ECDRA have one last win for 2017

DRA No 11 or better known as Werribee Prize Meeting 2018

First Year Shooter Brian Houlihan and Marty Kelly went down Werribee to shoot the No 11 District Prize shoot.  What a start to 2018 Marty Kelly won F Class Target Rifle and Brian Houlihan took out 3rd  Place in F Standard B grade.  The shoot was over 500 yards with Three stages planned, the final stage was cancelled however due to the forecast of bad weather which could clearly be seen coming.

Marty shot 58.7, 60.6 and an aggregate of 118.13 he won the first and second stages as well as the aggregate.  A great effort Marty, one that sets you up for a great 2018, there are rumors that the state team selectors have their eye on Marty for the 2018 State F class target Rifle team.  This certainly takes his precision shooting to a significantly higher level. It was Brian’s first shoot at an OPM and a third place that stood out, as it was great result for a new shooter, his scores were: F Class Standard B grade 55.1, 58.2 (third place)  and an aggregate of 113.3 (third place).

A quick scan down the scores and we see a number of possibles 60.6, 60.7, 90.7 ect.  At Open Prize shoot you are on your own, no coach and definitely no external assistance.  It is so good to see our local mountain marksmen so successful.  This comes at the price of a lot of practice and a willingness to listen to other experienced shooters.  a feature of the ECDRA is the fact that time is taken to share skills, knowledge and experience so the new or old you have the best chance of enjoying the sport of precision shooting. 

It is the executive committee’s intention to sustain the features of our club and as always strive for the perfect score especially on the difficult ranges like Wellsford at Bendigo.  Come along or use the contacts on the web site new shooters are most welcome.

Marty Kelly Wins The VRA Medal and the AH Coorte Cup

The Most Improved ECDRA Shooter for 2017

Geoff James (left), past Captain of the East Central District Rifle Association presents Marty Kelly(right)present Captain with the AH Coorte Cup for the most improved ECDRA shooter for 2017

The 2017 VRA medal shoot for the East Central District Rifle Association Inc was shot for on the Violet Town Range on Saturday November 11. This year the VRA medal shoot was combined with the “Most Improved Trophy shoot” and the Salmagundi shoot.

What a beautiful warm late spring day with a gentle wind and clear light, what a chance to post some outstanding scores. That was the thoughts of the shooters before the start anyway.

The format of the shoot was 2 sighters and 10 shots to count at 300, 500 and 600 yards. The shoot got off to a great start when Marty Kelly shot a 59.4 at 300. It was soon was very apparent that despite the beautiful day there was an ever present breeze dodging around the flags so that the shooters had no indication of its presence until the shot on the target was shown as less than expected.

The shoot for the day was halted at 10.55 and Graeme Kerr headed a short Remembrance Day Ceremony and cited The Ode. Several minutes of silence was observed to remember those that fought 99 years ago in WW1 and the many wars since.

The First Ever VRA Prize Meet

In the long history of the VRA it was discovered that they had never really run a prize meet on their own it was always by a member club. Well on Sunday the 26th of November 2017 in a thundery start the prize meet began.

The format of the shoot was to be 15 shots at 800 yrds and 15 shots at 900 yrds something a bit different to the standard 10 shots. Again the Team of Graeme Kerr, Marty Kelly and David Wallace took on the challenge after a very hot and dehydrating day before and an ominous start with bolt lightning striking all around and the sound of the heavens roaring. As it turned out when shooting began the weather other than an often tricky wind was very genial to the competitors.

Shooting in F standard A grade Graeme Kerr took fist place with 175.4 just one point ahead of Marty Kelly in second place with 174.9.  It was battle all day where the range score gave the best indication staring at 800 Graeme shot a 90.7 ( only 0.3 off a perfect score) Marty 89.7 then at 900 Graeme 85.7 and Marty 85.2.  What a match on the notoriously difficult  Bendigo long ranges. David Wallace in his first year finished in fine style in F Standard B grade winning both at 800 and 900 yards and the grand aggregate with 88.4(800), 77.2 (900) and a fist place winning 165.6.

2017 Victorian State Titles

East Central District Rifle Association's 5 shooter team took second place in the State F class Standard competition held on the Victoria Rifle Association Range at Wellsford Bendigo on Sunday. Only coming in second place by 2 points in over 800 scored.

The Results were 1st. Western District 819.25,ECDRA 817 .34, Wimmera 810.25, Goulburn Valley 800.24, Ovens and Murray 795.28, Inner West 765.17 and South West 718.15. ECDRA’s Graeme Kerr got the team off to the best possible start at 600 yards with a possible 60.5 (one of only two possibles shot all day).

The high centre or X count (34) for the ECDRA shows just how good the coaches led by Geoff James were at keeping the shooters in the dead centre of the target and it was only the very difficult conditions at 900 yards at the end of the match that cost our team the victory.

Above Graeme Kerr was first up at 900 and as the “test" shooter helped the coach get things sorted but the cost was Graeme’s 49 well out of his normal range and, as he said "I could have found those two points in my shoot alone."

Despite being the second best five shooter team in F Standard 2017 the shooters all said it had been great fun and they would be back again next year - this time to win! The ECDRA individual scores were Marty Kelly 169.8, David Wallace 166.8, Graeme Kerr 165.6, Vaughan Murphy 162.9 and Geoff James 155.3.

ECDRA also entered for the first time a F Class Open five shooter team competition.  Regretfully this “young” team did not have the services of the ECDRA regular coaches and under the very difficult wind conditions the team struggled to keep their shots in the dead centre. The F class open five shooter team results were first Gippsland 864.44, Bendigo 862.46, Western District 846.93, Goulburn Valley 832.29, Inner West 815.26and ECDRA 794.27.

The individual ECDRA team members scores were: Des Coulter 168.3, Paul Watkins 160.7, Norm Lienhan 157.8, Matt Frazer 157.4 and Chai Somlong 152.5. Entering two teams in the State titles required a big effort by all involved especially for the F Open team as its limited coaching experience meant that everyone had to do jobs that they had limited experience with yet both teams came up trumps. The ECDRA "over eighties" featured in both teams along with members who had only a few months experience, over all a great team effort by all. Congratulations. Last year the F class standard team was placed 5th so there is no doubt that the top spot will be theirs next year, all being well.

Saturday was the day of the individual F class Standard and Open competition for the champion of champions for Victoria. Matt Frazer shot in the F Open event and Marty Kelly in the F Standard event.

Marty said that the conditions on Saturday worse than Sunday with the cold wind cutting to the bone and the shooters were glad of a cuppa after the event concluded at 900 yards. Marty had a horror 700 yards and Matt followed with a similar shoot at 900 yards. It was good to see Marty and Matt contesting state titles because last year they were both shooting F standard and Marty narrowly won the right to represent the ECDRA at the State titles.

The results in F Standard put E Warrender in first place with 168.12 points, D. Stanford in second place with 162.5 points and in third place Marty Kelley 161.5  points ( just 1 point off second place!) Marty’s scores were 56.2, 48.1 and 57.2 for a total of 161.5, we can see how costly that 700 yard range shoot was given that if he had shot as well last the other two ranges he would have been state champion, perhaps next year. Matt Frazer in F Open was up against some really top shooters in this highly competitive class and he shot 56.3, 58.4 and 47.1 for a total of 161.8.

Again a tail of lost opportunities with the disastrous 47.1 at 900. Even so Matt said it was great learning experience and he now knows just how the wind can be read at Bendigo, the only way to learn is to have a go. It looks as if Matt is shaping up to give the 2018 titles a good go. However based on the scores from the team shoot on Sunday there are a number of shooters who have a similar ideas.

While the Individual F class shoots were being held on Saturday the State Target Rifle Teams event was being contested and this year the 10 shooter team from the Goulburn Valley took the title, it was great to see our area so successful at this the highest level of the sport in the State. Next Friday night the pennant teams from the Goulburn Valley including the ECDRA will gather in Mooroopna for the annual presentation dinner and our ECDRA will feature as it picks up two of the three team prizes, more news next week.

The Victoria Police OPM 2017

The last weekend of the 2017 shooting year was fully packed with the Victoria Police OPM on the Saturday and then the first ever VRA open prize meet on the Sunday.

The rush of Christmas 2017 including the hospitalisation of your our President Robert Chaffe and the Author of these posts really was a good example of what is known as the silly season but not for the East central District Rifle Association. David Wallace Graeme Kerr and Marty Kelly made time to shoot the Victorian Police Long Range Prize shoot on Saturday the 25 on November.

The format was three ranges at 1000yrds. David Wallace shooting in F Standard B won two of the ranges and the Grand Aggregate Not a bad effort for a shooter that only took up long range precision shooting in February 2017. Marty Kelly was shooting F/TR and won one stage and placed third overall in the Grand Aggregate. Graeme Kerr shooting F Standard A just missed winning a stage on count back of centres and finished in second place overall in the Grand Aggregate. This put all of the ECDRA competitors on the podium at the end of the day.

9th Dragon Diesel Challenge

On Saturday 15^th we saw the largest participation in this the 9^th Dragon Diesel Challenge. The event attracted over 40 participants from the Australian Deer Association, Euroa Clay Target Club, East Central District Rifle Association and adjacent rifle clubs each competing for recognition among their clubs as “top shots”. A significant difference for this, the 9th Challenge, was the strong female contingent from the hunters including a guest appearance by the Honorable Steph Ryan MLA Euroa and Deputy Leader of the Nationals. Steph who joined in shot a credible 21 out of 35 at 300yards.

Above: The Honorable MP for Euro Steph Ryan MLA in the foreground shooting.

Another highlight of the competition was the number of junior shooters competing in the event. This made for a good contingent in the grade. Above Euroa Clay Target Club junior member Ryan Mackrell tries his hand at the 100 yds rifle event under the watchful supervision of ECTC President Iain Towers and ECDRA Range Officer Graeme Kerr. He certainly showed a lot of the target shooters how clay targets should be shot.

The format for the event was modified to reward those competitors who were true “all round” sportspersons, with events that represented the challenges of the Olympic Biathlon event (shooting off-hand at 100 yards distance), the Commonwealth Games target rifle event (shooting deliberately from the prone position at 300 yards distance) and the Olympic Trap Shooting event (shooting clay targets with a shotgun). The day started well for the target shooters with Dave Wallace (ECDRA) taking the 100yard and tying with Brian Houlihan at 300 yards with perfect scores.

While the “Old Gnarly” 303 challenge went to Wally Dergacz (ADA). The 300yard shoot marked the end of the rifle section and a chance to thank Rosco Davis for the excellent job he did in the butts. The scores showed that the Challenge could have gone either way at this point and time for lunch. Lunch included the special treat for those choosing to try Richie Timms superb game sausages that were cooked to perfection by Geoff James. After lunch it was onto the final and deciding stage of the Dragon Diesel Challenge, the clay target round. Tony Rollick (ECTC) won this event in spectacular style only missing one target.

With the shooting done it was time for a cuppa and a chat while the number cruncher's tallied the scores. The team competition was decided by the average score of all shooters completing all three events, and after a full day of shooting the hunters average score was 54.3 and the target shooters 53.7, the difference was in the last round with only 6 broken clay targets across all the participants deciding the event!

The individual winners were: The grand aggregate; 1st Wayne Stiff (ADA) 75/85, 2nd Matthew Frazer (ECDRA) 70/85, 100 yds; 1st Dave Wallace (ECDRA) 23/25, 2nd Bill Pemberton (ADA) 21/25, 300 yds;  Draw Dave Wallace (ECDRA) and Brian Houlihan (ECDRA) 30/30, “Old Gnarly” challenge (303 rifle competition) 1st Wally Dergacz (ADA visitor from Westernport Branch) 29/55, 2nd Graeme Kerr (ECDRA) 28/55 and clay targets; 1st Tony Rohlach (ECTC) 29/30, 2nd Rob Stackhouse (ECTC) 28/30. Andy Friedel (ADA) as he distributed the Dragon Diesel trophies along with the special Clay Target trophy confirmed, that the event had been a great success and again attracted active participation from both the hunters and the target shooters, improving skills, embedding safe practices and emphasizing the special responsibilities of being a licensed shooter. Graeme Kerr (ECDRA) responded by also acknowledging the significant contribution Andy Friedel had provided through weed control in preparation for the event and the advertising support from Ann Friedel Publishing. The 10th Diesel Challenge will be contested in Autumn 2018 and you can be sure the competition will be even more intense as the target shooters try to regain the Dragon Diesel team trophy.