Bradford Gun Club Championship 2023 - Bradford Shooting Ground 30/9/23

Today was one of those days where I felt absolutely ready for the contest, but the result just didn't happen. On the plus side, I know why it is and it's something that's easily sorted.

Six squads of shooters turned out to shoot the Bradford Gun Club Championship, and that's not as many as usual. This event is normally one of the most packed on the local shoot calendar, and there were a number of good shooters missing. That said, the entry list included plenty of quality to make it interesting!

We were all hoping for a fairly calm day after the wind tunnel that was Two Counties last week, and by and large it was. Any wind that appeared was blowing straight at us and lifting the targets which actually made most of them easier - but there were still plenty that weren't!

Fairly good conditions, except that the targets were hard to see when they lifted above the green background. I found I had to switch to my purple lenses!

The stand-out performers from the day were Simon Ede, Nick Shadrick, and Ed Collet. At the half-way stage, all three of them had hit every target they called for.

Nick was on a perfect 50/150, Simon was chasing him down on 50/147, and Ed was only just behind Simon on 50/146. Chris Smyth and Darren Vicary were also shooting well, and both of them were keeping up on 49/145. Dave Sleeman was right there too on 48/144, although he would need a lot to go his way to improve his position.

Fast forward to stage 3 and it was all-change.

Ed leapfrogged into the lead after a 25/74, and ended up one point ahead of Simon who had essentially repeated his first round, a 25/72. Nick had a very surprising blip where he missed three whole targets, and that would ultimately cost him. That also let Chris into the mix, who was still there or thereabouts despite seeming to have a touch of the "24 disease". However, he would need to find a cure very fast and for those ahead of him to falter if he was to have a chance.

As the last wave started, all eyes were on Ed and Simon.

Ed's one point margin was made even slimmer by the conditions, and he was dealt a cruel hand when the wind picked up his first target of round 4 and sent it to the moon. As I did last week, he missed it with both barrels. Two more second barrels followed, and that effectively opened the door wide for Simon to walk through it - which he did in fine style, while having to deal with a break in shooting caused by someone else on the squad having a gun malfunction.

Keeping his concentration, he carried right on after the restart and crushed his last few targets to finish as High Gun with the only 100 straight on the board, a 100/294.

Coming in three points behind him on 97/291 was Nick, who had bounced back from those three targets he missed in round 3 with another 25/75 - but despite the fantastic recovery, the damage had been too much, and he had to settle for 1st in AA.

Ed finished with a 99/290 and would have had 2nd in AA all to himself - except that yours truly was also there to share it with a 98/290.

An OK first round of 25/73, and a (at the time) mystifying second round of 24/70 set the tone for my day, and it took me a while to work out what was going on. A 24/72 in round three didn't help me either.

A few of the points I dropped were because of the wind, but what made a bigger difference was subtle improvements in my posture making me stand more upright than I have been - and to make the gun fit right I had to consciously tip the shoulders to the right and lean slightly more forward (proved by the nice 25/75 at the end).

But I had exactly the same thing with my Invictus III, and it just means that I need to fit the Jones adjuster that's sat on my desk at home to the K80, twist the pad round, and all will be well. I nearly fitted it when I first got the gun, but found that I didn't need it at the time.

Some people would say "You won the Dougall with it - why are you altering it???" But that's a short sighted remark - if something has changed for the better and it requires a gun fit tweak, then that tweak should be done. You should be able to raise the gun to you and for it to fit like a glove, not have to fit yourself around it which is what many shooters do.

Plus I want to keep shooting for a long time so a better spine position can only be good!

In the other classes, Colin Chidley won A with a 97/289, very closely followed by Andy Heywood who took 2nd in A with a 98/288. Andy was shooting on my squad and apart from the targets that escaped him, the rest were shown absolutely no sympathy whatsoever!

Jason Reskelly won B class with a 97/284, with Peter Pinno (96/278) and Mike Moore (93/278) sharing 2nd.

Al Dungey won C class with a 93/271, and Rob Northey took 2nd with a 93/264.

Well shot to all winners, and thanks to Matt and Ian at Bradford for another good days shooting.