ast Thursday Stratford Air Gun League shooters had the opportunity to participate in the new competition, Back to Basics (B2B), which was trialled last year and proved to be popular with 25 entrants. Though the take up was not as good, shooters enjoyed the challenge of the B2B shooting. Shooters were only permitted to use specific accessories attached to the gun which meant that specialist clothing designed to aid the shooter such as shooting jackets and gloves which have become common place were not allowed. Two targets were used and shooters had five shots on each with the aggregate score deciding the winner.

Bull shots proved to be most elusive on Target A with only Jamie Putnam scoring a mini possible when he shot five bulls, four of them “clean”, leaving no mark on the target for 25.4 points. Steve Hodges who was pipped at the post last year in a shoot off against Lester Langford again managed four bulls to score 24.3. A number of shooters managed three bulls. Target B was marginally more generous with Jamie Putnam again scoring a mini possible when he shot five bulls, three of which were “clean” for 25.3 points. Lester Langford managed four bulls on this target for 24.3 and Steve Hodges hit three for 23.2 points.

When the scores were aggregated at the end of the match Jamie Putnam was a clear winner with 50.7 out of a possible 51 and both Steve Hodges and Lester Langford finished on 47.4 points to finish joint runners up.

Report by Juana Everett, to be published on 21st March 2019