North Cornwall Shooting Ground 22/10/22
Today was the first time out with the gun after a couple of weekends working with clients, and I decided to head down to North Cornwall and give the Krieghoff another workout. He’s been sat in the cabinet since the English and British Single Barrel weekend, waiting for a new pitch spacer and pad to arrive, and for me to fit them.
Yesterday evening was spent trimming the spacer down to size, and for ease, I borrowed the pad off the Krieghoff sporting stock I have. The end result needs tidying up, but was perfectly alright to try out today.
The turnout was very low, only 8 shooters, but there were other events on today and people can’t be in two places at the same time. We’re definitely down on numbers on the DTL circuit anyway as people have moved on to other disciplines, or stopped shooting for other reasons, and it’s not looking good for the future.
I can’t recall seeing a new face at a local competition for a few years now, and don’t really understand why that is. Yes, trap suits a certain type of person, but we haven’t even had people turning up to try a Registered shoot. Perhaps I’m missing something obvious. But anyway, 8 shooters we had, and the conditions were just about perfect for target visibility.
A grey sky was the perfect background and the rain left us alone, but made the air just damp enough to make the targets smoke lovely when you hit them just right. Towards the end, the wind decided to make an appearance, but didn’t really do anything significant apart from make things a little more tricky.
Very pleasant to start with, but it wasn't long before the cloud arrived.
My final score was a top-of-the-board 99/292, so there can’t be much wrong with the gun setup! It is different to the Caesar, but if you take away the raised rib on the Invictus, both guns would shoot to near enough the same place, which is the objective.
One added bonus with the K80 is just that – the flat rib picture. It shoots high in relation to the bead, but the view of the target is exceptional, all the way from release to smoke cloud. If anything, it encourages unwavering focus on the target because any attempt at aiming is futile! That said, I do not want it to pattern any higher!
Once again I was struck by how well it moves while still being steady and controllable. It’s a very rewarding gun to shoot, not needing any excess effort to haul around, and the patterns are excellent. But just in case people start jumping to conclusions, I’ll be clear – I have no intention of selling my Invictus!
Eley Olympic Blues were the ammunition of choice today, and plenty of targets were reduced to clouds of dust and small chips. I can’t wait to put some Fiocchi Superblacks through it and see what happens!
A squad of 3 was a bit quick, but at least you didn't have time to think about much!
Shooting has felt a bit stale recently, so having a go with something different might be just what I need to get the spark back for next year.
Speaking of which, now that we’re in the off-season, the time has come to look ahead and map out which bigger events I want to do, and debate whether to go for the England team again.
The Home International is in Ireland next year, and the European Championships are running on the same weekend. Going to shoot there is a major item on my shooting to-do list. However, Ireland is extremely expensive, and I would have to choose between doing that and the domestic circuit.
It isn’t an easy decision to make, but before then I have to get some scores together for qualification, and that might decide it for me. If my average is good, and the hunger is back, I might well have a crack at it. We’ll see.