ehb102
Well-known member
In the thread 2014 plans '&do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>> we were asked how we were planning to achieve our goals.I said I was only committing to six months of plans.Six months is nearly up so here's my update.
Split my shooting budget between registered competitions, practice and social shooting. I need all three kinds and I need to do some social shooting with different people. I want to know how to be a good shot more than I want to prove it in competition, but I want to enjoy shooting most of all.
I'm still doing this although possibly there has been more social shooting than practice. Dabbling with skeet has been helpful in terms of learning how to be a better shot, but I can't say I'm overly enamoured of the competition scene. I'm down to shoot the inter counties again though. The social shooting is fabulous. I haven't been to a registered for a couple of months because of all the social shooting.
Find a shooting coat to wear so my gun mount can be consistent.
I actually got the stock changed on my gun. Apparently I need a lot of right hand cast. Since that was sorted for me (Thank you Martin Barker of Nuthampstead for identifying the problem and Justin Risby for kindly providing me with an adjustable back plate for the stock) my gun mount is much, much easier. I do have a nice tweed coat as well, but I'm mostly seen out and about in my old clay shooting coat.
Learn to accurately assess distance in yards by eye, by marking out measured distances with chalk and actually seeing it. Or visit a nice pattern plate with marked out distances.
I was thinking about this the other day. Where the heck does one find chalk these days? Never mind, it will soon be summer and Tesco will stock it again. I also keep meaning to visit the pattern plate at Sporting Targets because apparently that's nicely marked out. but they never seem to have any of the paper thingies you need to shoot at. So I have to mark this one "ongoing".
Thoroughly learn my sight patterns for crossers, hopefully up to 60 yards. I keep giving them too much lead, mostly because I don't really know what I'm shooting at in terms of distance.
Having reached the point where I was so frustrated I was about to explode it turns out that I'd managed to teach myself swing through, which in itself is fine but if you shoot the same bird with different methods you need a different amount of lead. No wonder things never seemed the same twice. Now I am conscious of the difference and pick one method or the other to use on one bird. It took a lesson to work that out - well, actually it took Coach Ed ten shots on three different crossers, so about ten minutes including time moving between stands. I haven't managed the sixty yard crosser yet, so more to aim for.
Use my chokes properly. I rarely change them, but did for the 40 yard tower on Saturday and broke lots of clays.
Not a lot of point when I haven't done the bit about learning to estimate distances yet. I have changed up to half and half rather than quarter and quarter all the time, and have been known to look at really far away sport trap and put in a three quarters, but only because I couldn't find my second half that day. Also Coach said "Change chokes, I'll break your fingers" and given he proved to me my gun with two quarter chokes and 21g can break clay at 60 yards I can't get too worked up about it. Ongoing, although it seems such a shame to have a double set and never use most of them.
Teach myself to shoot birds on the drop. It's a really useful skill.
I have played with this a little, but got a bit distracted by really far away teals. The timing of the 80 yard teal needs more work, I managed it once.
Practice rising going away birds. I hate them most of all. A pair will beat me.
I'm definitely better at these, although sometimes I don't quite get whether I should pull the gun through or bring the gun up to just underneath them. I reckon this will always be ongoing.
Twist the arm of the ladies who keep promising to take me to shoot trap to make it actually happen. We only have DTL at my local club.
I shot OT at Nuthampstead. It was great fun, even though I was using a borrowed gun, and I want to do it again.
Not say anything about how a stand looks really hard when I get there. Apparently it's doubly annoying if I can hit them after all. That's a bad habit I need to stop in its tracks, even if I genuinely don't know how to shoot them when I get there.
Done.
Get a Chelsea Bun Club straight. I've hit 29/30 and bottled it because of the adrenalin rush. The birds are harder now so I might not be able to make it happen, but it's an aim, and practising consistency is good for me.
Ongoing. Every time I have hopes there's a really good reason why it's not happening that day. Gives me something to aim for.
Kill a pigeon with a shotgun. If these numerous but nebulous invitations to shoot pigeon don't come off I'll hire a pigeon guide.
I won the pigeon shooting in the silent auction recently. I'm looking forward to a day in the field.
Shoot the British Side by Side championships, or a county one if it's in a difficult location for me.
I've had the stock altered on the side by side (a Baikal known affectionately as "Boris") and have a lesson booked to help me with translation between that and the O/U. I spent more than a box of cartridges on a rabbit that I killed straight off with a borrowed O/U so I'm obviously doing something wrong now I've had the stock altered. I don't know what you all have against Baikals, mine is lovely. Anyway, the AGL SxS championship is in my diary and I'm hoping that I'll have some ladies to squad with me.
Shoot the Fenland show and place in ladies' class, re-entering if necessary.
Fenland show isn't until August, but I shot Kelmarsh and won ladies'. That'll do me.
Shoot my County's ESP qualifiers.
They are next month.
Keep shooting as fun as it has been this year.
So far, so good. More to learn, more to do, more to shoot.
The important thing that did happen that wasn't included in my aims is that I think the Nuthampstead gunsmith Justin Risby solved the intermittent firing problem on y 425. I was convinced there was a burr somewhere on some bit of the mechanism that was having an impact and Justin, who works with vision enhancers, confirmed that there had indeed been a small metal burr that may have been responsible for occasional failure to fire. I am very impressed with Justin, especially as other highly esteemed gunsmiths did not work at this level and the problem continued. Justin has also taken the lead out of my stock on my request as not only was my gun now so bloody heavy my arms ached after a dozen birds, but it was suggested that this might responsible for me feeling that I'm being punched in the teeth every time I use a 28g cartridge. We'll see. If I had my time again I'd have shorter (or lighter) barrels, but you know, gun goes bang, it's not the issue.
Split my shooting budget between registered competitions, practice and social shooting. I need all three kinds and I need to do some social shooting with different people. I want to know how to be a good shot more than I want to prove it in competition, but I want to enjoy shooting most of all.
I'm still doing this although possibly there has been more social shooting than practice. Dabbling with skeet has been helpful in terms of learning how to be a better shot, but I can't say I'm overly enamoured of the competition scene. I'm down to shoot the inter counties again though. The social shooting is fabulous. I haven't been to a registered for a couple of months because of all the social shooting.
Find a shooting coat to wear so my gun mount can be consistent.
I actually got the stock changed on my gun. Apparently I need a lot of right hand cast. Since that was sorted for me (Thank you Martin Barker of Nuthampstead for identifying the problem and Justin Risby for kindly providing me with an adjustable back plate for the stock) my gun mount is much, much easier. I do have a nice tweed coat as well, but I'm mostly seen out and about in my old clay shooting coat.
Learn to accurately assess distance in yards by eye, by marking out measured distances with chalk and actually seeing it. Or visit a nice pattern plate with marked out distances.
I was thinking about this the other day. Where the heck does one find chalk these days? Never mind, it will soon be summer and Tesco will stock it again. I also keep meaning to visit the pattern plate at Sporting Targets because apparently that's nicely marked out. but they never seem to have any of the paper thingies you need to shoot at. So I have to mark this one "ongoing".
Thoroughly learn my sight patterns for crossers, hopefully up to 60 yards. I keep giving them too much lead, mostly because I don't really know what I'm shooting at in terms of distance.
Having reached the point where I was so frustrated I was about to explode it turns out that I'd managed to teach myself swing through, which in itself is fine but if you shoot the same bird with different methods you need a different amount of lead. No wonder things never seemed the same twice. Now I am conscious of the difference and pick one method or the other to use on one bird. It took a lesson to work that out - well, actually it took Coach Ed ten shots on three different crossers, so about ten minutes including time moving between stands. I haven't managed the sixty yard crosser yet, so more to aim for.
Use my chokes properly. I rarely change them, but did for the 40 yard tower on Saturday and broke lots of clays.
Not a lot of point when I haven't done the bit about learning to estimate distances yet. I have changed up to half and half rather than quarter and quarter all the time, and have been known to look at really far away sport trap and put in a three quarters, but only because I couldn't find my second half that day. Also Coach said "Change chokes, I'll break your fingers" and given he proved to me my gun with two quarter chokes and 21g can break clay at 60 yards I can't get too worked up about it. Ongoing, although it seems such a shame to have a double set and never use most of them.
Teach myself to shoot birds on the drop. It's a really useful skill.
I have played with this a little, but got a bit distracted by really far away teals. The timing of the 80 yard teal needs more work, I managed it once.
Practice rising going away birds. I hate them most of all. A pair will beat me.
I'm definitely better at these, although sometimes I don't quite get whether I should pull the gun through or bring the gun up to just underneath them. I reckon this will always be ongoing.
Twist the arm of the ladies who keep promising to take me to shoot trap to make it actually happen. We only have DTL at my local club.
I shot OT at Nuthampstead. It was great fun, even though I was using a borrowed gun, and I want to do it again.
Not say anything about how a stand looks really hard when I get there. Apparently it's doubly annoying if I can hit them after all. That's a bad habit I need to stop in its tracks, even if I genuinely don't know how to shoot them when I get there.
Done.
Get a Chelsea Bun Club straight. I've hit 29/30 and bottled it because of the adrenalin rush. The birds are harder now so I might not be able to make it happen, but it's an aim, and practising consistency is good for me.
Ongoing. Every time I have hopes there's a really good reason why it's not happening that day. Gives me something to aim for.
Kill a pigeon with a shotgun. If these numerous but nebulous invitations to shoot pigeon don't come off I'll hire a pigeon guide.
I won the pigeon shooting in the silent auction recently. I'm looking forward to a day in the field.
Shoot the British Side by Side championships, or a county one if it's in a difficult location for me.
I've had the stock altered on the side by side (a Baikal known affectionately as "Boris") and have a lesson booked to help me with translation between that and the O/U. I spent more than a box of cartridges on a rabbit that I killed straight off with a borrowed O/U so I'm obviously doing something wrong now I've had the stock altered. I don't know what you all have against Baikals, mine is lovely. Anyway, the AGL SxS championship is in my diary and I'm hoping that I'll have some ladies to squad with me.
Shoot the Fenland show and place in ladies' class, re-entering if necessary.
Fenland show isn't until August, but I shot Kelmarsh and won ladies'. That'll do me.
Shoot my County's ESP qualifiers.
They are next month.
Keep shooting as fun as it has been this year.
So far, so good. More to learn, more to do, more to shoot.
The important thing that did happen that wasn't included in my aims is that I think the Nuthampstead gunsmith Justin Risby solved the intermittent firing problem on y 425. I was convinced there was a burr somewhere on some bit of the mechanism that was having an impact and Justin, who works with vision enhancers, confirmed that there had indeed been a small metal burr that may have been responsible for occasional failure to fire. I am very impressed with Justin, especially as other highly esteemed gunsmiths did not work at this level and the problem continued. Justin has also taken the lead out of my stock on my request as not only was my gun now so bloody heavy my arms ached after a dozen birds, but it was suggested that this might responsible for me feeling that I'm being punched in the teeth every time I use a 28g cartridge. We'll see. If I had my time again I'd have shorter (or lighter) barrels, but you know, gun goes bang, it's not the issue.