National Inter-Schools Rifle Competition 2025 at Bisley

Spending four days taking part in a programme of activities and events, six Woodbridge School CCF students have been competing individually and as a team, in the National Inter-Schools Target Rifle Competition 2025 in Bisley; a key event in the CCF shooting calendar. The core of the meeting involves competitions for the L81A2 Cadet Target Rifle (CTR).

An opportunity to showcase their target rifle expertise and skill, our cadets took part in a range of shooting competitions – and even had the chance to spend time amongst serving personnel, which was a real highlight of the week. Year 9’s Seth shared his experience.

Seth, Year 9

Last week, six of us travelled to Bisley, the home of the NRA (National Rifle Association), for the inter-schools rifling competition.

Staying on a camp nearby called Brunswick, we all had the opportunity to feel like soldier, as we were sleeping in our barracks and eating in the mess hall, sometimes alongside active personnel themselves!

The shooting competition took place over four days. Monday through to Wednesday were used as practice to get accustomed with our rifles and the distances. The days had to be spent well as competition day was coming up on Thursday! We shot distances of 300, 500 and 600 yards away and were graciously helped by Austin, the Rifle Team Coach.

The team also got to score other team’s performances by looking at the target with a telescope and calling numbers. There were schools from as far as Northern Ireland to Edinburgh taking part, it was a huge scale event.

On the final day, we were able to truly put every effort into our shoots, rewarded by coming in 8th place out of 10 Cadet 4s.

While there we were also able to attempt our qualification in the 7.62 Target Rifle, which will be decommissioned next year. Both Year 11’s Ernie and I managed to qualify for trained shot.

Bisley was an excellent and fun opportunity to try larger rifles and truly get a grasp of rifling in the UK.