After a few trials with 'Nevermore' I have come to find that she is everything and more that I want from a rifle.

 

The cheek rest is low and canted to allow my eye to be exceptionally close to the axis of the bore, and the body at the hand rest end is so low (but still wide to give a good amount of substance to hold onto) that I can pretty much wrap my hand around the whole stock and barrel. This puts all my sightlines and body positions pretty much in a direct line down the bore axis.

 

Even without the hook, butt plate, hand stop, sights etc set up fully I managed a 97 on her first shoot. I set the hand stop and strap incorrectly and ended up too low to my mat. It wasn't too bad, but a bit shakey at the end. Up until the 10th diagram I had a potential 99 (after dropping 1 on the second diagram). The next card and I set everything too tight - 96.

 

Bearing in mind that this is the first time shooting with Nevermore, I can't help but be impressed that I near enough hit my average without setting anything up properly!

 My new rifle 'Nevermore' arrived today.

 

 So much better than the photofit I'd put together.

 

 I decided on 'Nevermore' as her name due to several reasons. Although the rifle is state of the art and exceptionally well made, it doesn't mean that the results will be as spectacular.

 

 E.A.Poe wrote 'The Raven' about - in brief - a man in a saddened state who encounters a raven (one of a few birds with the ability to mimick human speach). The man has lost his love, and the raven can only say 'Nevermore' - a word probably picked up off of a former keeper or such like.

 

 To start with the man chats to the bird with out much thought, but then starts asking specific questions that the birds solitary answer would make sense.

 

 Now the man starts to read too much into the birds answers to these deliberate questions and the poem focuses on this relationship and how the man reads it.

 

 Basically, the man reads too much into the birds intelligence, and doesn't take into account that it is he himself who is really creating the resulting pertinent answers.

 

 

 The gun may be a wonderful piece of equipment, but I will be the one to produce the resulting scores.

 

 Why name the gun in the first place? Daft maybe, but it is to make it more than cold equipment and more of a part of me. Hell - it works for me, and that's what counts.

 

 

New album added to the blog site.

 

I'll try to update these shooting graphs as and when I update the averages table.

 

I shoot at 'cards'. The 'card' has the targets or 'diagrams' on. A card will usually have 10 shots fired at it. At 25yd the one card has 10 diagrams on it - each diagram is shot at once (giving the 10 shots on the card). At longer distances (50yd, 100yd etc) there is just one diagram on a card, but that diagram will have all 10 shots fired at it.

 

On the competition chart I record the averages of the best ten scores within the last 12 cards. This is a standard used throughout for calculating a riflemans averages. It is meant to be able to remove the odd bad days you may have.

 

On the training and competition chart I have recorded the averages of the last 5 cards shot, the last 10 cards shot, and the best 10 of the last 12 shot. This allows me to see trends forming short term and long term against the standard, without any scores being disregarded.

 

Sometimes you get a good card....sometimes you just can't get it together....that's where 'excuses' come in to their own. These are technical reasons why the expert marksman was hindered by everything but him or herself.

 

Within the photos there is a computer generated image of the rifle I am having built, and my first ton (100 or 'possible'). Some people say shooting is easy, but those people haven't tried competition target shooting.