One hundred and ten shooters from as far as Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland and Dubbo attended the annual shoot at the Wingham Rifle Range for two glorious days of shooting, camaraderie and stiff competition.
A heavy shower on Sunday morning held shooting up for half an hour and moved the ranges from 300, 500 and 600 yards to 500 and two shoots at 600 yards due to the not-yet-settled but upgraded 300-yard mound.
Conditions were nothing less than perfect on Saturday with a slight drift from the left to get the shooters actually moving their wind arms.
However, a few of the hopefuls dropped a point or two virtually putting them out of contention.
Day two was the same after the shower passed through.
It took a shoot-off to determine the first day’s aggregate, and the two-day aggregate in A-grade and various shoot-offs were held in the F-class due to multiple perfect scores.
Mark Buchanan, who shoots at Hornsby Rifle Range in the Roseville club, won the prize shoot which has been held at Wingham for the last 59 years.
Mark has been attending this shoot regularly since 1972 and has come second a few times.
However, this year he managed to come first after a shoot-off with Richard Jones from the Manly club.
In B-grade, local junior shooter Bronte Thurtell cleaned up, winning both daily aggregates and the grand aggregate for the two days.
Bronte came first, second or third on all of the six ranges and her score was high enough to take her up to A-grade.
She will now be shooting against her father Peter and his two brothers, all excellent marksmen.
Their father taught them all how to shoot and the tradition continues.
In C-grade, another junior female shooter, Jessica Bale from Concord Rifle Club in Sydney, did even better than Bronte, winning four of the six ranges and coming second and third in the other two.
She too won both daily aggregates and the grand and will move up to B-grade.
Her father Richard was very proud.
Jessica also won the Tyro section, which is reserved for those attending their first prize shoot or those who have not won any money at a shoot.
In the F-class standard section, Bob Pedersen of Hobart had a clear win over a large field, including Australia’s top-ranked shooter, Peter Drew of Grafton.
In the F-class open section, Flory Zabaks of Inverell also had a clear lead and finally beat his club mate Tim Pilcher.
Flory won the first day aggregate and Gottlieb Nyffenegger won day two.
Steve Southwell, a local member, won the first day after a shoot-off with Mark Buchanan and last year’s winner Rob Bonfield.
Unfortunately, Steve had work commitments the next day and will probably wonder ‘what if’ had he been able to shoot the full meeting.
Richard Jones won day two in the A-grade with a brilliant 150-24, which rocketed him up to equal-first place, only to lose the shoot-off.
Peter Drew won day one in F-class
Local shooter Peter Thurtell was the best of the local A-graders coming fourth on a countback.
Wendy Moon was 14th and Tony Moon 17th out of the 53 A-grade shooters.
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