Fauxdegla DTL Grand Prix 2022 - Day 1- 3/6/22

Click here for a full list of today’s scores

Day 1 of the Fauxdegla DTL Grand Prix, and it hasn’t gone quite as well as I wanted. I am the architect of my own difficulties, as usual!

Today also shows how important it is to test your equipment to see if it is doing what you expect it to do, BEFORE you get to an important event!

Grey skies, a bit of wind, and a little on the damp side this morning!

The score wasn’t a disaster (97/286), but I expected much better given recent performances – except that one major component is different.

On the weekend before I left to travel up, I sorted out the issue that I had with my K80 stock.

The brass inserts that hold the pillars for the comb were lifting out of the wood with the recoil, so I drilled a hole in each one and put small screws in to hold them in place. With the job complete I resolved to bring the Krieghoff with me and use it for this weekend and Bywell.

Naturally, I assumed that everything was set up correctly, given that I shot a 100/299 with the gun not so long ago.

During practice yesterday, something felt slightly off but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. I just assumed that I needed to get back into the groove of shooting Fauxdegla targets and thought no more of it.

When I missed two targets in the first round this morning, I was a bit mystified. The middle 50 was solid enough, 25/74 both times, but the target breaks were not consistent. Another miss and barrel in round 4 was a very frustrating end to a puzzling morning.

The brain was thinking over lunch, and suggested to me that I make use of Fauxdegla’s pattern plate just to check that everything was where it should be. That was one thing that I had not done with the K80 since buying it, purely because it would have involved a trek to UK Gun Repairs to use their plate. That’s a long way just for some pattern testing.

A few shots at the pattern board answered my question pretty quickly. The gun was giving me a pattern approximately 1 foot above point of aim at around 25 yards – much, much too high. A bit of tweaking later, and I’m now seeing a much flatter sight picture with the beads making a figure of 8, but still with a pattern that is 100% above point of aim, which is both odd and interesting at the same time.

Ideally I would like about 65 – 70% .

To see if the setup was any better, I shot a practice round and blew up many of the targets I shot at. One miss, but that was entirely down to me. I was also connecting with the second barrel, so I’ve proved that the gun is usable.

“But don’t you normally take a spare gun??”, I hear you cry. Yes, I do, and yes, I brought one.

Except that this was where I made a questionable decision, and I do not know why I am obsessed with making things hard for myself.

As a spare gun, I resolved to bring the Miroku, and leave the Invictus that I shot a 100/300 with only 2 weeks ago at home in the gun cabinet… doh!

A test shot on the pattern plate with the Miroku produced the same foot-high pattern as the Krieghoff did before I tweaked the comb, so that isn’t really going to help me much!

At least now I know where the K80 shoots, and I’ll just have to knock the feet off all the targets for the next 5 competition days until I get home.

Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise. Now I know beyond doubt that the Miroku is too high in the stock, and that my Invictus is the one that is set up correctly. I can’t achieve the same configuration on the Krieghoff stock because of how it’s made, so to “fix” it would require either taking some wood off (which I don’t want to do), or another stock. If I went this route, I’d look at getting a TSK adjustable put on there, but that’s quite a lot of money.

The best plan right now is to keep it as it is, as the spare, while I consider what to do.

I am not perfect. I make strange decisions just like everyone else, but I pass on the results so that you can learn from them.

When you have a setup that is working well for you – KEEP IT AS IT IS! I might learn that one day!

We’ll see what we can do with the newfound knowledge tomorrow.

Elsewhere, there was some very strong shooting at the business end of the scoreboard.

High Gun for today is Michael Turner with a super 100/299.

Up until then, there were three people tied on 100/298; John Laverick, John Adams, and Steve Janes.

Then came Paul Chaplow and Matt Sheldrake on 297 each.

Megan Williams took Juniors with a 100/296.

Well shot to everyone who placed in their class or category, and best of luck for tomorrow.