John Rutherfoord-Jones
Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 October was Wolwehoek Top-Gun championship, were we get to determine the best allrounder at the club. We shot 5 different disciplines: long rifle, handgun, shotgun, .22 scoped rifle and air rifle (perhaps the rifle shots may have a bit of and advantage in this one – Sorry, Not).
The long rifle started at about 9:00, at bit later than planned due to there being an issue with one of the springbuck targets; John brought along two springbuck and four impalas instead if three of each. Luckily Jimmy had given us some target hook-on boards and I remembered that one of them had a springbuck on it of the same printer as the two I had brought with me; problem solved. We were 10 shooters, so we ran four details, two of three shooters and tow of two shooters. The wind piked up as the details progressed.
The targets were by no means a give-me. The five plates at 300m were small and in spite of the fact that we all shot off on the bench with sandbags, no one got both of the little meerkats over (Mark did hit two down, but the fist was one of Clive’s and did not count towards score). No One scored particularly high on the springbuck at 300m ither, the best was Clive Spenser with 33 out of 50 and Anso using Sharon’s rifle scored 33 (Anso beet Sharon with her rifle – this happens all too often, never mind the tables were about to turn when Anso let Sharon shoot her shotgun).
Well done to Clive who won this event, with Jacques 2nd and Jimmy 3rd.
We then went to handgun; two stages. A Standards range and the 6 plates shot 3 times, followed by two plates, stepping back further doe each string. Unfortunately, the compressor did not co-operate, so we had to shoot to the whistle. Here we das two details of 4 and one of two. Just as we were going on to the 3rd detail the heaven, which had been threatening all day, finally brock open and soaked us all. We made a beeline for the clubhouse to warm up and drown our sorrows with OBS; just as we arrived at the clubhouse the rain stopped and the wind subsided and so we returned to the standards range and completed the shoot.
Sorry no photos of the handgun, we were all too busy. Jacques Potgieter won by leaps and bounds, congratulations to him, with me in 2nd place and Dave Wilson in 3rd place (All essentially rifle shooters). The full set of scores were:
The weather allowed us to go on to the shotgun; here too we shot two formats, tarp and then ball trap. Some of the shooters suffered badly due to fading light because of the lateness of the day by the time we got to the shotgun. It was here that Sharon shooting shotgun for the very first time, managed to beat Anso with her shotgun (Anso had a particularly uncharacteristically bad round due to the poor light – very frustrating).
The winner of the shotgun was Mark, followed by Jimmy Bekker in 2nd and Allan Peeters in 3rd.
The day concluded in the bar around a few drinks and a discussion on how the Springbucks were expected to perform in the World Cup Final that night; Go BOKKE. (GHOW! And that went, well done manne) Sunday stared very late; there was a lot of set-ups to do and no “Donald” to do it for us, and this was exacerbated by my being a bit late.
Conditions were horrendous to put it mildly. The wind and dust and bitter cold made the shooting extreme to say the least. The shoots .22 rifle and air rifle were complex, jet interesting 40 shots each so that each shot was worth 5 point making a total possible sore 200. We shot a mixture of standard silhouettes at closer distances than normal with the larger handgun size silhouettes at the two back distances. There were paper targets and a mixture of stand with mik-sick and sitting with mik-stick being deployed.
Standing shooting out of the shoulder or off sticks was torture; one second you are on the target, the next you are a foot off the one side or the other. You had to pull the trigger at the score’s cross-hears passed over the target. Well done to those who managed to score anything at all in these conditions. That would be Clive who came first in the .22 rifle, followed by Jimmy Bekker 2nd and me 3rd.
The air rifle was won by Jacques Potgieter with Jimmy Bekker 2nd and Dave Wilson 3rd.
The overall winner of the Top-Gun when back and forth as we sorted out some queries with the scores; thanks guys for actually check the scores when I sent them out for review via WhatsApp (I did however congratulate the wrong person first).
So, in the end the overall winner for the 2nd year in a row is Jacques Potgieter, Congratulations, followed by Jimmy Bekker in 2nd and Clive Spenser (Who was in the lead after the end if the 1st day) in 3rd.
The trophies for each discipline as well as the Top-Gun Overall, will be handed out at the Wolwehoek Prizegiving 2nd December.
Lessons learned – schedule the shoot at a different time (perhaps May) so as to avoid bad weather, Keep the two-day format, look as shortening the .22 and air-rifle shoots. Thanks to all who participated and to all who helped set-up and take down ranges – See you all (and perhaps some others) next year.
