A reet guid neet at the Castle
Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 2:39 pm
As you all have probably gathered those of us who inhabit that small corner of the globe called the North East of England have got our shooting interests really well organised.
A few of our regular contributors and moderators are members of our select group RAMSAB. The Research Association for Military Small Arms and Ballistics. Some of our international members namely 1886 Lebel (AKA Patrick) and Woftam (AKA Graeme) have been able to visit our neck of the woods and share our passion.
The North East region by the way is the best region in England as it has two very important natural assests that give its excellence.
1. It is the furthest region from London.
2. It is the closet region to Scotland.
As well as having really good shooting, for the UK that is, we also organise ourselves to undertake visits to places of interest to help feed our habit of engaging with all things old and military.
We have been to the Leeds Armouries, Kynoch 600 Nitro express ya bass! and we are going down to the proof house in Birmingham for a visit in November.
Tonight however we visited locally gaining access to the armoury collection in Durham Castle.
The collection actually came from Brancepeth Castle which has featured in previous posts, probably from the ez days, as Brancepeth Castle is the host to one of our clubs with a 15 yrd indoor range and section 7.3 pistol facilities. I keep and shoot my .455 Webley MkVI there.
There are two mainparts to the collection we saw tonight one is the armour for a troop of Cromwellian lobsters along with saddelry, holsters, pole arms and edged weapons.
The second part is 70 Baker rifles along with bayonets, scabbards, frogs, cartridge pouches, powder horns and leather equipments, cross belts,buckles and powder horn lanyards. All in exceptionally good condition especially the leather work.
The collection is part of an original 140 sets of rifles and equipments that were bought for a local militia company, I hope that we will be able to put more details of their procurement up soon.
The collection was unfortunately split up when the family that had them in Brancepeth castle fell upon hard times and started selling the collection off piece meal.
However even seeing and handling half a company strength rifles and equipments was an exciting and fulfilling experience.
Joe was the official photographer for the visit but as he is dicking of to the land of the Teutons for a biker wedding piss up you'll have to wait 'till his return to see some of what we've just seen.
Biker Wedding?
Why anyone would want to marry their motorbike is beyond me.
Weird or what?
A few of our regular contributors and moderators are members of our select group RAMSAB. The Research Association for Military Small Arms and Ballistics. Some of our international members namely 1886 Lebel (AKA Patrick) and Woftam (AKA Graeme) have been able to visit our neck of the woods and share our passion.
The North East region by the way is the best region in England as it has two very important natural assests that give its excellence.
1. It is the furthest region from London.
2. It is the closet region to Scotland.
As well as having really good shooting, for the UK that is, we also organise ourselves to undertake visits to places of interest to help feed our habit of engaging with all things old and military.
We have been to the Leeds Armouries, Kynoch 600 Nitro express ya bass! and we are going down to the proof house in Birmingham for a visit in November.
Tonight however we visited locally gaining access to the armoury collection in Durham Castle.
The collection actually came from Brancepeth Castle which has featured in previous posts, probably from the ez days, as Brancepeth Castle is the host to one of our clubs with a 15 yrd indoor range and section 7.3 pistol facilities. I keep and shoot my .455 Webley MkVI there.
There are two mainparts to the collection we saw tonight one is the armour for a troop of Cromwellian lobsters along with saddelry, holsters, pole arms and edged weapons.
The second part is 70 Baker rifles along with bayonets, scabbards, frogs, cartridge pouches, powder horns and leather equipments, cross belts,buckles and powder horn lanyards. All in exceptionally good condition especially the leather work.
The collection is part of an original 140 sets of rifles and equipments that were bought for a local militia company, I hope that we will be able to put more details of their procurement up soon.
The collection was unfortunately split up when the family that had them in Brancepeth castle fell upon hard times and started selling the collection off piece meal.
However even seeing and handling half a company strength rifles and equipments was an exciting and fulfilling experience.
Joe was the official photographer for the visit but as he is dicking of to the land of the Teutons for a biker wedding piss up you'll have to wait 'till his return to see some of what we've just seen.
Biker Wedding?
Why anyone would want to marry their motorbike is beyond me.
Weird or what?
