Results

The weekend of the 1st and 2nd of May saw the National Indoor Championships held in Rathdrum Rifle and Pistol Club.  The 3P event was held on the Saturday with the prone event on Sunday. Entries were up for the 3P event but perhaps due to the bank holiday and other factors, entries for the prone event were slightly down on previous years.

There were six entries for the 3P event and after the 20 prone shots Richard Stapleton of Wilkinstown Target Shooting Club (WTSC) was in the lead but the field from 1st to 6th was only separated by 4 points. During the 20 standing shots, Ray Kane of the Defence Forces Shooting Team (DFST); who had already won the Men's Air Rifle title last month, moved into the lead which he held to the end, eventually finishing 5 points ahead of Richard with Terry Wearen of DFST in 3rd place.

The prone event on Sunday was just as close and exciting as the 3P with a score of 580 required to reach the ten shot final and the next six shooters separated by just 2 points, the ties being broken by counting the number of inner tens scored. This is only the third time in 17 years that the top seven competitors had scored over 580; the previous occasions being the 1994 and 2001 National championships.

Going into the final, Sandy Wilson of East Coast Shooting Club (ECSC) was leading by two points from Ray Kane of DFST with Terry Wearen of DFST a further point behind. Sandy had a terrible final and fell from 1st to 3rd leaving Ray to take the gold and Terry the silver.

We wish to thank all the shooters for supporting the indoor shoots during the year and look forward to welcoming you all back to them in the autumn, for now the next National Championships are the 50m in October and there are plenty of competitions scheduled before then. Please check the calendar to ensure you don't miss anything.

For full results click here.

For the latest classification list  click here.