SCOTLAND Wins Five Nation Match

National Rifle Club of Scotland Wins F W Jones

Tim Kidner 2nd in the Hopton

As well as Captaining the Scotland Elcho team to a win Mike Baillie-Hamilton also Captained the winning Scotland team in the Five Nations match (UK plus Normandy) and of the winning NRC of S team for the FW Jones coached by Hamish Hunter and Colin McEachran. Mike won the Cottesloe, was 3rd in the Saturday aggregate, 5th in the 1200yd aggregate and 6th in the Hopton.

Paula Baillie-Hamilton was 4th in the Ranken : quite an achievement as she was in Florida at the time and that is a long shot even for MR. In fact, the Ranken rules have an echo of the gallantry of an earlier age, whereby ”Each lady member can nominate …..a member to shoot for her.” Mike shot a 73.7v for his wife but let his gallantry slip by shooting a 74.12v for himself to take second place. Tim Kidner broke the old rule about never coming between man and wife by taking 3rd place with 74.9.

Tim Kidner had an excellent meeting. He won the Halford, the Saturday Aggregate, Tribe Aggregate, Weekend Aggregate and Weekend Selection Aggregate. Tim was second in the Whitehead by a single V after a tie shoot and second in the Wimbledon, again after a tie shoot in which an invisible wind change (yes, Tim gets them too) blew him out and gave his opponent the information needed to put one in the bull. Tim was second in the Hopton, the most prestigious MR aggregate. In the first two competitions of this, on the same day, he dropped a single point out of 300.

Jim McAllister had success in the Armourers and might have been second in the Hopton bar a couple of crossfired shots. He also retained the Any Rifle in which Scots came 1st, 2nd & 3rd. Angus McLeod shot more steadily finishing with 4th in the Albert lifting him to 3rd overall in the Hopton. The day after the Elcho, albeit in easier conditions, Cai Marshall and Philip Kelly shot the top two scores for Oxford against Cambridge which would have placed them 2nd and 7th in the Scottish Elcho team.

Mike Barlow, as well as being in the winning Elcho and FW Jones teams was 2nd in the Edge and 3rd in the Victoria Aggregate. Des Parr was second in the F Class Hopton so he must have done well in the individual competitions, but the F class results of these appear to be classified.

Scots success at English and Irish Autumn Match Rifle Meeting 2009>

A casual observer of the English and Irish autumn Match Rifle meeting over the weekend 26/27th September could have been forgiven for thinking this was a Scottish meeting as a handful of Scots trampled over the prize lists. On Saturday the Scots charge was led by Jim McAllister and Tim Kidner tied on 220 ex 225 but with Jim edging the day’s event by a handful of Vs. Earlier in the day Jim had made a little bit of history shooting in the GB Woomera team practice and making one of two perfect 100s at 1,200x – only the 7th and 8th in history. All eight are recorded at http://www.matchrifle.org/100s_at_1200.htm

On Sunday Mike Baillie-Hamilton and Will Meldrum took over winning duties with a pair of 222s with Mike having a brace of extra Vs. Wind conditions on Sunday were very gentle with enormous scoring – 18 of the 52 firers at 1,000x making an HPS of 75.

Unusually, the outcome of the overall championship was decided on the very last shot fired. Tim Kidner had had to retire temporarily with trigger problems. On rejoining the fray he fired a magpie but then followed it up with a string of bulls shot in a string. Did he know he needed a bull finish to win? – the onlookers did and sure enough a bull appeared. This left Tim, Jim, Mike and Will in the top four slots while Martin Brown shooting very steadily over the two days claimed 5th for a Scottish clean sweep of the top five places and all the available trophies. Frustratingly Mike had dropped his last as a V would have given him a clean sweep of the Welsh, Scottish, English and Irish autumn meetings. Full results are at http://www.englishviii.org.uk/Results_Autumn_2009.txt

Another 100 ex 100 at 1200yds for Jim McAllister

Hot on the heels of his 100 at 1,200x in the Woomera match practice Jim McAllister closed out the season with another 100 at 1,200x in the North London Rifle Club meeting - his second and the ninth in history on the present targets.