National Scout Rifle Championships 2023 Results
Wow, what a weekend! While international sport was unkind to us, the weather was better than expected and our scouts did their very best. The National Scout Rifle Championships, simply known as Bisley, form Bisley’s biggest annual event. There will have been approx. 700 scouts and scouting adults competing and as always, this creates an unexpected range of results, because you just never know who has a good day.
3HH and Peake always achieve something and this year was no exception. We came away with 15 medals and three trophies, including the Junior Connaught (the overall national U14 champions). The Junior and Senior Connaught trophies, were presented to Baden Powell from his friend the Duke of Connaught (Prince Arthur, Queen Victoria’s third son). The Senior Connaught is the second oldest known trophy still active in scouting, first presented in 1911, while the Junior Connaught was presented in 1925 and has also been won by teams in South Africa, Jamaica, Canada and New Zealand.
All our scouts learned something about themselves, their techniques and composure. One of our scouts was brave enough to speak up when they thought their score was wrong. Having totalled up their cards before giving them in, they were delighted to score 40, but when preliminary scores were published, it showed up as 28. Normally 3HH won’t challenge the scorers (they have a tough job to do), but 12 points makes a big difference and sure enough the score was adjusted. Have pride in your convictions!
The full results from Bisley aren’t yet available, but I’ve received a cut of our results. Here’s our best:
- Knock-out Senior: semi-finalist Wend
- Turning Target U18 out of 47: 9th Saken
- Turning Target Senior out of 35 : 7th Thomas
- Smallbore Advanced out of 42: 4th Tilly, 6th Thomas
- Smallbore Sharpshooters Shield U18: 2nd Tilly
- Smallbore Beginners out of 150 competitors and where the score is group size in mm, the smaller the better, over a 25m distance): 15th Rory (22), 29th Sam (28), 41st George (30), Maggie (35) where the max size is 160mm.
- Target Sprint Senior Advanced out of 21: 6th Sam (just 22 seconds behind 2nd place, but 20 seconds quicker than last year)
- Target Sprint Junior Beginners out of 40: 8th Digby
- 10m own out of 81: 4th Tilly (missing out on a tie-break with 3rd and just one point behind 2nd) 9th Saken
- Own pistol 6yd out of 79: 10th Rory
- Own rifle 6yd Junior out of 38: 13th Evie
- Own rifle 6yd Senior out of 41: 5th Thomas
- Vintage rifle out of 28: 4th Wend (on a tie-break with 3rd), 6th Paul and 12th Olivia (lucky enough to use a vintage 1920’s (we think) rifle.
- U12 rifle out of 68: 7th Digby (just 5 points behind 1st)
- U14 rifle out of 166: 8th Matilda, 15th George, 16th Evie (George and Evie’s cards were identical, George ahead on age)
- U18 rifle out of 124: 12th Saken (just 5 points behind 1st)
- U14 pistol out of 235: 2nd Digby (just 2 points behind 1st), 3rd Evie, 7th Matilda
- The Chief’s prize is only awarded to the scout U14 achieving the highest aggregate score, adding rifle, pistol and field target together. Notably this year, out of 242 we had scouts in 2nd, 3rd and 9th (Evie, Digby and Matilda respectively) (Evie was just 2 points behind 1st)
- Team pistol is comprised of each groups’ top three U14 scouts on the day, combined with the top adult. Out of 33 teams 3HH came 1st with, Digby, Evie, Matilda and Wend (a clear 31 points ahead of 2nd)
- Team rifle is comprised of each groups’ top three U14 scouts on the day, combined with the top adult. Out of 33 teams 3HH came 2nd with, Matilda, George, Evie and Wend (just 6 points behind 1st)
- The Connaught trophies are the pinnacle of the event. The teams are three scouts, pre-nominated ahead of the event, whose rifle, pistol and field target aggregate scores are combined.
- Senior Connaught out of 51 teams: 4th Saken, Tilly and Thomas; 7th Rory, Sam and Olivia. The 2nd placed South West Cheshire Senior A have been disqualified, meaning we came 4th just one point behind 3rd!
- Junior Connaught out of 42 teams: 1st Evie, Digby and Matilda (a clear 40 points ahead of 2nd); 7th George, Gabriel and Freddie.
This is all so promising, 4 of the 6 U14’s won a medal and three of those are still U14 next year! I’ll just say it again, 3HH are overall national U14 champions. Well done to all!
The gallery of the event is here:
National Scout Rifle Championships 2023
