Quote Originally Posted by Josie & John View Post
Aperture sights were indeed allowed back in the day. In fact Guernsey based shooters won most of the air rifle matches between the wars and thought it strange that anybody would want to compete with anything but aperture sights. Our club at Bisley allows their use in the club bell target league - as you say anything else would be somewhat of a historical travesty.

Kind regards,

John
Hi John, Maybe because our was a rural league,

http://www.belltarget.com/lord-ednam.php

with many farm workers (still has a fair few.....saw two guys literally straight from a muddy field one year when they were working late on harvest) That we are open sights only, and always have been I have been told.

It seems perhaps because of the extra cost back in the day of apertures so they wanted to keep it accessable. I don't know this is 100% correct but will try and find out as there are records going right back as far I am aware. I have seen scorebooks back to the war, but never the original gun specification other than "BSA Air rifles".

All I know is they are very strict about anything other than open sights, even sight hoods have to be removed! and 100% no shooting type clothing or indeed anything that can be construed as a "shooting aid, no butts inside jackets etc. etc.

There again we use only recoilling guns of full power (up to 11.6) so maybe it's just a "in the sticks" thing!.......I think the targets are set at least at 6 pounds, so no chance of any match rifles getting a ding!

ATB, Ed