500m "FLY"

Townsville held their Championship "FLY" shoot for the year 15th July 2006.

"The Peter Short Memorial"

Each year Mr. and Mrs. Short, Peters parents, donate a Remington Rifle and all competitors have their names put into a bucket and one is drawn out. this year the rifle was a Remington 22-250 Synthetic and the winner was

JEFF RODGERS

Bob Mulder went along to represent Mackay using his 30BR which was built for 100 and 200 yard Bench/Rest  shooting using 115gr CDC projectiles with a BC of about .350 and only 32.8 grains of Ar2207 Powder.

"Having been told it would be a waste of time using this rifle and having only shot at 500m once before in practice I was determined to do well, not necessarily win anything but not disgrace myself either.

The day didn't look good low cloud and a switching breeze I was in the first detail.

We had set up our gear and some had umbrellas over the benches and they were the lucky ones as it started to rain so I quickly covered my action with a towel and grabbed a tarp, the mate John McQuire sat at the bench and held it over us. That target scored 33 and I was experiencing the same problems that I had in practice, almost hitting the dot on the sighter target but after winding over onto the "FLY" target my shots would go high and right. 

Detail 2 fared a little better as it had stopped raining.

During the proceedings and change of targets I grabbed a club umbrella and tied it to the bench as Eric Gustavson at the next bench in my detail had a slight amount of moisture in his chamber or on his ammo and experienced some pressure problems.

Second Target was a little better but still the same problem changing from sighter to score even with a little shuffling, John who was also sharing my rest experienced the opposite effect he was coming across and shots would go high and left. Second Target was a 36.

On the Third target I actually moved the rear rest and picked up the rifle and resettled it pointing at the score target which seemed to have the desired effect as you can see from the target I scored a 50 with the shots now staying around the center of the target. Mind you I had an inch and a half of windage wound on so 7.5 inches or more at 500m, plus I was holding just to the left of the fly.

At this stage we stopped for lunch  and probably lucky we did coz it rained for about an hour solid so had time to admire the Trophies on offer, and not expecting to get any took some photos to show the shooters back in Mackay as most trophies for State and Nationals are pretty Dull but you couldn't say that about these ones they were great.

The photo on the left is all the trophies Heavy Gun to the left and Light Gun to the right the two at the front are for highest score on a single target and smallest group and the main trophy is for highest aggregate overall.

These Trophies where sponsored buy local businesses and I will include a list when complete.

After Lunch we continued with the shoot and my new strategy of moving the whole gun and bag was paying off as the first target after lunch was a ripper and I hit my first "FLY" and scored 58.1 but not only that I had the best group 1.750 Inches. The last target was another good target that could have been fantastic but hey I was more than happy already  Last target was a 54.2.

After the last detail and the target were bought back we gave the target crew a few shots at clay toads stuck in the middle of some targets. One of the crew that had a shot with my rifle splattered him with the second shot.

Now at this stage I knew I had the best group but that was all so imagine my surprise when they called out my name for winner of the light gun I was sure Eric had that one covered, but my last 2 targets had shot me to the lead with 231.3 not only that but my 58.1 target was the highest score on a single target AND I had best group.

The Sponsors 

 1st Place Light Gun

&

 Highest Score on a Single Target 

Trailer Sales (NQ) PTY. LTD.

569 Ingham Road

Townsville 4810 

Ph 47745677

Visit their website ( Here )

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Smallest Group / Single Card

Tony`s Truck Parts 

180 Hugh Street 

Currajong  4812

Ph 47793822

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Hennessey`s Gunsmiths

Followmont Transport

Others will be added also more photos and scores will be added as they are forwarded to me.

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