Bisley Autumn Meeting

The Autumn Match Rifle Meeting run by the English Eight and the Irish has always been regarded as an opportunity for experimentation, and it was in that spirit that a motley collection of Scots gathered on the weekend of 24/25 September. In contrast to the icy blasts of last year's event conditions were good; warm and dry with a light but somewhat fickle wind for the most part, only gaining real strength for the final 1200 yard stage.

Whilst a useful amount of intelligence regarding positions, shooting technique and ammunition design was acquired. Scottish impact on the prize lists was limited. Restricted in fact to Mike B-H's third place in the Sunday shoot. Overall the leading Scot was our Captain, closely pursued by David Hossack. For those interested in the details, full scores are posted on www.englishviii.org.uk. It will be seen that Rob Lygoe of England finished off a successful year by winning this meeting in addition to the combined spring meeting and the Hopton. Maybe there is life in the supine position yet.

In the past, in accord with the traditionally experimental nature of the meeting, the use of match rifles of unrestricted calibre was encouraged with a trophy available for the highest score overall, regardless of calibre. Due to apparent reduced interest this has been discontinued, (surely contrary to the trophy presenters' intention?), and consequently the official list fails to record the excellent score of 222 made by Thibault Lury using the Captain's Any Rifle in the Saturday shoot. Sadly lack of ammunition prevented him from attempting to improve this score on Sunday. The unavailability of the Club rifle with which he had originally intended to shoot the meeting is a mystery as yet unresolved.

Update: After but a brief hiatus the 'missing' scores have now been restored to the official English VIII record. Perhaps a reminder to the wider world that the Any Rifle is still alive and kicking?

Bisley Spring Meeting

The combined English, Scottish and Welsh match rifle clubs Spring meeting was held at Bisley in conditions which varied from the totally benign at 1,000x on Saturday 7th May to the the totally bemusing at 1,200x on Sunday 8th May. Runaway winner was Rob Lygoe of England. Top Scot and hence winner of our Eight Cup was Tim Kidner closely followed by Mike Baillie-Hamilton and Mike Barlow. Encouragingly for Scotland we had three new members competing who had either never fired this meeting or only fired it several years ago. Full Results on English VIII web site