John Bidwell's Shooting Clinic

[Game bore]

Just a little note of recommendation.

 

Being a bit of a newbie shooter myself I went down to John Bidwell's Shooting School at High Lodge near Saxmundham, Suffolk. for a bit of tuition from the champ.

 

Excellent day, shot about 200 cartridges at all sorts of sporting targets, taught a whole new way of shooting (to me anyway) which appears to give you a lot more time to get on the clays.

 

All for £125 and out of that I suppose you get about 5 hours of tuition on various targets with lunch and snacks thrown in. John himself is a really pleasant bloke and wants all the students to do well and puts over the instruction in a very clear way.

[neil]

Game bore,I've only just noticed this post.I've been thinking about doing somthing similar as Martin Elworthy has a gunshop not a milion miles away from me and in his advert in the yellow pages he advertises coaching.What i would be interested in is by how much has it improved your scores/tecneque,and i know it was only a couple of weeks ago but are your scores cnstantly better than before?I thinki may phone martin and find out how much he charges

[highdowns hunter]

I totally agree, John Bidwell is an excellent tutor and a great bloke

He takes time to show you where you are going wrong and how to put it right

I spent a day with him on a corporate shoot back in 1991 and by the end of the afternoon I even won the Top Gun Trophy

I dont know what has happened since then Maybe I need some more tuition

[Cranfield]

I have no experience of John Bidwells shooting tuition and I,m sure its brilliant.

However, a note of caution.

A very good friend of mine, who has been shooting for 30+ years and is thought of as a good shot, certainly well above average, had some shooting "lessons" given to him by his wife, as a Christmas present, some years ago.

 

The lessons were at a local Shooting School and Clay Ground, with a respected Instructor.

Over three lessons, my friend was convinced to change his rather unorthodox style and shoot "properly".

With emphasis on the way he applied "lead" to birds and "swung through".

 

The end result was, that my friends shooting was virtually ruined.

It took him almost a year to recover from the lessons.

I would strongly recommend that (unless you are a complete novice) you think hard about what you hope to achieve with lessons.

 

Sometimes a drop in your shooting ability, has more to do with a lack of "practise", than anything fundamentally wrong with your technique, etc.

[Game bore]

Cranfield,

Totally agree about the practice aspect, I have only been shooting about 18months and have really muddled through with what technique I have (if you can call it a technique).

 

I have had a fear of the fast quartering bird and fast overhead which really put my score down. With Bidwell's technique it just seems to buy you so much time to get on these birds and kill them before they get over the channel.

 

He has also got a great sporting layout 13 stands "Very natural" as well as Skeet and Compact Sporting, also got a trout lake but my gun got weeded up when I stalked a particularly large rainbow.

[NGhost]

I spent a day at the Oxford Gun company, My clay score went from 20~/50 to 35/50 arfter the lessons, and crept up to 45/50 over the next couple of months. I just wish I could do the same with live targets :*)

 

2 years on I am back to about 25/50 need to have another day.