Results from Townsville

[albow]

Well the weekend saw us shoot the 550 BR on Saturday and our 1000yd Postal on Sunday.

Conditions on Saturday were bright and sunny, extremely warm giving unbelievable mirage and rather gusty weather which as the day went on was reflected in the group aggs for the day however there were a couple of opportunities to shoot some individual small groups and high scores. Of particular note was the first ever perfect 55 scored by Greg H with a 0.981" group from his HG. As far as results go:

LG group agg was taken out by Tony Z with 3.194" and score agg was also taken out by Tony after a tie with Eric G on 195 however the smaller group agg gave him the win.
HG saw group agg won by JR with a 2.084" aggregate and Greg H won the score with a very respectful 204.

Following on from Saturday saw the weather on Sunday to be a polar opposite and in fact you would have thought we were in Melbourne with the extreme change that occurred as the weather was much cooler, overcast and squally showers that tended to drop quarter of an inch of rain in about 10 mins provided some challenges of its own. Agg results were:

HG won by JR with a score agg of 188.4 and group agg of 10.033"
LG score was won by Tony Z with 94.2 and group agg won by Jeff H with 6.293"

Full results are available in the competitions section.

The next shoot is the first weekend in April and now that the fly is back up and running, this weekend may be a fly shoot given it has been three years since we have shot the fly and no doubt there will be a few cobwebs to iron out before the upcoming Ironman on Easter weekend.

[Tony Z]

Great weekend, crystal clear viewing once again for both days with very little wind, if any.
It was great to see Greg H back out with my old HG put down yet anther sub inch group on our range at 550 yards. Had it been a Fly target, it would have been the first ever 60 with 5 Flies shot where it took the X mark clear out of the target. One thing of note is that the barrel in that gun is now 4443 rounds old and still easy to clean. Surely it must die soon? Well JR hopes it does die soon .
A big thanks to Jeff H for doing the bullet testing for me on Sunday. They looked very impressive putting 4 into 3 inches and unluckily having one step out to open the group to just over 5 inches. Next month sees the gun and bullets handed over to Alan H for the rest of the season of 1K.

As for me and the 308, 1 MOA is just simply not good enough. Easy to score with, but the vertical, which was not evident on the Saturday, killed off any chance of a good group. The second group was less than 2 inches in width, but 9.5 inches high. Three in the 10/X ring and one out high and low in the 9 ring. Missed something with the load testing on that Saturday. Actually every rifle there on Saturday was in the process of load testing, and we all learnt fuckall. The only rifle not tested was the one i loaned to Jeff. There must be a moral in that somewhere.

See you all next month.

[albow]

Hey TZ I learnt something in the testing I did on Saturday which was I had to back off to get away from that pressure

I'm not 100% sure the vertical on Sunday was all in the loads. Was definitely something to do with the range as during the sighters it was nothing to go top of the 9 ring to bottom of the 9 ring. Luckily though both my groups finished up pretty good on vertical with one being just under 2" and the other being just over 3" so I may play a bit more with that load because at least all the primers made it through

[justjeff]

A big thanks to Tony Z for the rifle and ammo to shoot these last two 1000yd comps, my heavy gun is getting it's barrel transplant and action transformation so I haven't a gun to shoot. Considering the wind and rain both days I was more than surprised to shoot the two smallest groups I have ever recorded at that distance. Who says 6mm bullets won't ride the wind well? Thanks again Tony, was interesting to shoot a light gun for a change.

Jeff

[a.JR]

Hi all , As reported ,the conditions were not as good as usual , there were winds gusts from 1 through to at least 3 kph .. Played havic with the vertical ,i saw bullets drop at least 2 ins from poa on sunday , generally but cool calm weather and i did'nt see any mirage at all .. It's back to the gun tuning for me as i hate it when the light gun groups are smaller than the heavyguns , god i hate that ..JR..Jeff Rogers

[Tony Z]

I think that overall, any decent gun that comes up from the south for our Iron Man, will surely kick our butts. Without mirage and where the conditions from now on in only get better, we are all going to get dusted. JR i never realized that the wind gusts on the weekend where that extreme. Owh Mien Gott, no wonder i had that much vertical.

[dg]

Tony

apparently, to compensate for the continuing lack of wind and air movement, in and around townsville, the gliding club up there have developed and are testing solar powered gliders.

just another example of north queensland ingenuity.

dave g

[a.JR]

Solar you say dave , Tricky buggers those Fly boys hey .. mind you if there ever was a National Championship event in another state we could come down and get some all weather experience then ..JR..Jeff Rogers.. hey thats a thought ,Narromine for the Nationals