Sian Corish became British Three-Position Rifle Champion on Sunday at the NSRA British 50Metre Championships. Alun Evans took Bronze. Held at Tondu TSC with the support of Welsh Shooting, the match was well attended by participants from across the UK.
Alun and Sian qualified for the 8-person final in third and fifth respectively. Aidan Healy led qualification, but slipped to finish eighth in the final.
Sian also finished sixth in the Open Prone Rifle event.
Tondu shooters Sian Corish and Alun Evans dominated the Welsh 50Metre Rifle Championships this year. Sian became Welsh Prone Confined Champion and Open 3-Position Champion. Alan was Prone Open Champion and runner-up in the 3P. The event was well attended again this year, with a fourth Prone elimination detail added on Saturday, and Sunday’s 3-Position Rifle event fully subscribed. With Tondu hosting the British 50M championships later in June, many national shooters were keen to dial into the range and entrants came from across the UK, including from Northern Ireland and Jersey.
Saturday dawned with classic Tondu winds, leaving scores down across the board. Sian Corish had the highest result in an elimination detail with 615.5, followed by Louise Aiken and Chris Hunter with 613s. Many shooters were ten points off their average, although Chloe John-Driscoll managed a PB and new Welsh Junior Women’s Prone Record with her qualification score of 601.9.
The top 15 from the four eliminators progressed to the Open Final, another 60-shot match. Winds had calmed somewhat in the afternoon and scores climbed with more competitors breaking 610. Alun Evans made the best of it scoring 619.4, followed by Tim Jeffery on 615.5 and Chris Hunter on 615.3. Paige Fryer was Open Junior Champion, and Chris Brown was leading Veteran.
The top 15 Welsh competitors gathered for the Confined Final on Sunday morning with conditions bright, and the wind still tricky but more settled than Saturday. Sian Corish bagged her first medal and the DWF Phelps Trophy with a score of 612.6. Adam Gabrys was runner up with 607.3 and the battle for third was particularly tight with John Moore’s 606.6 just beating out Richard Hemingway’s 606.5 and Fred Brown’s 606.4.
The Three-Position Rifle was a Welsh lock-out. Sian Corish was gold medal position, with Alun Evans and Aidan Healy picking up Silver and Bronze. Scotland’s Neil Sinclair was fourth, a single point behind Aidan. Alun’s 573 was a British Shooting Para-Sport Minimum Consideration Score, helping him on his Paralympic ambitions.
The Association thanks Tondu TSC for the generous use of their range, and to all the volunteers who made the meeting a success.
Full results available at Megalink Results.
| Gold | Silver | Bronze | |
| Open Prone | Alun Evans – 619.4 Tondu TSC | Tim Jeffery – 615.5 Havant RC | Chris Hunter – 615.3 Down Hatherley |
| Confined Prone | Sian Corish – 612.6 Tondu TSC | Adam Gabrys – 607.3 Torfaen RC | John Moore – 606.6 Penarth RC |
| Open Three-Position | Sian Corish – 577-26x Tondu TSC | Alun Evans – 573-19x Tondu TSC | Aidan Healy – 566-17x Bookham RC |
| Junior Prone | Paige Fryer – 607.6 Jersey Outdoor | Libby Hart – 604.7 Jersey Outdoor | Louis Norman – 603.7 Budleigh Farm TSC |
| Veterans Prone | Chris Brown – 606.2 Leicester District | Fred Brown – 599.7 Tondu TSC | Terry Thomas – 594.3 Tondu TSC |
| Open Prone Pairs | Sian Corish David George | ||
| B/C Class Prone Pairs | Alan Ainge Steve Gurner |
Entries are now open for the 2025 Welsh 50Metre Championships, which will be held at Tondu Target Shooting Club on the 21st-22nd June.
For more information and entry forms, please see the event page.
Richard Hemingway retained his title at the Welsh 50M Championships this weekend at Tondu Target Shooting Club.
Saturday dawned overcast but calm for the Open. Richard Hemingway topped qualification and X-Class with a score of 618.9, followed by Chris Hunter (617.1) and Joshua Culshaw (616.4). The wind picked up after lunch and in the Open Championship final, scores tumbled and fortunes were turned. Chris Hunter held on to the top spot with 612.8, followed by Sian Corish (612.4) and Liam Webster (610.9).
Anna Maughan was top Open Junior and Aidan Healy was top Welsh Junior. Fred Brown took top Veteran.
Sunday morning dawned flat and drizzly as the Welsh finalists assembled for the Confined Championship. A deceptively gentle start gave way to some tricky wind changes in the last fifteen minutes. After an early lead Richard Hemingway was overtaken by Sian Corish, with the two trading places into the last string. After 60 shots however, the line up was a repeat of 2023 with Richard retaining his title with a score of 617.5. Sian Corish was runner-up on 615.0 and Liam Webster placed third on 614.1.
The Open 3×20 was well attended and closely fought. Sian Corish took the title on 579, with Alan Bain and Alun Evans having to be split on inner-tens having tied on 567.
Our immense thanks goes to Dave Phelps for organising; Rob Warnes for managing the electronics; the volunteers who helped put the range together and pack away on Sunday; and to Tondu TSC for the generous use of their range. We look forward to welcoming you to the 2025 Championship.
This weekend saw the WSRA 50M Championships take place at Tondu Target Shooting Club. Hosting both Open and Confined matches, the event attracted entries not only amongst local shooters but from across the UK. After a two year hiatus, the 2022 Meeting was a great success, bucking the trend of low-entries that many meetings struggled with post-COVID and almost reaching capacity. This set a bar for the 2023 organising team to maintain.
The meeting is run to ISSF courses. All prone matches are decimal-scored 60-shot matches with no Olympic-style finals. Three prone elimination matches on Saturday morning qualify the top 14 competitors into the Open Championship match in the afternoon. The top 14 Welsh competitors qualify for the Confined Championship on Sunday morning. The Open Three-Position (3×20) Championship is held on Sunday after the prone Confined Championship. Class and Pairs prizes are also awarded, based on elimination scores. Para athletes are included in the main matches with appropriate accommodations, rather than in their own class.
The matches are all run on Megalink electronic targets, managed by Rob Warnes to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude. Just as a match shot on paper requires experienced scorers to run smoothly, running a match on electronics calls for an experienced operator and we’d be hard pressed to ask for better than Rob. A match also needs range officers and we were saddened to receive news of Kevin Hindle’s passing the week prior to the meeting. A silence was held for Kevin at the prize-giving. Our thanks to Nigel Craddock who stepped in to supervise proceedings and did a sterling job of learning the routine for ISSF courses on the job, ably assisted by Rob from the control booth.
Saturday dawned overcast. The rain held off, but a stiff wind kept shooting “interesting”. Visitors to Tondu will know that its location in the river valley can create some very turbulent and tricky conditions when the wind is in the right direction. Saturday was one of those days. Simon Green managed an exceptional 618.8 in his elimination match, with the next highest qualifying score being 615.4 from Sam Harris. From a field who might normally manage some scores above 620, many X-Class shots struggled getting to 610. Special mention should go to Richard Bray who managed a significant new personal best of 606.2 in his elimination match.
Lunchtime saw a minor crisis as an errant gust blew half a dozen targets off the firing point mantel. The 50m butt at Tondu is located some height above the range floor, with the targets suffering a significant fall. Fortunately, no electrical connections were damaged, although several of the target frames had separated from their stands on impact (not a word we like to hear in conjunction with ESTs!). Half an hour of plier and hammer action got the targets remounted (sandbagged this time) ready for the Open Championship, with no electrical or sensor failures. Score one for Megalink build quality!
The Open Championship saw competitors better dialled into conditions, with more of the field passing the 610 mark. Sam Harris became Open Champion with 616.2, followed by Dean Bale on 614.1. Sian Corish placed third with 612.5.
Sunday morning dawned calmer as the Welsh finalists assembled for the Confined Championship. Richard Hemingway had the best of it, becoming the 2023 Welsh Champion with 616.5. Sian Corish was runner-up on 613.8 and Liam Webster placed third on 612.3.
The 3×20 was closely fought, with Dean Bale ultimately winning with 578, followed by Wes Cann on 566, edging out Tom Diggle on 564.
Our immense thanks goes to all the volunteers, and to Tondu TSC for the generous use of their range.
