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CptCurl & 9.3x57:

As for the shooting cinemas: To my knowledge they only exist in Germany (and one or two in Austria). Blaser runs one in his factory annex, for example. It is still a cottage industry even here, there are not many. The reason why you do not find them elsewhere is probably that they are very expensive (appr. 120 Euros = $ 200 an hour, although that is per group, not per person). Add to that the cost of ammunition, on the last session I shot 100 rounds in an hour. Also, you need a caliber that can swallow that rate of fire - the guns get red-hot: Old, rather slow military calibers (8x57) or African ones (9.3x62) are OK to heat up that much. Fast overbore calibers, like .300 RUM, which are so popular in the US right now will burn out the forcing cone in no time. Then, as we have always done shooting at running game, virtually all our guns have detachable scopes and are balanced for off-hand shooting. A Remingtom 700 with match barrel and fixed high-power scope will NOT work for that. You need to shoot over iron sights, aimpoint, or with a light low-power scope (like a 1-6). It also is not easy at first at all. As hunters' education is mandatory here, we get our license with training in shooting at running boar targets (pulled target) already - so we have a starting point. Even so, most hunters shy away from practicing or shooting that way as it takes quite a while to master it. Most can absolutely not do it. If you are good at skeet and have the right gun, you will pick it up quickly, however.

Here is a link to one: That is one with the older, small screen, but you will get the idea: http://www.mszu.de/schiesskino.html I one I went to lately has a big cinema screen, but their website does not show it well.

As for the when the gun was built - it is brand new. The scope I ended up putting on it is a Swarovski Z6i 1-6 x24 EE (extended eye relief). The eye relief on that scope is so big that I could install the scope just so that the gun maintained its original balance, which explains why it regulates with the scope as good as over iron sights. The scope that was on before (Zeiss) destroyed the balance of the gun, and you could only use that scope with the right barrel. H&H were quite surprised when I sent them a two-barrel target that was shot with the new scope.

Folllowing is a picture of the gun with the mounted scope, to show that a double can look quite elegant with it as long as the scope does not sit to far backwards (as most do, because of limited eye relief). Furthermore, the best group I shot with that scope, standing, off modern 'African stick' tripod which I modified, so that the V-notch doesn't wiggle anymore, also eliminated vibration and slippage by wrapping all parts with sticky self-adhesive electrical tape - makes for a rock-solid support (see group).

Still new to posting pictures via links, let's see how that works.

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/7300/img0466l.jpg

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/9087/55ybothbarrels.jpg