Prescott Cup 2023 - North Cornwall Shooting Ground 8/4/23

Yesterday we had the Prescott Cup for 2023 at North Cornwall Shooting Ground.

This competition is normally meant to be shot over 2 days, but this year, with everything going up in price, and mindful that 2 days of shooting might be a stretch for some people right now, the decision was made to reduce it to just one day instead.

I think that’s unfortunate because something is definitely lost by changing the format, but at the same time, I also think that it was a good choice.

The spirit of the event was retained, and we still had 6 full squads of shooters with some big names on the entry list promising plenty of competition.

As it turned out, one day was quite enough!

The morning dawned with clear blue skies, and the forecast showed sunny conditions all day with a northerly wind of about 4 mph.

Sunshine bathed the ground (although the temperature was a little on the cold side), and the targets were standing out like belisha beacons.

Everything looked perfect.

Except that someone must have left a fan on somewhere, because the wind was definitely not 4 mph!

It built throughout the morning, and did some interesting things to the targets – most of them left the trap like they wanted to set a new altitude record, while others did an excellent job of bobbling at just the right time to escape unscathed.

Colin Chidley had the best start out of everybody with a 25/74 in round 1, his experience with ABT serving him well.

Dave Sleeman and Simon Ede were the only others to start off with a 25 straight (a 25/72 and 25/71 respectively), while the rest of us were finding it tough going.

I for one was being caught out by the wind varying the target speed and line, either missing underneath, or in front.

In true fashion, I hadn’t helped my situation at all by fitting a recently acquired shooting accessory to the Invictus III a few days before - but I’ll say more about that later.

As the wind built, Dave was the only one to have the measure of it in his second round, posting one of only two 25/75s to grace the scoreboard over the entire day (the other came from Alan Reece in his last round).

At halfway, he had a 6 point cushion, and despite shooting a 24/71 and 24/72 to complete his day, nobody was able to reel him in.

He finished as High Gun and 1st in A Class, 8 points ahead of the field on 98/290, a masterful performance in very testing conditions.

Dave (right) receiving the cup from Simon.

Simon was next, finishing solidly with his second 25 straight of the day (a 25/73), and claiming AA Class by some margin with a 97/282.

Keith Woolcock took 2nd in A with a 94/277, one point ahead of Colin Childey who was 3rd in A with a 95/276.

Andy Vanstone rounded out the A class winners, placing 4th in class with a 96/273.

Roger Lewis was 1st in B Class with a 93/268, and Al Dungey 2nd in B with a 91/262.

Matt Rowland, who was at North of England a few weeks ago gaining valuable experience at his first England DTL Team Selection shoot, won C Class with a 92/268.

Well shot Dave, and everyone else who placed in class, and well done to Simon, Andy and Albert who kept everything running well whilst also competing themselves – and that’s not easy to do!

I must also say thank you to Keith, Barny Jackson, and Stuart Taylor, who all sponsored an extra prize for the 1st place in each class.

Now, as I mentioned, I made things harder for myself than they could have been, which is not what you want to do when faced with challenging conditions!

My final score was a 94/274, and it would probably have been better if I hadn't fitted something new to my gun.

But I think long term, and don't shy away from testing things under competition conditions where they have to work.

The accessory in question happens to be a Recoil Reducing TSK adjustable stock – and I know more than one of you will now be jumping up and down saying, “Why are you changing your stock when you’re shooting well with what you had??”

And yes, you have a very valid point – but you’re not me, and don’t experience things the same way.

There are a few reasons why I’ve gone down this route again (I still have my Ergosign with a Blaser grip that I was using a year or two ago).

Firstly, while I’ve achieved a good gun fit with a Jones adjuster fitted to the standard wood stock, there was more room for inconsistency than I wanted.

If I didn’t set my head in just the right place and lean it a little to the right, the gun would be ever so slightly twisted and not shooting where I expected, which has cost me a 2nd barrel on more than one occasion.

I’d rather have a good head / body relationship and remove as much chance of “going to the gun” during the gun mount as possible.

Secondly, if I didn’t “scrunch” a little and put some muscle behind the pad, the recoil would thump me in the shoulder.

Scrunching burns energy unnecessarily and hampers my movement, and on a shoot held over multiple days, that can make a huge difference to performance when it matters (being fresher in shoot-offs for example) - also, if the shoulder gets tender with a lot of shooting left, that’s something I can do without!

And thirdly, if I’m going to be working with clients that have a TSK stock on their gun, I need to know how they work and what’s possible with them.

Spot the difference!

But I didn’t just whack it on the gun and turn up yesterday – I went to Bradford on Tuesday to test it, and got it very close to what I was looking for.

The only thing I wondered at was the height of the comb – as I now see quite a bit of rib, the gun could easily be shooting too high.

However, during the shoot yesterday it seemed like it was too low based on the target breaks, and what I had to do to smoke one, and some tweaking over a few practice rounds afterwards confirmed that.

It’s almost there now, with those rounds containing some of the best balls of smoke I’ve ever had – but it might need just a teeny bit more height yet to get more of them – we’ll see!

The plan is to be comfortable with the stock before Fauxdegla at the end of May, and it’ll be very interesting to see what difference it makes over the 3 days there.

Until then, there’s plenty of local events to shoot, starting with Two Counties again next weekend – and I’ve heard a rumour that we might have some bright pink clays to shoot at!