Now logically, you would think that a cloudy sky would make some difference to the temperature at ground level – but not today!

Hello from a very warm, sunny, and parched Bisley Gun Club!

If you walk up to the long 1200m rifle range and look beyond the distant line of target plates, you can see the area burned black by the recent wild fires, and where the blaze started making it’s way across the range before being brought under control.

The ground up here is so dry that it feels like you’re walking around on concrete. Everything is brown and dusty. The weather isn’t doing anything the help with that either. Perfect conditions for flying clay targets, but not for personal comfort!

Well, it’s a little unfortunate, but our spell of clear blue skies and blazing sunshine had to come to an end eventually.

Richard did an OK job of booking the weather for us today - damp and humid, but a much better temperature and no rain (apart from a smattering of fine mizzle that did nothing).

Yet another day when we’ve been absolutely spoilt for weather, and 5 squads made the most of it.

This event is usually very well attended, so I’m not sure why we didn’t have so many this time. Nevertheless, the standard of shooting was just as high as ever.

Bradford had two competitions running today – the first Devon Single Barrel selection shoot for 2022, and a 100 DTL Registered. We couldn’t shoot both, so a choice had to be made!

I elected to shoot DTL to flush out and deal with the gremlins that have plagued my away campaign so far this year, and it didn’t take long for them to appear.

And so, after a rather enjoyable (if personally frustrating!) 3 days of shooting, at a top notch ground with first class facilities and very professional staff, the Gamebore DTL Grand Prix is over for another year.

Here we are then - Day 1 of the main event!

Today’s scores will be added to tomorrow’s to give everyone a combined score out of 600, so we won’t know who’s in the running for the win until around lunchtime tomorrow.

That said, the overnight scores are still very interesting!

What a prelude to the main event today was!

Personally, it was another poor day at the office. I won’t dwell on it, but it suffices to say that my not so good form continues with a 96/283.

Well, I’ve made it to East Yorkshire!

This competition is one that I’ve been looking forward to since I found out it was happening. As I mentioned last time, I’m so glad to see it survive the closing of Mid Wales Shooting Centre in 2020.

Today was a brief return to the home patch before I head off to East Yorkshire for the Gamebore DTL next weekend. I’m so glad to see it resurrected, and to have another crack at challenging for the top spot!

In fact, Two Counties is an ideal venue to shoot before East Yorkshire. Both places have very similar target setups, and the wind can make things tricky in rather similar ways.

And that’s exactly what happened today!