NRA Journal - Summer 2003 - National Rifle Association

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F Classby Paul MonaghanF Class days at BisleyEvery month there is an F Class day at Bisley consistingof a morning shoot at 600 yards and an afternoon shootat 1,000 yards. These go on all year round. To get detailsof these and other F Class events e-mailphyllis.farnan@nra.org.uk and put ‘F Class List’ in thesubject line. There are now over 100 members of thislist, so if you or your club are running a shoot whichincludes F Class, let Phyllis know and it will be sent toall on the list. We have been experimenting withshooting at more demanding targets and at 600 yardshave been using the 300 yards face with a half minute Vbull. As you can see from Figure 1, this is quite ademanding target at 600 yards. At 1,000 yards we areusing the Palma target. These are informal days andeveryone is encouraged to come along and give F Classa try. No-one has come up with a really goodexplanation, but everyone who tries it agrees it bringsthe fun back into shooting.F Class day at Bisley.Rule changesSome may be surprised to read that there is now nominimum weight for trigger pull on F Class rifles. Benchrestshooters around the world have been using triggerswith very light trigger pulls for many years. The F Classcompetition standard around the world now has nominimum trigger weight and the World Championshipsin Canada last year were run under these rules. One ofthe best triggers in the world is made by Arnold Jewellin the States and many of the best actions in the USAwill have Jewell triggers fitted. The weight of triggerpull can be adjusted easily on these triggers from a fewounces up 1.5kg, but with the low recoiling 6PPC andsimilar cartridges it degrades accuracy to have a heavytrigger pull.For the change for F Class rifles, the main issue is safety.A light trigger is not, by definition, a dangerous trigger.It is possible for some idiot to adjust a trigger down tounsafe levels, but it is impossible to shoot consistentlywith such a trigger. The rule applies to an F Class riflesitting on a front rest or bipod and a rear bag. Thuseven if a trigger does fail, the shot is safely on target andprobably in the black. By removing the minimum trigger20weight rule we will be able to build competitive rifleshere in the UK (think about an RPA Quadlite action andJewell trigger, perhaps?) for competition around theworld. Furthermore, shooters from abroad will be ableto come here and legally shoot their rifles in ourcompetitions. The maximum weight for an F Class rifleis now 10kg.Does V really = 6?Well yes, in international F Class competitions it does.This year for the first time in the Imperial Meeting, thescoring will be 6 for a V bull, 5 for a bull, 4 for an innerand so on. Bearing in mind F Class shoots alongsideTR, is this going to cause chaos on the firing point? Thesimple answer is “No”. Scoring on the firing point willstay as V, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and the stats computer will recognisean F Class shooter and convert the V bull to a 6. Thisway, there will be no confusion between TR and F Classscoring.There was some discussion about the move from thetraditional scoring system to V = 6, but following thedecision of ICFRA to hold the next F Class WorldChampionships in South Africa in March 2004, it wasfelt the Imperial Meeting should be shot under as nearto international rules as possible. The decision to moveto V = 6 was not taken lightly as it is not just a case ofadding a few extra points to the scores. The real benefitof the change is that keeping in the bull is not goodenough and shooting for Vs has to become standardpractice with its attendant pressure on equipment,ammunition and shooter. Moving to V = 6 shouldimprove the overall standard of shooting F Class in thiscountry. That’s the theory, anyway. Are there any othereffects of the change? Well, it does affect the finalplacings and your view on this may be coloured bywhere you came in the F Class Grand Aggregate lastyear. The table opposite shows the top 20 places in theGrand Agg scored as last year in the traditional methodplus these scores converted to V = 6. Whilst there is nochange to the top two places (something of a relief tothe author) there are quite a few minor changes, with acouple of bigger ones. Des Parr and Charles Oliver-Bellasis would have benefited markedly from the changeFigure 1: The F Class face on the left and the normal 600 yardsface for comparison on the right.
George Barnard with his new F Class rifle.(moving up five and six places respectively) butWolfgang Scholze (the reigning F Class WorldChampion) would have seen his ranking go down fourplaces from 5th to 9th equal with Jim McAllister. Wewill see how it goes this year.Phoenix MeetingF Class will be at the Phoenix Meeting again this yearand this gives a good opportunity to get some practiceat the distances shot in the Imperial Meeting. The courseof fire includes 400, 500, 600, 800, 900 and 1,000 yardsand will be scored, like the Imperial Meeting, on a V = 6basis. Most of the shooters from last year will be thereas well as a number of newcomers, so this is a goodchance to try your hand at F Class shooting. If you areunfamiliar with the basics of F Class, there was a goodarticle in the March issue of Target Sports magazine.Alternatively you can contact me by e-mail onmonaghan@quista.net.Last year’s Imperial Meeting F Class GrandAgg scored traditionally and converted to V=6Name Score PositionV,5,4 etc V=6 V,5,4 etc V=6P Monaghan 703.120 823 1 1MPL Personne 703.116 819 2 2JA Bridger 700.111 811 3 3=D Pickering 700.110 810 4 5=W Scholze 700.106 806 5 9=F de Castro 699.110 809 6 7W Norman 699.108 807 7 8JA McAllister 699.107 806 8 9=C O-Bellasis 697.114 811 9 3=D Parr 696.114 810 10 5=JM Knight 696.106 804 11 12=K Rathbone 696.96 792 12 16JO Wright 695.109 804 13 12=W Cuthbert 694.111 805 14 11M Maksimovic 693.102 795 15 15EJ Hobbs 692.107 799 16 14R Greenwood 692.93 785 17 17J Crawford 683.74 757 18 19H Morley 681.81 762 19 18C Shorthouse 673.67 740 20 20Mik Maksimovic gets in some practice in case an F Class WorldChampionships is ever held in Antartica.Great Britain F Class Team to the WorldChampionships in Bloemfontein, South AfricaApril 2004Could all F Class shooters who are interested inapplying for the Great Britain F Class Team to theWorld Championships and are full members of theNRA, please send their applications to the ShootingAdministrator, Phyllis Farnan, at the NRA as soon aspossible.It is intended that squad team training will commencein August 2003.The Bisley PavilionHotelatBisley Camp, Brookwood, Wokinghome of theNational Rifle AssociationEn-suite RoomsTelevisionBreakfastNOW OPENHOTEL FACILITIESIN THE HEART OFTHE CAMPFor Reservations & EnquiriesTel: (01483) 488488/489270Fax: (01483) 797620e-mail: Hotel@bisleypavilion.com21
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Page 7 and 8: MATTERS OF FACT RELATING TO RECENT
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Page 19 and 20: The Bridport Shooting Club Southern
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Page 27 and 28: The team at the Foxhunters Return.S
Page 29 and 30: WELSH TOUR TO SOUTH AFRICA 2003by R
Page 31 and 32: Before moving to the National Meeti
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Page 40 and 41: Note the Kiwis don’t deal in numb
Page 42 and 43: The Great Britain Under 19 Team to
Page 44 and 45: SPRING GENERAL MEETING - 29 MARCH 2
Page 46 and 47: Webb, the Membership Secretary, and
Page 48 and 49: Proposed AmendmentsThe Chairman ask
Page 50 and 51: National Rifle Association incorpor
Page 52 and 53: INTO THE BREECHA personal view from
Page 54 and 55: The original Great Fire started in
Page 56 and 57: just over three minutes! There were
Page 58 and 59: The Barbarians at Bloemfontein.At l
Page 60 and 61: THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH RIFLE CLUB
Page 62 and 63: OBITUARIESJames(Jimmy)WatsonCompeti
Page 64 and 65: The very thing about MR, and its be
Page 66: MEMBERS’ PAGEPete Bloom FundAs ma

NRA Journal - Summer 2003 - National Rifle Association

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