A team of 4 Maltese ELR (extreme long range) shooter competitors set off from Malta to drive
to France via Italy on Sunday, 3 May in 2 trucks. 3 of the competitors had registered to shoot in
both competitions and 1 of the competitors had registered to shoot in just the 1-mile
competition.
The light class rifles for the 1-mile competition included a custom .300 Norma Mag, a custom 33
XC, a Voere .338LM and an Accuracy International .338LM. In the heavy class for the 2-mile
competition, we were using a .375 CT Victrix, a custom .416 Hellfire, and an Accuracy
International AX50 in .416 Barrett.
Each competitor shoots whilst his partner spots the fall of shot and gives corrections, as this is a
team sport and it is often not possible for the competitor shooting to always see his fall of shot.
The pairs then swap over with the spotter then shooting and the shooter switching to spotting.
It was a four-day journey to get to the incredible Canjeurs military range in France but that
included shooting practice on the way in Sicily and at another range in France. We had to be a
Canjeurs for registration 10 AM Thursday, 7 May. The range complex itself, is 10% larger than
the island of Malta and offers the most unique world-class shooting location within Europe,
primarily for the French military but also some local civilian shooting clubs.
After being allowed 30 minutes for check zeroing, we had time to study the 2 ranges and
targets for the preliminary stages. All 4 of us then shot the 1-mile stages, 1 round at the cold
bore steel plate at 764 m followed by 3 rounds each at targets at 829 ms, 1038 ms, 1231 m and
1400 m. It’s a particularly difficult competition because you can only progress to the next target
after you have hit the current target you are shooting at, and you only have 9 minutes. The top
20% scoring shooters on each day then go through to the finals.
3 of us then did the same for the 2-mile preliminary stage with a cold bore plate at 1160 m
followed by plates of 1443 m, 1716 m, 1995 m and 2250 m. These are challenging distances for
even the most experienced shooters, and your ammunition and rifle must perform perfectly.
In the end, just one shooter with his spotter got through to the final stages of the 2-mile event.
Here you shoot 15 rounds in 10 minutes at 3 targets at 2493 meters, 2747 meters and 3230
meters. This range is almost the only place in Europe where you can shoot these extreme
distances. We ended up 20/107 which was okay, but we would like to aim for a top-10 finish
next time.
We left after a gruelling 4 days with at least some medals, and a few kilos extra from the
excellent French cooking, driving back the length of Sicily to get home a few days later. We all
enjoyed the event and look forward to attending again next year. In the meantime we would all
like to thank Sport Malta and AACTS for their kind financial support of our 2 teams attending
the event.
