The 2013 Phoenix Meeting

 Why do people attend the Phoenix Meeting? More to the point – why don’t people attend the Phoenix meeting? In the lead up to the Summer season, the Phoenix offers a diverse programme of competitions, having something for everyone. Whether the competitor’s interests lie in the pure Gallery Rifle (GR) disciplines, rifle events shot back to 1000 yards, pistol events shot to the same distances (yes – thats a pistol at 1000 yards), black powder, target shotgun or even air pistol the phoenix will have an event ready and waiting. – so there is no excuse to not have this as a must in anybody’s shooting calendar.

In many ways, and for many people, the Phoenix is just another Gallery Rifle Action Weekend (GRAW). Four of these are held every season at Bisley. The Spring and Autumn action weekends take place as the country adjusts its collective time pieces to take advantage of the daylight saving protocols we know and love so well. The last bank holiday of the Summer – the August Bank Holiday – pays homage to the Gallery Rifle National Championships. The Phoenix meeting sits squarely in the middle of all this and offers not only the natural plethora of gallery rifle and pistol events but a whole lot more.

Understandably some events are popular, very popular, however some are surprisingly under represented. There are so many competitions at the Phoenix it’s inevitable some slip under the radar. T&P1 Air Pistol for example, a lot of the Long Barrelled Pistol (LBP) events, some of the longer range events and a handful of classic and open events are all crying out for more competitive input.

Condensed into a long weekend the Phoenix has a more intense look and feel about it than the likes of the NRA Imperial meeting which is held over a 2-3 week period in high Summer. A major part of this is probably due to the long standing trade fair which dates way back to pre-Phoenix days. A lot of people back then used to travel to just visit the trade show and I’m told this is still the case. Each to their own of course, but I think people are missing out if they choose to overlook the main reason the ranges exist in the first place.

For the last few years the bank holiday Monday has been used to host the IGRF International Gallery Rifle Match. This sees teams from Great Britain, Ireland, Germany and South Africa compete head to head  with centrefire and smallbore calibres in a 1500 match. This year, 28th May 2013, Bisley will be running this event as the inaugural Gallery Rifle World Cup, which will mean one of these countries will be officially crowned World Champions.

The IGRF

As an overall event the Phoenix is billed as an annual celebration of shooting sports. So – the most puzzling misnomer any Phoenix regulars, indeed any competition shooters in general, ponder often revolves around why more people don’t come along and enjoy the whole experience. Many theories are proffered around the bars, clubs (and campfires) which all play excellent hosts to the influx of visitors who attend the long weekend of events. Theories proliferate, which range from the financial thru to the “not good enough” route and eventually terminate at the often cited intimidatory factor of the whole experience.

The latter is particularly worrying (if correct) and we all need to spend time reflecting on the perception of this element of our sport. For whatever reason if your fellow club members are not shooting any of our meetings we all need to work out why. It can’t stop there though – we then need to work out how to overcome such perceived obstacles and work around them.

Not being good enough needs to be condemned at conception. We promote the sporting and competitive side of shooting as being open to everyone and this is an absolute truth.  The most popular GR events are shot in classes. This means everyone is shooting against their peers. With the current classification rules and regulations everyone has as much chance of achieving a place and medal shooting first time around as their hundredth – in fact more so!  This year we are awarding a newcomers trophy first time Phoenix competitors.

Team events have also been introduced in recent years to attempt to encourage members of  local clubs to partake. As with all events these are open to any members of any local club to put together a 2 or 4 person team. So have a think about taking part and get your club’s name into the historical records!

Irrespective of all the above we do need to get a sense of perspective.  After all – are we not all simply shooting against ourselves? Aiming to beat our last outing or personal best? Its great to traipse back to our local clubs and ranges, banter with our shooting colleagues about who bettered who, who outshot who, more likely who messed up the least – that’s all part of why we do it.

In 2012 an online database of classified and highest scores was created so people can keep track of their achievements. In 2013 we plan to enhance this to run a season wide league table and ranking system for active Gallery Rifle competitors. In this way we aim to keep an ongoing interest in competing on the national circuit.

Numerous other GR events are organised and hosted both at Bisley and throughout the country by local clubs. The flyers illustrated in this article can be found at full resolution elsewhere on the website These can be printed and displayed in local clubs.  A full calendar of events can also be found here.

Keep an open bookmark here and to our our facebook page and twitter feed for all this information and a bunch more.

[Majority of this text originally published in the Spring 2013 NRA Journal]