A great time was had by all, due largely to the warm welcome given to my friends by the other club members who were present. The guys were coming up and offering their rifles to "have a go with" and we were fortunate that such an interesting variety was available.
Here are some pictures that my friend took of the proceedings:
Here I'm showing Jack how to load my 1915 actioned BSA (AG Parker converted in 1937) .22. (I thought I'd better start him off with something mild before the fun began!)
The expression says it all! Here he's just had his first shot with my .577 Euroarms 1858 Enfield 2-band muzzle-loader. Oh, I love the smell of black powder in the morning.
Next we moved on to my most modern rifle, the 1953 Fazakerley No 4.
Continuing the lad's education I got out the .45 Ruger Old Army and we blasted off a few cylinders. I only wish I'd been able to let him have a go with a Luger or a Colt 1911.
One of the club members kindly offered the use of his underlever. I'm not sure of the model or calibre but I thought this was a particularly fine shot of the muzzle blast.
Again, another member offered a few goes with his rifle. As this is 'modern' and has a scope, I have absolutely no idea what it is. In the background you can see a proud owner with his new Dragunov sniper. Another guy turned up with a brand new carbine version that we all had a go with.
Finally, here's my mate Andy giving some instruction to the young shot before letting him have a go with his immaculate Winchester M1917, the Pedersoli Sharps .45/70 and the 6.5mm Swedish Mauser. Andy had previously let Jack try out some of his fine collection of Winchester underlevers. (This is the chap I swapped P13/P17 bayonets with).
I and my gun club mates really enjoyed passing on some of our accumulated knowledge and experience to this young man. What a great crowd of guys we shooters are! (except Strangely-Brown, that is. Where is the miserable old sod?)
Brian