Marmore, Italy 19^th - 21^st July 2002, Level III Shotgun
 
 

Click the Thumbnails (picture sizes are 52k to 86k)
 

Aerial View Marmore Range	Match  Brochure	Stages 1-8 (not run as shown)	View from Rifle Range	In case you get lost
No Mike it's a shotgun comp	Ah well..	Neil makes  friends with robotic RO	Stage 4	Stage 4
Stage 1	Stage 2	Stage 2	Stage 3	Stage 5 Slug
Stage5	Stage5	Stage 7	Stage 8	Spoilt view
Winner's podium	Prize table	Riccardo Massanti RD	Neil makes a speech	Comment on length of Neil's tube
Fumble  Zone? - Alan's Holiday Romance (no tongues)	Bribery Works

What I did in my summer holidays
(or how to have fun shooting in Italy)

Mrs P and I were by the BA check-in desk at Heathrow waiting for ADI (Aviation Defence Industries) to come and collect my shotgun. We were at the first hurdle. When we booked the flight and explained that I wished to take a sporting firearm the BA Customer Service Operative was flummoxed. "Oh! I'll have to ask about that." Several minutes and 18 loops of Vivaldi's Four Seasons later. "The person who knows about that sort of thing isn't in, but it's on the list as being acceptable. I'll make a note on the screen. I don't think you can take it on as hand luggage though." We agreed that it was unlikely that we could take it on as hand luggage. Not because it was a firearm, you understand, but it might contain some sharp pointy bits.

Back to the check-in desk. Despite having checked with BA one week prior, as required by BA, the note on the screen had mysteriously disappeared. Never mind; a form to fill in and we were up and running.

Chirp chirp from my mobile phone. "Hi Alan, it's Neil. I'm by the check-in desk. Where are you?"

"A binnable distance away Neil." Neil smiles sheepishly.

Neil had been informed by a BA Customer Service Operative that he had to have the shotgun inside a suitable gun case and that must be put inside a suitcase. He had spent some considerable effort, and funds, in finding a small enough shotgun case - which meant that the gun had to be split down into several parts, stock off etc - and a large enough suitcase to take it in.

Needless to say, he had been misinformed.

ADI turned up and Mrs P, Neil and I went through the X-ray palaver and then to Customs to join our firearms and ADI. I went in first. Paperwork, check the serial number etc. Passport. Ah, passport. Mrs P, by this time had got bored and had gone off to the duty free, together with my passport, and more worryingly, a credit card. I go to look for Mrs P and passport and confiscate credit card. Neil goes in. Neil has much fun with luggage and now has a suitcase which has not gone via the normal baggage handling and it's clearly a tad large for hand luggage.

Meanwhile my jacket had gone walk about. This, it was subsequently discovered had been going through the X-ray machine on a fairly regular basis. I'm sure you'll be please to know that it had a clean bill of health, no lumps or shadows but I was a little concerned that it might have had more radiation exposure than allowed by EC regulations. Any problems probably won't manifest themselves for years. A bit of a worry really.

I knew it was a mistake the moment I smiled at the female security officer, tactically positioned on the walkway to the plane. I got thoroughly searched by her male colleague. Well one of us enjoyed it.

A jolly good flight and in Rome we land. We bump into the other intrepid Brits who had flown three times round Europe, because Virgin was sixpence cheaper than BA, looking for shotguns.

Neil was apprehensive about ever being reunited with his suitcase again and I was marginally concerned that everyone had an Italian Customs form for their gun, except me.

As it transpired, Neil had a touching reunion with his case and everyone had their Customs form read, scrutinised, stamped and prodded. I flashed my European Firearms Pass being sans form, the Customs officer nodded towards where the guns were. I collected mine, well it looked like mine, and we were off on the 2KM trek round the airport to the car hire desks.

Mrs P and I went to the Hertz desk were I had pre-booked something cheap. "Would Sir like a Peugot 206 or a Fiat Punto?" Sir, doesn't care. Make a decision. "OK, I'll have the Peugot." "I'm sorry Sir, but that's not available. Is Sir going North or South?" "North." "That's OK, you can have the Fiat Punto." I rather apprehensively enquired, whether that meant Fiats can't go south, as the thought did fleetingly cross my mind, and I'm sure that you're ahead of me on this, that when we return we will be travelling in a southerly direction. A one directional car, even if at a low rental rate, would clearly prove to be wanting. I tried to calculate the mileage if I had to circumnavigate the globe in order to get back without going south. Ah, but when you get to the North Pole, all directions are south. It's a bit complicated this car hire business.

It was patiently explained to me that Fiats are quite omni-directional but Fiats in the Southern part of Italy, which is apparently an area almost exclusively populated by very bad people, are prone to disappearing. So they don't rent  to you a Fiat if going south.

We were off, Mrs P and I to find our Punto, Neil to a Peugot, Mike, Graham, Andy, Linda and Jean to a 12-seater.

Getting out of the car park was tricky. Up to the barrier, ticket in sweaty palm ready to insert in machine, secondary barrier closes behind you. The ticket does not open the barrier. One is now boxed in, in an omni-directional Punto that one cannot omni-direct.

Mrs P off to find attendant. Rear barrier opens. I reverse and park. I notice sign that says which exit barrier to use if driving a rental. Obviously, not the one I had been in.

12-seater full of jeering Brits yell obscenities at me. I let them go to the wrong barrier. I'm not an RO for nothing.

We arrived at our hotel 90 mins later, Terra Umbra, shortly before 9:00 p.m., followed about 20 minutes later by Neil. The others were staying at a hotel closer to the Marmore range; we were about 25 mins away, with Terni in between.

The Terra Umbra was a splendid hotel; pool, small gym and sauna, air conditioned rooms, a Pizzeria and an excellent restaurant. And quite reasonable; double room + breakfast for two €86 (£56).

It should be noted that this area of Italy is not the main tourist itinerary so little Inglese is she spok.

In the a.m. (Friday) Neil and I left bright and early (scrub bright), leaving Mrs P with the swimming pool, omni-directional Punto and definitely downward directional credit card. Due to my undisputed individualistic navigational skills Neil and I were able to sample the delights of Terni, visiting areas that even the people of Terni have not yet discovered.

The range is up a mountain road, in a spectacular location. We arrived at a shooter's paradise. 12, 50 metre bays (some of which could be further sub divided into another 3 or so). One with a proper mover. Each range has a covered area, with table and chairs and rifle rack. A 120 metre back-stop, on top of which there is a 200 metre rifle range kitted out for bench rest. Further up the mountain still is a 'combat' training area.

The range has a toilet block, stats office, café, trade booths (put to good use by Franchi and Benelli over the weekend), bulldozer, fork lift truck, for those big poppers, loads of props including an ambulance or two and a couple of trucks.

Neil was acting Range Master (I say acting 'cos he can't do it for real) and the Friday was spent going through the 9 courses of fire - about 90 targets with two slug stages. We met with Riccardo Massanti, the Graham Gill of Italy (he doesn't do plates either). He was our host, spoke excellent English and made us very welcome.

Neil is doing a technical report but a few differences between the Italian approach and ours soon came to light.

The 12-seater arrived spewing out it's motley contents. They hadn't found their hotel until 11:00 p.m. Apparently, as they got close, it kept moving. Hotels do that. Anyway they were pleased with their accommodation and the friendly hospitality that they received.

As we were idly chatting, at one of the ranges we spied a chap with a shotgun being carried soldier fashion, butt in hand, barrel on shoulder at about 45 degrees. He moved his hand up so barrel was now parallel to the ground and then spun round. Thus we were rudely introduced to the first difference; they are indifferent to gun handling.

In the main they like to carry guns muzzle up. Well, that's OK but all too frequently one saw a competitor leave the firing point with the muzzle up and it being placed in the rack with the muzzle down. On how the transfer of direction was made I shall say no more except advising those wishing to go to Italy next year to pack nappies.

The next areas of difference seem to be the cofs and rules. We have international rules, which Neil having put most of it together knows pretty well. Then there are the Italian rules. They like to have separate divisions for PA and SA and they don't do unloaded starts. When I say they don't do unloaded starts, when Neil politely suggested to Riccardo that they could, perhaps, do a couple of unloaded stages, there were shrugs and after conferring Neil was told that the competitors would just go home. They change chokes at every stage. They know that this is against the rules, slug excepting, but Riccardo told us that the competitors mark all their chokes so they look the same so it is impossible to monitor. Is this not cheating I naively inquired? How can it be cheating, I was rhetorically asked, when you can't catch anyone.

The big stage was just 16 plates (which I RO'd on the Sunday) and the whole match was very blaggy and not one red target. Is Tim Wander part Italian we wonder.

Anyway, with a plate moved here and a popper moved there, we had a match. Interestingly most of the targets on the non-slug stages were poppers, a few falling plates on stalks, but mostly poppers.

During the day a policemen and his good lady were practising with 38 super +P and we were invited to try our hand. Full race pistol with barricade stops, red dot etc. Wonderful.

Late afternoon Riccardo wanted us to see his home town of Viterbo, a medieval town about an hours drive away. So off we all went, in convoy, picking up Mrs P on route. And a jolly fine town Viterbo is.

Neil and I were off to the range early Saturday morning, the plan being RO's and Brits would be shooting Saturday, with the main shooters, 9 squads of 7, on the Sunday. We went via some more hidden treasures of Terni but arrived in good time. Neil and I were squadded with some Italian RO's and the rest were with a Greek contingent of three.

We had organised ammo the previous day. They couldn't do 65mm or 5s but would try for 67mm 32 gm 71/2 . We were offered 70mm 27gm 71/2, which we rejected and ended up with 70mm 32gm 71/2, which meant that most of us were two rounds short of usual capacity (that's ammo not glasses of vino), not quite the same punch and that loading was more cumbersome with the longer cartridge. I know, difficult to imagine my loading being even more clumsy than it already is and in the clumsy stakes I thought I had no equal. Enter the Italians.

As an RO on Sunday I got to see all the competitors (excluding those DQ'd before they got to me) and I can tell you that my loading looks slickness personified compared to the Italian style. More of which anon.

So Neil and I shot the match; the slug shot well left of centre, otherwise the ammo worked and I think it fair to say that we shot real bad. But, hey, we were having fun. The sun shone and despite the language difficulties we got on fine with the squad. At lunch time we got to talk to the Franchi people and have a play.

We had trouble with some of the poppers. Set too light and a gust of wind would blow them down, too heavy and 71/2s at some of the distances were struggling.

There was a particularly gamey Italian in our squad who missed a long plate (the miss being well over the top as spotted by an Italian RM, with whom I RO'd the following day, but was just one of our squad). He had shot the stage really badly. It just hadn't gone right. He demanded a reshoot on the basis that he had hit the plate but it was calibrated too heavily. But before it could be tested it BLEW over, so he got a reshoot. Them's the rules. Go figure.

Talking of gamey shooters, on the Sunday Neil spotted one shooter pile up empty cases to mark a sweet spot, and then move them all a foot or so to an even better position. Neil organised a pick-up.

Early start on the Sunday. Range Master Neil gave talk to RO's in almost fluent English and the first shots were fired at 8:45 a.m. The whole set up was very slick. Each competitor had a score sheet for each stage with stage numbers already printed on and with a tear off strip for recording and keeping his score. These were supplied with sticky labels, bearing his/her name and number, to be peeled off and stuck on each score sheet.

I was teamed up with Luciano a veteran - or senior as they are known in Italy - and Range Master and he spoke some English. I ran with the timer, he kept score. We got on famously. Well I thought we were until he said to me, "Would you mind shooting yourself?" Well, already got the T- shirt, but had I upset him so much, was this the honourable solution to a bad call?

Apparently someone was in urgent need of a translator and he wanted me to take the next shooter through on my own. As I say, he spoke some English.

Some observations whilst ROing. Benelli's were favourite, a few Mossbergs and other assorted guns. No Remis. Quite a few competitors used speed loaders. Speed loader is an oxymoron. No, it's not even an oxymoron; it's a damned lie. Not only do they not load speedily, they often do not load at all. The stage I was working, stage 2, was 16 plates. Option 2 start (old condition 3) jump from a stairway - one metre high, rack after feet on ground and away you go. Those shooting standard were only allowed to load 7 rounds initially on this stage (no sneaking one under the floor plate on the Benellis). They jump, rack, possibly remember the safety, load one in the tube, shoot 8 targets, get out a speed loader, get one round in and drop the rest, get out another speed loader out, get none in, scrabble around on the floor because they forgot to put rounds on their belt (more than one competitor did that!), miss a target and give up and not bother with the remaining two. Result 1'10" (for a 25-35 second stage), 3 misses and 2 procedurals for failure to engage last two targets (something they enforce as a matter of course).

In the course of the day I saw only one competitor successfully complete two consecutive speedloads. They keep ammo on their belt (when they remember), one round up, one round down or leave alternate gaps. They load with their strong hand, resting the gun on their leg, or in one case their crotch. Some of them shoot real quick, but on loading we have the edge.

They mostly were up to speed with the new gun clearing procedure except that 80+% of shooters do not apply the safety. "Apply the safety please," would say I. "Huh!" they would reply. I apply it for them. They give the dismissive shrug - sort of; well you're English and the RO but… Or the beaming shrug of enlightenment  - so THAT'S what that button's for!

Once the gun is in the slip, it is, apparently no longer a gun. You can point it anywhere, because, as we know, the action won't close in a gun slip and a gun slip will stop 12 gauge round, no problem.

I personally had a problem with muzzles up. After all there is a rifle range at the top, and as Graham Hill aptly and poignantly pointed out, "Yesterday we were up there looking down."

At about one o'clock shooting stops for lunch. RO's were given spag bol and a tomato and mozzarella salad at the café.  Very civilised. We were supplied with bottled water and believe me it was needed. Got through about 5 litres a day.

There were a few re-shoots - we had to run the Greeks again on our stage as they had been misinformed on the Saturday when they were told that they couldn't use speed loaders. So they re-shot with speed loaders and regretted it bigtime.

Prize giving and results. The 12-seater crew had only popped in during the morning as they had a lunchtime flight and I was asked to accept any prizes on behalf of the Brits should they have won anything.

In the end Linda Newman was top open lady (I like the sound of that) and I was top open 'C' (it's a great sport - Linda and I overall shot worse than the other Brits and we get the cups and ammo and other goodies) and Graham Hill and Andy Newman won ammo and stuff. All the ammo that we won I generously donated back as we couldn't take it with us. The UKPSA team came second (no prize) and consisted of the Brits who didn't win cups.

I got to snog the MD, Claudio, when collecting all these prizes, 'cos that's what they do in Europe, men kiss 'n' all that. So, the trip wasn't a total write off.

Neil gave another speech and everybody showed their appreciation for Neil's hard work RMing the match, or it might have just been relief that he had stopped speaking in an alien tongue.

We said our fond farewells and Mrs P and I went off to find the famous Marmore waterfall. You'd think it difficult to hide a waterfall wouldn't you but they did bloody well.

Back at the hotel I decided to give the 11-87 a quick clean, and put it back in its travelling box. The link was broken (that tuning fork shaped thingy). Don't know how it worked in that state. Tim informs me that it will cost at least a complete rebuild, with lots of new parts (£15) - it's all this new dropping the action on an empty chamber. I only mention my broken Remi, because I can tell all you smug Benelli owners out there that they also break! We just haven't had enough of them on the circuit for long enough yet.

Bringing the gun back was a tedious procedure. Queue up at check-in desk, fill in a form, take gun and form to police who check serial numbers, stamp form etc. Wander round airport with gun for a couple of hours as they would not take the gun on until 45 mins before the flight was due to leave. This meant letting Mrs P go through to the duty free on her own again with the credit card.

Big mistake.

Ciao
 

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ABP 2/8/2002