County Astor Cup Heat – May 19th 2021

County Astor Cup Heat – May 9th 2021

The ASTOR is an NRA competition in which the chosen teams from every County compete at the Imperial Prize Meeting in July. Selection of those teams takes place in May in a series of County heats and the Hertfordshire heat was held on Sunday 9^th May. This year it was shot using the Queens1 format across 300/500/600 yds, and still under NRA Covid coaching conditions. Unfortunately only two clubs this year were present to compete for the privilege of representing Hertfordshire in the Astor. 

A gusty late spring day welcomed the three teams with strong winds and but clear sight pictures. Despite the changeable conditions, WPRC had a reasonable start, dropping 8 points at 300 yards. Thereafter the scores declined with the challenging variable wind conditions, dropping 14 points at 500 yds, and 19 points at 600 yds. We finished in second position, 18 points behind the winners North Herts Rifles, who progress to represent the County in the final at the 152^th Imperial meeting in July. It is worth noting that this was our lowest recorded score since 2005, despite having a pretty good team on paper!

WPRC Team was:

Alistair Bullen – Captain
Ashley Coleman-Cooke
James Greenway
Richard Malet
Colin Skellett
Nick Verduyn

Details of the result were as follows:

North Herts Rifles ‘A’        604.55
WPRC                                  586.47
North Herts Rifles ’B’        533.23

Highest gun score of the day was Andy Daw with 104.15, who gave credit to his wind coach.

Full score details on http://www.hertsra.org.uk