2020 NSW Queens

[Tim N]

Hi All
Another enjoyable shoot completed.
Congratulations to all winners(and second place getters
The Bailey family had a stranglehold on TR A

Daniel Galea won F Std followed by John Simons separated by only 4 supers and both 1 point more than F Open!!

David Pearsall got lucky in F open beating second place by 1 point(well done)
Jock foster from Armidale placed 4th only by supers to second place, great to see the next generation coming through and he was using a 6BR- hopefully dad doesn’t get him a 7mm anytime soon

Mick Cuda topped FTR

There was also a Sport/Hunter class won by Brian Kirkman

Thanks to the organisers who took the risk to run the event in the uncertain times we are in!
It was great to catch up with people I hadn’t seen for quite a while and meet some new shooters.
See you in Bendigo

[AlanF]

Thanks again for looking after us poor interstate watchers Tim. And congrats on your own performance in a surprisingly big field. It says something about the conditions that a 6BR was competitive and F-Std outscored Open, with equipment accuracy likely the major determinant.

[MattyG]

Hi all,

I worked as Chief Butts Officer for the 3 days.

The Konsberg system appeared to work very well from my perspective.

We had a power outage on the range on the second day which may have caused the loss of target FX for one range - it just suddenly stopped working after having run faultlessly to that point. We stripped and inspected it during the lunch break and could not find an issue with it, no shots through sensors or wires, the circuits tested fine, the cables tested fine, the sound chamber was in good order. It was reassembled and accuracy tested and found to be accurate to well within the limits (+/- 2mm - it tested below +/- 0.5mm). As this was the last target in the row, it would make sense that as battery power dropped the target the longest distance from the battery would be first to drop out.

As this had occurred it was decided to do an error check on the other targets and F7 showed some errors which we were unsure of so it was taken out of operation and had the same strip down and check. Again it showed no problems, was tested at 300m prior to the last two ranges and passed with flying colours.

Having a manual target at the ready for shooters that had trouble getting on the board seems to be the way to go. It was used at every change of range by at least 2 shooters. I believe it was great aid in preventing shots through wires and sensors ruining targets.

I hope every one had a great time, there was some incredibly accurate shooting and at the end of each of the shorter ranges we had to replace all the Super V's to ensure there was a nice sight picture for all competitors.

Hope to see you all in September!

Cheers from ANZAC,
Matt M.

[AlanF]

...I worked as Chief Butts Officer for the 3 days...

Thanks for the detailed and cheerful account of the ET performance Matty. This sort of transparency needs to happen more. You clearly made a big effort to keep things running smoothly and handled it well given the pressure of a Queens level event.

One thing I'd like to suggest, probably more to the NSWRA than to you, is to recognise the big difference between manual and ETs, particularly for F-Class shooters. And it would have been preferable to have spare ET capacity rather than replacing an ET with a manual. That way, everyone in each class/grade has the same advantages and disadvantages that each type of target provides.

[MattyG]

...I worked as Chief Butts Officer for the 3 days...

Thanks for the detailed and cheerful account of the ET performance Matty. This sort of transparency needs to happen more. You clearly made a big effort to keep things running smoothly and handled it well given the pressure of a Queens level event.

One thing I'd like to suggest, probably more to the NSWRA than to you, is to recognise the big difference between manual and ETs, particularly for F-Class shooters. And it would have been preferable to have spare ET capacity rather than replacing an ET with a manual. That way, everyone in each class/grade has the same advantages and disadvantages that each type of target provides.

Thanks for the kind words Alan.

We didn't actually replace the out of action ET's with a manual target, we resquadded to suit.

The manual target was for anyone who got a miss first shot, they were made to pack up and head to the manual target to get on the board so as minimise the chances of damaging a sensor, wire or worse still control unit.

We had all operational 6x8 ft ET's up for the 3 days.

We have now employed a uniform ongoing maintenance program and hope to improve on this performance.

Cheers,
Matt M.

[ReneZ]

Well done Matt, a great effort by all!

[Matt P]

As one of the range officers, the paper target certainly got a work out. It never ceases to amaze me how you can go from 600-600 on the same day and have a miss first sighter. Thanks to the target and butts crew, it was certainly the least eventful NSWRA Queens in a while (at least from a RO point of view).
Well done to all those that had a hand in the preparation of the targets
Matt P

[ErrolW]

Matt P it's possible alright especially if you have a scope fiddlers at the event. Have seen it happen before in this sport and in others . Especially if that 1 fiddler or fiddlers doesn't like the other people or you leave your rifle sitting in or on your range trolley with it being not locked in a gunbox. It's like hobbling a horse at the races just so a certain horse will win the race.

[MattyG]

An short addendum,

FX suffered a hit right on the edge of the frame at 9 o'clock, at the time we thought it was old damage but apparently it wasn't.
Fortunately no wires were hit but the shock of a bullet through the target frame itself causes a sensor malfunction which is what caused the target to shut down.