HRA Captains Day and Teams Challenge Shield – 3rd April 2016

This traditional opener to the Hertfordshire County shooting season provides two competitions. An individual Captains Day event is run in the morning under a Queens I course of fire but using a handicapped format to encourage shooters of all ability to enter. The Captains Day prize is given to the competitor with the highest handicapped score and a prize for the best gun score is also up for grabs.

As usual WPRC fielded a very respectable 8 entrants (more than half the entire entry) in the individual morning competition. Despite the handicapping system used to ‘level the playing field’, our own Colin Skellett, County Captain, won his own Prizes with a magnificent 105.11 and cleaned up the handicap trophy along with a nice bottle of Malt for best gun score.

“Its a fix”, shouted the fifteen competitors. We however hoped that Colin liked the winners bottle to warm him up after the match, but for the rest of us it had been a cold morning, with a slight mirage that helped shooters stay in the bull and the scores reflected with six shooters over the hundred mark.

Full scores can be found at: www.hertsra.org.uk and follow Competition details then Captains Day links.

In the afternoon the Herefordshire Club Teams Challenge Shield was shot at 300 and 600yds. The entry attracted six teams and 33 shooters, encouraging a best 5 ex 6 format. WPRC with 8 shooters donated two, to bolster Old Haberdashers, and we proceeded to do battle. There were few clues to wind movement; dead grass, no mirage and nothing moving down range to detect the subtle 1/4 to 1/2 minute changes. Our Jon Binks and Ashley Coleman Cooke were thrown into the front line as wind coaches and did an excellent job resulting in a clear win by 18 points. As organising club Welwyn Phoenix retained the Shield ensuring yet again that we have to plan the 2017 event which is always the downside of winning this match! The WPRC team comprised:
  • Alistair Bullen
  • Ashley Coleman-Cooke
  • James Greenway
  • Nick Verduyn
  • Jon Binks
  • Colin Skellett

Results:

Club Best 5 ex 6 Top Gun
Welwyn Phoenix RC 485.47 Nick Verduyn 99.13
Watford OCA 467.37 Andy Daw 100.12
Old Berkhamstedians 460.36 P. Wilcockson 95.8
Old Haberdashers 460.31 Dick Winney 96.11
North Herts Rifles 458.38 Henry Poulton 100.14
East Barnet 436.30 R. Bird 97.9