Category: Shooting

News related to shooting

  • Wigan TSC 50m Shoot 2017

    Wigan TSC 50m Shoot 2017

    Over the weekend of 17 / 18 / 19 February the Wigan TSC 50m shoot was held for the 14th year. This shoot has become a ‘part of the shooting calendar’ for many shooters up and down the country, with entrants from as far afield as Southampton and Inverness, Ian Thomson bringing a contingent from the Scottish Junior Squad down for the weekend. It is an English Match competition, this being 60 shots at 50m, and is held at this time of year as a ‘warm up’ for the Summer outdoor season. It’s also a few weeks before a major international indoor 50m shoot in Dortmund, so attracts many high performing shooters.

    Every year there is a big number of entries but this year has been better than ever. Over the weekend there were only 3 free slots, giving a total of 85 ‘shooters’. I know how many there were as I scored 265 50m cards over the weekend! The number of people entering is less than this as many shoot twice over the weekend – no point travelling hundreds of miles and only shooting 60 shots!

    Unfortunately a few shooters had to be turned away as they sent their entries in a little late and their preferred shooting time was fully booked.There was some excellent shooting over the weekend. In A class 2 shooters shot 597s and had to be split by countback. Again, many prizes are going ‘North of the Border’, with the Scottish Junior Squad winning several of them. It was nice to see some shooters new to the competition and hopefully we’ll get more next year – if they get their entries in early!!Thanks must go to the ‘Range team’, who again did a great job changing targets and supervising the range. Also the ‘Catering team’ did a great job of supplying us all with food (including an excellent chilli) during the weekend. In the background, several members of Wigan TSC spent many evenings cleaning and repairing the range for the shoot.It’s hard work organising and running the shoot but I think you’ll all agree that it’s worth it. As well as being an enjoyable event it brings funds into the club, this year £614 (equivalent to over 3 full member subscriptions) and over the 14 years about £5000. Again, I must thank all members who helped out on the weekend or in the weeks leading up to the shoot. Without their hard work the shoot couldn’t take place and the club would be over £500 poorer. Why don’t you give a hand next year? The more members that help, the easier it is for everyone. Also, if anyone wants to run another open shoot during the year, I’m here to help with the organisation – how about an LSR Open Shoot? I’m sure there’s an opening for one in the area. Martin Lowe

     

     

  • Batch Testing Demystified

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    Wigan TSC Eley Edge Testing Weekend 11 / 12 February

    Over the weekend of 11 / 12 February, Martyn Buttery (Eley Business Development Manager) and Jordan Farrow (Eley Test Range Manager) again came up to Wigan TSC with the mobile test rigs to provide testing for Eley Edge ammunition. This is the third such event, the others being in January and November 2016.

    You may wonder why test the same type of ammunition? Well, each batch of the ammo is slightly different – different velocity, different brass for the cases, different lead alloy for the bullet heads, different powder, different primer compound. You may think that all the powder they use will be exactly the same from year to year but this isn’t the case. If they buy powder now it may be slightly different from that they bought last June and will be slightly different than that they buy next December, even with the same type of powder. It’s only a slight difference but it will make the ammo slightly different as well. It’s the same with all the other constituent parts of the ammo. So each batch of ammo will have its own characteristics, which may or may not match your barrel.

    Martyn and Jordan arrived at the range on the Friday evening and set up the test rigs on the 50m range to get a good start on the Saturday. The test rigs are heavy, aluminium bench rest tables, with a large ‘machine vice’ to hold the barrel. The barrel is bolted into a ‘holder’ the same as the bedding section of a rifle stock which is clamped into the vice. The recording of each shot is done by an electronic target at the end of the range and the analysis is done by software on a laptop. You can watch the group forming with each additional shot and it’s quite exciting waiting to see where the next shot will land!! They brought 12 different batches of Eley Edge for us to test.

    The first ‘customer’ was booked in for 10.00 on the Saturday, testing continuing until about 4.00. On the Sunday it was a 10.00 start again and there were 8 ‘customers’ on that day. Shooters from several different clubs in the area attended. It was interesting to see the different results from each barrel tested and how the different barrels performed differently with the same batch of ammo. One shooter’s barrel gave a 15.9mm group with one batch of ammo, a brilliant result!!

    Each shooter brought a box of the ammo they were currently using, to shoot a comparison group. Then they shot a 10 round group with each of the batches of Edge. Martyn or Jordan looked at the results and chose the best 5 or 6 batches and a further 2 10 shot groups were fired with each of these batches (as well as the ‘comparison’ ammo). The shooter then chose the best ammo for their barrel and most bought at least 2000 rounds, enough to keep them going until the next test session in November.

    There was no charge from Eley for testing, we asked for a donation of £3 each from the shooters to cover the range running costs and no one quibbled about that as they’d shot over 200 free rounds each in their test session. Orders for 41500 rounds of ammo (830 boxes!!) were taken, some shooters ordering 5000 rounds. This brought in £415 in ammo sales to the club, not bad for a couple of days!! In all, a very successful weekend all round.

     

    Martin Lowe

     

     

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