Today was a selection shoot for the World Championships in Munich this year. Qualification score is expected to be about 589. I'm not there, and won't make it, but would like to keep most matches above a 580, with a view to hovering around 590 next year, and possibly attending a world cup.
Since it was a while since I'd shot outdoors for more than a few brief training sessions (brevity due to insane cold) I wasn't expecting too much, was hoping for a 580+, but wasn't immensely confident. In the end I had a 570, which just wasn't good enough, to be honest. The range was tricky enough, but I had a very good handle on the wind conditions, and the light conditions weren't too difficult while I was shooting. It cost me some points, but not enough to have prevented me making the 580 fairly comfortably had my preparation been adequate.
The big issue I suffered from was that my cheekpiece wasn't locked securely enough, and slid very slowly down into the stock. This wasn't noticeable until about fifteen shots into my match, and so I was very reluctant to adjust it on the fly. As a result, my head was floating slightly, which led to fairly uniform dispersion of shots in all dimensions, and massive discomfort, to which I at least partially attribute some of my eights. In the end, I was forced to make several on the fly adjustments, as the discomfort was too much, and I more or less salvaged the shoot for myself, though there were some very poor periods within the match.
In terms of my technical shooting, I was very happy. Poor attention to sight picture cost a few points, probably between eight and ten, which isn't forgiveable, but it's something definite and obvious to work on. My sight picture was impeccable, really couldn't have hoped for better. Position was very solid and comfortable. Trigger control was very good. Follow-through could have been better; this is something I need to work on in conjunction with watching the uniformity of my recoil patterns for the next while. There seems to be a pronounced horizontal characteristic to the recoil at the moment which I've been noting for the past while. I'd like to eliminate that. My reading of the conditions and response to them was very good. There were very few wind calls I got wrong, and I shot good tens easily. The light caused some random scatter towards the end as a combination of its interference with my eyes and the discomfort in my neck caused focus to wane. I think I could have handled either on their own, however. The equipment issue is one to bear strongly in mind, as I completely feel that 585 is achievable for me this summer, if not better, and 580+ in the next match. Time to eliminate costly faults!
Incidentally, I was using a sample of R50 I hadn't tried before today as I don't like using Eley ammunition outdoors and it shot extremely well. I must pick up five hundred for further testing when I get back from the Isle of Man, with the view to buying a few thousand if it works as well as today indicates.
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