MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands’ shooters suffer consequences of record high temperatures in the UK

Ken Aldridge and Gareth Goodwin and are competing at the Bisley shooting range

While the Falklands team struggles in Bermuda high temperatures the Falkland Islands Rifle Association is also dealing with a heat wave at Bisley shooting range in the UK, reports competitor Gareth Goodwin.

He said: ”Both Ken (Aldridge) and I have suffered with the constant high temperatures being experienced in the UK, over 30c for the past five days - far from ideal shooting conditions for those not used to shooting in the heat.“

Gareth achieved 71.6v and Ken 70.4v in the St Georges competition. Neither Gareth nor Ken qualified for the 2nd round which is the top 300 scores.

The Falklands competition was won by R Mohamad of Malaysia with score of 75.8v.

Gareth said: The first few shoots were eventful for all at the Imperial Meeting as it appears with the high heat the primers in the ammo were blowing in the rifle chamber which caused some shooters real issues. The NRA changed the batch of ammo to the same lot we shot with last year with the result that there have only been a couple of reported primer failures.”

The team will also compete in the final individual competition, the Prince of Wales competition.

Gareth said: ”We have the CSF (Commonwealth Shooting Federation Champs) starting on Monday which is pairs followed by individual and finishes Wednesday afternoon. This is a get together of the Commonwealth Fullbore Shooters a year before each Commonwealth Games. Usually the competition is held on the ranges of the Commonwealth Games but as we cannot get access until the games start it was decided to hold it at Bisley this year.”

Grand aggregate scores: Gareth dropped from 485th to 502nd after completion of Queens Competition. Ken moved up to 632nd from 640th after Queens from an entry of around 1000. (PN).