The standard of shooting at the Bisley Meeting this year was very high and I am pleased to say that the Scots were amongst the high scorers. There were three Scots in the top 25 of the Grand Aggregate, Sandy Walker, Alex Hunter and Ian Shaw, and Bruce Logan was 55th after having been in the top 25 most of the week. In the Queen’s prize final, Jacqui Rankin shot extremely well at 1000 yards to finish 3rd overall and won the Bronze Badge, only one point behind the winner. Five other Scots finished in the top 100, with Sandy Walker 23rd, Angus McLeod 40th and Ian Shaw 54th (all from the HPS) and Jon Ford 58th and Simon Glen 77th.
GB team in Kolapore match in typical two target format: Main Wind coach central, plotters on extreme left and right and target coaches sitting between two firers.
Sandy Walker left hand firer on left target, Ian Shaw (lightblue jacket) and Bruce Logan right, plotting for right hand target.
In the team matches, the East of Scotland Team was 4th in the Inter County Long Range match, out of the 27 counties shooting. The Kolapore Match is the highest profile team match, being the only match shot at the annually at the Meeting in which a GB team takes part; all the other matches are shot as Home Nation Teams. Therefore it is a very difficult team to select, as there are only 8 firers from the 700 or so eligible to shoot for GB who compete in the Meeting. There were two Scots in the GB team of 8 and another who was a reserve, with the Scottish Full-Bore Rifle HPS Coach, Lindsay Peden, having the honour of captaining the GB team. The GB team had a convincing victory over the teams from Australia, Canada, Jersey, Guernsey, Canada, Kenya and Germany, with Ian Shaw getting the 2nd top score in the team and Sandy Walker the 3rd top: for Sandy, it was his first appearance in this match.
Individual scores shot by shot for the GB Kolapore Match – GB winners by 17 points from 2nd team Jersey, Canada, Australia, Guernsey, Kenya and Germany
Report by Lindsay Peden