The NRA Civilian Service Rifle Winter League is a series of matches held on the first weekend of every month from October through to April and we regularly see in excess of 100 competitors taking part. Month by month they alternate between either a Saturday or Sunday and the match days usually consist to two separate events. At the end of the season trophies and medals are awarded for the first to third place in four classes. This season has been the best attended yet and there have been some very good performances put in by competitors new to CSR.
The facilities at Bisley for CSR are improving all the time and the NRA, supported by a group of very experienced and willing volunteers, run a very efficient and slick operation on the ranges and in the back office both of which have helped CSR grow for strength to strength. The classes are Historic Enfield, Iron Sights, Practical Optic and by far the most popular Service Optic. The straight-pull UK legal AR15 in .223 dominates the competition although there are quite a few other types of rifle used to equally good effect. CSR is a challenging discipline but the atmosphere is always friendly and helpful, there is a physical element to this type of shooting but nothing the moderately fit cannot cope with. The NRA run CSR Introductory Courses throughout the year and these continue to be popular and are a great way of finding out what CSR is all about. Suitable rifles can be hired from the NRA if course members do not have their own and expert tuition and coaching is available in the classroom and on the firing point for what is a mostly practical course. In all the NRA have run 9 CSR Introductory Courses since setting them up in 2013 with 160 people attending. Feedback has been highly positive with progression through to competing in League Matches at about 44%:
‘Just to say thanks to the team for a great day and time spend (sic) helping and tutoring – knackered and sore the next day !!! But I will be back for more! All the very best Robin’
‘Just thought I should say big thank you to the guys for running an excellent course on Saturday. It was a nice combination of useful information, practical tuition and great fun. Excellent value for money too. Well done! Regards, Gary’
NRA CSR Imperial
The national competitions for the Civilian Service Rifle discipline are held at Bisley, as part of the Imperial Meeting, this year between Wednesday 29th June and Sunday 3rd July 2016. The four classes will compete in the respective individual championships over 4 days with the final individual matches taking place on Saturday 2nd July. Later on the Saturday evening the hugely popular Falling Plates competition will take place to be shot in two classes – ‘Historic’ and ‘Modern’. The Falling Plates sees a large number of four shooter teams competing in a knockout match to see who can knock down a bank of ten steel plates in the quickest time from 200 yards after a 100 yards sprint to the firing point.
The concluding Imperial CSR event is the Civilian Methuen Team Match will take place on Sunday 3rd July. Sixteen teams will compete for two trophies in Modern and Historic Classes, each six competitor team will complete the fifty two round Short Range Rural Contact Match Course of Fire with the scores for each team posted on team score boards behind the firing point. The Methuen match is always well supported and when the sun shines is a great end to the CSR Imperial week.
NRA CSR & PR Discipline Sub-Committee
There is a CSR Discipline Representative who sits on the NRA Shooting Committee and is responsible for promoting the sport and administering the rules and match conditions. He is assisted by a Sub-Committee who are the subject matter experts for Range Management and McQueens, Practical Optic Rifle Class, Service Optic Class and Historic and Iron Sights Classes. They can all be contacted through: csr@nra.org.uk
The NRA has set up a Facebook page for CSR that contains lots of useful resources and information for anyone wishing to take part.
Photo courtesy: NRA CSR Winter League
If you want any more information please just ask. This type of shooting is looked on by some with a bit of suspicion but is well supported by the NRA. We still get comments from people who thing that its illegal for civilians to shoot at ‘Figure’ targets and many that are amazed we are able to own magazine fed ‘military’ looking rifles; unfortunately there is little that can be done to educate the true anti’s but the more the shooting community know about what we do and how much fun it is the better.
Content kindly supplied by:
John Morgan-Hosey
NRA CSR & PR Rep
