I'm lucky, my 'home' practice ground is North Ayrshire, the UK importer for Clever Mirage. Tom Young the owner is a great guy to deal with, straight as they come, bought my DT11 from him, certainly didn't need to ask for a discount, he says "ask for best price" he was a country mile cheaper than anyone else about, his brother and buisness partner is a gun smith, made a great job of all the alterations to my DT11 to make it fit me, call a spade a spade, knows his stuff, was a top DTL shooter in his day and always keeps a few million shells at his place!!! Two weeks after I picked up my DT11, I was at North Ayrshire on a Wednesday night, two years ago (late night practice until 9pm every Wednesday at North Ayrshire, summer/winter lights and orange clays on one DTL and skeet range) Tom bumped into me round the sporting layout,
"how you getting on with the new gun?"
"Aye, fine...it's giving me a sore head"
"What cartridges are you shooting?"
"I picked up some of these... (won't name them so nobody gets all hurt when I call their brand crap)"
"No wonder you've got a sore head shooting those sh*ite shells!!! Why did you go spending all that money on a good gun to feed it crap like those? Give me one and I'll show you something..."
At this I was quite miffed as I'd paid £180/k for my shinny, high brass 'super shells', Tom cut the top off the shell I'd given him, poured out this dull, soft shot full of tear drop shaped pellets into my hand. "There you go, sh*te shot, (pulls out the wad) sh*te wad, they don't open up, gives you a really dense center and loose outer pattern, you'll not be wanting that for sporting are you? Cheap powder that recoils rough as hell too..."
He then pulls out a Clever Mirage T1, cuts it open, lovely uniform hard round shot, cut wads, goes on to explain that all the UK Clever shells are cut wads, tells me the story of 'why' they are all cut wads, he orders them all to be loaded with cut wads, more expensive powders, better shot, state of the art loading technology that allows massive production from minimal staff =reduced manufacturing costs...we must have spent two hours discussing cartridges!!! At the end of it Tom says, "try the T1 Supertargets, at £163/k they are better than most other manufactures £180/k+ shells"...and they are!!! T2's are smoother than anything else I've shot and a bargin at £188. T3's really crunch clays up, 8's 71/2's and even Italian 7's (UK 6.5's) I've been experementing with T2 Bior wad 8.5's (UK8's) for very close stuff, Tom ordered me in a 1000 to try, WOW they have a very large, even pattern!!! Shot a 25 DTL through 1/2 choke 24 first barrel breaks were all sledgehammers!!! (One miss...oops)
There are lots of good shells, very few 'poor' ones, they all break clays, some better than others, I find Clever the smoothest to shoot, preform faultlessly, they use only the best components and the price suits me...
