Service Rifle WA State Titles
27-29 September 2008

The venue for the 2008 WA Service Rifle State Titles was the wonderful and picturesque Coolilup range, near Busselton, south of Perth. A generous prize list including cash prizes totalling $1000 and a prize table of similar value attracted about 30 shooters, many of whom were locals, but some travelled quite a distance. There were contingents from Busselton, Albany, Perth and one shooter even travelled from Melbourne.

The three-day event was planned and supervised by the SSAA Busselton Rifle Club and was the State Championships for ‘as-issued’ service rifles such as Lee-Enfields, Mausers, Mosin-Nagants and similar military bolt-action rifles. The Bill King Memorial trophy for the Team’s Title was also up for grabs.

Day one saw a 3-Positional match called the Rifleman, consisting of a total of 30 scoring shots at distances of 300m (Prone), 200m (Sitting/Kneeling) and 100m (Standing). Dave Rushbrook (Melbourne) took an early lead with 140.9 ahead of F Kocsis (Perth) with 139.6.

The Falling Plate was and will be run as a fun team event. Shooting teams of five members of each club have 10 rounds each to knock over 10 12x12" steel plates at 200m from the Prone position. The team to finish in the quickest time with the most rounds left over wins.

Day two was fairly intensive with the Marksman event. It is Deliberate, Rapid Fire and Snap Shooting matches at 300m, 200m and 100m on the more difficult Figure-11 and Figure-12 targets. Matt Lewis shone here with a leading total of 252, ahead of Dave Rushbrook on 248. Third place was John Edwards with 222.

The final day saw the Long Range ‘Slow Fire’ matches at 300m, 500m and 600m. Standard Full Bore targets were used for this match, but with a concession of ‘1 up’ scoring. This means that if you get an inner 4, it is recorded as a 5 and so on, keeping the event more in keeping with the accuracy standards of the ‘as-issue’ rifles. Totals of the Long Range matches saw Dave Rushbrook ahead of Matt Lewis by only 1 point - 146.15 to 145.8. Possibles were scored by Matt Lewis (50.2 at 500m) and Dave Rushbrook with 50.4 at 500m and 50.7 at 600m.

Final scores were Dave Rushbrook on 534.24 and Matt Lewis on 532.9, with John Edwards on 486.5. The winning team was the SSAA Perth Field Rifle Club.

The shoot was a great success thanks to the efforts of organiser and scorer David ‘Ned’ Kelly, range officer Wayne Oldfield and butts officers Jack Nixon and Dave Basten. Rod Davis also deserves a special mention because he made sure everything that Ned had organised fell into place and happened when and where it should. All gave up their three days of shooting to perform these duties. A whisper has already been heard that these boys will be shooting next year, so watch SSAA Perth Field Rifle Club, as the Teams Trophy will be returning to Busso!

Thanks also to the generous sponsors, whose donations and acknowledgement of Service Rifle in WA is greatly welcomed and appreciated. Thanks to Busselton Rifle Club for the large cash prizes, WARA for the No. 1 badge and medals, Sportsmarine of Bunbury, Garry Trigwell of Southwest Firearms, Beaton Firearms of Perth and Silver Fox Firearms of Busselton.

Next year’s event has been earmarked for November 13 to 15, with the same format or similar as this one, but with a swap, sell and buy meet for the Saturday night planned.