The Bisley 200 Centenary Weekend – 3/6/23 – 4/6/23

I’m actually writing this from a hotel room in Northumberland!

It’s the annual Dougall Memorial and English Open DTL weekend at Bywell over the next 3 days, and I simply did not have time to write anything between the end of Bisley and coming up here.

By now, most people interested in how things went will know the result – this is more for the record, and to accompany the video footage that I took of the last Bisley 200 shoot (when I’ve had a chance to edit it!).

For anyone who still doesn’t know, Bisley Gun Club, that has been in existence since 1923 on the Bisley Camp site, is closing in July.

Their lease came up for renewal this year, and the NRA, who have been after the Bisley clubhouse for some time, gave them a number of options for renewal, all of which they could not take.

As I understand it, the club is moving to Dartford, and a good proportion of the very valuable trophies currently in the clubhouse are going to the CPSA.

Bill Logan tells me that the plan is to use them with competitions where there are no trophies in certain categories, and some of the ones left over may go elsewhere.

The Bisley Gun Club trophy cabinet in the clubhouse.

The partridge trophy - possibly destined for the Super Veteran winner at the English Open in the future.

At least some of the legacy of Bisley Gun Club will live on.

Anyway, here’s my summary of the weekend – enjoy!

Pre-shoot Practice Day – 2/6/23

I’m going to miss travelling to Bisley.

It’s one of those places that is pretty straightforward for me to get to, but the journey can get quite interesting if you hit certain spots at the wrong time (ah, Stonehenge!).

At the minimum it’s 3.5 hours, so that usually means leaving around 6am, and a stop in Cartgate Lodge Cafe for some breakfast.

That way, if I have to sit in traffic for a while, at least I have something to sustain me!

Normally though, heading towards London at that time of the morning is OK, as it was this time – the only slow spots were the single carriageway sections of the A303.

The journey complete, I arrived at the gun club car park and spent a few minutes quietly remembering the times I’d shot here, and contemplating what could soon be very different.

Then it was a short drive around the corner to the National Clay Shooting Centre to shoot some targets.

The layout at NCSC I was practising on. The red tank is a little different!

After my performance at Fauxdegla, using the Kreighoff again was a no-brainer, except that I wanted to try it with a parallel comb.

When I’d got back from Wales and cleaned the gun, I took the comb off and measured the length of the height screws with a vernier and recorded the lengths.

Then, I altered the comb to as near parallel as I could (using the Krieghoff gun case as a straight edge, and a snap cap for reference), and measured those.

So now, armed with those numbers, my vernier, the K80, and some credits on a card, I walked out to shoot and see what the new setup was like.

After a couple of changes back and forth between setups, I decided that the parallel comb was better for point of impact and overall fit, and ended up doing a full 100 target practice round to get as used to the new setup as I could before day 1 without overdoing it.

I missed a few, but felt like I was in a decent enough place by the end.

Then it was off to to the hotel to get checked in.

Gorse Hill Hotel, Woking - my digs for the weekend.

Day 1 - Saturday 3/6/23

We really were blessed with the weather all weekend – wall to wall sunshine, and a decent breeze to keep us cool.

The clubhouse.

Looking towards the layouts from the clubhouse steps.

Except that this breeze was also blowing straight at us on the shooting line.

As a result, the targets were lifting considerably, and that combined with what must have been full angles and a hefty launch spring made them strong and challenging.

When I got there at around 11am, the morning wave was all completed, and the top score on the board was 277, shared by Nick Haley, Paul Cannon, and Shaun Pullman, all A class shooters and capable of much better scores than that.

Fortunately for me, I’d shot some fairly high targets the day before, and forewarned by some who had come unstuck that morning, I had a fairly good idea of what to expect.

Even so, I shot my first target of the day and immediately moved my gun hold up about a foot to avoid chasing them too much!

I missed a couple because I was still working out where the Krieghoff was now shooting, but that didn’t take me long.

Next round, 25/75, then 25/73, and then a couple more misses in round 4 to finish with.

These were probably because I tracked the targets out and never got ahead of them, but everything else was hit pretty hard, and I ended on 96/286 for the day.

Day 1 scorecard - first half.

Day 1 scorecard - second half.

Meanwhile, Steve Janes, after his excellent weekend at Fauxdegla a few days before, was making it look incredibly easy while saying that it wasn’t!

After blasting his way through a perfect 25/75 to start, his next three rounds were all 25/74s, and he finished on a brilliant 100/297, a score that nobody else even came close to.

Harry Lufflum was also shooting tidily, and he ended up joining me on 286.

We were actually sitting in equal second overnight, and the 11 point gap between us and Steve was absolutely huge.

For either of us to beat him and win the weekend, we needed him to miss 4 whole targets, and for us to shoot 300s – a situation that really wasn’t going to happen!

So, resigned to the fact that I wasn’t going to have my name on the trophy again and the honour of winning the last 200 shoot, I turned my attention to securing the AA class win, which would not be easy!

Day 1 scoreboard - page 1

Day 2 – Sunday 4/6/23

The day dawned not quite so sunny, but the wind was still there.

For some reason, the targets on the right hand layout weren’t as high as they had been the day before, but they were no less a challenge for it.

Steve had basically won the shoot the day before, and all Harry and I could do was get our heads down and see who could out-shoot the other for overall second, and the AA badge.

My day started well with my second 25/75 of the weekend, and plenty of the targets I hit were reduced to fine particles.

Harry and Steve were shooting at the same time as me on the other layout so I couldn’t see what they were doing (which was probably just as well!), but in any case, I knew that I would have to do well to stay in contention, and maybe even win a shoot-off if it came to that.

A second round of 25/73, then a 24/71, told me that it would be close, and when I missed a whole target in my last round, I thought I’d blown it.

98/291 didn’t feel like it was enough.

Day 2 scorecard - first half.

Day 2 scorecard - second half.

Fortunately for me, Harry had had a similar day to me, and ended up finishing 2 points behind me in third.

So I’d done what I set out to do that morning – hold on to second and win AA.

But what mattered more to me was the badge.

The set of centenary badges that had been made for this shoot were very smart, and truly unique.

The full set of commemorative badges made for the event.

It really means a lot to have something that I know will never be made again, and it will take pride of place in my collection with my England Team badges.

For Steve, it really was all over bar the shouting.

Still hammering away and determined to hit them all, he had a back spasm in round 2 and missed one because he couldn’t twist, but after some painkillers he was right back at it with another 25/75, and a 25/73 to finish.

A 99/295 to go with his 100/297 from the day before – 199/592 over two days, a winning margin of 15 points, on some rather tough and challenging targets, and after a weekend at Fauxdegla where he hit nearly 500 straight with only a few second barrels.

The man really is a shooting machine at the moment, and his complete domination of the weekend saw him defend his win from 2022 in fine style.

Lorrie Greening, who’s shooting has come on leaps and bounds over the last year or two, recovered from a very disappointing first day to shoot a 99/292 on day 2, and cement her hold over the Ladies trophy.

Nick Haley shot steady all weekend and finished up with the A class win.

B class went to Darren Vicary, who is finally beginning to settle with his shooting after a few years of rocky results.

Rod Greening astounded himself by winning C class – and that’s after telling me that he’d played around with the setup on his Krieghoff and completely changed it (like me haha!).

I’d leave it where it is for now Rod!

Steve Booth won the Veterans category, and Tony Dore secured Super Veterans.

The full weekend scores - page 1.

The full weekend scores - page 2.

Well shot to everybody who won a category or class prize, and thank you to Dave Amos, Janine, club members, the referees, and everyone involved in making the last Bisley 200 shoot happen.

As I’ve said before, I’m very disappointed that we’re losing such a lovely club with so much history, and for what it’s worth, I’d also like to thank everybody involved in it, both past and present, for what they’ve done over the years.

I’ve enjoyed every visit, even the ones where my results have been poor, and as a training ground to teach you how to shoot hard targets, I know of none better.

Goodbye Bisley Gun Club – you will be missed.