Saturday, July 25, 2009
My First Go At It
I have been in the UK for the past week for work and had to stay over the weekend. Due to some work requirements, I had to hire a car on Thursday. So, of course, I was on the computer Thursday night to find some local airgun shops and clubs that I could visit over the weekend. I found Park Street Guns (http://www.gunshot.co.uk/) in St. Albans which is about 6 miles south of my hotel. I also found Lea Valley Airgun Club (http://www.lvagc.com/) that was about 15 miles east of my hotel.
I planned to go to LVAGC and Park Street on Saturday but as it turned out, I finished my business a little early on Friday afternoon so I headed down to Park Street to check out the gun shop. It is a small but quaint shop with a small selection of various airguns and equipment. The also had a nice selection of firearms and a lot of beautiful shotguns. The had a cabinet full of high end .22 rifles and nearly all of them had silencers. I spent a good bit of time in the shop looking and chatting with the guys there.
They told me that they had just received their first HW97KT which is a new model HW97 with a new thumbhole stock. I asked to see it but the rifle sold about an hour after it had showed up. I found a picture of one on the HW site and it is a nice looking rifle. They had a selection of OX springs so I picked up one for my 12 ft lbs TX200 and one for my HW97s.
Saturday morning rolled around and after sleeping in, I got up and headed to the Lea Valley Airgun Club. Driving on the "wrong" side of the road is a trip. The hardest thing for me is giving myself enough room on the left side of the car to get around stuff along side the road. I arrived at the range around 10:30 am and after a safety tour of the grounds by Bob Ruggles the chairman of the club, I bought some pellets and borrowed a nice BSA Scorpion from Bob and got to shooting. They have a pretty nice plinking range with lots of reactive Knockover targets (http://www.nockover-targets.co.uk/home.html).
I played there for about an hour and then headed over to what they locally called the Rest Field Target match. This is pretty much a Hunter Field Target match but the shooters can use any kind of rest they want to bring along. I just shot normal FT style sitting with my left fist on my knee and the rifle on my fist. I have found for me that this position is the most stable for me when I shoot a sporter rifle. The Scorpion had a 6x Walther scope mounted on it. It was different using such a low power for target shooting but I managed to a good bit of the targets and have a lot of fun too. Every one was nice and helpful. After a spot of tea and a snack, I was on my way back to my hotel.
It was a fun day of shooting and I was very happy to be able to find a good club so close to my location. Hopefully, if all goes well, I may have a chance to shoot with another club west of London tomorrow.
I planned to go to LVAGC and Park Street on Saturday but as it turned out, I finished my business a little early on Friday afternoon so I headed down to Park Street to check out the gun shop. It is a small but quaint shop with a small selection of various airguns and equipment. The also had a nice selection of firearms and a lot of beautiful shotguns. The had a cabinet full of high end .22 rifles and nearly all of them had silencers. I spent a good bit of time in the shop looking and chatting with the guys there.
They told me that they had just received their first HW97KT which is a new model HW97 with a new thumbhole stock. I asked to see it but the rifle sold about an hour after it had showed up. I found a picture of one on the HW site and it is a nice looking rifle. They had a selection of OX springs so I picked up one for my 12 ft lbs TX200 and one for my HW97s.
Saturday morning rolled around and after sleeping in, I got up and headed to the Lea Valley Airgun Club. Driving on the "wrong" side of the road is a trip. The hardest thing for me is giving myself enough room on the left side of the car to get around stuff along side the road. I arrived at the range around 10:30 am and after a safety tour of the grounds by Bob Ruggles the chairman of the club, I bought some pellets and borrowed a nice BSA Scorpion from Bob and got to shooting. They have a pretty nice plinking range with lots of reactive Knockover targets (http://www.nockover-targets.co.uk/home.html).
I played there for about an hour and then headed over to what they locally called the Rest Field Target match. This is pretty much a Hunter Field Target match but the shooters can use any kind of rest they want to bring along. I just shot normal FT style sitting with my left fist on my knee and the rifle on my fist. I have found for me that this position is the most stable for me when I shoot a sporter rifle. The Scorpion had a 6x Walther scope mounted on it. It was different using such a low power for target shooting but I managed to a good bit of the targets and have a lot of fun too. Every one was nice and helpful. After a spot of tea and a snack, I was on my way back to my hotel.
It was a fun day of shooting and I was very happy to be able to find a good club so close to my location. Hopefully, if all goes well, I may have a chance to shoot with another club west of London tomorrow.
