I have been commissioned to submit a report on behalf of 'Westley's Midnight Runners' who shot the Cheshire Shield at Hodnet last Thursday. The 'Team' of ips, 40up and myself from here, and two sandbaggers who were going to ensure that we got the Team Prize ! Their combined scores were supposed to get us home and dry, with our 3 scores as incidentals. Well, I think they were having an off day because the 3 Forum contributors were the top 3 scores. Only 40up and myself managed to top 70, with ips coming in a close 3rd. Not bad for a bloody invalid and 2 of the Nations top Trap shooters though. I can only praise the Shooting Ground and the Refs, for helping to make the day the success it was. With Teams from the Armed Forces, and the Emergency Services along with a lot of Guest Teams, it made for quite a big entry but we encountered the minimum of hold ups. I do not think we were ever in contention for the glassware, but the spirit and camaraderie in which it was shot was a joy to behold. We were following a team of RAF lads with an average age of 20 (if that) whose behaviour was impeccable, hit or miss, "Teddy never left the cot". However whilst at the top of the ground, an RAF helicopter did put in an appearance, we suspected it was bringing in reinforcements ! Maybe our scores could have been improved upon by using tighter chokes, different cartridges or Ref bashing, but I was happy with the performance of MY equipment (so to speak) and there was not a single target that I or 40up missed all of. Yes, we were dropping the odd target here and there, but not I feel, due to our gun or cartridge combination. One minor problem was with my auto failing to cycle on 3 or 4 occasions, much to the amusement of the 2 Trappies. This was down to user error and NOT the gun. Tension was causing me to not fully release the trigger, which with the O/U would cause the second barrel to fail to fire, but with an auto it fails to feed the next round properly. So there we have it, not too bad a show all things considered and not a K P nut in sight ! 3 Beretta's, 2 Browning/Miroku's instead. I will leave it to others to announce the actual scores, but when I returned the scoresheets to the organisers, they punched a hole in the top right corner of the sheets and asked me to hang them up on a nail in the 'Gents' !
