THE 2011 EUROPEAN F CLASS CHAMPIONSHIPS BISLEY - ENGLAND
Such were this meeting’s standards that 72.3v was only good enough for 40th match place! Nevertheless, despite the light winds, there were ‘only’ three 75s (compared to 19 in ‘Open’), Spaniard Dario Sanchez Ibarguren leading Diggle’s Stuart Anselm and Ukraine’s Alexandr Nicolaev with nine, seven and six Vs respectively. Ireland’s David Comerford was first in a pack of no fewer than 13 shooters on 74 with a superb 10 V-count, highest equal in the match with Sergey Gorban. Standby rifle or not, Russell Simmonds was well up on 74.9v and 5th place. Adam Bagnall was at the other end of the 74-pack with a relatively low match place but only dropping one point against F/TR leader Alexandr Nicolaev and none against Russell.
Fishtail It’s late morning and time for the dreaded 900 yards but the headwinds seem mild and still look as if they need some right windage on. The clouds are low, it’s dull, and the odd spot of drizzle spatters onto the firing line but the rain has held off. I prefer these light Bisley headwinds to the seasonal prevailing 7 o’clock version but I’m in a minority on this.
Start on zero wind and it’s a central ‘four’ at four o’clock for the first sighter – nearly half-MOA left still needed despite what the flags say. Shade left for sighter 2, a quarter MOA extra elevation and it’s a solid ‘five’ at six o’clock – the only sighter I converted over the two days. Then ... ‘it’ started again, only worse as the rifle simply strung shots up and down the four- ring plus yet another early on-its-own shot way up at the top of the three-ring for 2½-MOA total variation. The good news was I only made one poor wind call throughout so things could have been very much worse.
On my wind zero, the plot showed four shots needed something left, one zero and the remaining nine right from a mere shade up to three-quarters-MOA. So, it’s 65.1v and an even lower 59th match place but I’m happy having read the wind so much better than on the previous day’s 900.
Although the winds were light, the fishtailing tendency and some near-MOA changes between shots made it likely everybody would leak out at some point or other and sure enough there were no 75s or 74s. Five competitors shared 73, Reinhard Lang of Germany took first on a good nine Vs, Enrique Orti and Stuart Anselm second and third places with eight and seven respectively. The others were Ireland’s David Comerford and Paul Eggerman, so that makes it two Germans and one each from Spain, Ireland and the host country for that leading group – our continental neighbours have really improved their game.
With this the penultimate match, how did the other rivals for the European F/TR top slot fare? Adam Bagnall and Steve Donaldson scored 70s, Russell Simmonds was further back on 67.4v, Alexandr Nicolaev similarly placed on 67.2v, and George Barnard still lower on 66.3v.
Magpie Alley So, it’s mid Saturday afternoon and time to take part in the final individual match, 2+20 at 1000 yards, also the day’s final relay. It’s very dull now but still dry and the wind is milling around from what looks like 12 to 1 o’clock. This was the sole 20 round match, conditions look tricky and F/TR gets hard at this distance, so there were major opportunities and risks for the competitors at the top of the leader board. If my arithmetic is right, Stuart Anselm had moved up four places and was now in a one point lead pushing Alexandr Nicolaev and Russell Simmonds into the 2nd and 3rd slots but with only four points across them. Other big climbers after Match 5 were Paul Eggerman (7th to 4th), Adrian Casey (11th to 5th), and Adam Bagnall (15th to 8th).
Stuart stayed on top form winning Match 6 and the F/TR European Championship with a superb 95.8v. Richard Jones, who’d already put in some excellent scores got 2nd with 94.4v and Les Dawson had his best match of the event for 3rd on 93.5v. Adam Bagnall, Steve Donaldson, and George Barnard all had a good match too, sharing 93 with lower V-counts. Another good result was that of the popular NRA lady Heather Webb with 92.5v for 7th. Richard Jones’ result gave him a great 10th overall but didn’t affect the top few, likewise Les’s third so Adam, Steve and George could move up significantly depending on how Alexandr Nicolaev and Russell Simmonds had done. Both
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