The Weekend!

Saturday 21st April 2007.

Haydn calls to ask if I am going to have a shot at Llandegla this afternoon. Do bears poo in the woods? I tell him I will be there around 2. Finish spraying weedkiller aound, well it is quicker than proper gardening, get the gun out of the safe and off I go. Of course it is a bit later than 2 when I arrive and the ground is busy today. Obligatory polystyrene cup of tea first and, civilities over, we sign on a line. I draw peg 2 today. The gun is untouched from Wednesday night so the comb is a smidge higher than last time I shot. I have my DTL 300 cartridges but also some Hull Intercomp that I want to try. These are a cheaper cartridge and only have 2% antimony content against the 5% of the DTL 300s. Decide to use the DTL in the first barrel and shoot some pieces with the Intercomp to see how they go. Both are stated as having a muzzle velocity of 1400 so recoil etc should be the same.

Make an excellent start by clean missing the first bird out! No excuses, I was simply not thinking when I called. Wasn't looking in the right place, wasn't ready and got caught napping. Target appearing wakes me up and I take off after it like a greyhound on speed. After that I work my way through the rest for just a barrel. 24/71. Quite happy with the performance after I woke up but once you miss one there is no recovering from that.

Walking back the clubhouse I decide to have another line and so I sneak the gun back into the car in case John Roberts grabs it before I can shoot again. I should know better because even as I stroll through the door he looks up from his sausage sarny and says "Where's the gun?" Back to the car, switch the comb from right to left (remembered this time) and pass him the gun. He finds it a little low and so I lift it up two turns. This is normal as increasing the cast often requires a little more height. John is going to try it on Olympic Trap and so he and Phil Jones disappear down the range. I have another lovely cup of polystyrene tea with Haydn and talk shooting. Haydn commented that I had been taking the targets very early but it had not seemed that way to me at all. I had thought towards the end of the line that I had settled down and was shooting more smoothly but apparently this was when I was shooting fastest. I have no explanation for that other than the better visibility over the barrel is possibly letting me see the targets quicker.

John returns to report that after a slightly ropey start he settled in and shot the OT well. Phil Jones had taken a sneaky 5 targets and expected to not like it at all. Hitting 4 out of the 5 he was non-committal but I suspect he actually liked it much better than he owns to.

Glance over my shoulder at the clock and see that I have spent too long drinking tea and have to go.

So, after only 100 targets what is my opinion? I had expected to spend much longer setting up the rib and tweaking this and that for some weeks. It has not worked like that and the gun is set up exactly how I want it. It is amazingly easy to shoot with superb visibility over the rib. Recoil is smooth and muzzle flip non-existent. In short I am enjoying it enormously and I am enjoying shooting again. I cannot believe how quickly my confidence has returned. Sure I am making mistakes but that is to be expected. I am aware of the mistakes and am certain that I can reduce them. I don't have the temperament to threaten the top guys in DTL, I never did have, but I am sure that I could still shoot AA scores consistently. This journal is almost over, only a week after it began. I set out to try the gun and determine how hard it would be to shoot. I wanted to see how long it would take me to settle into a target breaking rhythym after such a long absence. The results have surprised me. I will shoot some more and update my progress but I think that Krieghoff have something special here.

Oh!, what about the Hull Intercomp? I used them in the second barrel and broke a few pieces with them. Even though the speed is stated as the same as the DTL 300s I did think they were a little bit punchier. Not unacceptable though. Definitely a cheaper alternative for practice. Hull make a slightly lower velocity cartridge, the Chevron LR at 1360. May give that a try as I really don't like recoil. The biggest problem with both these cartridges for me is that they are only available in shot size 7.5 and I do prefer the bigger size 7 for a more authoritative strike.

If you have any comments on this journal or questions arising from it you can post them here.