A shoulder-to-shoulder trial is held on the Saturday morning. This consists of a modified Double Dewar. Half the trialists shoot 2 cards at 50 Yards followed by 2 cards at 100 Yards, moving firing points between each detail, and the other half of the trialists shoot 100 Yards followed by 50 Yards. The top 10 and 1 reserve are taken from each squad giving a final team of 20 with 2 reserves.
The Match itself is a Single Dewar and is usually fired later on the Saturday afternoon but in exceptional circumstances the Captain and Adjutant may hold it over to the Sunday morning. An independent witness is appointed by the NSRA and they collate the results from participating Countries.
The leading scorer in the Great Britain Team is awarded the Ron Wood Cup – the little cup in the photograph. All Team members receive a medal and/or date bar and are entitled to the free issue of a Great Britain International tie, if they have not already received one. A blazer badge is also available for purchase.
How do you get into the trial? and Yes anyone can have a go!
This is how you qualify:
The leading 40 shooters in Classes X & A in the Bisley Championship Aggregate of the previous year.
The leading 3 shooters in Classes X and A in the Scottish Championship Aggregate of the previous year who did not enter Bisley that year.
The leading scores in a postal trial held in the spring of the same year over a Double Dewar course.
If you want to enter the Postal Trial look in the Spring Copy of The Rifleman for the entry form, fill it in and send it off with your entry fee (currently £10). You will receive two sets of stickers and witness forms, one set for each single Dewar. Shoot these on your home range, witnessed as for other NSRA competitions, send them off to the named Captain and wait to see if you get through to the trial. The 2006 qualifying score from the postal trial was 779+.
Saturday 24th June 2006
This year six shooters from Bucks qualified for the trials. A.T. Campbell, M.T. White, C.J. White and T.Q. Brunning from the Bisley Aggregate and A.J. Williamson & Mrs J. Nicholl through the postal trial.
Four of the qualifiers travelled up on Friday evening and stayed locally at The Cat & Lion which tends to be the gathering place for the trialists and two decided to drive up early on Saturday morning to avoid the Friday night traffic.
A.T. Campbell had an excellent shoot with 197, 197 at 50 Yards and 200, 200 at 100 Yards to lead the qualifiers. Unfortunately the others were not so successful, T.Q. Brunning coming closest at 13th in his half of the draw, just 2 points below achieving a team place. So five of us travelled home leaving the team to shoot the match later in the early evening. We will watch The Rifleman and the NSRA web site for the results – and no doubt have another try at making the team next year!