The last time I had any time off was the Christmas break, It wasn’t so much a holiday in my book, more a social battlefront of rushing around visiting friends and relatives, dropping off presents, bulging bloated bellys and in return I usually have to fix a computer which has developed an unexplained fault. Then its drive another hundred miles or so to do it all again. Its great, but hardly a holiday. I did manage to fit in my first HFT comp over at Quarry but mostly it was chasing my tail around the country, sorting out computers, and eating rich stodgy bad for me food, at the relative’s expense
I returned to work on Jan 2nd completely knackered and ready for a break. But it was back to the grindstone of work. Basically chasing my tail around the country fixing computers and living on bad for me food at the company’s expense.
Since then I’ve been leaving for work in the dark, as I usually have to be somewhere 6hrs away by 9am, and if I’m lucky I get home on Friday before the chippy shuts.
The weekend revolves around catching up with bills, chores, diy, shopping taxi driving the girlfriend about and trying to do all the stuff that you can on Saturday when half of what I need to be open is open. While on Sunday I flake right out, I’m dead in the water and hopefully I might have the strength to snuggle up with me girlfriend at some point and watch a film. I’m dog tired worn out and it’s all I can do to get up again in the dark and start again on Monday. But I do.
It’s not a bad thing or a moan about it all as its just life, we all have to do it. And I suspect that the reason we do it is to enable us to do the good things. The things we enjoy doing, for us and the majority of you reading this one of those things will be shooting.
So why on earth on my first free Saturday since Christmas am I up pre-sparrows, and half way along the M42 on my way to Kibworth before the sun comes up. Why would I want to drive 150 odd miles to go shooting when I’ve got a perfectly good shoot less than 10 miles away. And to be honest it’s nowhere near as much of an effort to visit
Well it’s because of all the above really. As much as it sounds like a rant, a bit of moan, its not. You see no matter how bad it all seems there someone out there that is having it harder and that is what this was all about. At Kibworth was a charity HFT event in aid of the Help for Heroes Charity organised by shooters at the Leicester Airgun club. The charity is about helping soldiers who to be honest aren’t getting the support they need. Soldiers fighting so that we have the freedom to talk about our job, visit our relatives, drive where we want, eat what food we like and just do what we want to do in relative safety. See I wasn’t moaning. I was creating the scene
the how much realtree can we get in a tent competition was popular
I pulled into Kibworth about 9ish to an already very full car park. There were hundreds of people there, some of them were there for clay shooting, but I could see a mass exodus of realtree disappearing through a hole in the hedge near the entrance so I followed the wave and found myself over at the marquees for booking in. I also found a load of people I’d met at Quarry, so it was good to see some familiar faces.
I shoot on my own usually, so to me there were more airgunners than I had ever seen in one place. I don’t know how many turn up at the HFT nationals but to me there was enough realtree and camo there to start an HD advantage timber pretend forest. In fact one of the shotgun boys wound down his Range Rover window and said “ Are you lot the army or some sort of cult ?”
“We’re a cult mate …”
As if on cue Mr Sparks walked round the corner with his white hood up.
“… and that’s our leader !!!”
We laughed as the guy wound up his window and sped off.
Seriously though he did have a point, we had kind of invaded. I thought I’d travelled a fair way from Bristol. But people had come from way up north, and a lot of clubs had a fair number of shooters there. I’m not in any club so I loitered round the people I met at Quarry, I’d also just developed an extreme case of shyness. Great !!!
Ok this was my second HFT event ever, and since my last outing I hadn’t been shooting, not just not shooting HFT I hadn’t been AT ALL. It had been windy rainy and for all the reason I explained at the start I’ve just been too tired to do anything. Plus the wind and rain sort of meant that any hunting trips were more than likely going to be just a wet walk in the rain round the fields. I had fixed my stock with a bit of superglue since I broke it the night before Quarry. But as yet I hadn’t been able to re-zero the rifle. I was keeping my gingers crossed, that I might get the chance when I got to Kibworth, but the zero ranges were heaving. It was also really windy, not gale force 10, more that nasty gusty swirly rubbish. Which would make zero-ing, really difficult. Well it would for me. So I plumped for my cunning faceplate them all for 30 points tactic.
Rats up . . .and down
I drew peg 27 and joined 2 other guys there for our journey through the pegs. One of the guys was a Kibworth regular and he was good, the other chap like me was new to Kibworth but he’d done a few events and mores the point had zero’d in his gun. So two guys I could learn a lot from.
As the old saying goes A bird in the tree or bush is worth 2. . .I think thats right
There was what I guess are the usual, standing, kneeling and prone shots, with a sprinkling of under, behind and on top of things pegs. But something that was new to me was some water island shot and a couple that were slightly hidden by the way the ground dropped away towards the target. You couldn’t really take them prone as you had to extend your neck to see them. But it was good to see the various ways people touched the peg and manoeuvred around the lumps to get the straight line, I just took it kneeling for 1 and studied other peoples form
I’m not going for wins yet, I don’t want to be disappointed if I miss one, I just want to at least hit the plates, and take as many killzones as I can.
As we got towards the last of the pegs. Steve, the local shooter, pulled a stunning shot out the bag on a peg he thought he was gonna miss. The guys on the peg ahead had just missed it, I had got a 1 on it as had the other chap in our little group. Steve had settled into this prone, but was already cautious. Secretly I think he was hoping for a win, although he wouldn’t say it. Up until now he had only dropped one point and was well in the running for a top spot. This shot was a long way out and one where the ground dropped making the killzone obscure, He tried to settle into it kneeling but it just wasn’t steady enough for that far out,. Resting on the peg you could see the killzone. So he wriggled around and found a line he could take a few feet away although it was still really tricky. The wind was racing in from the left and behind and with it gusting judging the pellet placement was never going to be easy.
Steve getting comfortable before gently squeezing his MK3 trigger to free the 177 shaped lead .
The split second the pellet left the barrel we felt the wind gusted up and swirl round the opposite way, I saw his shoulders drop as he felt the wind drift. The other guy shooting with us flicked, me that look that said did you feel that too. We were all only to aware of its freakish change. I think this was why this one wasn’t dropping, the ground and landscape around this peg, creating little lifts, swirls, and eddy’s making this one down to fate and the chaos factor of nature. Me and the other guy were routing for Steve, lets face it when you’re not in the running for a win, and we were never in the running for a win, there were too many first class shooters here for us to flook a win. No, when you cant win, you want to be doing the round with the guy who is going to win. I suppose it the same for Golfers. And we were routing for Steve to win.
Steve never broke his gaze as if he was steering the pellet in. We were willing the pellet in, breath held, blinking postponed waiting for the sign of where the pellet had ended it journey
A gentle tink was followed by the clack as the target fell. YES !!! and another 2 points went on the card
He only dropped one more point before the end and chalked up a grand score of 58. With the wind we thought it was a winning score. But 59’s were the order of the day. Me and the other guy felt a bit gutted for him, Steve shot an amazing round, and I’m glad I was there to see it. I’m not surprised though as there were some big names competing there. People I knew from the on-line forums and some I had seen in the magazines. A certain Mr Cooper from a certain other airgun mag was there with Mrs Cooper and a rather fetching Airwolf that when it was removed from its bag a hush fell across the car park. The silence only being broken by someone going “PULL” and two loud bangs as a shotgunner attempted to kill a couple of luminous clays.
Technically this doesnt really exist. . yet
I have to admit that it was quite a contrast, The gentle ting and phut of pellet and airgun on the right, and the ear shattering BOOM of shotguns coming from the left.
There were also people I hadn’t go a clue about, so and so from Daystate, so and so who shoot for England, bigwigs on the circuit, like F1 drivers of the shooting world and I’m mixing it up with them. I could get star struck as I didn’t know who they were, I’d never heard of them, but that’s because I have my head stuck in the hunting bits and skipped the comp sections of the mags.
Saying that though it sort of brings us back to the beginning again. These guys are at the top of their game. They’ve travelled across the country to shoot at a charity HFT event to help raise money. They don’t travel with an entourage, don’t get paid for it, or have a big truck with corporate sponsorship stickers all over it and they don’t get paid millions of pounds. They’re just getting on with it as much as you me and everyone else. Normal people meeting up in one place and doing what we enjoy doing, raising a bit of money for charity along the way.
As a sport we’re under constant scrutiny, we don’t get millions of pound spent on it, In fact there’s a guy out there who is the UK’s most successful athlete with more gold medal than anyone else in UK athletics as far as I know, yet we generally don’t get any positive coverage at all apart from the relevant trade mags.
We’re not football, F1 racing, tennis, baseball, or rugby, and are without NIKE, SKY or some other conglomerate sponsorships behind us. All we are is Airgun shooters and at the last count we raised just over £2000.
This picture sums it all up to me, likeminded poeple do what they love doing.
I’m proud that I was part of Kibworth and that I helped do what I could. I’m proud that it was our sport that did it and that we weren’t following the lead of some super funded sport.It was our sport, and anyone else who does anything for charity, even if its giving their time. Anything that’s done to help people worse off then themselves, Its was us and them who were and still are, the true superstars.
So to the guy who asked if we’re the army or some kind of cult, the answer is simply Yes mate we are. . . we’re all people that care enough to want to do something about it.
Thanks to everyone, who put the time and effort in so that I could do my bit. I had a brilliant time
IF you want to help as well please go here. http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/
