I’d intended to go out patterning cartridges yesterday evening but a family member was taken ill and I had to stay in.
Being particularly tired today and short of time, I didn’t feel like doing the patterning I’d planned for yesterday today. Instead, I went out this evening with my 28 gauge and managed a long walk and a single wood pigeon from four attempts.
I’m rather irritated with myself that it wasn’t one bird for two attempts. The third and fourth shots I took were at a bird which appeared suddenly over a line of trees, about 10 yards out, with the wind behind it and afterburners on, so to speak. There was literally no chance of my being able to swing the gun fast enough to get ahead of it and shoot it – even if I had known how much lead to give it – and I should have left it well alone. It might perhaps have been worth having a go if my surname was “Garfitt” or “Digweed”, but it was well beyond my abilities. Somehow, though, I found I’d fired two shots at it before that realization had become fully apparent. Gnn.
It should really have been “more birds” for four cartridges. I’ve really struggled lately to focus on the birds fast enough to take snap shots when they emerge from the tree line. I probably failed to raise the gun to at least three “shootable” birds today, which was somewhat frustrating.
Some of the difficulty I have in seeing the birds fast enough is probably rooted in tiredness and far too many hours sat in front of computer screens. Some of it is no doubt because I don’t do enough any practice on clays, for reasons I’ve discussed previously. On the other hand, having come home today to discover a letter from my opticians telling me that I was five years overdue an eye test, I am starting to wonder whether my sight might have deteriorated a little. I’ll get something booked in for next week and see what they have to say.
Hull “High Pheasant”
Finally: one shot and no patterns is not enough data to comment on the qualities of the Hull “High Pheasant” 23g / #7 28-gauge load in any useful way. My instinct though, is that they were slow and probably patterned reasonably tightly; recoil was very mild indeed, even though they’d been sitting in a hot car for most of the day. If I ever get to the end of the already long list of patterns I need to shoot for this blog / website, I’ll do a few of those and see what they look like. Not much different to the Eleys, I suspect.