Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2019 i Clay Shooting

More than £4,200 was raised for the Disabled Shooters Group at a charity shoot at Eriswell Lodge Shooting Ground in Suffolk. Some 217 shooters braved the rain to head out around the 100-target Sporting course, and with something for everyone it was thoroughly enjoyed by all, despite the weather. One stand had to be shot from a seated position, to give all competitors an insight into how it would feel to shoot from a similar position to that of a wheelchair user. The High Gun prizes saw shooters receive bags of dog food, kindly donated by Marsdens Feeds. The triumphant team this year were the (overmodestly named) ‘Norfolk No Hopers’ who managed to hit a total of 445 targets out of the 500 possible. The lowest scoring team, Charlie’s Reprobates,…

You’d have to have stuck your head very deep in the sand to be unaware of the issue of single-use plastics and the effect they have on the environment. Most shooters are acutely aware of it in the light of the current pressures on their sport. Lead shot is all too frequently in the limelight, as are the other raw materials that go into making cartridges and clays. So if we can improve on one aspect of the problem, the mountains upon mountains of empty plastic cartridges, shouldn’t we be doing something about it? In fact, some within the shooting community have already been quietly playing their part in doing so – so quietly, in fact, that many are not even aware that there is any recycling of shotgun cartridges.…

How do you manage to convince your slightly-suspicious-of-shooting partner that she would love to visit the home of Italian gunmaking? In my case, I suggested an end of season break in Lake Garda… with a short excursion thrown in. The ruse lasted less time than it takes to make a bacon butty. On the basis that every relationship has to have a bit of give and take, a deal was struck. We would accept the invitation of Honesberie Shooting School to join them on a tour of the Rizzini factory and then we’d spend four days touring the Italian lakes. Honesberie is a Rizzini dealer and I had been shooting a Rizzini V3 during my weekly lessons. I was interested in a new model they were bringing to market; the…

The first shoot we had this month was the England Fitasc Selection shoot at Eriswell Lodge. Sadly the targets were more Compak than Fitasc and the shoot was really disappointing. The layouts were very confined and one of the best areas on the ground wasn’t used. Three of the layouts had the hoops all in a line and only a few meters apart, which isn’t the norm for Fitasc. One layout had a small platform where there wasn’t enough room for everyone to view the targets and nothing was more than 5 or 6 feet above the ground on this layout. Cheryl was runner up in the Ladies. It was several people’s first experience of Fitasc on our squad and by the end some of the newbies were commenting that…

In the olden days, ‘big is best’ was the clay shooter’s maxim, with Fitasc shooters able to use up to a whopping 36gm of lead. 28gm is now the maximum for clays, or 24gm for ISSF international competitions. For the more casual shooter who is not interested in the competition circuit, a 24gm load is more comfortable and can give a better pattern than the heavier load with no loss of performance. Simulated clay days are all the rage currently – and why not? They are a lot of fun and you can fire as many squibs as you wish, only constrained by how quickly you can load! It’s not the most serious of clay shooting, so we don’t need to worry too much about speed or hardness of shot,…

The event schedule for next year’s Tokyo Olympics has been revealed, with confirmation that shooting will once again provide the Games’ very first gold medallist. This will be the winner of the women’s 10-metre air rifle, to be staged at the Asaka shooting range on 25 July 2020 – the day after the opening ceremony. The 10-metre men’s air pistol will be decided on the same day. At the last Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, a similar timetable applied, with Virginia Thrasher taking the first gold medal of the Games in the air rifle event for the United States, before Hoàng Xuân Vinh won Vietnam’s first-ever Olympic gold medal in the air pistol. Since it will be the first medals ceremony of the Tokyo Games, there seems…

The GB Helice team had one of their most successful trips ever, competing in the Helice African Championships in Cairo and coming back with a massive haul of medals and trophies. The President’s Cup was the first event of the week. John Lucy, on his first trip away with the GB team, won a gold medal in the Senior category and also shot off for the overall title, picking up a bronze. In the same event Jane Bell won a gold medal, Chris Potter took a silver and John Nightingale a bronze. The next day was the Grand Prix of Egypt – and the GB Team’s success continued. Fergus Watson-Hopkinson, also on his first trip away with the team, took gold in the Seniors category. Cliff Goodwin and Jane Bell…

The Essex Gun Masters is a shoot that has grown in popularity over the years and it seems likely that it will draw a large and competitive field for the foreseeable future. With an enormous entry of nearly 2400 shooters there is nothing on this side of the Atlantic that can come close to it. John Dyson’s Hepworth Hall shooting ground reverberated with just short of 500,000 shots over the duration of the week as the competitors tackled the 26 stands of the two courses, Black and Red. Speed and angle are Dyson’s trademarks and there was plenty of both in evidence. The Black course was situated on the southwest end of the ground and ran anticlockwise. Anyone who was expecting stand one to be a pair of ‘gimmes’ was…

As the numbers taking up shooting sports, and clay target shooting in particular, continue to increase, so the incidence of one of the most common bugbears to set back new shooters’ progress rises too. Anyone who belongs to a few shooting related websites and forums will be aware that vision problems crop up very regularly indeed. That’s not really surprising, as they affect a measurable proportion of individuals, and problems which may not have a noticeable impact upon daily life most certainly can and do affect how well we shoot. There are, of course, many conditions affecting vision that regular eye tests will have picked up along the way. Corrective spectacles – as we all are likely to require at some point – will suffice for most things, but shooting…

I’m writing this on Easter Monday and it’s been all go over the last few weeks. As well as registered competitions and training days, it’s the time of year when the major competitions get underway. In the last four weekends at Nuthampstead there have been three two-day competitions, including two English Open Championships – one for Universal Trench and the other for Olympic Trap. There have also been more competitions abroad, which have yielded some great results for British shooters. Universal Trench English Open The last weekend of March saw bright Spring weather as UT shooters gathered at Nuthampstead for the first major of the year: the English Open and GB Team selection shoot. This event saw 108 UT shooters competing for titles, as well as team rankings towards team…

The West London Shooting School has been offering expert tuition and gun-fitting for over a century in beautiful surroundings 12 miles from Marble Arch. With over a hundred traps and stands in superbly laid out grounds, the school teaches every possible variation of game shooting to all standards of shots, from beginners to experts. Their distinctive style of shooting and tuition owes much to the influence of the great Percy Stanbury, arguably one of the finest shots who ever lived, who taught at the school for more than 20 years. The school has been closely involved in clay shooting since its inception and hosts both a Fitasc series and a major competition annually, staging the British Open Sporting Championship from its inception until the 1980s. Whilst the layout of the…

Five English Skeet shooters are believed to have made history at Dartford Shooting Ground as the first squad ever to shoot a perfect 100-straight each. Gary Cooke , Martyn Fleming, Andy Parsons, Steve Leppington and Martin Brister were the last squad to shoot at the first of three England Selection shoots on 20-21 April. Andrew Parsons noted that the fine weather, great targets and consistent buttoning meant the chances of the odd 100-straight were high – but five straights from one squad was something special. Being a selection shoot there was more than an 80 minute gap between rounds. The squad used the time to drink coffee and enjoy the cake provided by England Skeet team manager Julia Havill. By the final round, a crowd had gathered to watch. The…

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It’s all over in minutes. A gate is forced open, a van drives in and across several fields, eventually spilling men in dark clothing out onto the clay ground. They move around systematically, unbolting traps or simply walking off with them, knowing exactly where to look and what to take. Their haul is quickly loaded into the van and the thieves speed away, leaving nothing save a huge headache for those who will arrive the next morning to find all their equipment gone. This is almost exactly what happened to Devon’s Dart Clay Shooting earlier this receives year. Four his p traps e. Matthe were lost Coward in an- orchestrated raid. ‘All Holley the traps (left) were won the secure silver and hidden away’ says manager Neil Halsey. ‘They took…

Clay Shooting magazine recently featured two FOB plastic wad cartridges, the Viper BJ and the World; now it is time to look at one of their fibre wad options, the Viper BG. This cartridge is unusual because it is loaded with an obturator, a small plastic sealing disc under the fibre wad for improved gas sealing properties. This option of an additional obturating component has been available to cartridge loaders for some years, but has not been widely employed as yet. Given the current trend for moving away from full cup plastic wad ammunition, it seems a good time to see what this wad combination offers. (Note that there is also a Viper BGC, which does not have the obturator disc.) Like the other Viper load options, Viper BG come…

In comparison to sports like football and tennis, a layperson could be forgiven for assuming that clay shooting probably doesn’t require that much physical training – that is, exercise of the whole body rather than just your trigger finger! As many of us would be quick to point out, a full day of shooting, whether on the clays, at a sporting shoot, controlling pests or stalking, can be both physically and mentally taxing. Most athletes supplement their skill-based training with other forms of exercise aimed at building general fitness or strength, but many shooters tend to neglect this aspect of their beloved sport. Could fitness training help you become a better shooter? Clay shooting does not require marathon level cardiovascular fitness or a bodybuilder’s muscular physique, but a solid foundation…

BEDFORDSHIRE Chicksands Clay Target Club Shefford, CPSAAffiliated Disciplines: ESP, DTL, STR Open alternate Sundays and Wednesdays over Summer. Contact for competition details. Practice and coaching available Telephone: www.facebook.com/charlelister Email: info@chicksandsclaytarget.co.uk Web: www.chicksandsclaytarget.co.uk Maulden Gun Club Clophill Road, Maulden, CPSA Affiliated Disciplines: ESP Competition alternate Sundays. Practice and coaching for members only. Fibre wad only Telephone: 7951651051 Web: www.mauldengunclub.com Shillington Clay Club Shillington, CPSA Affiliated Disciplines: ESP Shooting every other Sunday Telephone: 07860 940362 Email carol@hcduk.com Sporting Targets Ltd Riseley, CPSA Premier Ground Disciplines: DTL, ESK, ESP, FSP, DR, SB, STR, Fitasc Open 9am-6pm weekdays and Saturdays, 9am-2pm Sundays. Regular competitions. Practice all hours. Pre-booked coaching. Telephone: 01234 708893 Email: reception@sportingtargets.co.uk Web: www.sportingtargets.co.uk Tythe Farm Gun Club Colmsworth, CPSA Registered Telephone: 07719 329094 Email philipcolson@hotmail.co.uk BERKSHIRE Four Counties Clay Target Club…