OV9

I know it's not terribly cool to blow your own trumpet, but this one has been so herculean, I feel justified in shouting about it.

As some of you may know, I was recently appointed as Quartermaster of my shotgun club, so I have spent the last 2 and a half weeks I designing and physically building Scotland's only international Practical Shotgun competition. And built a complete solar power system to run it all.
It was kinda cool. We had 200 competitors from US, Germany, Sweden, Greece, Ukraine, Italy. Pretty much everything worked. Everyone went away happy. The Scottish sun even made a rare appearance.

I am, however, what can safely be described as completely fucking broken. I have built hundreds of screens, various silly contraptions, 16 shelters, dozens of racks, hundreds of metres of fault lines and distributed it over a 2km2 site to 16 different stages. And then broken it all down again and carefully filed it, so we can do it all again next year!

The one I'm most proud of was the wobbly boat. A thing of true bodgetastic wonder.
There was supposed to be a different prop, but with 48 hours to go I had to produce something that felt like a boat on water. But with only leftover scrap to make it out of.

Two car suspension springs salvaged from a burnt out car, 4 old trampoline springs I found in the big rubbish pile, a couple of pallets to hang it all off, various offcuts from building the screens, finally tuned with one ex-racecar spring of known rate liberated from my own garage.
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Sadly, I didn't do so well as a competitor - I got controversially DQ'd on stage 5 out of 16.
Rule says the muzzle can't *ever* point beyond 90 degrees from the starting position.


The RO (red hat) thought no. Timekeeper (green thing) thought yes

There's a tiny flick of the muzzle as I move round the screen. It's very very close either way. But its a brutal one to go out on, given the circumstances.

That is epic Nef - fair play to you...

After the disqualification, I'd have unplugged the solar system, went fvck the lot of you and bugged off...

Congrats on running a successful event, it’s bad enough organising a camp for 15-20 scouts so organising a competition for 200 international competitors must have took some doing

As for the DQ, the one good thing about mistakes is you can learn from them, sure you’ll smash it next year.

On an unrelated note, do you have the authority to ban red hat from entering the grounds next time?

jamcg wrote: Wed May 27, 2026 7:56 am On an unrelated note, do you have the authority to ban red hat from entering the grounds next time?

Red hat was on my side. The thing that really swung it that one of the German Senior Range Officers was spectating, and he opined that I broke the 90. The Range Master (my friend) felt it would look bad if I was seen to be getting special treatment

Fantastic work, well done!

What's a fault line in this circumstance?

Nefarious wrote: Wed May 27, 2026 8:08 am German Senior Range Officers was spectating

Ah that explains it...

"Nein!!! Rulz help control ze fun!!"

Tremendous stuff Neil, well done!

Looks like an incredible event to have pulled off, I used to work with live events years back and realise how much of a huge achievement it is to put on a successful event, so congrats on making it work, and next year will be even better!

unzippy wrote: Wed May 27, 2026 8:14 am What's a fault line in this circumstance?

The red bits of wood on the floor. They define the area your feet are allows to touch

That looks like great fun

I just did my first bit of airsoft CQB and the eldest is a bit of a natural shot so stepping stones to grown up stuff like you're doing

It's a huge job to keep the "general public" happy so I'm more impressed by you wanting to organise it more than the achievement of doing it

Fine work and next year make the boat even wobblier!!

Dave!

Impressive Organising stuff is exhausting!

Muzzle - yeah I think you may be bang to rights guvnor - hugely frustrating to go out on though (a mistake I guess you’ll never make again )

Nefarious wrote: Wed May 27, 2026 8:08 am

jamcg wrote: Wed May 27, 2026 7:56 am On an unrelated note, do you have the authority to ban red hat from entering the grounds next time?

Red hat was on my side. The thing that really swung it that one of the German Senior Range Officers was spectating, and he opined that I broke the 90. The Range Master (my friend) felt it would look bad if I was seen to be getting special treatment

Fair enough. Were you in the running for a high finish up to that point?

jamcg wrote: Wed May 27, 2026 10:27 am Fair enough. Were you in the running for a high finish up to that point?

God no! I was mid-table at my last national comp of the same level, and some of these international guys are another level again.
The stage before the one I went out on, I had a small mistake and did it in 32s. Without the mistake it would have been about 22s. One of the Greek girls did it in 13

V8Granite wrote: Wed May 27, 2026 9:17 am I just did my first bit of airsoft CQB and the eldest is a bit of a natural shot so stepping stones to grown up stuff like you're doing

Don't hang about. The incoming lead ban may very well put an end to the sport for shotgun from 2029.

We still do a very similar thing with mini-rifle (22 chambered AR-15s) and I'm pushing to also be able to do it with lever-action .44 mag short rifles.

Here's the previous one, complete with fumbled reload

Very very cool

Well done! Hope you've got a nice relaxing week planned after that.

Wow, that's a massive undertaking. Jolly well done indeed