British Open - Hepworth Hall - Open Thread

Interested to hear feedback and thoughts from shooters at the Open Sporting and Sporttrap at Hepworth Hall this week...

Scores from today

https://www.cpsa.co.uk/userfiles/file/BO%20ESP%202013%20DAY%201%20LIST.pdf

Early reports via Facebook seem to suggest a very stiff course, a friend just texted me saying some stands were just silly and didn't sound as though he'd enjoyed himself. :mellow:

Steve Lovatt 105, be interesting to read a regular course setters opinion if possible

Thought it was a very good course, good use of simo pairs could be shot either way round, shot 107 concentration for me was non existent today, Reckon about 113 will be enough!!

After the first complete debarkle of the sportrap this morning I thought the sporting was quite good very technical and on the 11am rotation was badly sun affected with a lot very tricky to get on to and see

I personally think 111to 112 will win

I hit all the long targets but missed 6or7 bloody closer to ones don't think Iwe shoot enough of tthese style clays

I thought that the Sporting course was excellent; plenty of variety and enough deception to rob you of targets if you're were not paying attention. Stands 2, 11 and 15 were particularly good IMHO. Agree 1000000% with Steve about the Sportrap this morning; Mr Dyson needs to ensure that his staff are up to speed the day PRIOR to the event, not on the job training in future! He was the best Sportrap ref we had all day!

Steve Lovatt said:

After the first complete debarkle of the sportrap this morning I thought the sporting was quite good very technical and on the 11am rotation was badly sun affected with a lot very tricky to get on to and see

I personally think 111to 112 will win

I hit all the long targets but missed 6or7 bloody closer to ones don't think Iwe shoot enough of tthese style clays

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one wonders why course setters try so hard to deceive.......just put on a layout full of realistic, enjoyable targets..............think the word technical is being over used to cover up lack of imagination and forethought ......speed and angles !!!! normally means lack of either :fie:     

Steve Lovatt said:

After the first complete debarkle of the sportrap this morning I thought the sporting was quite good very technical and on the 11am rotation was badly sun affected with a lot very tricky to get on to and see

I personally think 111to 112 will win

I hit all the long targets but missed 6or7 bloody closer to ones don't think Iwe shoot enough of tthese style clays

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Steve, does that mean you will now put on close targets

On this occasion Clint I tend to agree there were colour targets through a tree background with the sun shining on them were nigh on impossible to focus on , I kept the gun where I wanted to shoot them and then just saw a orange flash and shot and got lucky and hit them all , I think there are too many of these creeping into sporting these days but that's just my own opinion , all the cays in the air and opposite the sun direction were easy to see and get onto , even the black teal on a dark background

Chubby I will carry on doing what I have always done and I hope you guys do also at wlss

After saying all that I did enjoy the sporting just tricky to see some of them

There was one good crosser on st2 with a distance I haven't seen on a sporting range for ages ( got all these cause you could see it well with Huge lead )

Steve

Shot this today, thought it was a really good course with a couple of exceptions. As Steve mentioned, there were some stands with white/blaze clays through trees which were hard to pick out when the sun shone (most of the day).

However, I thought the selection of birds was great, nice to see a long crosser on two, the point blank bunny caught a few out, as did many of the other birds. Only a couple of gimme stands but frankly I think that's how it should be.

I shot pants and was well short of what I should have had with 106. I see 113 to win it.

See what comes in..!

I enjoyed the sporting but got slaughtered by the Sporttrap
85/120 started on st2 was cruising to a straight then dropped the last pair
Had no problems with the rabbits or white targets and there was plenty of hittable stuff - usually one of the pair was nice
Shot a lot of 5s usually finding the hard target on the last pair. Even eventually found the distant midi on stand 13 (?) someone said the wind was blowing it 20 yards further out

I don't want really to talk about the Sporttrap 14 13 17 17 so 61.
Always at least one target I couldn't find - too bloody far away - and probably only hit a couple of the sim pairs

From the reports I've read thus far, looks to have been a tester on both ESP and STR.

Mind you, having never shot this event, is that to be unexpected on a British Open?

They were too hard for me - half of them I had no idea how to shoot.  Can't blame the sun as it wasn't too much of a problem on the 9am start.  What's annoying is not hitting the ones you can hit, hitting the first three and then missing the last one - what's that all about?  Couldn't hit that close bunny, a guy on my squad who did hit it took it very early and shot straight at it as he did also the bunny on the hill - I gave it about two feet and watched it sail through my own dust unscathed.  At least I wasn't last though and it's my first British Open and I enjoyed doing it and would do it again, unlike one guy on my squad who when he missed one through his empties into the bin in an absolute fury! or let them eject onto the ground.  What's the point?

Close bunny is a real straight at it/rifle shot. 2 inches lead will be a miss in front. Best to take early with a dead gun to avoid going in front and also gives you a fraction more spread. Angle makes the bird spear slower too...

Afterwards I went to Fennes Shooting School to shoot some targets I could actually hit - and it brought it home to me, of the gulf between most shooting ground targets and these competitions!  I'm sure there are SG's with difficult targets to practice on but no SG wants to put birds on that many people will struggle to hit as they might not come back.  Speaking to someone at Fennes he asked about the B.O. and he said it sounded like a typical Dyson setup.

Sorry spelling mistake I meant 'threw' the empties (that would have earnt me a hit on the head at my school)

Glad I never shot this one  cannot see 109 being beat in all honesty sunday should be fun the two big guns slugging it out.

ShaunMk38 said:

Glad I never shot this one cannot see 109 being beat in all honesty sunday should be fun the two big guns slugging it out.

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I beg to differ. There is a 112 out there. Both George and Ben dropped 3 on stand 12 - a stand I straighted. Can't see why Mark Winser won't beat them. Maybe even Cheryl? I think Thorrold has won on Dyson's targets before.

I like Dyson's targets: yes they are hard but there was only one stand - 13 - that had 2 tricky targets. Maybe st1 was hard for some. Every other stand I felt gave you a far chance of 50% which an inexperinced C class shooter at a British Championship should be looking for. If a AA shooter can't put in a reasonable score then you didn't earn your AA in the right places.
I just scrapped into A this year with the same average that put me in B last year. I'm about halfway down A and not far away in B. I think I shot pretty well for me.
Don't think I've got what it takes for Sporttrap though! If the Sporttrap targets had been presented as a sporting course I would have shot about 70+ I just couldn't get it together on the sim pairs
I had a great day. So much better than working

Mark Winser has just put in a 111!