Top Gun Results – 2022 – Wolwehoek Shooting Club

John Rutherfoord-Jones

Long Gun

The day started relatively early at 7:30 to set up the long gun range; thanks to Dave and Allan for assisting Donald in setting out the plates at 300m. When I arrived a bit later, we stapled the springbuck and the black wildebeest targets at 300 and 200, respectively.

We got underway just after 08:00 with the first detail, three shooting at 300m, starting with sighters (as many as you like in two minutes) with a spotter giving feedback on shot impact. This was followed by five shots at the plates, a BBR (big bore rifle silhouette) Pig, a Varmint rifle ram, a BBR chicken and two meercats. The meercats were near impossible but the top two shooters were there because they both hit them. Then five shots at the springbuck heart/lung area. The heart/lung was difficult to find due to the wind and lack of feedback from a spotter (no spotter allowed after completion of sighters). All shots at 300m were off the bench using only the sandbags provided.

Whilst this was going on, three other participants shot at the black wildebeest, three heart/lung shots at 200m sitting over mick sticks. They then had to wait until the 300m shooters were complete so they could go forward to the next shooting position. At the 100m mark three shots sitting or kneeling at the black wildebeest heart/lung, followed by two shots at 50m on the black wildebeest heart/lung standing with no support followed two brain shots at the black wildebeest. The wind played a bit of havoc with the shooters at the further distances as well as the standing shots without supports.

We only had the usual members participating (same 12) although we did have two new participants: namely Jimmy Bekker (not new to Wolwehoek but first time in Top-Gun) and Sharon Mladina, .22 silhouette competitor but first time firing a long gun.

The long gun was won by Jimmy Bekker with Jacques Potgieter a bit more than 30 points behind. Jimmy did very well on the paper and hitting all five plates. Dave Wilson (last year’s long gun winner as well as overall Top-Gun champion) was 3^rd, yours truly 4^th and a first timer Sharon Mladina (shooting with my 6.5×55 SWM) came in 5^th only just allowing me to get one point more than her with my own gun, well done Sharon.

.22 Rifle and Air rifle

There was a bit of a delay in starting the .22 and air rifle shoots as I was assisting Sharon with my long gun and there was a bit of explanation required for both air rifle and .22 before we could start, so all were once again waiting on me.

Once again, the shoots were divided into plates and paper targets; 20 shots at plates and 20 shots at paper (5 shots per distance). The steel made use of standard size turkeys (.22 rifle as well as air rifle) at the closest distance followed by standard rams, then handgun pigs and handgun turkeys at the furthest distance (100m .22 and 41m Air rifle).

The .22 paper targets were:

Springbuck at 20m sitting with sticks
Guinea Fowl at 30m, standing no support
Hyaena at 50m, standing no support
Jackal at 100m sitting with sticks, 3 shots heart/lung and two shot at the head.

The air rifle paper targets were:

Meerkat at 20m
Wolf at 27m
Indian miner bird at 33m and
Warthog at 41m

Thanks to Ronel who did the score keeping at the air rifle and kept things ticking over nicely. Given this, we were able to have six shooters on the line at a time for .22 and 4 at air rifle, thus making it possible to move through the shooters a bit quicker.

The rain threated us with a few clouds and rain drops just after 12:00, but I was having none of that and told the rain to “GO AWAY,” and it did.

Here too the top shots were the same as for the long rifle: Jimmy Bekker with top honors once again, closely followed by Jacques Potgieter and Dave Wilson. Allan Peters jumped in at fourth place with Sharon Mladina beating me with 1 point this time to take 5^th place.

The air rifle results looked quite similar with Jacques pipping Jimmy in this one and Allan jumping ahead of Dave with me leapfrogging Sharon for 5^th place.

Handgun

Here we also shot two stages; first was standards with various things at various distances. This thing of shooting with strong hand only is a bit more difficult that one thinks, and the time pressure of the turning targets adds to the amount of poor or even missed shots for most shooters.

The second stage was six 8” plates in a fixed time (6 seconds, then 8 seconds and 8 seconds), start on the buzzer and stop at the next, then move back 5m and repeat. At the last distance one only had two shots to complete in 8 seconds. Most shooters only got one or zero despite the longer time. Jacques left the rest of the field way behind on this one posting fifty points more than Allan. Dave had a good run for a rifle shooter, and I did not so bad myself scoring a whole 4 points more than Jimmy to put me in at 5^th.

Shotgun

The event waited for by some and dreaded by others.

The first stage was a standard trap shoot, 5 points for a first shot and 3 points for the second shot (thanks for that 2^nd shot, I managed to pick up a few remarkable ones or should I say 2’s). Only 4 shots were taken at each station because the shot count was a total of 20 and not 25 as standard trap would be.

The second stage was a very pleasant sporting Compak type stage with rabbits, battues, teals, hen and chicks, incomers, minis and normals coming at one from all sides. This was said, to have been a lot for fun, for those who got to shoot it; because due to time delays early in the day, we ran out of good light and had to abandon the second squad mid-way (just as I was on a straight after the first two stations). It was decided to simply double the trap scores for the second round so that the total possible score for the entire day remained 200.

As can be seen from the table below, here shotgunners came out with a distinct advantage putting some distance between the rifle shots and themselves (some 50 points or so on most of us). PD Pretorius, our esteemed chairman came out tops but only by 2 points on Sean with Allan hot on their heels, only 2 points behind Sean. Jacques was only 10 points behind the top-shotgun at 4^th with Tom (another allrounder) taking the 5^thspot.

Final Prize Winners

A particularly good day was enjoyed by all. As I said at the beginning it is always the same dedicated shooters/club member who participated, a pity not more members like to shoot their other guns much.

It was a very long and tiering day, and at time a bit stressful for those of us on whom the pleasure fell to setup and organize the event but in the end, it was all worth the effort.

The prize giving took place at the clubhouse directly after the shoots were concluded and thanks to the modern age of computers and spread sheets, most of the scores were in the system before the last stage started.

This year’s Wolwehoek Top Gun trophy goes to Jacques Potgieter, ending on 822 out of 1000 (Pretty dam good if you ask me), 90 points ahead of the runner-up Jimmy Bekker on 732. Allan Peeters 3^rd, Dave Wilson (last year’s Top-Gun) 4^th, and yours truly in 5^th place (at least not last as I was last year).