Sunday 8th September | Written by Dave Rose
Following yesterday’s team matches the team retired to the accommodation for a superb dinner cooked by Ali with assistance from a number of sous chefs. Some of the chicken failed the sniff test and was rapidly ejected to the bear-proof bins outside but the resulting dinner and Keisha’s chocolate brownies were much needed after a long day on the range.
Following dinner, a number of the team were educated in a complex game of cards tutored by an ever more exasperated Alex when various team members could not grasp the rules.
So, to today’s programme the second day of individual shooting: 300, 500 & 600 followed by 1000 after lunch. A beautiful morning dawned on this stunning range the team now well-drilled arrived in good time for colours (cannon fire followed by the national anthem) and then down to business. The morning conditions have been benign and today was no different with a very gentle drift in the wind at 300x and many of the team going clean, 500 and 600 were much the same with a readable mirage the scoring remained high. Jon U and Matt B both went clean with 300 x 300.
“Then came the wind!”
Having been warned of impending thunderstorms the afternoon was about to start promptly at 1000x when a bolt of lightning followed by rolls of thunder issued from the southwest and the range staff called a pause to proceedings. As the clouds started to move away to our south the first relay were reluctantly called forward to the point, but the flags were not showing a great deal of wind. As the targets rose our resident colonel (retired), Charlie, confidently wound on ¾ left and fired his first sighter, the resulting wide right 7 indicted the building breeze and following a couple more downwind the smoke was rising from his sights as he rapidly wound on up to 10 minutes left! The whole range was challenged by some extremely rapid changes and the highest score returned was a 144 (ex.150). The second detail was readable, and the average rose significantly.
The first pair of shooters having been dealt a rather challenging set of conditions moved to the butts for marking duty while the second pair (expecting the worst) returned to 1000x. There they were met by slightly more steady conditions and at several team members managed to put them all in for a full score of 150, Matt B and Jon U continued their form and finished clean on the day, with Jem hot on their heels with 449 ex 500 on the day.
At the halfway stage of the individual Jon U leads the Grand 4 off, closely followed by Mike Halsey and Simon Hayton both 5 off.
Another hot and dusty day we are looking forward to another homemade Ali special dinner this evening at our team accommodation and preparing for the next team match tomorrow.