Target Shooting: NZDA North Island Benchrest Champs 2025

The following report provides an overview of the NZDA North Island Benchrest Championships 2025, covering competition results, shooting conditions, and participant experiences.

The NZDA North Island Benchrest Champs are the first Centrefire Benchrest Competition held each year, it is held on the Tokoroa Sport Shooting Complex range. The competition is held over Auckland and Nelson Anniversary weekend toward the end of January and the competitors look forward to the weekend spent with friends with a likeminded passion and some pretty friendly competition.

Baden Prentice from BOP branch, who took over running the match from Malcolm Perry, had carried out a bit of maintenance and revamped the target frames, mirage boards and some of the other equipment used to run the match, Thanks Baden, your work is very much appreciated by the competitors.

The range opened on Friday morning with some of the local competitors able to spend a bit of time tuning and practising, as others arrived later in the day they took advantage of the range being open to sight their rifles in and start tuning their rifles. Saturday morning some finished tuning their rifles and spent some time trying to make sense of the twitchy gusty conditions on the range.

There were twelve competitors representing the following branches: Nelson, South Canterbury, Taupo, Bay of Plenty, North Auckland and Direct.  One competitor was a junior and for another it was his first benchrest tournament.  Eleven competitors shot in the Light Varmint and Heavy Varmint rifle classes, while one competitor shot in Factory rifle class.
We were fortunate to secure the services of two NZDA nationally qualified range officers from the Bay of Plenty branch to administer the firing line and conduct target changes. Their services were greatly appreciated by the competitors.

The weather was quite fickle for the whole tournament.  On Saturday the breeze was very changeable, Sunday it was gales and torrential rain for most of the day.  Monday yielded the best conditions and group sizes shrank accordingly.

Dean Wilton, the Factory rifle class shooter, did very well and may have possibly broken both the aggregate record and a small group record.  The targets have been taken for validation.  Dean also broke several Factory rifle class records two years ago in the same tournament.  The grand aggregates and 2-Gun (LV/HV) grand aggregates are attached but the top three placings are listed below:

Factory Class Grand Aggregate
1st, Dean Wilton

Light Varmint Grand Aggregate
1st, Peter Haxell
2nd, Steve Bell
3rd, Ian Owen

Heavy Varmint Grand Aggregate
1st, Ian Owen
2nd, Peter Haxell
3rd, Steve Bell

2-Gun Grand Aggregate (LV/HV)
1st, Peter Haxell
2nd, Ian Owen
3rd, Steve Bell

Special congratulations to the junior shooter, Elliot Cameron, who just managed to pip Ian Owen for third place in the Light Varmint 200 yard section.  Some future champion potential there!  Keep up the good shooting.

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