Super Sharp Shooters

Shooting popularity has been growing in recent years and we were all set for a summer of full-bore target shooting, competitions including a match with the OC rifle club and the prestigious Bisley Schools week. Alas…

We were all really looking forward to getting out again and on Sunday we boarded the vehicles with the Upper Fifth Cadet bubble and headed to Royal Grammar School Guildford to use their indoor 25m range.

After a revision lesson on marksmanship Cadets fired the .22mm Cadet small bore target rifle (CSTR) and hoped to pass the smallbore part of the shooting syllabus.

The shoot started with a group and zero shoot, where the firers aim at the same point on the target trying to get a small a group as possible. Sights are then adjusted for the individual firer into the centre of the target. Ted Barnicoat shot a group size of 8mm – very impressive!

Four groups are measured on four targets. The pass mark is 60 points with a highest possible score (HPS) of 100. Five firers scored a 100 and another scored 95. Marksman badges all round!

With zeroed rifles the Cadets fired at decimal targets. One big target with five small targets on it. Two shots were fired at each target with no coaching due to social distancing. This was then analysed and any fine adjustments to the sights before shooting again.

 This gave a HPS of 200. A pass was 140, 1st class at 170 and a marksman needs to get 180. All scored 1st class and above.

Some very impressive shooting from the Cadets and we look forward to doing more and entering into postal shoots against other schools, making shooting one of the only sports competing against others in the current climate. Josh Bartels was the shot of the day with near perfect scores.

Many thinks to Maj Reed, Lt Constable and Lt Simmons for giving up their Sunday to allow the Cadets a chance to get back to some normal activities.

Scores on the day were