The King George V Challenge Cup, or KGV as it is commonly known, is an annual inter-county competition run by the English Twenty Club in order to encourage and foster shooting in the grass roots throughout England. It is different to other inter-county competitions that are organised by the NRA in that it uses a heat system, where groups of counties within a region first compete in a heat and only the winning team of each heat goes forward to compete in the final at Bisley. The organisation of the heats is left to the regions themselves, which means that the heats can be held on local ranges away from Bisley facilitating greater participation. Responsibility for organising a heat falls to one of the county District Superintendents within the region on a rotation basis. This arrangement allows more opportunities for smaller counties to develop and improve within a smaller regional pool where winning their heat may be a more realistic target than if they were in a much larger pool of all the counties in England.
While the location and timing of the heats is up to each region, the match conditions remain the same with each firer shooting 2 sighters and 10 to count at each of 300, 500 and 600 yards. The team must consist of 8 firers and 2 coaches for the final, however the heats can allow smaller team sizes if this enables more counties to compete. All team members must also be members of the English Twenty Club and be eligible to shoot for England. The cost of entry for the Heats is £20 per team.
The winning county in the final will receive the coveted King George V Challenge Cup and up to 12 gold medals. the second and third placed teams will receive silver and bronze medals respectively. The winning team in each heat will also receive up to 12 medals.
The english counties are split into regions for their heats as follows:
North
- Cheshire
- Lancashire
- Northumbria and Durham
- Yorkshire
Midlands
- Derbyshire
- Lincolnshire
- Northampton Leicestershire and Rutland
- Nottinghamshire
- Warwickshire
- Staffordshire and Shropshire
- Worcestershire and Herefordshire
West
- Cornwall
- Devon
- Dorset
- Gloucestershire
- Somerset
East
- Bedfordshire
- Cambridgeshire
- Essex
- Hertfordshire
- Norfolk
- Suffolk
South
- Berkshire
- Buckinghamshire
- Hampshire
- London
- Oxfordshire
- Wiltshire
Home Counties
- Kent
- Surrey
- Sussex
Full rules for the KGV as well as results from earlier years can be found in the Yearbooks under the Members menu item. The competition was not held in 2020. The files below (in PDF format) contain the results from the Heats for 2024, together with the heats (where known) and Final for 2023.
KGV Eastern Heat 2024, KGV Home Counties Heat 2024, KGV Midlands Heat 2024, KGV Northern Heat 2024, KGV Southern Heat 2024, KGV Western Heat 2024
KGV Final results 2023
KGV Eastern Heats 2023, Home Counties Heats 2023, KGV Midlands Heats 2023, KGV Northern Heats 2023, KGV Southern Heats 2023, KGV Western Heats 2023