IFG meet in UK

[Vikram]

When Abhijeet visited UK recently, we decided to meet up and naturally go for a shoot. Hamiclar (Anand) gracefully offered to host the shoot at Lakenheath near Cambridge.

I took the train to Cambridge while Abhijeet, Shooter (Dev) and Dhiren drove from London. We met up at the range. With much ado and merriment, we proceeded to commence the shoot as there were hardly any other shooters on the Saturday afternoon.



Dhiren,Shooter (Dev),Abhijeet and Hamiclar




The arsenal included Hamiclar's Beretta 682,Spanish made Larranaga 20 bore SXS, Dev's Browning 525 and Classic Doubles O/Us.



We started with the DTL (Down the Line) Trap and proceeded to Sporting Clays. I will let the photos speak.









The Orange clay comes streaking from left to right


And Anand nails it dead centre.See keenly and you can spot the orange fragments flying





Anand takes on a pair



Abhijeet chasing a clay with the 20 Bore





Pass the ammo s'il vous plait!



Smoking aces! Abhijeet took great fancy to the 20 bore and used it mostly during the shoot and did extremely well with it.



Trying our hands at the driven pheasant stand.The tiny black speck zipping between the trees is what we were trying to shoot.I didn't get any.However, I can offer an excuse.There were these rabbits everywhere,hopping right in front of you distracting your concentration.The way these bunnies hide and run between the shots is a perfect example how intelligent and adaptive they can be.







Many of you might be aware of the Bagpiper whisky ad '' Koob jamegee rang jab mil baithenge theen yaar'' ( The day gets colourful when three friends meet). Well, there were five of us and without the said alcoholic beverage, we had a wonderful evening. It is such a pleasure to meet friends and spend some good time together. Our plans to sit at the local Hare & Hound and down a few pints of the best English bitters and lagers were dashed due to the married guys' need to attend to the call of TWMBO.LOL.

Reluctatntly, we had to shake hands and part with a vow to meet up soon either in UK or in India.And,just then the skies opened up with the rain gods who until then kindly remained truant suddenly deciding to remind us of the vagaries if English weather.We scampered to the cars to scoot.

Thank you for looking at this and hope you enjoyed the pics.

Best-
Vikram.

[Olly]

Seems like a wonderful outing ! Reminds me of the Delhi Darlings visits to the Karni Singh Range...

[sudesh]

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Must have had Great fun guys!

And Hey wherez ur pic Vikram




Sudesh............

[kanwar76]

Nice pics..Looks like you guys had a great time

Thanks for the post Vikram

-Inder

[Yaj]

Thanks for sharing Vikram! Looks like you guys had fun!
Regards,
Yaj.

[biking3819]

great write up and pics.thanx for sharing vik and party,must have distressed the boss .
cheers sanjiv

[nagarifle]

what a way to go.
it would appear that Abji has not read the range rules about fag in mouth. tut tut tut

[herb]

Its always nice to hear about members meeting together to pursue and enjoy their passion.

Very nice pic's and writeup, thanks for sharing.

Herb

[OverUnderPump]

looks like you enjoyed yourselves thoroughly.

it would appear that Abji has not read the range rules about fag in mouth. tut tut tut

Wouldn't know about that .

regards

OUP

[Sakobav]

Great post looks like you folks had a blast and thanks for the pictures Vikkers

Which camera did you use?

Cheers

[Mack The Knife]

And Hey wherez ur pic Vikram

The chap auditioning for the Colgate ad in the second pic and to the right of Abhijeet.

Thanks, Vikram.

[tirths]

he he he I see a Vladimir Putin there

[Vikram]

Which camera did you use?Cheers

Navi,

I was using a now slightly dated Panasonic Lumix FZ-20.Takes great pictures.There is an FZ-50 now.But, at that price I would rather have an SLR with,with appropriate lenses and a tripod, which we can actually get pictures of the pellets smashing a clay.

Best-
Vikram

[mundaire]

It was a great day out indeed, and I'd like to thank all those who could make it and those who made this possible!

The very first time I ever shot sporting clays was a couple of years back and that was in fact thanks to to Vikram, who took the time out and treated me to a day at the clay range at Barby (close to Rugby). This time, with more of us, a wider variety of guns and quite blissfully 2 friends with Shotgun Certificates (therefore no compulsory babysitter), it was even better.

As Vikram mentioned Anand's 20 ga SxS was a really sweet shooter, a really light and low recoiling gun which even with 21 gram loads did not let one feel handicapped in any sort of way!

Anand played the ever gracious host to a 'T', making everyone instantly comfortable and showing us the ropes at his 'home shooting ground'. Shooter pitched in with some well timed tips (especially when all of us seemed to be missing every damn bird on the driven pheasant stand), Vickers of course was at his affable best mingling & mixing and making sure that everyone had a good time... we did miss a good yarn spinner though... but then again we never did get the time to make it to the local pub - where we could have downed a few pints while watching the F-15's land at the air force base while listening to tall tales of flying porkers and mythical guns....

Cheers!
Abhijeet

P.S. BTW, the very next day we got a chance to take the girls out shooting... but that's another thread...

[OverUnderPump]

the very next day we got a chance to take the girls out shooting... but that's another thread...

That'd make for another great read .

regards

OUP