[April 16-17] Wilkinstown Air Rifle and Air Pistol Open

Sparks

Okay, somewhat short notice on the air pistol side but we've seen the usual kind of ironing out of kinks needed for this that you'd expect!

Wilkinstown Airgun Open 2
Wilkinstown, Co.Meath
April 16-17, 2005

Competitions
Standard ISSF Air Rifle 60-shot match.
Standard ISSF Air Pistol 60-shot match.

Prizes
Air Rifle: Prizes for Overall, as well as for Classes, Ladies and Juniors.
Air Pistol: Prizes for Overall; Commerative prizes for all competitors. Classifications currently have not been drafted for this event in Ireland and we need more data on people's shooting levels to do this, so for the moment, we won't be seeing class prizes (But then, virtually everyone in the republic is at the same beginner level anyway at the moment!)

Schedule of shooting details
All details will have ten minutes of preparation time as per ISSF rules before the scheduled start time - ie. Prep time for the 1000 detail will begin at 0950, etc. There will be 35 minutes between details just in case any glitches arise.

Saturday: Air Rifle and Air Pistol
Detail 1 : 1000
Detail 2 : 1230
Detail 3 : 1500
(A fourth detail may be run at 1730 if absolutely necessary)

Sunday: Air Rifle and Air Pistol
Detail 1 : 1000
Detail 2 : 1230

Finals, Air Rifle:
Sunday, 1500

Entries
Air Pistol Match: 15 euro (10 euro for juniors and students)
Air Rifle Match: 15 euro (10 euro for juniors and students)
Both Matches: 25 euro (15 euro for juniors and students)
(Junior here refers to ISSF juniors, ie. under 21 on 31st December 2005)

Telephone entries will be taken by Geoff Cooney on 046 905 4167 or by email to acooney@iol.ie

Notes

• This will be the first ISSF Pistol match held in the Republic since 1972 (outside of an army barracks at any rate). We're not certain, but we believe it will be the first ISSF Air Pistol match held ever outside an army barracks in the Republic (anyone remember the history on this better?).
• Safety will be paramount for this event. Range Officer instructions must be obeyed at all times!
• Commerative awards will be issued to all competitors in the air pistol match (but allow a few weeks for them to arrive).
• We're trying to arrange for club air pistols for those shooters who do not presently own air pistols, or those from N.Ireland who wish to participate but have insufficient time to arrange paperwork to use their own air pistols. However, we're not sure how many will be available at present. Updates on this to follow.
• Since this is the first competition of its type in the Republic, we have no data for classification, and the entire competition is going to be a learning experience. We'll be asking for competitors to pass on any notes they might have on what gets done wrong (because this isn't going to be a finely tuned machine!) or what could be done better.

We already have a few shooters coming up from Tralee, from Leitrim, from the college clubs, and a few other places, so the more the merrier!

Sparks

Right folks, minor news item here, the details are filling up rapidly. Sunday at 1230 is fully booked up. Sunday at 10 has one place left as of an hour ago. Saturday has a total of about 16 slots left free over the three details, with most of the free slots on the 1000 detail. Now extra details can be run on the Saturday evening if needs be, but the range has to be disassembled before Sunday night so we can't run any details after the Finals, so we can't expand the number of available places there. So if you want to shoot, and you're not booked in already, it looks like you'll have to shoot on the Saturday!

So if you want to shoot in the first ISSF Air Pistol match for ages, you'd better give Geoff a phone call or an email and book a slot on Saturday - morning, afternoon or even evening if needed!

Sparks

Some photo's from today's shooting. More shooting tomorrow, and if you're interested enough, there's a special detail being run at 0800 to cope with some of the demand. Unfortunately there's only a single place left on the 1000 detail and none on the 1230 detail But spectators are always welcome and the air rifle finals at 1500 should be interesting.

Some shots of the firing line...









Spectators watching the shooting...



Two of the Kingdom Rifle and Pistol Club up from Tralee for the match, with Geoff and Matt from the Wilkinstown Club and our own Renegade_Archer up from Limerick (and the sods are currently in First, Second and Fourth positions in the match!).



Matt shooting his new Daisy 747 air pistol...

Sparks

Some photos from today's shooting. Not as many as I'd hoped to get, I'm afraid since we were so short on manpower and so swamped with entries, but such is life









Spectators watching the finals;



The Finalists;



Left to right; First place - Liam Spillane (572 ex 600), second place - Nicola Murphy (568 ex 600 and an awful photo, sorry Nicola!), third place - Susan Cunningham (567 ex 600).



Geoff Cooney giving the final announcements of the winners and prizes and thanking the various people who ran the competition.



The pistols we'd used for the match were the rather venerable Feinwerkbau Model 65:



The FAS 604:



And the Daisy 747:



All very basic entry-level models, but servicable enough!

The winners, by the way, of the first ISSF Air Pistol competition in the Republic were from all ends of the country - Tim Scannel of the Kingdom Rifle and Pistol Club in Kerry won with a score of 522; Paddy Ashe, also of the Kingdom club, and a founder of the NTSA to boot, took second place with 487 and Mr. P.Rice from the Dungannon club took third with 484. Not too shabby a performance given the lack of competitive experience in the discipline for the past few decades, and the rather old equipment being used!

Left to Right; Tim Scannel, Matt Fox (Chairman, Wilkinstown Target Shooting Club), Paddy Ashe, Geoff Cooney (Secretary, Wilkinstown Target Shooting Club), and our own Renegade_Archer, who came in fourth place with a respectable 480.

Sparks

Okay, so here are the final results for the Open.
And here are the results as a spreadsheet.

Prizegiving details to follow.

Sparks

A bit of a mangling of the press release, but it's still a much nicer thing to see in the press than the usual "guns are bad, m'kay" stuff...

From the Kerryman, April 21:

Sparks

Minor blurb in the Meath Chronicle as well:

On target
WILKINSTOWN Target Shooting Club members produced impressive performances in the air rifle and air pistol competitions at Wilkinstown Community Centre.
Susan Cunningham was third in the air rifle event which was won by Liam Spillane with Nicola Murphy in second.
Cunningham is one of the club’s most promising juniors and she clocked up a new personal best score of 567/600 to clinch the bronze in her first final.
Another of the home club’s promising juniors, Damien Fagan, also achieved a personal best of 567/600 to claim sixth position while Elizabeth O’Hagan finished in seventh place. Cliona Russell from Slane also achieved a personal best.
Organised under Olympic rules, the competition was held over two days.

Wilkinstown Target Shooting club members (from left) Liam Spillane, Nicola Murphy and Susan Cunningham at the air rifle and air pistol competition.

There was a bit in the Evening Herald as well, and there's an article in the Herald's new sports magazine on the Wilkinstown club coming out soon. I'll post them as soon as I get a chance to scan them in.

Rovi

Great stuff, good to see some shooting sports coverage in the press.

.

Sparks

Well in that case Rovi, try here for some of the press coverage the NTSA shooters were getting over the past couple of years.

Sparks

We finally managed to give out the commeration certificates for the match this friday at the prizegiving event - that'll let you know how busy things have been in the club of late!


Most of the competitors (some couldn't be there on Friday and will have their certs posted out).


Paddy, our chief pistol range officer for the event.

Sparks

And here's a closeup of the pistol competition commeration certificates: