SHOOTING
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LAST weekend Dubbo Pistol Club hosted the Western Plains Country Championships in the service pistol and WA1500 matches.
The marathon event ran over two days, five matches and 550 rounds and the extremely hot conditions saw some competitors retire, making it a true iron man/woman competition.
Saturday kicked off with the Service Pistol Match.
Dubbo's Paul Williamson was the top scorer taking B-grade ahead of Jason Kolar from the Blue Mountains and Gulgong's Tony Picker finished third.
C-grade was taken out by Jabez Nicholls from Tamworth, ahead of Orana shooter Shane Hall in second and Dubbo's Steve Holmes third.
Only two places awarded in D-grade with Tamworth's Ben Scheithe first ahead of Anna Hall.
After a short break to change targets and fill up on water, a larger field in the 25-yard service match again saw Dubbo's Paul Williamson shoot the highest score and take first place in A-grade.
Tony Picker and George Skinner, both from Gulgong scored second and third.
B-grade was also a closely fought match between Ben Scheithe in first, Jason Kolar second, and Jabez Nicholls third.
C-grade was an all Dubbo result, with Steve Holmes, first, Shane Hall second, and Paula Heffernan, third.
D-grade was taken out by Gunnedah shooter David Jaeger ahead of Anna Hall.
The afternoon heat took it's toll on a number of competitors when the WA1500 revolver match kicked off.
Maintaining form to take out all three wins for the day, Paul Williamson scored first in Masters Grade, with Tony Picker second, and Dubbo's Bob Dowling third.
Expert Grade saw the lone ACT shooter Geoff Stacey score a win, over Jabez Nicholls and Jason Kolar.
Ben Scheithe took out sharpshooter grade, while marksman grade saw David Jaeger take the win ahead of the battling Halls.
This time it was Anna showing Shane the way to the post.
Sunday began with the WA 1500 semi-auto match up.
Geoff Stacey was the overall highest score, taking out expert grade while Williamson continued his winning form to take out masters grade.
But the big battle was in the sharpshooter grade.
Breaking grade, Jason Kolar won the match ahead of John Richardson, and Jabez Nicholls.
But the match with the closest results was the last match, unrestricted service, with three tied places.
First in A-grade was a tie between two Dubbo shooters, Bob Dowling and Paul Williamson, which was decided by gentleman's agreement (coin toss).
Then Tony Picker and Geoff Stacey had a shoot off for third. Tony shot a perfect 120 to win the shoot off.
In B-grade Jason Kolar took out first with John Richardson second while C-grade was another tied first place between Steve Holmes and Jabez Nicholls. This was decided by gentleman's agreement also and Jabez was declared winner with Ben Scheithe in third.
The battling Halls (or should that be competitive Halls) took out D-grade.
This time Shane got the upper hand over Anna while Rick Linnane had to settle for third.
As the open competition was winding down 13 diehard Dubbo members found their way to the range for the match of the day, the standard pistol.
A popular win from Terry Greer, ahead of Richard Wheatley in second and Allan Chan in third.
Dubbo Pistol Club would like to greatly thank Paul and Paula who virtually organised, and ran the competition, the two Pete's, Howell and Davidson, and many of the visiting competitors. From the initial entries, to squading, to organising the food, scoring, and the presentations, Paul and Paula did it all.
Open competitions are the best way to promote the club to other competitors and clubs.
The manner in which they are conducted reflects directly on the club.