get in such a competition, it’s a fantastic fight between these guys as you couldn’t get it any closer.

USA’s Emory Smith and Tony Harper took 9th and 10th place to make the top ten competitors.
From 11th place to 20th again it was so close; Italy’s Gianpietro Mazzolari took 11th place followed by USA’s Bob Collins. From 12th place to 18th each competitor lost out by one X with Bill Collaros holding 13th place followed by Todd Wooten USA, Bill Buskey USA, Tony Blosser USA, Fred Sears USA, Greg Davis USA, Gert Coetzer South Africa and Great Britain’s Junior Jake Healey winning the Junior Gold medal and rounding up the top 20.

Out of the ladies Australia’s Rebecca Richards finished in 26th place with a score of 748 and 40x’s beating team mate Joy Harrison with a score of 747 and 46x’s,well done to them.  

The Juniors had great Britain’s Jake Healey pick up Gold followed by South Africa’s Mario Coetzer getting Silver and Britain’s Scott Grayson just piping USA’s Joe Oates with a score of 747 and 41x’s, Joe dropped just one X from Scott.

This has been the closes competition of them all so far with so many just one X behind each other, competitors must have been on tender hooks waiting for the final results and made worse with the over whelming heat. There have been no reports of running out of water to keep hydrated in these conditions and hope all are keeping themselves toped up and staying out of the heat as much as possible. Just shooting day in day out over a long period is not the norm for a lot of these competitors and can have an effect on their performance.

At the moment no Team results have been posted.

So next are the 50m competitions, hopefully all the competitors are starting to work out the range if the conditions stay relatively the same.

Keep watching the News section for more updates as they come through.

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Day 4 and the turn of the Light Varmint 25 yard competition.

Well the USA good run has been broken by Australia in the individual medals in the Light Varmint 25 yard competition. Greg Davis of USA did an outstanding job with a score of 750 and 63x’s taking the gold medal place followed by USA’s Tony Blosser shooting a 750 and 59x’s but Clinton Sondergeld of Australia got the bronze medal with a score of 750 and 57x’s just beating Dennis Drake of USA by 4x’s with him finishing strong in fourth place with 750 and 53x’s. Down the leader board it got even tighter with Australia’s Richard Lightfoot finishng 2x’s behind Dennis with a score of 750 and 51x’s. USA took 6th to 12th place USA’s Junior Joe Oates finishing on a strong 749 and 48x’s. it’s not just the men and juniors that did well as Australia’s Joy Harrison finished in 13th place with a score of 749 and 47x’s, just one X between Joe and Joy which shows it can’t get any closer than that.

Competitors from Europe also made the top 20 with Italy Maurizio Cini finishing in 14th place, Finland’s Ulla Murisoja in 15th and Great Britain’s Carl Hanson in 18th place and Italy’s Franco Vito 19th all shooting a 249 plus x’s,  well done to them.
In the unofficial places for the team medals as this hasn’t been verified, USA’s Teams A, B and C picked up the gold, silver and bronze medals with a count back against USA team C, Australia’s team A came 4th.

In the Juniors Joe Oates won Gold, Great Britain’s Scott Grayson won Silver and South Africa’s Mario Coetzer picked up the Bronze medal. Congratulations to them.
Out of the top 29 competitors one point is what set them apart from each other, all shooting no lower than 749 and then it’s been the x’s  that’s determined were they finished up on the leader board, some with just an X between them.

67 competitors took part in the all day event and must have had the ground crew going all out to make sure that everything ran smoothly. For the Match directors going through no less than 201 cards and gauging 5,025 targets, that is some doing.

The weather seems to be playing a huge factor in the competition especially for those that have not shot in such temperatures, Even a harden Australian like team captain Bill Collaros says the heat is a killer.
Talking of Bill he even manages to find time to be interviewed with one of press that is covering the event and was on video. Bill is the President of the WRABF and is a great ambassador for the sport and has done a lot of work behind the scenes with other to find sponsors of the event, I’m sure that he is one happy Kangaroo :)

Day five will see the big guns come out for the Heavy Varmint 25 yard and hopefully other competitors will be able to shine through.

For more reports keep watching the News section of the Benchrest Show.

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Day 3 Sporter Class 25 yard.

The third day and the little sporter rifles came out to play in the WRABF World Championships. For some countries the sporter class is just getting off the ground, the rifles are easy to obtain but the magnification is set to 6.5 unlike other classes where you can have the biggest scope you can get your hands on. If benchrest wasn't difficult enough, having a magnification of just 6.5 is a strain to see each of the individual targets. With the high temperatures in South Carolina there is bound to a lot of heat haze which is going to add to the difficulty of shooting the Sporter class.

But the guys that love this class did the little rifle proud in the championship with the USA taking the individual medals. Tony Harper took gold medal followed by Greg Davis silver medal and Dennis Drake picking up bronze. Info coming through is that the USA took the top seven places with Australia's Brett Wilson shooting Bill Collaros Crocodile Dundee coming 8th and Bill himself came 9th with his rifle out of the rest of the world.

In the juniors USA's Joe Oates won his very first international gold medal with Jake Healey and Scott Grayson of Great Britain picking up silver and bronze. Congratulations to all three as these will be the stars for the future of this great sport.

In the Teams USA cleaned up with team A taking gold, team C taking silver and team B picking up the bronze.

More info will be available soon as it comes through on how the rest of the competitors did, so keep watching...

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The World Rimfire and Air Rifle Benchrest Championships have officially began!

All the teams have arrived safely in the States and seems that no one had any problems with Customs which we all know can be daunting when carrying a rifle half way round the world.

The Palmetto Range looks fantastic with it's trees either side of the range which can give shooters another guideline to what the wind is doing before it hits the range itself, but the heat has got to be a killer as America see's record temperatures hit the south of the country.

With such temperatures scopes are going to be showing a lot of mirage on the cards and anyone shooting the sporter series with magnification set at 6.5 are going to find it hard going.

Craig and his team have done a fantastic job in providing covered area's for the competitors to get some shade and to set their gear up with loads of tables and chairs for all the teams, and seems a good place to escape the bright sunshine.

Any event like this you need a good ground crew that know what they are doing and it seems that they've manage to equire a golf buggy to collect and replace the targets, what a fab idea!

Having a couple of days practice is going to be crucial to finding out how rifles are going to act in weathers that for most are not used to, and for some it can be a quick learning curb. The range is very different from past events as its totally open spaced, which may work in some shooters favor compared to ranges in Europe.

Making the most of the practice days seems by those smiling farces that everyone is making the most of it and having a great time.

First day Light Varmint Air Rifle 25 yard.

The first competition is the LV Air Rifle and in the individuals USA have come out on top with Dan Brown winning gold, Todd Banks silver and Rick Ingram bronze, a big congratulations to them on a outstanding job and a good start for USA. On the team side, Australia's A team took first and team B took 3rd place and from what I've read they only had their very first BR match back in November last year, so well done to them. South Africa's Team A took a well deserved 2nd place, congratulations to them. In the Juniors Britain’s number one air rifle junior took gold medal putting the Brit's on the board for the first time, followed by Jan Durdak from the Czech Republic taking the silver and Coenie Schoonwinkel picking up the bronze, Nick Schoonwinkel must be very proud!

The second Air Rifle Heavy Varmint 25 yard.

Todd Banks, USA manage to pickup his second medal but this time the gold medal with his Heavy Varmint rifle, congratulations to him on an outstanding job. Pieter Grundling manages to break the run of the USA by picking up the silver medal, a great effort by him. And Tim McMurray from the USA came in with the bronze medal and a big well done to him.

In the juniors, Scott Grayson picked up his second gold medal and just behind was Britain’s Jake Healey getting his first silver medal of the competition and Conie Schoonwinkle picking up his second bronze, again their second medal of the competition. It seems the juniors are showing the way for team mates to follow in their footsteps and I'm sure that we will see these guys picking up more medals later in the competition.

Teams A and B of USA picked up 1st and 3rd place and Italy's team A got a well deserved 2nd place. Todd Banks of USA won the air rifle aggregate 1st place followed by Dan Brown also of the USA in 2nd place and Pieter Grundling winning 3rd place.
It's a fantastic start to the competition and shows that it’s open to all bring home some medals.
Some late news just in after the WRABF AGM that Australia will host the 2015 World Championships to be held in Brisbane late August. Congratulations to them and an event to look forward to.

For more updates and photo's keep following the news page to get the low down on the competition.

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The Benchrest Directory

The Benchrest Directory is now closed down due to increasing spammers that have hit the site. When the site was formed, it used one of these free sites to run it on, but the lack of features to protect the site and its members within the forum software is poor and not much that you can do with. So sadly it’s been closed down and members have been informed that there is this new site if they wish to join and a promise that with the Benchrest Show being better with no adverts around the place and better protection from the spammers, means that it’s a great site and able to maintain the structure so that spammers are kept away as much as possible. But the last joke was put on the spammers as one of their email addresses has been use to receive information that there is new users trying to join, and they will have no way of removing this and they are now locked in! One up for us forum users!  

Not long now till the World Rimfire and Air Rifle Championships!

Yes it’s almost a month to the day till the WBC that is being held at the Palmetto Range in South Carolina, USA. All the teams must be putting in last minute practices and packing their gear for the long flight to the USA for some. Team USA is being sponsored by its association, the RBA and have had T-shirts made to sell to help fund the team. It’s nice to see an association happy to help out in some small way and get behind its team.

Joe Besche wins the Livonia PSL

At the Livonia PSL match held in the States last weekend, it seems that some shooters were caught out by the conditions and an Annie (Anschutz’s) rifle took the 1st place! This got a lot of forums shouting how and an old Annie had blown the custom rifles away with their custom triggers and 6 o’clock actions, but it seems that the rifle in question was not as factory orientated as first thought!

It’s reported by some that the winner Joe Bosche who is known as a great shooter in the wind actually had a Anni rifle that had just a little bit of help in that it was barrelled by gunsmith, Roger Brock and had slightly different trigger which is the 5071, the Anschutz stock is bedded and comes with a 5C Broughton barrel, two mid-barrel tuner’s and a Harrell tuner with a Parallel Noodle attached to that. So one could say that this is a little bit of a custom rifle with a huge amount of weight added to the barrel. This soon dropped the jaws of some as they were singing how well a factory rifle had done, but this shows that it all depends on the day how well a shooter can perform on the day in the conditions that are present. One thing that was mentioned was that Joe knows how to test ammo and that he has his one range at his house and shoots almost every day. When someone is able to do that from their own porch after breakfast without have the stress of fighting the traffic to get to the range and find a spot to shoot and have a limited time to spend on the range, it has to be said that he is very fortunate like a lot of shooters in the States that are able to do the same thing.

A question was asked, what can we learn from this? Well I would say that getting out there and practicing in all conditions is the key in most part, it can seem a little easier to say I had a good day at the range and shot a 250 straight off the bat, but it the best conditions possible. Saying it was a dog of a day and I shot a 248 in howling winds seems more interesting and probably learnt a lot more from it, makes you feel that it was a great day and I did so well to perform in such conditions. Motivating one’s self to make the drive in poor conditions and setup while no other person has had the balls to step outside their front door and shoot and shoot well, is a great feeling and will only improve your confidence, which is all part of the game to winning the match.

Congratulations to Joe Bosche on a brilliant performance on the day.

First image of London 2012 Shooting venue unveiled as construction starts at Royal Artillery Barracks' Woolwich, London

New images of the London 2012 Shooting venue – located in the grounds of Woolwich’s historic Royal Artillery Barracks - were today released by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA).
The temporary venue in south-east London will host the Shooting and Paralympic Shooting competitions, in addition to Paralympic Archery.

It’s reported spectators will enter the venue with views of the world-famous military base - the longest continuous Georgian building façade in the UK - before taking their seats to watch the sporting action.
LOCOG Chair Seb Coe said: 'Staging the Shooting and Paralympic Archery events at the world famous Royal Artillery Barracks will provide a memorable background during the Games which will inspire the athletes and provide a great showcase for London and the UK.'

It is estimated that more than 104,000 spectators will watch the competitions during the Games – equating to around 4,000 people every day.

When you look at the artist image of one of the sites, I guess it all depends on where your seated if you will actually see any shooting going on, unless of course you watch the big screen!
It’s also been reported that the final bill for the temporary ranges will now cost around £42 million and the consultants for the Olympic Delivery Authority are under pressure to reduce this down to £30 million. Let’s not forget the word TEMPORARY as this all has to be pulled down after the event, and what will be the cost of that, maybe shall we say £20 million? So a total of £62 million could have been spent on Britain’s largest shooting facility at Bisley and would have left a legacy for British shooters. Thanks Mr Chairman!

Don’t forget to view the video on the Phoenix Fare, which also shows some of the facilities that are already available at Bisley, later this week.

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Hot news off the Rimfire Acccuracy Forum

It's reported the USA's very own Craig Young shot himself a 750 and close behind was Wabbit Sheriff with a 749 at the Lavonia Shoot. Congratulations to them both, it seems Craig’s DIY injury hasn't affected his game.

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6 o'clock or 12 o'clock?

The biggest chat of recent in Rimfire has been about the idea 6 o’clock actions over 12 o’clock. Most of this has been round the new Falcon action in States and is proving to be a big topic in whether it’s the way actions should be built for the future. There are those that aren’t sure that it’s going to make that much difference in accuracy compared to the 12 O’clock system that has been around for a long time, most would think why hasn’t this been looked at earlier than now. There are even conversions available for the popular Turbo actions. So are we going to see other manufactures take up the idea of 6’o’clock actions, only time will tell and maybe some competitors will be using them at the forth coming Rimfire and Air Rifle World Championship at the end of July.

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Launch of the new website

I’m happy to announce that there is a brand new website that is also called the Benchrest Show and you can visit it by clicking on www.benchrestshow.com. You will find news, videos, photo galleries, calendar, history, profiles, tutorials and a brand new forum. The idea is to have an international community of guys like yourselves that can visit the site and see something new hopefully every time you visit, and find out not just about what’s happening in your own community but others. I’ve put my own vision of the site but your input is just as important, if you have things that you want to share then you can email through the contact and provide me with links to your own photo gallery or arrange to have your video up there to be seen by others. This is just the beginning and I hope that you will enjoy this site and tell all your buddies or new guys that you meet or make friends with about this great community site, they don’t have to become a member of Facebook or even a member of the forum, but if they get something out of it that’s all that counts. If you have any feedback please send me a message, as the site still needs a little tweaking here and there.

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