The 2022 Calendar of Events
The Austrian Open 1500 took place over the first weekend of October in Hopfgarten im Brixental. With Covid 19 travel restrictions lifting five people made the journey to Austria. We took three different paths through Europe: Doug Green travelled via Hull, Neil Jones and Ken Williams via Dover and I traveled from Portsmouth to meet Andy Pain, who lives in France.
We had arranged with the organizer, Pepi Laiminger, to meet at the range the afternoon before the shoot for some much-needed practice – most of us had not shot a pistol since we last attended Hopfgarten in 2019. The first few shots were a little shaky, but we soon settled down and I was pleased to see that my sight settings from 2 years ago were still valid.
It was a real pleasure to see so many friends over the weekend and to be shooting again on Hopfgarten’s well organised mountainside range. Most of us took part in 6 or 7 events over the weekend with matches being held for both Revolver and Pistol 1500 together with an optical class and the various short 48 shot matches for 4-inch revolvers, 2.75-inch revolvers, 5-shot revolvers and “stock” (i.e. fixed-sights) semi-auto pistols. The Austrians run the Police Pistol 1 match, which is normally shot with a “stock” 9mm semi-auto pistol, in several different classes, including “super magnum” and rifle.
With all this shooting going on and the number of different guns we use it’s easy to get confused but I think we only had one occurrence of “right gun wrong ammo” and this was very quickly resolved. The Austrian ROs run the two available ranges very efficiently to get the maximum number of shooters through and manage to do this without the shooter feeling rushed. Shooting finished by 5pm and by 6pm prize giving started.
Prize giving is always fun in Austria; Manfred Hörl keeps the whole thing moving along at a good pace. The trophies are unique and make a welcome addition to any trophy shelf. Due to the lack of practice none of us managed a top three this year but we did all achieve at least one certificate for being in the top 10. The free raffle for the prize table is the highlight of the weekend and we are pleased to report that we went away with enough of the locally produced cheese and ham to see us through to next year.
I would like to thank all the Austrian organizers, ROs and helpers for, once again, inviting us to take part and for all the help they give us with firearms and ammunition; without their assistance we would not be able to attend. Next year’s trip is already being organized so we will return to Hopfgarten in 2022.
Full results can be found at www.wa1500.org
David Harris
SLG Bisley e.V.
[As published in the Winter 2021 NRA Journal]
Anyone who has ever shot a Gallery Rifle & Pistol (GR&P) match in the UK will probably appreciate the fact that events are shot in classes or divisions. Not all events are classified – some do not have the competitive numbers to justify being divided as such and some events are simply not shot often enough. Generally the most popular events for the main GR&P gun types are defined as classified.
At time of writing the following events are listed as classified.The following classification structure was ratified for the start of the 2020 season when some of the more popular events had their number of classes increased and the less popular events had their number of classes reduced.
Note:- classes apply independently to the gun types. Namely: Gallery Rifle Centrefire (GRCF), Gallery Rifle Smallbore (GRSB), Long Barrelled Pistol (LBP), Long Barrelled Revolver (LBR)
In any of the above events competitors will have an existing classification of X, A, B, C or D which will be based on scores recorded in previous classified meetings. A classification of U may also apply and means a competitor has not shot the event before or they have dropped out of the classification window (see below).
The philosophy is simple enough. Like many other sports, the GR&P classification system enables competitors to shoot numerous events within a class or division, therefore only against others of similar ability. The intention is to create an environment in which everyone has a chance to achieve their personal goals and compete against others of similar ability or experience. It also produces a general comparative measure against which to gauge individual progress and improvement by promotion, and now demotion, through the classes.
The GR&P competitive circuit defines classified meetings. These meetings are run to national standards and scores for the events any competitors shoot are recorded and used to generate a shooter’s classification. It is the responsibility of the meeting organizers to record and submit these scores to the national system appropriately.
Technically, competitors will always enter a meeting with a classification, even if that classification is U. This is the division they will compete in for the respective events at that meeting. Anyone entering a competition for the first time will be placed immediately into the class their score maps to at that meeting.
The class a competitor lies within will depend on their highest recorded score achieved over a historic three year window and will be continuously revised during the season after every classified meeting they submit a score for. The three year window was introduced at the beginning of the 2020 season.
There is no unclassified class – if someone enters a classified competition as unclassified (U) it is important to appreciate they will immediately compete in the class they achieve their inaugural score for. Just to be clear, a new shooter can immediately be placed into X class for any event and any gun type.
As a result of competing in a classified event competitors achieving a class promoting score will be reclassified before the next meeting. Changes made at the start of the 2020 season means shooters can also be demoted – more on that below.
There is no obligation for match directors to offer their events in the nationally defined classes. Many do but numerous factors may dictate whether this would be feasible (competitor numbers mainly). However at an official classified match the competitor’s score will always be processed appropriately. Anyone shooting a class promoting score will be competing in that higher class at their next competition.
Class boundaries are reviewed annually by the Gallery Rifle working party/sub committee and published appropriately elsewhere. Consideration is given to the balance of active competitors within a class for each gun type. The general philosophy for class divisions is to keep an appropriate number of active shooters within the divisions as a pyramid – as shown below.
One common dislike with the legacy classification system was the issue of class demotions – there weren’t any! Prior to the 2020 season anybody recording a promoting score would be moved into the appropriate class and essentially remain there. It would mean a single one-off extraordinarily high score could penalize a competitor and see them competing in a higher class than their ‘real world’ average. Unless a class boundary review fell in their favour this single outlier score penalized them for the rest of their competitive career.
Another flaw with the traditional system was the fact that competitor’s classifications were based on every score ever recorded. Theoretically this could be going back to 1997 but more practically back to the mid 2000s when the discipline’s data recording practices became slightly more formalized. Like any sport, a shooter’s classification in any event should reflect their current levels of ability, skill and expertise and not delve into any historic archive. Many shooters in the classification database were no longer actively competing and people also take breaks from the sport. A classification achieved 10+ years ago isn’t really relative for today. At the end of the 2019 season the decision was taken to review the overall system whilst still keeping it as relative and as easy to manage as possible.
Without delving too much into the machinations it was decided the simplest way to address the demotion and currency / score relevance issue was to reduce the classification window to a three year period. This means the division a shooter now resides in for any event and gun type will only be based on the scores achieved within the last three years.
The window slides forward on a rolling meeting by meeting basis rather than season by season. This allows the ethos of class promotions to continue to be realized immediately, as before, but also caters for class demotions as described below. Results data will continue to be processed after every meeting to update any potential changes to a shooter’s classification.
Demotion in the new system is implied. If a competitor has not recorded a class appropriate score within the 3 year sliding window they will be demoted to the class in which they do have a recorded score. This could be a demotion to any class, including U, depending on how current the shooter is, and what scores they are shooting in that particular event and gun type.
One consequence of the 2020 changes is a shooter can now be class demoted by essentially doing nothing. The most extreme case will be by recording no scores at all in a particular event within a three year period. In that case they will drop out of the back end of the sliding window and receive a recorded class of U. A more realistic example would perhaps be a shooter who has recorded a single X class score in an event and has never recorded one since. Once that single X class score has regressed out of the back of the 3 year sliding window they will automatically be re-classified appropriately.
Whatever system is in place it always has to be appreciated that somebody, somewhere, is administering it. For the classification system to function, scores data has to be submitted in an appropriate format to an appropriate location. It also has to be submitted in a timely manner so it can be processed to allow shooters to compete in their appropriate class at the next competition.
The detailed mechanics of data submission is not for this article. However match directors and organizers of classified GR&P meetings should be aware that the match is not complete until results are published and data has been submitted for processing. Whatever local systems are used for capturing and publishing scores please ensure it can also export data in the requested format to fulfill these requirements.
Apart from season to season reviews of the event breakpoints there are no immediate plans to change the system. It would be good to classify more events but that always depends on shooter numbers. There is always a balance between slicing events too granularly and offering meaningful competition. More automated methods of generating shooter classifications is on the aspirational horizon as well as easier ways to submit and retrieve data.
Of course the current overseers of the classification system would always be grateful for feedback and comment. Please contact us via the usual methods.
Following the final results of the season the 2021 ranking tables are now fixed until next season.
Competition rankings are usually calculated on a rolling meeting by meeting basis with the end of the annual season naturally coinciding with the calendar year. The COVID pandemic has interrupted this to a large extent so in order to offer enough actual competitive meetings for meaningful representation of how people are scoring the 2021 rankings contain all results from the 2020 and 2021 seasons.
Results for the 2021 Gallery Rifle and Pistol Welsh Open are now published. Any challenges to these results should be raised before Monday 16th August.
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The Gallery Rifle and Pistol National Championships will run over the weekend of 5-6 September 2021. Enter here: Volunteer as a Range Officer here:
Following a careful review, a new set of National Champion and Aggregate awards is being introduced at this year’s Gallery Rifle National Championships meeting. Key changes are as follows:
A National Champion should be able to demonstrate mastery of wide variety of skills with a particular gun type. Therefore:
No individual event will attract National Championship status.
Instead, National Champion status will be awarded to the winner of an aggregate of 4 events with each of the following gun types: GRSB, GRCF Standard, GRCF Classic, LBP, LBR. (Note: the GRCF Open category currently attracts very few entries and is under review.) The 4 events are the same 4 that make up the IGRF World Champion aggregates.
Within each National Championship aggregate, the top Lady and Junior shooters will receive an award.
We are also providing aggregates which include multiple rifle or handgun types. Medals will be awarded for these, and trophies where available, but they will not carry National Champion status.
The complete list of aggregates is shown below. Entry to each aggregate is automatic for any shooter who submits scores for all of the events in that aggregate.
[1]: Iron Sight event scores will count if the competitor does not shoot the equivalent Open event.
[2]: GRCF Classic event scores will count if the competitor does not shoot GRCF Standard event.
Results are posted from the Home Countries match for the Brownells Trophy held at the Derby Open – June 26-27 2021.
The 2021 Derby Open results are now posted. Any mistakes or challenges by Wednesday 7th July. Derby 2021 Open Results
A number of new Phoenix Records were set in 2021. Congratulations to all. Any missed please let me know.
Comp No. | Event | Name | Score | X Count |
121 | 25m Precision LBP | Jonny Cormie | 291 | 10 |
501 | America Match GRSB | Derek Morris | 292 | 11 |
521 | America Match LBP | Steve Lane | 279 | 5 |
1021 | T&P3 LBP | Paul Lacey | 242 | 0 |
1022 | T&P3 LBR | Paul Lacey | 239 | 0 |
1135 | Multi-Target SGM | Rob Sanders (on countback) | 115 | 10 |
1136 | Multi-Target SGSA | Adam Chapman | 118 | 15 |
1304 | Phoenix A GRCF Classic | Keith Kilvington | 195 | 18 |
1524 | 1500 LBP Irons | Jake Mossom | 1465 | 67 |
1602 | 1020 GRCF | John Robinson | 1020 | 89 |
1621 | 1020 LBP | Steve Lane | 1015 | 71 |
1821 | WA 48 LBP | Neil Francis | 480 | 38 |
2621 | NRA Rapid Fire LBP | Steve Lane | 288 | 6 |
4302 | Granet GRCF | Lee Townsend | 300 | 22 |
4704 | Imperial Silhouettes GRCF Classic | Keith Kilvington | 294 | 12 |
4904 | Surrenden GRCF Classic | Keith Kilvington | 252 | 10 |
5134 | 100yd Shotgun | Glenn Isaacs | 35 | 1 |
5142 | 100yd Black Powder Revolver | Mark Luther | 38 | 0 |
5321 | 100/200yd LBP | Phil Milnes | 98 | 12 |
5791 | 100/200/300yd Srv Rifle post 1955 | William Ellis | 133 | 11 |
5986 | 400/500/600yd F Class Open Rifle | Patrick Allen | 224 | 28 |
5987 | 400/500/600yd Black Powder Cart | Michael Haselgrove | 135 | 7 |
5988 | 400/500/600yd FTR Rifle | Simon Gambling | 221 | 14 |
6501 | McQueen GRSB | Dave McGill | 50 | 10 |
6507 | McQueen Issued GRSB | Jeremy Derenne | 49 | 6 |
Please note the Aberdeen Wapinschaw Gallery Rifle competition originally scheduled for the 11th – 13th June has been postponed to the 1st – 3rd October.
The first classified competition for 2021 will be the Basildon Open. 30 April – 2 May.
Without dedicated volunteers the Phoenix and may other competitions would not be able to field the amount of competitors wanting to take part. You can help out for as little as half a day, or if you fancy it – the whole weekend!
The full Calendar of Events is always kept up to date however the current situation we find ourselves in mean there will probably be cancellations and postponements. A number of events have been lost from the originally published calendar which some people may have from mid January.
Cancellations so far for 2021
6-7 Mar: CRC Spring Meeting – Chelmsford
27-28 Mar: Spring Action Meeting – Bisley
10-11 Apr: ATSC GR&P Open Meeting – Bisley
17-18 Apr: ATSC ISSF/BP Open Meeting – Bisley
2 May: The Mattersey Open
15-16 May: JSPC Spring Open – Galashiels
31 May: IGRF International 1500 Phoenix match – Bisley
The 2021 Great Britain Gallery Rifle Gallery Squad is announced.
GB Gallery Rifle international matches are held at Bisley, Ireland and Germany on an annual basis. The team also traveled to South Africa in 2019 to compete in the IGRF World Cup.