Hra Royal British Legion Charity Shoot

The Royal British Legion (RBL) do a fantastic job supporting former servicemen and women, they also help serving military personnel as well. Typically they rely completely on donations and the annual Poppy Appeal is their most high profile fund-raising event. As a charity, they don’t make a song and dance about what they do and they try to keep costs to a minimum, thus using the maximum amount of money raised to carry out their vital work.

The UK public obviously hold the RBL in high regard, as millions of pounds are raised every year. The British shooting community has a lot of ex-service personnel amongst its ranks and many other shooters have an interest in military firearms and history.

GRAHAM’S IN

John Morgan-Hosey, a keen Highpower and Civilian Service Rifle competitor is a Royal Naval Officer and had seen first hand how the RBL looked after former servicemen and he supports them whenever he can. In 2011 he decided to organise a precision shooting competition at Bisley to raise funds. The competitions have usually taken place in the summer and have clashed with my family holidays but this year the match was held on the 5th of September, so I was able to take part.

Everyone received a goodie bag when they booked in, which contained some RBL merchandise, a baseball cap, morale patch and a very neat bottle opener made from an inert .50 cal round.

The course of fire was very challenging, with some targetry not seen in the Civilian Service Rifle matches I take part in. The first stage involved the Figure 14s (or ‘Hun’s Head), which is usually a life-size representation of, you guessed it, a Hun’s Head and are usually engaged at 100 yards. For this comp however they were 1 ½” high, that might sound bad enough but they were engaged from 300 yards! It was a real challenge, even with a 16-power scope and I hit the grand total of ONE, oh well, better luck next year! One shooter actually managed to hit 8 out of 10, which was remarkable!

 

SPRAY & PRAY

Other stages involved shooting seated at 400 yards but we were allowed to use improvised rests. I used a modified camera tripod but there were extra long-legged Harris bipods, backpacks and crossed sticks being used along the line. Seeing as Gavin Haywood of Anglo Custom Rifles wasn’t allowed to use the Black & Decker Workmate he used last year, (I kid you not!) he used a professional-looking video camera tripod instead. He also turned up with two 30-round mags for his AR 15 straight-pull and then proceeded to pepper the target with 60 rounds in 2 minutes. It paid off though, as he scored a hit on each of the 10 targets! As you can see, tactics can play a big a part as straight shooting in the match and it was certainly fun to watch.

Some stages involved sitting, kneeling and prone at 300 yards, with some of the prone shots being taken from the weak shoulder. Another stage, shot prone at 500 yards, had a choice of Fig 12s, Fig 12Cs or Fig 14s. My two sighters were bang on for elevation, with just a tad of windage. I decided to go for the Fig 14, only to forget to aim off for the wind! That schoolboy error cost me dearly points-wise; a tidy group in the sand to the right of the target won’t get you many points!

I did well on some stages and obviously not so well on others but I’d had a cracking day on the range, helping to raise money for a fantastic charity in the process. I came 47th out of 94, so I came exactly half way up the scoreboard (or halfway down) and I was pretty pleased all things considered. There was some amazing shooting during the day and a mention must be made of Brian Reacher, who used an LMT straightpull AR10 style rifle and factory GGG ammo; it just goes to show what can be done when the right guy’s behind the right rifle!

 

RBL ON RANGE

The awards were handed out by a representative of The Royal British Legion and she was amazed at how much money had been raised: it was a massive £10,000! The match was extremely well supported by the UK gun trade and there were raffle prizes totalling £7,000 up for grabs. Devon Custom Rifles had donated a rather beautiful rifle in .243 calibre, Bradley Arms a .22 rimfire AR15, Low Mill Ranges a GSG 522 and Valkyrie Rifles a customised Mossberg pump action shotgun.

These, as well as a myriad other prizes were selected at random and then a competitor’s entry number picked out of a hat. Everyone won something, even if some people ‘only’ went home with some cleaning patches and solvent. No matter what people got, there were smiling faces all round. One very happy chap was Andy Brook who won that rifle from Devon Custom Rifles. I won a very nice pair of Vortex binoculars but I’d have been happy with anything to be honest.

 

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT’S DUE

John Morgan-Hosey, his wife Julie and all the others who made the competition run so smoothly deserve a massive pat on the back. Their combined efforts made for a very enjoyable day on the range, raising a small fortune for an amazing charity in the process. The gun trade supported the event with their raffle prize donations but let’s also not forget those riflemen and women who paid the entrance fee, turned up on the day and persuaded friends and family to sponsor them via the Just Giving page. The page is still up and running and if anyone reading this would like to add to the total, visit www.justgiving.com/ hra-rbl-match. At the time of writing, the total was over £13,000!

Next year’s event, on the 3rd of September, is hopefully going to be open to even more competitors, with the aim of raising £20,000.

 

THE RESULTS

Short Range

.308 Class: Brian Reacher 225.
.223 Class: Dave Moran 212.
Wildcat Class: Paul Tasker 209.

Long Range

.308 Class: Brian Reacher 245.
.223 Class: Gavin Haywood 216.
Wildcat Class: Dave Holt 237.