The HARDY Shotgun Championship Series
‘The Hardy’ at Shield Shooting Centre in Dorset traditionally marks the start of the season for target shotgun, dynamic shotgun, action shotgun, practical shotgun, or whatever you like to call it. It is called ‘The Hardy’ either to commemorate Thomas Hardy, the famous Victorian novelist, or because you have to be hardy to put up with the weather in Dorset in March, or because it is hard to shoot!
As an ex-mate- lot myself, I would like to think it commemorates
Captain Thomas Hardy who lived nearby and who was with Nelson when he
died at the Battle of Trafalgar and who gave him a big kiss (little ever changes in the Navy!) This year the weather was
excellent - sunny and even warm and the shooting was very hard indeed but ‘hard’ in that good way – in that you can get so much satisfaction in shoot- ing a difficult course of fire which presents problems you have never seen before.
Shotgun targets are usually steel plates, which must be knocked down to score and each shooter shoots each stage against the clock under the close supervision of a range officer who wields an electronic timer which picks up the sound of the shots. When the shooter has finished shooting the stage - which can be anything from 6 to 30 targets - the range officer will check the gun is clear and will record the time and score.
This Hardy match had ten stages, all were excellent and some were just brilliant. Formal practical shotgun these days has become somewhat ‘vanilla’ and rule-bound, with the life squeezed out of it as the rule-book grows ever more restrictive as more mandatory constraints are piled on. It is these sad circumstances which have led to the formation of Four Islands as a ‘league’ aimed at encouraging clubs, who would otherwise recoil from the overbearing requirements of formal practical shotgun, to put on competitions free from inter- ference, with the shooting in accordance with their own club rules and to their own safety requirements.
Fortunately, Steve Pike, who runs Shield Shooting Centre, has stepped free of the stifling controls and The Hardy now counts as the first match of the Four Islands season. Just like last year, Steve has put together a free-style competition aligned to what shooters themselves want to shoot and what they enjoy. And enjoy it we all did! As one competitor was heard to say, this competition was as much fun as you can legally have in daylight with your clothes on!
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