5th May - OCs win Short Range "Q" Match!! Report
This is the plan for 2001 so far. How it works out... Stop Press: I have heard that, at this moment, Bisley is closed as a result of the foot-and-mouth disease precautions. This is due to be reviewed on Monday, 5th March. Other movement restrictions may apply - will we be able to go to Cranleigh on 16th March? I will try my best to keep you up to date. Update 8/03/01: Bisley was reopened today with movement restrictions. Click NRA Requirements for information on all this.
Disclaimer: all the following material was written by the previous Hon. Sec. of the OCRC, Ted Eilley, and represents his views alone.
16th March - .22 v. the School
This was a very good evening! We started at 19:30 as planned. Because of competing commitments the School was able to field a team of six and the OCs were able to match that at a strength of seven, no less. Your Hon. Sec. is very appreciative of the support for this from the OCRC and hopes that everyone enjoyed himself. We all shot with the School Number 8 rifles and at the 1971 Cadet Five-bull target. The shooting was pretty even and steady and we normalised the OC score to that of a team of six, so, with a possible team total of 600 we have:
| The School | 531 |
| The OCs | 546 |
Many thanks to Gordon Bryant for the excellent organisation!
7th April - Short Range Practice
Very disappointingly only Rob Welford, Edward Welford, Stephen King and Ted Eilley were able to get to this and Stephen King thought his time would be best spent on the Zero Range. The rest of us did some fairly respectable shooting, in quite reasonable conditions, at 300 and 600 yards. As a team of three we scored 292.27. This was supposed to be the warm-up for the SR"Q" Match on 5th May: the team selectors will just have to rely on instinct!
We now have experience of operating under the current foot-and-mouth driven restrictions. It really is not too serious: although vehicles are not permitted on the ranges, full pedestrian access is available. All the kit has to be carried but I can recommend the Fishing Trolley sold by Argos (cat no 325/4138 @ £24.99). In view of this restricted mobility, we really need to have NRA markers and this means we have to have solid support from the membership if a serious financial hit is to be avoided.
21st April - Long Range Practice
It is a great disappointment that this event had to be cancelled. We have avoided a substantial financial penalty on the basis that we shall re-arrange the fixture in some form later in the season. We certainly hope to be able to do so.
5th May - Short Range "Q" Match
The weather was fine, for a change, and the wind was lively enough to make things a little interesting. Some teams were rather short of numbers, so, at range changeover the organisers were supported in a move to reduce the number of scores for a team total to four. The results in the following table show a very convincing win for the Old Cranleighans.
| Old Cranleighans | 380.20 |
| Old Framlinghamians | 375.28 |
| Lancing Old Boys | 374.29 |
| Old Lawrentians | 369.28 |
| Old Albanians | 369.27 |
| KCS Old Boys | 354.15 |
| Old Alleynians | 352.20 |
The "first reserve" was Nick Drew, the Hon. Sec. of the Old Cranleighan Clay Pigeon Club, who has never shot full-bore rifle before and scored an outstanding 88.3. If the rules had not been changed and we had had to declare a five man team score it is almost certain that we would still have won the match.
19th May - Long Range "Q" Match
We had high hopes of a "Q" Match "double" but it was not to be: we could only manage 2nd place. Lancing deployed some secret weapons: the team included at least one recognisable GB international shot. Nevertheless, we did not shoot as well as we should have done and, I believe, suffered from the fact that we were not able to have any practice at long range this year. The rules were as normal for the "Q" Matches, four team members nominated at the start and the rest shoot for the fifth place; results are:
| Lancing Old Boys | 461.30 |
| Old Cranleighans | 449.28 |
| Old Lawrentians | 442.31 |
| Old Framlinghamians | 428.22 |
| Old Alleynians | 425.23 |
| KCS Old Boys (4) | 352.9 |
Our performance was a solid mediocre, everyone getting close to the team average of just under 90 points per man, but there was one very bright spot: Tim Bourne shot a 49.5 at 1000 yards.
2nd June - Cranleigh Tankard and AGM
After a little rain early on at 300 yards the weather cheered up a lot and we enjoyed good shooting conditions. The Tankard was won convincingly by Rob Welford with 99.10. Nevertheless, four of the OCs present broke 95, as shown in the following table.
| 300 yards | 500 yards | Total | |
| Tim Bourne | 47.2 | 48.7 | 95.9 |
| David King | 50.2 | 45.4 | 95.6 |
| Rob Welford | 50.6 | 49.4 | 99.10 |
| Ted Eilley | 48.4 | 49.7 | 97.11 |
The Annual General Meeting of the Old Cranleighan Rifle Club took place at the Surrey Rifle Association after rifle cleaning.
17th June - Match versus the School
We take the match against the School very seriously and we hope for a good turn-out. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the membership we were able to field a full VIII. At this point your Hon. Sec. has to come clean and admit that, despite his best efforts, factors such as target availability prevented him steering round long-laid holiday plans as he had expected to be able to do. Nevertheless, without him the OCs scored 506.33 out of 560.112, an average of somewhat over 63 points per man with four scores of 66 or over. The School, who were not able to match us in numbers, averaged 57 odd per man.
23rd June - The Total Oil Challenge
We had to give this a miss this year because we could not raise enough OCs to make it worthwhile. We hope to keep this option open for the future. The good news is that the Surrey Rifle Association won it and the floor space of the bar has shrunk to tune of a chromium plated oil-drum!
It is regrettable that we have to report that this was a very disappointing performance by the OCs. With a few worthy exceptions, we all shot well below our capabilities. In fact, the Hon. Sec. let the side down badly by loosing off a real flier that only just hit the target: after losing four points with one shot he scraped together just 43.2. The match results are:
| Position | "A" Teams (52) | Score |
| 1st | Old Sedberghians | 244.30 |
| 2nd | Uppingham Veterans | 244.27 |
| 3rd | Belfast Royal Academy OBs | 244.24 |
| 38th | Old Cranleighans | 223.12 |
| "B" Teams (34) | ||
| 1st | Old Epsomians | 244.21 |
| 2nd | Old Wellingtonians | 242.22 |
| 3rd | Old Johnians | 239.23 |
| 22nd | Old Cranleighans | 210.09 |
The Simmonds Medal for the highest score by an OC was won by David King with 47.5.
19th August - Long Range Shoot
This was the re-arrangement of the long range practice shoot that we had to cancel in April. Six of us braved the uncertain weather and there was some very respectable shooting. Some, however, were very unlucky with the timing and found themselves trying to work in impossible conditions: much rain and no visibility. By the time the Hon. Sec. got home he was convinced he would never get it all dry!
9th September - The Annual Prize Meeting
The programme was as follows.
The results are:
| Competition | Winner | Score |
| The Jackson | R A Welford | 99.8 |
| The Lovesy | R A Welford | 49.3 |
| The Long Range | E S Eilley | 48.3 |
| The President's Prize | R A Welford | 192.13 |
This was a good day. Apart from an "interesting" wind that made shooting a little more difficult the weather was almost perfect. Again, it is disappointing that we have to report that we were able to attract only four in the morning and six in the afternoon. On the other hand, it was great to see John Smith in the afternoon for the first time this year. It was certainly not his wish that he should have left it until the last shoot but one to give the Club his active support. He proved that he has not lost his touch by declaring a couple of very respectable scores.
Six members assembled at Bisley to bring the pre-planned programme for 2001 to a close. We shot at 300 and 600 yards in conditions that turned out to be much better than predicted by the Meteorological Office: there was only one short sharp shower and the wind, far from gale force, was interesting at 600 yards. This was a good afternoon with some fairly respectable shooting. The Puma Club was shooting on the target next to us at 600 yards and they were using the metric target that has been proposed as a replacement for the present NRA Target Rifle one. There are 10 scoring rings on the same size target so, obviously, they are considerably closer together. If it happens and you are used to getting mainly "V" bulls you will not notice very much difference but those bad inners will cost you dear.
For more information contact the Hon. Secretary, Rob Pile:
R J Pile
rob.pile@btopenworld.com
To e-mail him now click here.