The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

I was looking through some old photos on the computer and came upon this one. It was a shoot at Strensall range near York in early 2004. I remember it was a cold day but not too bad until a squally snow shower came over the range. The wind was really strong and the snow was horizontal. The firing point was was abandoned in about 30 seconds flat. I had the camera in my bag and snapped the photo as I was putting my stuff away, a film camera in those days. The chap with his side to the snow is someone some of you may know, Laurie Holland. It didn't last long and shooting resumed later, though some didn't bother.

Regards
Peter.

Ha! Ha! I remember that day Pete. Not nice that snow shower.

2004 was very early days in F-Class and Norman Clark in Rugby built that rifle for me entirely from his spare parts bin during the previous summer. It was in 300 H&H Magnum and used a 'de-eared' Winchester P'14 action and rechambered Maddco 30-inch 12-twist 7.62 barrel from (different) TR rifles. The stock IIRC was from a scrapped 'match rifle' and the trigger was a small-scale manufacture job from some English gunsmith in the TR/MR rifle business. Scope was a 20X44 Edgar Brothers Opti-Mate fixed power job (still around as the SWFA Super Sniper) with a rather coarse Mil-Dot reticle and would have had a dark sight picture on a day like this thanks to the small exit pupil value.

It shot pretty well - considering - but kicked like a mule. Luckily, the Opti-Mate / SFWA Japanese built scope was / is a very robust scope especially in its (budget) price range as most cheap scopes would have had their innards shot loose in a couple of hundred rounds with that recoil.