PAUL Batten, of Okehampton Smallbore Club, swept the board in the air-rifle section of the Devon Open and South West Championships at the weekend, despite a rather wobbly shoot in the second competition.
There was an encouraging entry for the shoot, held at the Okehampton Club premises over two days, with competitors from Wales, Cornwall, Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire as well as local shooters, and events for both air-rifle and air-pistol.
In the air-rifle section, Paul Batten was comfortably ahead of his rivals in the competition one shoot, with 580 out of a possible 600, seven points ahead of Julie Malcolm from South Wales; his competition two scores were down on his usual form with 573, two points behind Stuart Daltrey — also from South Wales — but his aggregate score from the two competitions, 1153 ex 1200 was still seven ahead of both Stuart and Julie to take the class A title — and with it the title of Devon Champion and South West Champion.
Okehampton were unsuccessful in gaining any places in class B, but Carole Saunders easily won class C with an aggregate score of 991 ex 1200 (497 plus 494), and Okehampton came third in the team event behind Whiteheads (South Wales) and AC Delco (Southampton).
In the air-pistol events, Bernard Rendle for the home club won competition two in class B, but together with his sixth place in competition one, could only manage sixth place in the aggregate.
Christine Vince had similar mixed fortunes — her score of 531 in competition one put her in third place, but competition two was only 501, giving her an aggregate score of 1032, well off the pace.
In class C, Dave Saunders had a steady shoot — second place in competition one with 532, second place in competition two with 522, and second place in the aggregate with 1054.
In class D, Dave Greenstock took all the honours,with first place in all three events with scores of 495, 498 and 993, and the club A team came fourth, beating their own B team by just one point!