Dave Lloyd Gold Medal winning Captain

[dannyt]

Well Done to Dave Lloyd and Tony Marsh on steering the F Open team to a win today in the European Champs at Bisley.

[brown dog]

Well Done to Dave Lloyd and Tony Marsh on steering the F Open team to a win today in the European Champs at Bisley.

Brilliant!

[Ronin]

It was an excellent weekends shooting for all.

 

Dave, (6MMBR), who is now the GB F Class Team Captain steered the GB Open Team to victory in the Team Event, the FTR GB Team won the FTR team event and the GB Open Rutland Team won their event by some margin.

 

It should be mentioned that the winds were very difficult over the entire weekend, despite this, there were some superb scores.

 

Congratulations to all who took home medals especially those from the site-

 

6mmBR, Elwood, Desparr, Mikmak, GaryC and a few more.

 

I'm sure there will be a bit more of a write up and photo's appearing over the next few days.

 

from an Open Team members aspect - Dave and Tony, Well done on the new team kit and change in atmosphere..

[6mmBR]

Just got in the door! Tired but very happy.

Cheers guys

Dave

[tony]

Very well done lads, a great result

[gaz6br]

Nice work lads

[Elwood]

A good showing by UKV members in the F open individuals with at least 4 members with a top 10 finish.

 

The F class league was won by a UKV member as was the runner up, with several more members finishing in top 10 league positions.

 

And quite a high number of UKV members in the GB teams.

 

A big slap on the back for Dave and Tony.

[nemasis243]

Nice one Dave well done to all

[Jinks]

Well done all, brilliant achievement,

 

Cheers

 

Jinks

[Laurie]

Yes, a great result for the GB teams in very strong and variable wind conditions especially the 1,000 yard match.

 

My 'feeling' is that while dry all weekend (one detail immediately after the Saturday midday restart aside), it was no easier than the previous year and in fact the winds were 'harder' on day 2 than anything we saw 12 months before. Despite that, F/TR scores rose appreciably, but not 'Open' as much or even at all. Despite shooting better than last year and scoring 13 more points in aggregate, I got exactly the same F/TR place (27th) albeit in a larger F/TR entry.

 

Open was won in 2012 by Lee Tomlinson on 459.30v, and this year by Joe Melia on 457.39v.

F/TR was won in 2012 by Tim Stewart on 439,.23v, while Paul Eggemann needed 447.30v to do it this year.

 

The other feature is that 'The Europeans' have become a truly competitive European event. The highest GB F/TR shooter being 4th overall is unprecendented. (Unless I've got it wrong, I don't think we've had a non-Brit F/TR European champion before.) Ther top 10 F/TR slots are half and half home / visitor, while Open remains more strongly home based with 7 GB to 3 visitor.

 

The Italians have improved their team game enormously with second place in both classes for 8-shooter national teams beating Germany (Open) and Ukraine (F/TR). I'm not sure how they managed the latter given the difficulties of owning / using a .308 Win rifle in Italy given its ban on the use of 'military calibres' - unless that law has been relaxed or abolished. But WELL DONE! anyway to them. (I was on the firing point next to their F/TR team and you always knew when they shot a 5 or V from the alfresco celebrations and whooping!)

 

Overall, The Europeans is always a great event and a near unique experience, but this year was vintage, if nothing else for being mild and dry despite truly dire weather forecasts beforehand. It moves to mid September next year and deserves to prosper.

 

Results are already up on the GB F-Class Association website and there will be photos and a Des Parr (Desparado on this forum) write-up added shortly.

 

http://www.gbfclass.co.uk/

[Gandy]

Well done all, great to see people doing well

[6mmBR]

Here are the results for the F open European individual championships who are forum members.

3rd David Lloyd (6mmBR)

4th Des Parr (Desparado)

5th Ian Boxall (Elwood)

7th Mik Maksimovic (Mik Mak)

11th Gary Costello (Gary C)

 

As Laurie said it was a fantastic meet with over 170 entries. The weather was kind to use and the rain stayed away just!

I did get that wet detail after lunch on Saturday!

The winds on day one were fairly kind but Saturday they had picked up and certainly started to sort the shooters out who could read the wind.

Next years format is looking excellent. The competition is moving to September and will be spread over a week with warm up competitions at the beginning finishing with the European Championships and the international matches.

We are estimating next year an entry in excess of 250 shooters! How F class has grown!

Cheers

Dave.

[Laurie]

I can only think of a couple of UKV members who're regular league F/TR shooters, but there must be more around. The two are me + Stuart Anselm (Osprey Rifles and he who built the rifle I was shooting at The Europeans). Stuart didn't shoot in the meeting, but managed (or coached?) the GB F/TR Rutland team. No doubt he'd sold his latest F/TR rifle (yet again) and had nothing to compete with!

 

So any UKV F/TR shooting members - SPEAK UP. We need to make ourselves heard alongside our 'Open' colleagues with their lovely bling rifles (Oooooh, I do nearly swoon every time I look at Gary Costello's Walker Rifles built smokepoles!)

[That bald headed Geordie]

I can only think of a couple of UKV members who're regular league F/TR shooters, but there must be more around. The two are me + Stuart Anselm (Osprey Rifles and he who built the rifle I was shooting at The Europeans). Stuart didn't shoot in the meeting, but managed (or coached?) the GB F/TR Rutland team. No doubt he'd sold his latest F/TR rifle (yet again) and had nothing to compete with!

 

So any UKV F/TR shooting members - SPEAK UP. We need to make ourselves heard alongside our 'Open' colleagues with their lovely bling rifles (Oooooh, I do nearly swoon every time I look at Gary Costello's Walker Rifles built smokepoles!)

Hmmmm, Not THE Walker of Walkers Cheese flavoured crisps. Now that is mans food along with a nice glass of cool, crisp Chianti of course!

[Ronin]

I managed a humble 30th in the individuals (open) happy with that as I didn't compete in 2012 and came 48th in 2010

 

Rifle shooting well, need to raise the bar on wind reading though.

 

Was an honour to be part of the winning GB Open Rutland Team

[Laurie]

Yes, you guys did really well Andy. Congratulations! Big margin over the 2nd place team too.

 

I don't know what happened with 'our' lot as the GB F/TR Rutland squad comprised a really strong foursome of up and coming shooters who've had a lot of top league match results. They had no team shooting experience though, although that'll come in the future as Russell Simmonds builds a new national F/TR squad for Canada in 2015.

[Laurie]

Hmmmm, Not THE Walker of Walkers Cheese flavoured crisps. Now that is mans food along with a nice glass of cool, crisp Chianti of course!

 

 

Hey Les,

 

I KNEW there had to be a reason for your results. Let me tell you that cheese flavoured barrels never shoot well!

[6mmBR]

Well done to all-a good smattering of ukv members in the teams.

how does that result affect any world standings?

Sadly it doesn't have any real effect but it does restore our pride after Raton!

Let's hope we are back heading in the right direction.

Moral is high in the team again and everyone is so keen to move forward.

Thanks guys

Dave

[Bianchi]

Congrats on the nomination and a flying start Dave. It was good fun shooting with you on Wednesday and thanks for the tip with the silicone spray .

 

Congrats to the various GB individuals and teams as well. As previously noted by Laurie, "The Europeans" has become a highly competitive international event where, despite the lack of long range training facilities for many in their home countries, more continental shooters were able to move up into the top rankings.

 

The Italian team members were really enthusiastic and friendly, handing out lapel badges of their F-Class association as well as offering Lavazza espresso. I was paired up with four of them during the individuals and sometimes decided that reinventing my best Italian would be advantageous during scoring . Two of them braved the wind with 6.5x47 Lapuas and extremely well to boot, which makes their overall performance and dedication even more commendable.

 

Paul Eggermann's result in F/TR is truely a remarkable performance. Hopefully he will be available for one or more interviews by Target Shooter et al soon.

 

No data on each participant's rifle was compiled during weighing, like last year. Wouldn't it be interesting to compare the hardware lists from previous Europeans with the latest kits used last week?

 

All in all, a most enjoyable week with plenty to write home about, and the weather was most accomodating after the "blow off" on Monday.

 

Finally, three cheers for the organizers in GBFCA as well as the range officers and markers for making this event such a success.

 

Cheers,

 

Bianchi

 

PS: For those who haven't read it yet, a par®tial report on the Europeans is now available on the GBFCA website.

[foxing2night]

Fantastic results, Well done to all

 

Darrel

[Huck]

I can only think of a couple of UKV members who're regular league F/TR shooters, but there must be more around. The two are me + Stuart Anselm (Osprey Rifles and he who built the rifle I was shooting at The Europeans). Stuart didn't shoot in the meeting, but managed (or coached?) the GB F/TR Rutland team. No doubt he'd sold his latest F/TR rifle (yet again) and had nothing to compete with!

 

So any UKV F/TR shooting members - SPEAK UP. We need to make ourselves heard alongside our 'Open' colleagues with their lovely bling rifles (Oooooh, I do nearly swoon every time I look at Gary Costello's Walker Rifles built smokepoles!)

Hi Laurie,

I'm a member (albeit infrequent) and ended up winning the league and finished 6th in the Euro's. A fantastic match that get's better every year. Well done to Mik and Tina for a flawless event. Also a big thank you to John Dean of Aim Sports for his continued support and sponsorship. It is much appreciated.

The banter as always was brilliant! Now how do I get Mik back for his antics at the weigh in?

 

Huck (Paul)

[seprim]

Well done to all who took part - it's a credit to all shooters that these guys n gals show their talents and organise these events

Thank you

Andrew

[Laurie]

Hi Laurie,

I'm a member (albeit infrequent) and ended up winning the league and finished 6th in the Euro's. A fantastic match that get's better every year. Well done to Mik and Tina for a flawless event. Also a big thank you to John Dean of Aim Sports for his continued support and sponsorship. It is much appreciated.

The banter as always was brilliant! Now how do I get Mik back for his antics at the weigh in?

 

Huck (Paul)

 

 

Goodonyer Paul! (as our Down-Under friends from Raton do actually say). For others, this is Paul Crosbie from East Lothian, who as he says is the 2013/14 F-Class League F/TR champion sealed with three outright wins plus a third place before he got to the Europeans and who finally broke the dominance of two expert shooters who've shared the GB F/TR champions crown for almost as long as anybody can remember.

 

The Mik Mak weigh-in 'antics' saw Mik surreptitiously slip the scales' hefty calibration weight onto the platen while the rifle's owner turned away to get his bi-pod to add to the heap being weighed. Placed such that the rifle stock would hide it from the shooter, everybody so afflicted went seriously overweight. Some victims' expressions were priceless.

[desparado]

^{Top marks to Paul for an amazing season.}

 

^{I heard about Mik's antics with the scales, - excellent! I can just picture the scene....heehee.}

 

^{A bloomin' good time had by all.}

 

^Cheers.

[Laurie]

Ah-ha - I've just spotted another F/TR league regular and popular, much appreciated member of the GB F/TR team - BIG-RICHIE aka Richard Jones who is currently running a thread on the 101 RC's 'Altcar Challenge' F-Class match on 24th November.