2009 Australia Day Benchrest Competition
24-26 January 2009

Paul Sullivan, left, receives the Ian Josselyn
Memorial Shield from shoot director Alex Chryss.


Paul Sullivan, centre, won both the 2-Gun and
3-Gun events and is shown here with Stuart Elliott,
left, and Brendan Atkinson. With the Australia Day holiday falling on a Monday, this year’s Benchrest shoot was held over three days as three separate events. Sporter Class, as well as the Light and Heavy Varmint were contested, with each class being completed on the one day. The cap of three details (75 shooters) maximum was soon reached in the Varmint classes and the Sporter event saw 59 shooters on the line.

Sporter Class
The shorter yardage in the Sporter event was shot in lively conditions that tested both skill and patience. Groups in the low twos were required to stay with the leaders, but on his last card, Ray Edwards shot a .114 for smallest group of the morning. In fact, Ray had an easy win, with an aggregate of .2530.
The longer yardage soon sorted them out and Annie Elliott put down a fine .267 group on the first target using a new spiral fluted barrel. No-one was able to get even close to this for the rest of the afternoon. The aggregate winner was Anthony Foate, who held five groups together for an aggregate of .3396.
The Grand Aggregate and the Ian Josselyn Memorial Shield was taken out by Paul Sullivan, who managed to avoid any really big groups.

Light Varmint Class
The Light Varmint event began at 200 yards, as the backing system had been left there after the Sporter event. What a battle the longer yardage turned out to be - it was a classic ‘shoot-out’, especially where earning the small group medal was concerned. Brendan Atkinson shot a .374 on the A target, but Thomas Spang came back with a .297 on the B target. Ross Hutchins lowered this with a .285 on the C target and then Brendan put down a .239 on the D target. How much lower could it go? Well, Stuart Elliott finally found the conditions he wanted and punched down an amazing .174 group at 200 yards on the last card of the day. The aggregate went to John Brooks, who just edged out Brendan Atkinson on the last card to grab the win with a .2374.
With the backers moved back in to 100 yards, we sat down to do it all over again. Tiny groups were again required and Steve Sori kicked off with a .128, which wasn’t bad, but Roy McCarthy shot a screamer on the B target with an officially measured .095 and nobody managed to better that one.
We all expected the aggregate to be a tiny one, but the wind and mirage had other ideas. At the end of the day, it was Stuart Elliott who won the shorter yardage with a .2316 aggregate.
The Grand Aggregate was won by Brendan Atkinson with a .2524 and he was fairly happy with the performance of his new Bartlein barrel.

Heavy Varmint Class
On the holiday Monday, the Heavy Varmints came out and with reasonable conditions, some fine shooting was on the cards. However, all was not as it seemed. The event began at the shorter yardage and Paul Sullivan immediately put down a .153, which wasn’t bad, but should have been beatable. It was surprising, but nobody did, although some came close. The yardage saw a number of shooters average better than a quarter minute of angle, but Paul Sullivan cleared out with an aggregate of .2202.
The final yardage of this year’s events saw many promising aggregates destroyed with just one errant shot, but such is the nature of Benchrest. Keith Sewell shot a tidy .379 on the A target to give us something to chase. That stayed up for a while, but Paul Sullivan was on a mission and punched in a .300 on the D target, which no-one was able to better. The longer yardage also went to Paul with a .3134 - that hot-shooting heavy barrel was still cutting the numbers. After winning both yardages, it was no surprise that Paul won the Grand Aggregate with .2668 - a country mile ahead of second place. Outstanding!

Light Varmint and Heavy Varmint 2-Gun
The winner of the Bob Daniels Memorial Shield for 2009 was Paul Sullivan. Once again, Brendan Atkinson filled the second placing, with Roy McCarthy third.

The 2009 event was a professionally run shoot by Alex Chryss and his band of helpers. There is still some talk of this shoot returning to the original format of a day/night shoot and many shooters see this as a benefit. Time will tell.