The West Australian Rifle Association’s 100th annual Queen’s Prize was held over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend, from September 26-28, at the Swanbourne Rifle Range. For the second year running, the event was adjudged using Kongsberg Mikroelektronikk electronic target system supplied by Target Solutions. The WA Queen’s Prize was the first long-range rifle championship in Australia, possibly the World, to be shot on electronic targets.
James Corbett winner of the 2009 WA Queens Prize shooting at 600 yards, 1000 yard targets on the left.
The competition was shot over eight distances between 300 and 1000 yards. Swanbourne Rifle Range has two target galleries 400 yards apart, which allowed the large number of shooters to be divided into two squads – one group shooting on the short or mid range targets whilst the other group started on the long range targets.
The two independent sets of targets operated simultaneously, each with its own set of wireless communications. Over the 4 days of competition, there was not one unexplained result.
Shooters at 500 yard mound.
Kim Mellows, Captain of Bassendean Bellevue Rifle Club the first club at Swanbourne Rifle Range to get electronic targets, said they were a marked improvement over the old system in which hessian and paper targets had to be manually marked at the end of the range. One of the biggest advantages of the system according to Mr Mellows is the dramatic reduction in shooters challenging the value of the score. “We’re getting through the shoot a lot quicker,” he said. “In the old days when there were humans down there pulling the targets up and down, some shooter could argue the toss and ask for the target to be pulled down and re-examined; now it doesn’t happen. Whatever that electronic target says you’ve got, you’ve got to accept it.”
