One of the largest ever fields contested the prestigious event and the quality was high – one shootoff ran late into Saturday night as two competitors couldn’t be separated.

In the end it was Schiller who proved to be the most consistent over the course of the five categories, scoring 368 of a possible 375 points.

Bathurst Gun Club president Paul Rosconi said the club and competitors were delighted with the success of the weekend.

“It’s the most successful shoot we have ever had,” he said.

“We had 120 shooters and the competition was fierce. The weather looked fairly dire on Friday but we were blessed with the weekend weather.

“We had shooters from all over NSW, two from Queensland and one from Western Australia.

“Everybody was very happy with the event and the program. The program will stay the same next year apart from one little change.”

Schiller was joined in the winners’ circle by his sister Kate Schiller, who won the ladies’ high gun with 353 points. Jeff Nash was the top veteran with a score of 365.

One of the highlights of the competition came when the 2011 King of the Mountain Tony Arvanitakis and John Crompton took more than two hours to find a winner in the 50-target double barrel division.

Several competitors were able to break all 50 targets, which meant they had to enter a shootoff, eliminating anyone who missed until a winner was found.

The event didn’t start until 6pm and under the rules it has to be run to completion, meaning that it began to get dark as the pair passed their 250th accurate target.

Eventually, after shooting 320 targets without mistake, Crompton announced that he would concede the competition because it was getting too dark.

“John Crompton said: ‘I’ve had enough – it’s getting too dark and hard to see. I would rather forfeit than miss a target.’ So he handed the event to Tony Arvanitakis because he wanted to keep his score intact,” Rosconi said.

“He didn’t want to miss one and ruin his score.”

David Perri was the AA-grade champion, Malcolm Smith topped A-grade, Youssef Yarak was the B-grade winner and C-grade was taken out by Matthew Still.

Matthew Schiller was a first-time winner, which means that there has still only been one two-time winner in the 21-year history of the competition.

Rosconi said Schiller was a deserving winner.

“That was a fantastic standard. To only drop seven points over 225 targets is pretty incredible. There were a lot of very good shooters there and he did well to finish on top,” he said.