Thread: Norht Taranaki NZDA Field Shoot

Ran our last major center fire field shoot for the summer on Sunday. North Taranaki is home for me and so this one has been running the longest. This is where lessons have been learnt and the organisation refined.

The weather was awesome, stinking hot, the odd cloud and only very light winds. I was lucky on the day that another club member offered to range officer for the day and in doing so free me up to use my camera. Having a third person helping out running the shoot was a huge help and took a lot of pressure off Malcolm and I.

I was asked last weekend at the Dannevirke shoot what a difficult field shoot would be like - the North Taranaki shoot is what I would class as difficult. There were multiple targets at every stage. More than half the stages forced the competitor to move and shoot under tight time limits. A couple of stages required the competitor to move multiple times, all under the clock.

The club has 4 or 5 very good shooters when it comes to this style of field shoot - and we were all outclassed by Malcolm shooting his Sako Bavarian in .223. Malcolm only missed one target for the day – a 180m supported sitting shot having already hit two targets at that stage.

One of the clubs extremely good young shooters kept up with Malcolm and ahead of his dad for most of the day... until he hit the very difficult stage 5 and dropped a target. His dad then cleaned the last stage meaning he would have to have a perfect last stage to beat him. The pressure got a bit much though and he ended up dropping two targets on that last stage. He ended up with a very respectable third place. His Dad was extremely pleased to beat him in a field shoot for the first time. The club and the competitors on the day really appreciated the prizes that were generously donated by Farmlands Bell Block.

The shoot:
Stage 1:
One untimed shot at the first target (10" @ 212m). competitor had 15 seconds from firing their first shot to move to the second location adn fire one round at the second target (10" @ 152m).





Stage 2:
Competitor had 40 seconds to fire one shot at 4 seperate targets (All 10" @ 15m, 15m, 97m, 15m). Each target had to be shot at from a different (specified) location.







Stage 3:
Competitor had 35 seconds to fire one shot at 3 targets (6" @ 97m, 10" @ 143m & 180m) from a single location. Targets were placed so to force the competitor to adjust their shooting position.





Stage 4:
Competitor had 25 seconds to fire one shot at the first target (10" @ 99m) and then move to the second location to fire one shot at the second target (10" @ 207m).





Stage 5:
Competitor had 45 seconds to fire one shot at the first target (6" @ 91m), move to the second location to fire one shot at the second target (10" @ 108m) and then move to the third location to fire one shot at the third target (10" @ 189m).







Stage 6:
Competitor had 60 seconds to fire one shot at 6 seperate targets (6" @ 133m & 136m, 10" @ 152m, 212m, 262m, 350m)
The competitor was only allowed to have 2 rounds loaded at the beginning .







So we have a longer range shoot coming up in March now and that is pretty much it. Might run a longer range event in Rotorua in May but i am yet to confirm that one.

Excellent write up Gillie. Good work

swt
nice post and pics n vids

Excellent stuff Gillie, the videos really show how quick you have to be. Some real good snaps too!

Looks like a lot of fun.

Cheers guys,

You can see the level of thought the competitor has put into how he was going to do the last 6 shot stage. We told them they could only have 2 loaded in the mag to start with. You can see he loads two in the mag but doesn't completely open the bolt. This means he can throw the his first round straight into the chamber and start shooting. Awesome!

We had one competitor with a 5 shot mag. He had two in the mag to start. Time limit started and he closed the bolt, chambering a live round, he then dropped the mag and filled it up to hold five more. So now he had 6 shots in his rifle. When he got into position the first thing he did was cycle the bolt!!! Ejecting his live round!!! He had to pick it up after firing his five and ran out of time!!! He just shook his head afterwards - a great plan that almost worked!

Looks like bloody good fun. I must try hard to make your next one so I can catch up with your old man again. I am used too him winning everything with a rifle anyway so dont congradulate the old shark for me Ha Ha
I only started having some luck after he left the Army. Another good thing for us was, he couldnt compete in the infantry comps.

How many stations require a standing unsupported shot Gillie and roughly at what ranges?

Only two really required a standing un-supported shot. One was a 10" square target at 108m - this was a hard shot though cause you knew the time was running out, you had just run from the first position and still had to run to the last position. The other stage had three targets everyone shot standing unsupported, they were all 10" square targets at about 15m or so... and truth be told you could see them kneeling as long as you could poke you rifle through the fence and still finish under time!

Yup, cool. Thanks for that.