OzFclass

The annual CNG OPM was held on the weekend in hot, and challenging windy conditions. The Dukes Range is nestled in the hills just south of Crows Nest and just off the New England Highway and has a long and proud history.
Saturday was a walk up start at 1:30 pm , a Sweepstakes for 15 shots to count over 500 yards. A total of 55 shooters was a welcome new "Record" for the hardworking Crows Nest Goombungee committee and conditions were quite warm with switchy winds.
In F Open , my 89-10/90 gave me a good clear win, from my Beaudesert Clubmate Di Hannel on 83-3/90 . Di beat well known North Arm rifleman Dennis Brown on a countback for the Silver medal, with Dennis also an 83-3.
Then followed Col Sutton from Goondiwindi (82-2), Andrew McKilop from Bundaberg (81-4), Scott Mitchell, also from Bundaberg (80-1)

Sunday was again hot and with very variable winds, inc plenty of 2 to 2.5 moa drop offs for the OPM.

Twelve shooters lined up in F Open and battled it out over 600 yds, 500 yds and then 500 again to finish.
At the finish it came right down to the last few shots before a result was known. My Qld teammate for Tassie, Col Sutton from Goondiwindi, beat me home by one damned "X" to take the No 1 badge that I had been fortunate enough to win the year before......ie my Title defense failed ! Final scores as follows :
Col Sutton. 175-12
Tony Berry. 175-11
Cam McEwan. 172-13
Mark Fairbairn 172-11
Kelvin Bell. 172-10
Emile Daniel. 170-6
Di Hannel. 170-5
Julie McEwan 169-11
Dennis Brown 169-5
Chris Bell. 167-9
Scott Mitchell. 165-6
Andrew McKilop 160-4

In F Std A Grade, 7 shooters fought it out for the No 1 badge, with the eventual win going to G Haeusler from Goondiwindi, with 166-7.
Just 4 "X's" back on 166-3 was Beth Caskey from Pittsworth.
Third badge to Ernie Mace with 165-7
Jason Mayers from Belmont was 4th on 164-7, followed by Brian Pickles (163-0), Dick Blocksidge (162-5) and Steve Nelson (157-5)

14 lined up in F Std B grade, and I am fairly confident that Graham Sells took it out with a fine 170-7, which will probably be the last time he shoots as a B Grader ! Not a bad effort for the young fella to finish 4 pts ahead of the A Grade winner, so I think he might have managed to pick up a tip or two, shooting with our F Open World Champions , Julie and Cam McEwan out there at Dalby/Tara RC.

35 TR. A grade shooters saw local Rep shooter Ashley Bidgood take the No1 badge, by not dropping a shot all weekend. His OPM score was 150-19, to go with his 75-5 from the Sweepstakes.
15 TR B grade shooters , and 4 in C Grade rounded out a very good showing by our TR shooters, with a lot of QLD Rep polo shirts Worn on the mound
All in all a very good weekends shooting was had by all.
I will just have to work harder on Col Sutton to leave his 7WSM or whatever it is , at home next year. If I keep telling him how good his little 6XC that he shot in the Sweepstakes on Saturday, he might fall for it

Tasmania here we come, in a couple of weeks. Crushing, but not unexpected news from far N Qld over the weekend (via an SMS to Cam from that Lobert World Champion bloke) that they are at unbackable odds in Tasmania, with the whole team shooting 60-10's at 1000 yards in a recent practice.
Tony Berry

Well done on your shoot Tony. I'll have to talk to you about running the Statistics again whilst in Tasmania. Your talents there will be required

Tasmania here we come, in a couple of weeks. Crushing, but not unexpected news from far N Qld over the weekend (via an SMS to Cam from that Lobert World Champion bloke) that they are at unbackable odds in Tasmania, with the whole team shooting 60-10's at 1000 yards in a recent practice.
Tony Berry

I don't know how trustworthy that Marty bloke is, but he has set his sights too low. We in Victoria have been working on 60-12, just to ensure we have a few spare super's up our sleeves, to counteract the NQ Team. I'd suggest you do also!

Great shooting Tony and thanks for the write up too. Very interesting. Looks like a great turn out.

If you and the "crew" keep shooting the way you are, they'll need to put a Z ring inside the X ring!

DenisA wrote:If you and the "crew" keep shooting the way you are, they'll need to put a Z ring inside the X ring!

Denis,
Don't talk like that anywhere that Marty "what's his name" or Dave "whatever" and crew might read it, please.
Tactics will have a big bearing on the final outcome in Tasmania
We are competing against master tacticians from every angle, and there will be some astounding falsehoods surface over the next few weeks ! Our best hope of dealing with these attacks will be total silence (and quite a deal of tampering, at the range)
Tony

Its ok Tony I have insiders already on the ground in tassie working on snow and freezing cold conditions. Word has it that NQ people dont function in snow.

Again, well shot on the weekend.

Yes well done Tony. Did you give Bart an outing?

Alan,
It was actually his younger brother, Bart Mk11. I broke it in while recovering from the shoulder op, and fire formed 100 cases using your 2208/168 gr VLD'S recipe. Had a serious play a few days ago, using shitty old brass, and seems it loves 180 Hybrids jumped 0.080". Loaded up some new fire formed Lapua brass for the weekend to see how it went, before deciding what to take to Tasmania.
Bart Mk11 will definitely get a short holiday to the Apple Isle, cause it seems to be a screamer of a barrel. Probably even better than my first Bart.......and they both shoot a lot better than I do !
I am trying to convince Cam McEwan that he should just stick to his current barrels, and we would all be better off if he just returned the 2 Bartleins to me, but not having much luck.
If you could possibly get me Ratshots home address, I could possibly call down there late one night and relieve him of the 32" i handed over at the ACT Queens, while he was out of town.
They are my only options, coz I don't have any more 7mm blanks in the cupboard.
We will just have to hope and pray that Craig from 7mm.com doesn't have any obstacles in getting his Dealers Lic coz Bartleins are on the very top of his list.

You know Tony - Marty is known to talk it up. Not everyone cleaned. The 45 knot switching tailwind and blizzards up in the snow country (secret training gorund near Atherton in the high country) caused the coaches a few headaches and a couple of dropped x's.

ecomeat wrote:...We will just have to hope and pray that Craig from 7mm.com doesn't have any obstacles in getting his Dealers Lic coz Bartleins are on the very top of his list.

I just looked at the Craig's site and among other things read this http://www.7mm.com.au/road-2017-part-2/. This going to be a high quality website.

Alan

DaveMc wrote:You know Tony - Marty is known to talk it up. Not everyone cleaned. The 45 knot switching tailwind and blizzards up in the snow country (secret training gorund near Atherton in the high country) caused the coaches a few headaches and a couple of dropped x's.

Dave, in Martys defence, at least it seems he is not alone. In fact he is probably in very good company. it does seem to be catching on down south, too.
God only knows how much Waites, Fraser and crew will have paid Markers and ROs to get away with 12 X's on paper.
And those bloody South Australians !! Imagine the thought of poaching a certified Queenslander for a SA team. Janzso has actually been given a Qld Passport, which he was photographed begging for. I will bet that the thing that made PJ roll over was the promise of one of those fancy ( OK....probably the fanciest in the WORLD) State shirts that Captain Braund keeps coming up with.
Seems to be a pretty fair chance that QLD and WA will be the only teams that will not need blood testing for performance enhancing drugs etc.
Would you have ASADA's phone number anywhere ?

Thanks Tony for the kind words . I'm still pinching myself ! Only problem is now I think I'm in A grade 😳. And remains to be seen if I can repeat it . It has been good shooting at Dalby with the best world champs this side of the black stump ! I greatly appreciate their input . Cam doesn't say much but when he does say something u listen . I hope we can have a prize meet there soon as it will soon go out to 1000yds with wicked wind changes and washing machine type mirage . It's a challenge !

The crows nest shoot enjoyed a lot of talking and catching up with friends , and that's what it's all about . With good score a bonus if u could get it .

My thanks to R Millingen who fought detail by detail with me on the Sunday. Which came down to the last 500 . Which I was lucky to pull a 59.3 which was a personal best ! To overtake him by 2 points 168.5 .
A danger man to watch in the future is Martin Duffield who was on his way to laying down a possible . But wasn't to be on the last shot pulling a 4 , for a 58.4 tuff luck mate ! The conditions were trying !

The most excitement of the day in B grade was Neil Austin pulling, 60.2 😳to win the last 500 yd and promptly relegating me to 2nd .
Another personal best by all reports . Well done mate !

Like to thank all for a great OPM .
Wandai is next with the A graders .
So time will tell if the MoJo is Flowing for me .
Thanks and regards Graham Sells .

Graham,

F standard gradings are based on your average performance over your latest eight shoots, each calculated as a percentage of the highest score achieved in F Standard at that event. Until your average is 94.5% or better you are entitled to shoot in F Standard B grade. In my opinion, you are obliged to do so. It's a travesty of grading that underperforming TR shooters can enter A grade, just to soothe their egos.

There's no arguing that this shoot is outstanding but don't let anybody bully you into shooting in F Standard A solely on that single performance.

John Kielly