Clay Pigeon Shooting at Holland & Holland

What do you get when you put eight lawyers and a bunch of shotguns in a field? Just another typical Saturday morning... not!

One of the perks of J's job is that he gets taken out to fun events, and today's was clay pigeon shooting at Holland & Holland in Northwood, Middlesex. Lucky for me, my parents had bought me a very fancy British hunting jacket for Christmas, and I finally got a chance to break it out!

We all met up early this morning by Baker station, and I got the feeling that some of the people weren't told that we were going shooting since they were dressed like they were going to deliver a lecture in a university hall as opposed to shooting a shotgun on wet hunting grounds. Anyway, we were soon whisked away in two silver people-carriers (vans) to the shooting grounds in Middlesex, which was maybe a 45 minute drive away from London.

Once we arrived, we were greeted by a very nice lady who offered us tea and coffee and bacon butties (bacon sandwiches) while we waited for our instructors to assemble our shooting gear.

I took a quick wander around while everyone munched on their sandwiches, and I came across a very pretty cannon. Well, at least as pretty as heavy munitions could be. =) In any case, the story behind the cannon is that it was cast in Spain, and Napoleon somehow wrangled it from the Spaniards, and then the Brits snatched it way from Old Bony.  Now it sits in the middle of the field, and it's shot twice a year, and they have to warn the neighbors since it can be heard 8 miles away!

I quickly rejoined everyone after frolicking amongst the cannon, and we were split into two groups of four. Our instructor John doled out nifty caps and safety glasses to everyone with strict instructions to keep them on during the shoot to protect ourselves from any flying bits and pieces.

I was the only one in our group who hadn't shot a shotgun before, and although I had shot some handguns before, the shotgun looked like a whole different ballgame. First of all, it's a lot bigger. Second, it's got a pretty strong kick-back to it. Third, it's much more difficult to handle than a handgun.

I also have to confess that I wasn't quite strong enough to load or break down the gun, and John took care of all this for me. I anticipated having some trouble shooting flying targets, but I didn't think that I would have problems just flicking the safety off - I've been strongly advised to do some thumb-strengthening exercises. Also, a word of caution: when you break the shotgun to reload it, the empty cartridges have a tendency to come flying out of the still smoking barrels.

Anyway, in clay pigeon shooting, they throw out clay disks (black in our case) that simulate the movement of a variety of birds that the Brits used to hunt such as the grouse or the pheasant so the clay pigeons move in a particular fashion in each stall. Thanks to John's excellent coaching, I hit my first target on my first go on a 20 gauge shotgun! John handed me the empty cartridge to keep for luck.

Then we all got pretty comfortable yelling "Pull!" and blasting away at those clay pigeons...

The kick back was a bit much for me, so I put on a special shoulder pad, but I eventually ended up taking it off since it made aiming the gun a bit more difficult.

Midway through, we headed back for a short tea break, and I got a chance to find out a bit more about Holland & Holland and its history. Apparently, they are the gunmakers for royalty, and their guns are not cheap. A pair of them could run you over 100,000 pounds!

Their drawing room was quite beautiful with lots of leather and fancy guns hanging about, and there were heads of big game hanging about the room including some caribou, rhinocerous and some buffalo type thing.

After we were refreshed, we went out again for a bit of competitive shooting, and John announced the top three when we came back...

and it turned out that J took third place! I couldn't be prouder. =) John also treated J and I with a quick peek at the secret stash of big game guns that can take down an elephant and are kept locked away - they were beautiful and huge!

Of course I couldn't leave without one last pose by the cannon with my shotgun...

It was one of the funnest things I had ever done, and I made J promise to bring me back soon. My shoulder aches a bit, and I smell like gunpowder, but I was grinning like a fool by the end of the day. I wasn't as good as I would like to be, but it was a blast, pun intended!