Beep! Beep! Beep! Another 4.30am alarm call in the world of Precision Rifle. It's Saturday 4th August, and we are heading to a new range for us, Otterburn in the beautiful Northumberland countryside for a Jackal Rifle Club range day. Dad is pretty happy as its was only a 2.5 hour drive, we both know our jobs and the car is packed in no time. I wake up just south of Durham as dad pulls in for a coffee. We discuss our goals and what we want to get out of the day. After some “back and forth” we agree what I need to focus on for the day. 45 mins later and we are pulling into the car park and we play our usual game of spot the shooter, normal signs are big trucks and camo. We spot the rest of Team Jackal and wonder over for a chat, as we wait for Dale from Tactical Shooting Solutions to arrive.
My rifle was still with Mike Norris at Brock and Norris getting a 6.5 Creedmore barrel fitted. The guys at International Barrels Inc. have kindly donated the barrel to Mike for my rifle for the IPRF World Championships which I am going to in the USA, as part of Team GB. So this meant I was shooting Dad’s left handed rifle for the day, I have definitely spent more time behind a left handed rifle than a right handed one! We spent the day experimenting at longer distances and building confidence in our ballistics app. Wasn't all work, had a bit of fun shooting a WWII Lee Enfield, it had a bit of a kick to it! The rest of the week saw me doing dry fire routines and practicing positional shooting in the back garden.
Saturday 10th August saw us driving back up to Otterburn for over night stay before Precision Rifles Series UK Fundamentals Course. Finding quality instruction in the UK has always be difficult for PRS. The day started with a class room session before heading out to the ranges. The PRS UK Team did an amazing job and I learned loads of new skills and techniques. With my rifle still with Mike Norris, the PRS UK team arranged for me to shoot an Accuracy International AT-XC, and it was great fun to shoot a platform I had never shot before!
Another 4.30am alarm call on Monday 12th August, but I was excited to get up and get moving as I was picking up my new rifles from Brock and Norris! I woke up 10 mins from Mike’s unit, with Dad hustling me out of the van when we pulled up. It was the first time I had met Mike in the flesh. I was super happy when Mike handed me my 6.5CM all ready to go and the added bonus of my own .22lr, a right handed RimX! Spent a couple of hours chatting to Mike as he regaled us with his tails of trips to Namibia.
After a few days off from all things shooting, whilst I was wild camping in the lakes with a couple of mates, we finally got to shoot the Creedmore. We went to our local range to zero it and send a few rounds down range. The wait had been absolutely worth every second, I had never shot groups like it, it hammered round after round through nearly the same hole!!!
Another week of dry fire and positional practice followed, mainly to distract me from the looming school exams (GCSE) results day, which I thankfully passed without incident.
But there was no time to bathe in my academic success, as the day after, saw us heading off to Precision Rifle Series UK match at Pro Shoot in South Wales, via our local range to get a few more rounds down the barrel before the match. I woke up, and 5 hours later with only an hour or so to go until we reached the hotel.
One of the very best things about PRS is the community, we walked into the pub next to the hotel to beaming smiles and hugs from the friends we had made over the last 18 months, and after some food and banter it was time for an early night!
Impact! Impact! Impact! I had a little smile to myself as the rounds went down range on my first stage of the weekend! I finally got to shoot my beautiful new rifle in anger. Saturday was great fun, it took a little bit of adjusting to shooting a right handed rifle in a competition for the first time. At dinner time I was 15th over all which I was very pleased with. A few errors and poor stage planning saw me drop down the ranking in the afternoon.
High winds and heavy rain (aka “Welsh Summer”) made Sunday, a much more challenging prospect! It was an ideal opportunity to improve my wind calls and by the end of the day, I felt a lot more confident in my ability. I finished 22nd over all, which was very pleasing considering the conditions and the roll call of top shooters above me! Top Junior was a hollow victory as I was the only junior shooting but it was nice to be recognised by PRS UK. On the long drive back home dad and I hatched a plan to get more juniors into the Sport... watch this space!
With August drawing to a close we had one last event, which I had really been looking forward to, the Jackal Rifle Club PR22 Team’s shooting event and Humberside Dynamic Shooting Club (HDSC). This was a Shooting Team based events with Teams from the Republic of Ireland, Team Jackal, Team Bergara, Adhoc Teams from local clubs and a Development squad of new shooters. Saturday came and we were blessed with sunshine, hurrah! The whole day was spent shooting stages that not only tested our shooting ability but also our ability to function as a Team, good communication being a key skill. It made for a very different and enjoyable day. The day ended with the Irish guys taking the win and Team Jackal and Team Bergara tying for second place.
Just September to get through now and the small issue of the IPRF World Championships in Colorado.
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