Last weekend’s NSW Rile Association MRCA Championships shoot was a stunning success and amazing to witness as 40 shooters took a challenging course of fire using mostly ex-military rifles — particularly .303s and Mausers.
When a rapid-fire serial went down with 10 shooters all lined up, the sight and sounds were awe inspiring and just marvellous.
The competition was held at the Anzac Rifle Range at Malabar, one of Australia’s premier ranges in a magnificent coastal location, and the weather blessed us.
This was probably the best experience I have had to do with shooting — ever. And I didn’t shoot.
The breadth of different rifle classifications as per the new NRAA Standard Shooting Rules meant that if you did your bit and shot at your grade level on the days, you could get a fair crack at a trophy.
Forty shooters took on the extensive and challenging course of fire over 100, 200 and 300 metres, twice, and it all fitted into the schedule with no time to spare — it was optimal.
The firearms used, many of which were over a century old in design, were inspirational to see in serious competition and they worked just as they were intended all those years ago.
This event would not have been the success it was without the tireless commitment of the range maintenance crew and the range staff, all volunteers and all of whom would have slept like babies on Sunday night.
Thank you to every one of you, in particular to Carol and Margaret Finney for collation of the shooting results.
And finally, we offer our sincere appreciation and thanks to the incredibly generous sponsors of this event, which would not have been nearly as sweet if they did not participate.
Lithgow Arms provided a superb prize in the form of a .223 LA102 Varmint rifle, along with other prizes.
TBone Engineering, owned and operated by Tom Smith, donated a beautifully refurbished donated No4 Mk1 .303 rifle as another outstanding prize.
Spika kindly donated many caps, knives and there giveaways. Spika is also the distributor of Lithgow Arms in Australia.
The video above, along with photos, is the product of two MRCA stalwarts, James Hoffman and Damon Livermore, who incidentally shot first and second places in Modified Service Rifle class, with the top scores recorded for the entire event.
As a final note, we have been asked to put together a more mass-appeal event around autumn next year. A Rimfire Invitational shoot has been proposed and tentatively accepted. Watch this space.
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