What a difficult thing it is to get hold of a roll of paper!
After some weeks’ wait, I have finally received notification that my patterning paper is to be delivered tomorrow. At last! The company from whom I’d ordered the paper have been very good about sorting out the fact that they’d advertised and sold me a discontinued item and I’m now going to receive a 50m roll of 42″ plotter paper instead of a 39″ roll, which should make very little difference to the overall result. Then again – as a bishop once observed to an actress – one should never underestimate the difference three inches can make.
In the meantime, I’ve been keeping myself busy with various projects and a little shooting. The 12 gauge saw the light of day once again after my previous unsuccessful trip: one of the new(-ish) members of the shooting association I help run joined me on a long but ultimately fruitless walk around six of our farms on Saturday. Three shots between us and a bird lost to the safety catch – bloody thing! – is all I can report from that particular outing. A friend of mine was concurrently busy shooting 116 elsewhere, the report of which I found mildly irritating, but I suppose if the pigeons are not in one place, they’re in another. Nice work if you can get it.
Now I merely have to find a date upon which to do the patterning required and construct a list of patterns worth shooting. I believe the paper will allow for about 45 patterns, so we will – as my intended accomplice has just suggested to me – begin with the half choke at 30 yards with all cartridges and see where the results take us from there.