Thomas Booth (Rn), Ansel Chan (G), Lexy Poulton (Fa) and Ray Wang (F) spent the weekend honing their full-bore shooting and ‘wind reading’ at the London & Middlesex Open Championships at Bisley. In cold and windy conditions, the team persevered with true grit: shooting six times at 300, 500 and 600 yards. Lexy was the top junior and Mr Nuthall, Head of Shooting, came third overall.
Sunday saw windy conditions at 1,000 yards but the young marksmen demonstrated great resilience and put in respectable scores.
Lexy won an impressive silver trophy cast in solid silver in 1867 for being the top scoring under 25.
“The weekend was a huge learning curve for all and skills learnt will be vital when the full-bore season restarts in the spring.”
Mr David Nuthall, Head of Shooting
A Rich History of Shooting
The Epsom College Rifle Corp was granted permission by the Government to form in 1890. From that time onwards Epsom College has been one of the premier shooting schools in the UK, having been national champions at Bisley in the Ashburton Shield a record 15 times.
Although it took some years to reach the benefits of what we have today – an eight-lane indoor .22 range and a well-stocked armoury of small bore and full bore rifles – it was still a priority in the 1890s to have a well-trained Rifle Corp.
The development of rifle shooting is intertwined with the history of Bisley Camp, also established in 1890. Competitions and some training have often taken place at Bisley and that relationship continues today.
There are many positive skills to be learned from shooting: concentration, self-discipline and sportsmanship in the first instance. The art of focusing on the present moment and listening to the body are both hugely important, indeed, both techniques are used regularly in mindfulness training.
Our shooters of today gain much support from a very active and hugely successful Old Epsomian Rifle Club. The OE Rifle Club has many distinguished international shots, including Commonwealth Games Gold medal winners.
