Well, today saw my first prone match in a long time, and boy did it show. It took place in Dublin Rifle Club in Wicklow, on their 50m outdoor range. This range is notorious for its terrible rolling wind and tricky conditions, not to mention somewhat ballistic scoring to compensate...
Having the DURC range in the state that it is at the moment has been a major incentive not to train over the Summer. That and getting fed up of my current jacket after losing quite a large amount of weight over the past 12 months and waiting for a new one has led to poor attendance on my part. Oh, and the lack of ammo. Yeah.
So, the day started at 0830 with Dave picking Conor and I up to grab the kit from the range. Greeted with that lovely damp smell after a Summer of no use is never fun, and having your personal kit smell similar even less. How and ever, off up the mountains we went, arriving at the range for 0945. Deciding that the first detail at 1000 was cutting it a bit fine I opted for the second at 1130. After getting all the kit set up (comments on all of it to follow, hopefully this week) it was on to the range, where all the fun started.
Having not shot in a while I couldn't quite remember how to fit a blind over my left eye, so that caused a lot of irritation til I figured that out. As well as that, I just couldn't get comfortable. My left elbow was way too far in under the rifle and I was leaning to one side on it as well as forward to compensate for the down slope of the range. All this meant that my elbow was in bits for the remainder of the match, and not too much better now.
As for the shooting itself, it wasn't great. It took me the better part of 40 shots to get into the flow of things, which wasn't helped by either the pain in my elbow or the forced breaks on the 6 bull cards. On the last 20 I finally got things right, finishing on a 98, by best string of the day, almost certainly shot the fastest.
Finishing up on 569 overall, which was a bit of a disappointmeny really, with 384 as my best four cards put me in 8th place overall and earned me first in class B. A below par match, with possibly my worst placing in over a year, but hopefully enough to shake out the cobwebs so i can get started on proper training and focus on upcoming matches, such as the 25yd indoor in Rathdrum next weekend.
Roll on Winter :D
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