Wednesday night 5-Stand

[CraigThompson]

I was invited to a private 5-Stand deal down in the Fredricksburg VA area yesterday . A group of 8-10 guys put this together on one of their farms . It was a good bit more difficult than I anticipated . The one that invited me has a single barrel 8 gauge Jones underlever that he’d never fired so I brought along both my 8’s and some shells so we could give it a try . I let any of them that wanted to try with either or both guns a try . We were shooting Armbrust’s 1 3/4 ounce Universal Clays load . After the surprised look they had from picking the heavy beasts up the second surprise was the less than anticipated recoil . Sorry I didn’t take a picture of the three 8’s .

[charlie cleveland]

the 1 3/4 ounce load is a surprise for the first time shooter very mild load.....charlie

[Kevin McCormack]

Craig; I admire you and your huge-bore buddies for continuing to load for and shoot these shoulder cannons! Before our sweltering second round of clays this morning at our local Izaak Walton, "Eightbore" Bill Murphy and I reminisced about our close friend Daryl Middlebrook, a PGCA life member, who lived for not just the 8-ga. doubles, but also the 6- and 4- gauge singles, both of which he owned and shot whenever he got the chance.

He somehow always turned up a full box of 4- or 6- gauge loads, mostly from UK auctions, mostly Eley or Kynoch, then he would trade with collectors who had less than full boxes so he could shoot them without destroying the "full box" collector appeal. He could not get enough of the big guns, both in design and function, as well as the pure "funkiness" of shooting them. If he were alive today and could put it together, he would come to a shoot like your buddies just hosted. I really miss him!

[CraigThompson]

We did a normal 5-stand round with 12’s and 20’s then a break and the three 8’s were fired maybe thirty shots total between the folks there . Then we did a different 5-stand setup . They went on and shot a couple other games by then the heat had gotten to me and I was sitting drinking fluids .

[CraigThompson]

I’m scheduled to leave for Prospect Hall in a few hours . I hope the temp there today isn’t to bad .