Classic Pistols at British Bisley Air Gun Championships

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Thirdwheel
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Classic Pistols at British Bisley Air Gun Championships

Post by Thirdwheel » Sat Feb 22, 2014 6:14 pm

On friday my wife and I went to spectate at the Open British Air Gun Championships that is held at Bisley over three days. Very impressed with the setup with the main gallery upstairs of perhaps 60 electronic targets, screens and printouts, we also had a look at the finals hall dowstairs again impressive. Met RobinC who was there coaching his wife and fellow members of his club. He gave us a real insight into how the shooting is structured and organised - many thanks Robin!
This is real serious fun! watched the techniques used to shoot pistol and have learnt a lot from watching, the air rifle is interesting as I did not realise how important all of the stiff outer clothing and shoes were.
As far as classic pistol is concerned we saw an FWB65 / 80 being used by a very dignified looking chap sporting a superb beard and tweed jacket and a CO2 pistol with a jam pot gas canister and this made a resounding thump when fired. We watched their monitors and they were scoring 9's and 10's as well as anyone at that moment in time.
The volunteers helping run the event were very helpful and on a couple of occasions we were noticed as spectators and asked if we needed anything explained.
Now we have to practice, practice, practice as we plan to compete next year.

George

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Re: Classic Pistols at British Bisley Air Gun Championships

Post by pmh » Sat Feb 22, 2014 6:26 pm

:text-goodpost:

Thanks for the info.

I'd like to go along to something like this, but it's difficult finding the time to travel such a distance.

It would be good if such events rotated around the country, visiting selected areas so more could attend.

Not met Robin in person yet, but have pm'd, emailed, etc, and he is a thoroughly top chap, not to mention a great ambassador for the sport.

Kind regards,



Phil
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Thirdwheel
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Re: Classic Pistols at British Bisley Air Gun Championships

Post by Thirdwheel » Sun Feb 23, 2014 9:28 am

You can watch it in the comfort of your own home!!
You can watch the scores live from the Lord Roberts Center Bisley of the British air pistol championships. The link is http://shootingcentre.dyndns.tv/nsra/british/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
You can see the scores as they hit the target, so if you know someone shooting you can watch their groupings.
The ladies start at 8am the lads after, there is also the rifle competition.

Best cheers
George

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Re: Classic Pistols at British Bisley Air Gun Championships

Post by zooma » Sun Feb 23, 2014 1:15 pm

Previously the NSRA Air Weapons Championships were held at the Sophia Gardens in Cardiff.

I was lucky enough to enter and shoot air pistol there a few times in the 1970's and it certainly was an eye opener to see just how big these events are and it was good to see exceptionally talented shooters like Malcolm and Sarah Cooper with their Walther LGR air rifles shooting "live" when I was able to walk about in-between my own air pistol competition heats and finals.

The "Running Boar" competition was also fascinating to see as we never shot this discipline in our Exmouth Air Pistol and Rifle Club.

The icing on the cake for me was to see the international team events and we were especially delighted when one of our club members ( Robert Macintosh) was unexpectedly selected "on the day" to represent Northern Ireland and came away with an impressive medal to show off in the mini-bus during the trip back to Devon.

In those days we also had the NARPA National Championships that were held at RAF Cosford in Wolverhampton and again I was able to take part in some of these during this same sort of time period and was equally impressed at the scale of things.

The NARPA finals also featured Bell-Target shooting - the first time I had ever seen this competition shot live at national level. If I remember correctly there was a strong Channel Islands entry to challenge ( and beat) the established midlands teams.

Having more than one location for national championship air weapons finals was good as depending on where you lived some events may have been more accessible (and affordable) than others.

Sometimes we all clubbed together and rented a mini-bus to travel to these events and other times we made our own way there by filling members cars to make the journey more interesting. Those were the days!
Last edited by zooma on Mon Feb 24, 2014 4:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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RobinC

Re: Classic Pistols at British Bisley Air Gun Championships

Post by RobinC » Mon Feb 24, 2014 3:09 pm

Thanks George and Phil for the kind words,
Just hope the cameras did'nt catch the moment when my wifes trigger lost its sear adjustment (thats modern rifles for you!) during the sighting period and I had to do a fast trigger reset which got her back on the line just in time to start albeit with no sighters. We wondered if it was caused by George's magnetism, as a guy three down on the line two minutes later had a problem with a Steyr and my tool kit got called upon again!
It's more stressfull coaching and team managing than shooting!
Pam won her first international medal shooting in the GB ladies team as a team mate to Sarah Cooper in Holland in 1980, and she was hoping to win her third successive veterans air rifle trophy at 63 this week end, she still does not know as the computor system and the printer blew up on the last afternoon and now they have gone fully computorised it will be tomorrow (Tues day) before they correlate the final prize list! We never had that problem at Sofia Gardens!!
But it was great meeting and I'm sure many of you would love the atmosphere, I'm just glad when my last shooter has finished! And thats another good thing about the old Sophia Gardens, you could just go upstairs to the bar and have a drink!
Good shooting
Robin

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Re: Classic Pistols at British Bisley Air Gun Championships

Post by Thirdwheel » Tue Feb 25, 2014 7:20 am

Infact the moment was caught on camera, well not. There was a panoramic picture posted on the results site of the whole range when Pam was shooting but she was not there! She was missing but just out of the picture camera right. Shame the picture did not reach as far as the scene of you making fine adjustments under pressure on Pam's trigger fitted to her custom walther, the picture was high quality and zoomable and it would have been easy to pick out what make of 2lb engineers hammer you were using to make the adjustments!

Best cheers
George

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Re: Classic Pistols at British Bisley Air Gun Championships

Post by RobinC » Tue Feb 25, 2014 1:51 pm

Good job I was out of shot, especialy if there were any lip readers watching!

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