Seamus

I work 5 minutes up the road from Wedgenock (last link), great little ground, very welcoming and friendly. Lots of other things to do there too from off road driving, quads, archery to driving tanks etc. Would recommend. As mentioned in a previous post I would also recommend Nick Hollick's Honesberie Shooting Ground; I have been here a couple of times and it is excellent!

This exact situation happened to me. I booked lessons for my wife and I, she was a complete novice and I'd been shooting clays for about 3-4 years. I was getting late 30's/50 at Sporting (with the occasional 40+) fairly consistently, Skeet I was averaging 23/25 and DTL 22/25. For me I just wanted a few pointers about stance and some general advice. The lesson was on a Skeet layout and the instructor did not like my stance at all, so he advised I adjusted several aspects; weight distribution, body forward etc. My shooting on the day was terrible. Next session at my local ground I shot 19/50, the following week 18/50. Skeet scores also plummeted. This kept on for about 3 months before one of the guys I shoot regularly with pulled me to one side and asked me to go through what I was doing when I entered the cage. I was thinking too much about my stance, when the clay was launched I was still thinking about stance, and then immediately switching to work out lead instead of relying on instincts etc.. Throughout the whole process my body was rigid, I simply wasn't relaxed and as a result not enjoying what I was doing which in itself is counter productive. I went back into the cage (with the blessing of the rest of the squad) for about 20 rounds during which I adopted my old "natural" (for me!) stance, and simply tried to relax and enjoy what I was doing. After that my scores started to climb back up again (it took a few weeks). I don't necessarily think the advice I received was bad, I just don't think it suited me or my style; certainly on the day my wife shot really well with the same advice. My problem was that I thought about it far too much and thought I was doing something wrong that needed to be corrected (which I probably am, but I can live with it!).

Here's my Lab Pippa. She's a year old and coming along well.

I'm a newbie on here so first off hello to all! Well last Sunday was the last shoot at Stoke Park Gun Club (near Stoke Bruerne, Northants) after 30 odd years. I've only been shooting there for just over 3 years, but I thought it was a great little club, lots of challenging targets with the right atmosphere, and ideally right on my doorstep! I'm sure, with 130 current members, a good few of you must be on here? I think after the new year I will give Akeley and Brafield a go, hopefully with the view of joining one (or both). Any other recommendations very welcome! Very sad to see Stoke close, thanks to all who gave their time up to run the club.

Hi, any reason why 24g were recommended instead of the more common 28g? There are loads of options in 28g, I personally use Gamebore Blue Diamond fibre in 9's for Skeet. Very good cartridge. 24g will be a bit softer on the shoulder but I'd recommend going for 28g.

When I bought my D3 in '07 the first thing I bought were Pirelli Scorpion ATRs to replace the standard road version. On previous 4x4s I've used BFG ATRs and they're simply great tyres, however choice is limited for 19" wheels and unfortunately BFG don't make them in this size. The ATRs aren't a lot different to the standard road version of the Scorpion tyres so fuel consumption change was negligible, and to be honest they were only slightly better than the standard tyres off road. Not cheap either. Early this year I swapped them to Goodyear MTRs (same as used on the G4 cars), these made a big difference to the MPG (down to about 22-23mpg) and the road noise was a lot worse than I expected, especially on motorways (much to my wife's displeasure). Off road though, brilliant tyres, shame that only accounts for about 2% of my driving....

Hi there, I'm new to this site and hence slightly slow at seeing this post! I live in Gayton (and shoot at Stoke Park Gun Club) so am local to you. I would be very interested in a syndicate place if one becomes available in the future. If there's any official way I can register my interest then please let me know. Much appreciated!