Trials and Tribulations

The process of actually getting to go to the Commonwealth Games is a long and often frustrating one; even after you have notionally been selected by your NGB*, there may be a whole host of other criteria to be fulfilled and indeed as one person once put it to me: you're not 100% sure until you're sitting on the plane waiting to take off. You need to convince them that you're capable of a medal-winning performance on the day.

I cannot speak for the other countries involved in The Games, whose selection processes may involve anonymous committees in smoke-filled rooms and the reading of entrails following the ritual sacrifice of small animals for all I know**; however Team Wales, the WTSF and the WRA jointly have a fairly straightforward approach, which can be summarised from the point of view of an athlete thus:

1. Do lashings and lashings of individual and pairs training
2. Come in the top 2 in the nominated ranking events
3. Shoot as many minimum consideration scores as humanly possible, preferably during competitions involving other CWG-level athletes, whom you beat during the process

There is considerably more to the formal procedure than this from the point of the NGB, but this gets to the heart of what you actually need to do and can control in order to get selected. My legendary pardner CJW and I have achieved #2, have solid plans in place for #1, and are both working on #3. Unfortunately #3 involves shooting a total of 399 out of 405 for a full HM Queen's Prize course of fire, which is no mean feat; doubly so when you live in a country where no one ever shoots a full HMQPCOF. Fortunately, I also live in a country of fine, upstanding people who are willing to muck in and help out a fellow rifle shooter in need; and, to cut a long story short, I've been shooting alongside the NZ CWG ranking events which do involve shooting the full course of fire.

Fast forward to last week, when I got to spend a wonderful four days down at Trentham trying to shoot an MCS while simultaneously not cocking up anyone else's shoot. At this point enormous thanks are due to a moderate-sized cast of people who helped out by ROing, butt marking, logistics etc... etc... So 'nuff respect*** to Kevin Win, Tony Gore, Andre Doyle, Vic and Jared McMurdo of HotloadeD Kiwi fame, Eben Fourie, Darryl Crow, John McLaren, Brian Carter, John Snowden, Bevan Mehrtens, Malcolm Dodson, John Whiteman, Geoff Smith, Rob Johansen, Rick Fincham, Allen Owens, Henry Firmston, and all the others who helped out and made things run super-smoothly.

The downside is that I didn't get an MCS; I managed two 396s. Boo! The upside is that I did have some excellent groups and only one dodgy shoot. Yay!

35.6 at 300x in Trial 2

35.7 at 500x in Trial 1. Bring it.

35.6 at 600x in Trial 1. Tough to get on 600x ICFRA targets.

On the other hand, the second of my 396s would have been a 401 (and therefore a minimum consideration score by 2 clear points) had I not carelessly placed one of my shots on an adjacent target at 900 yards. Boo!

Shot #12 rather spoiled the look of the thing.

While I didn't ultimately get the result that I wanted out of the weekend, it was a really worthwhile exercise now that I have some emotional distance on the crossed shot: I got to shoot two full courses of fire with top flight shooters; had some great results; have confirmed that my brand new jacket does not fit; have confirmed that the tweaks I have made to my old jacket have helped; and it is clear to me that I can (still) shoot the groups and scores required. Roll on June, when I'll hopefully get a chance to shoot a full course of fire on Belmont Range in Australia, the 2018 Gold Coast CWG venue.

* National Governing Body. It actually may not be entire clear who your NGB is, or indeed there may be more than one body you need to satisfy during the process.
** You know who you are.
*** I may be up to date on shooting terminology, but my chat dates from the mid-90's.

Lies, Damned Lies and Self-Coached Plot Sheets

After a moderately successful Imperial Meeting - if not quite a top-flight one - I got to enjoy a few days staying in the van on camp before heading back to NZ. It's nice to have a little time for reflection, which I find enhanced by the opportunity to run a few miles along the Basingstoke Canal. One afternoon during this period of post-Imperial bliss and after just such a run, a good friend (who we'll refer to as TT) stopped by and asked if he could take a look at some of my plots. I was packing up and had all of them to hand. "Pick a card, any card," I said. TT had a quick look through a couple of cards before handing them back to me. "Interesting," he commented.

Now, while I find plot sheets interesting to a certain extent I'm not sure that many other people do; After all, there's only so much information you can glean from a single scorecard; so I asked him why he wanted to look at them and heard a tale which saddened me slightly. TT had been shown a series of plots by another shooter, who appeared to consistently hold about half a minute at all distances and who appeared only ever to lose shots to wind. Now as it happens, I have shot with the shooter in question a number of times over the years. This person is a reasonably competent shooter, but I know from observation of their shoots and their results that they aren't quite of that high standard and I'm reasonably sure that they are engaging in the practice of "flattering" their plots; that is to say, plotting shots closer to the waterline (possibly at the expense of their apparent wind reading ability) than they actually were.

How so, you may ask?

Quite apart from having seen this person shoot, as you'll see from my plots I dropped at least two points to bad shots during the Grand Agg (as I have previously pointed out, you can lose shots sideways to apparent wind errors when actually a poor shot is to blame) but still managed a reasonable 14th place. For me a 1 minute group is reasonably good, a 3/4 minute group very good and 1/2 minute exceptional. I have shot smaller groups, but only during 2+7s and not very often. Shooting of this standard (with the occasional bad shot, as you can observe) has done me reasonably proud*.

My highest score (but not best group) of the 2016 meeting. 1 MOA extreme spread for a 75.14 in St. George's II.

Probably more relevant than this, I entered down the coordinates of every single shot of the winning and record-scoring GB Team's plots from the 2007 Palma Match into a spreadsheet as part of my Master's thesis into the culture of high performing teams and of the 16 shooters in the match, only about 5 consistently held under a minute. The tightest shooter had a 2SD statistical group** of 0.85moa.

OK, you may be saying at this point, some people make their groups look a bit smaller than they are. So what? Well, here's the rub: firstly, these people are lying to themselves about their own ability. They are handicapping themselves, to a certain extent, because unless they are possessed of exceptional memory they will be making judgements about sight changes based on incorrect data. More than this, many match captains look at plots in addition to raw scores as they help to balance the fact that not all details are made equal from a wind standpoint. This means that under some circumstances, people who do this may be cheating other people who have shot better out of places on the National Match and other teams.

On a final note, let us consider what my friend and notable international coach MJE did at the start of a plotting classroom training session a few years ago. He displayed to the assembled shooters and coaches an oath, which roughly stated that they would plot all shots accurately. He then invited everyone to repeat it out loud. They duly did so. Think about that for a bit.

* That's not to say that I wouldn't want smaller groups. I do, and I try quite hard to achieve them.
** This means that 95% of the shots fired during the Palma Match would be within a circle of 0.85MOA and 99% within a circle of 1.28MOA.***
*** You may be wondering why I used a statistical approach rather than just, say, extreme spread. Like extreme spread statistical groups are roughly comparable between ranges, but also they allow a better comparison between different types of group. Some people just shoot big groups. Some people shoot small groups but wing one occasionally. Using a statistical group discriminates better between these two types of shooter.

The Glory of the Bisley Imperial Meeting

Sitting in the departures lounge of LHR's Terminal 2 well in advance of my departure time - I always like to be early when travelling with Winona* in case of any of the risks which may crystallise - my social media feeds are filled with posts on the Imperial Meeting just completed. I feel much the same each year; that this year was in some way special; in some way better than the equally-perfect ones which have gone before.

Let me say this, then. This year was special in a multitude of ways, and it was perfect as a unique collection of experience, but yet could have been even better and I look forward to next year, the year after, or some future meeting topping it.

I shot well, but perhaps not as quite as well as I could have done. After all, I didn't win that elusive Bisley major and my final range in the Kolapore was a bit sub-par. The weather was interesting, having started off a bit on the cool and damp side, but soon came fine; even too fine towards the last few days. I got to spend a great deal of time with many of my friends, but it's never enough. How could it be with such people as ANRW, DAR, AMcC, CmcC, CJW, VW, SIF and so many others? How could it ever be?

Mistake not my intent. Above and beyond this was the quality of the experience of shooting at Bisley and the competition, which will have created memories that will keep us going until the next time. Jim took another Grand Agg, DC took another Queen's Prize, ANRW rounded out a solid meeting with his first St. George's Challenge Vase,  Welsh shooters took podium places in a number of major competitions. For me though, there is only one story and it's one that I'm still not sure how to react to simply because it hasn't made it through to me yet; big things take time to think through.

Wales won The National Match.

The winning team. Photo copyright Bob Oxford and reproduced on Gun & Run with his kind permission. 

Sure, England handicap themselves by their selection policy**; the conditions were easy; none of these facts matter to me or anyone else that matters because they are outweighed by the positives. We always struggle to get a quality team of 20 shooters together but this year contrived to pick the right people at the right time, with the result that our normal 98-ish bottom score magically became a 102, a sizeable majority hit 104s, and our normal one or two 105s suddenly blossomed into a round three-quarter dozen clean scores.

It is the one rifle match I never expected to win during my career. And so, it is all the more valuable and memorable and treasured as a result.

* My rifles have each had names: Rifle #1 was Marilyn, rifle #2 was Nariko and my current squeeze is  named Winona. Kudos to anyone who can spot whence the name originates.

** Although a more cynical person could argue that this is in itself a strategy to secure a long-term supply of talent and deny the other nations shooters who could compete for them; however that's an argument for another day, and possibly even a bit too cynical a view for my taste.

Range Report: CWG Trial 2

The British Commonwealth Rifle Club open meeting usually features some pretty stiff competition, not least because to become a member of the club you must have shot on an international team; however a majority of serious shooters also take part as by tradition the ammunition used comes from the same batch as that year's Imperial meeting.

The short range on day 1 was dominated by tricky winds and rain, with scores not up to their usual standard; although this didn't seem to phase any of the six people on detail 1 who managed to slot in 50.9s in the West Indies 300 yard shoot. Unfortunately I lost one out the top to a bit of early nerves, but held the rest in for a slightly loose 49.5.

A bit nervous at the start. Long time, no live fire.

Similarly, the first of two shoots at 500 yards, the India, was not all it might have been; I made a bold change at the start of the shoot and wound myself out to the left and was a bit more circumspect later on in the piece, only to lose one out right when I under-called a big change. Two down seemed to be a little off the pace, given the conditions, and I was already a shot behind.

Better elevation, but got the wrong end of the bracket twice.

We would revisit 500 yards after lunch in the Africa which went somewhat better. My position felt tight but relaxed and the rifle rested cleanly on target, with the result that the one shot I did help slightly clipped the lefthand edge of the vee-bull. My compatriot CJW managed to take the top slot with a superb 50.10 but I was pleased with my own 50.8. My hold had settled down after the very slightly shaky start in the morning.

Bring it.

Although the winds seemed to die back, they did have the capacity to surprise back at 600 yards. I pursued a strategy of shooting to the mean wind and trying to avoid firing in the lulls and gusts. My group was solid and I only lost one right at the end; I backed off a quarter as the wind appeared to be dropping, which proved a poor judgement call and cost me both the possible and the win. I ended up four off on the day, in 7th place.

A bit unlucky to finish on an inner, but could have been worse. A bit later and it could have been a magpie.

The Sunday morning dawned still, and there were expectations of high scoring. These were proved right on the first detail of the Falkland Islands at 900x, but the flags started to lift towards the end of the shoot and when the second detail got down, there was a very fickle lefthand wind with some big gusts and drop-offs. I shot reasonably well but couldn't quite keep up with the bracket of 4 to 8 despite recognising halfway through that I was constantly lagging the changes. I was unable to get ahead and finished with an OKish 48.5

Decent shoot, just not quite up to speed with the wind.

The odd wind conditions continued during the second 900x shoot of the morning. Fortunately my shooting was getting into the groove and I had more of a handle on the wind, and while I was unlucky to lose my 5th out left my 11th to count only stayed in by virtue of being a waterline shot. There were no 75s and I missed out on the tie shoot by a single vee-bull.

Happy with this. Got unlucky with shot 3, but lucky with shot 9. Honours even.

A long break before the shoot at 1000 yards afforded me the opportunity to have a decent lunch and a brief snooze in the vam before heading back up to Stickledown. The lazily flapping flags convinced me that this was going to be relatively straightforward; however as the previous details had found, the wind would pick up to a more typical value before ebbing back. The shifting winds, combing with a slack shot over which I took too much time, meant I lost 4 points; far from a disaster, but a little off the pace.

Shot 11 spoiled the look of the thing; I held on too long, but otherwise I'm happy with the shooting.

My consistent, if not exceptional, shooting won me 4th place in the BCRC Open but took me the top slot in Trial 2. This is heartening, as I'm still on the upswing but haven't yet hit top form, and with the Imperial Meeting making up trials 3 and 4, things are looking positive. A bit more SCATT and some livefire before everything kicks off next Friday, and hopefully I'll be able to make the most of my squadding.

Proper prior preparation prevents...

It's been a while because of work, family and (to a lesser extent) running but today I made it out onto the range for the first time since I shot at Bisley in July. Actually, I must confess to being a terrible hypocrite because much as I go on about training, I've virtually not picked up a rifle since then either; and it shows.

While my core groups at 300x today were OK, I had a flyer at each range: one was definitely me, as I saw it go way left in the inner and the target came up with the spotting disc pretty much where I thought I had put it; the other I didn't see go, which worries me. On the other hand there are two handy potential culprits today:

1. It's better when your foresight iris doesn't unscrew itself while you're shooting; and
2. One of the pillars that holds your cheekpiece in place stops doing that



If it does this, don't shoot.

The good news is that I can fix both of these things very quickly and it was only a practice; this being what practice is for. The bad news is that its doesn't matter if it was an equipment failure, these are avoidable errors. Still, lesson learned. Move on.

To finish on a positive note, there were many things which went well today. I felt comfortable with the rifle and although my first few shots were wobbly (two V sighters in my first shoot, thank you very much) things started to settle down quite quickly. My routine seemed to re-establish itself quite quickly (see video below*.) My test ammunition also shot well, with both short range and long range loads going well.

I've got 22 days before the nationals at Trentham so I need to get on the case with the SCATT and the visualisation. Fortunately I only have 3 days left until I'm on holiday for Christmas and only another 3 days at work. I will inevitably spend some of this in a G 'n' T, wine and port-induced stupor but I do intend to spend at least some of it working on my game.

* Yes, I now have a GoPro. Actually, I have a SJCAM5000+ which is as good and about a third of the price. I'm going to work out if and how I can use it to learn more from my shooting training sessions. I apologise in advance if you see lots of short videos of me shooting from now on.