Sunday the 12th of April saw the annual compettitons between the 9 different regions that make up the BFTA. Every region selects its own team based on ability and a willingness to shoot. This year saw the new idea of having two teams of 8 with 6 scores to count. As this year's compettetion was to take place in Newbury, a number of NWFTA shooters didn't want to take part. None the less we fielded two teams although our B team only had 7 members.
My day started at 04:20 with my alarm doing the neccessary required to get me up for my 5AM pickup from fellow NWFTA shooter Dave Taylor. At 05:20 my lift arrived and we began our 3hour+ drive. Even with the obligatory coffee stopwe arrived in good time and having got our teams hats from Dave S, headed to the plinking range. Still using Dave S' EV2 and Big Nikko I was greeted by a strong and unpredicatable wind that was to really ruin some shooters days later on. I managed to get 4 shots in a disc at 50 yards before the 5th was blown about an inch and a half out and I gave up.
Shooting in squad 5 I made my way to lane 1 and met up with Ash from SCFTA. We began the course and I had some early misses which didn't help my confidence. About half way round it was clear I was heading for a disapointing score. A great shot on a long target through trees and outside kill windage perked me up until I went to reset it and realised I'd hit a target in the next lane. This about summed up the day which was ended with a clean miss on the last target and a score of 21/40.
Alas, the NWFTA did not repeat our great 3rd place from last year with the A team ending up 5th and the B team 14th!
Notable scores were Paula Schofield and Chris Hill on 32. Luke Dawson on 27 and Ammar Ghazi on 25. Next NWFTA Gp is Byley but I will be setting up my scope again as my Leupold is back :)
Notable scores were Paula Schofield and Chris Hill on 32. Luke Dawson on 27 and Ammar Ghazi on 25. Next NWFTA Gp is Byley but I will be setting up my scope again as my Leupold is back :)