Vic Harker
Beretta Xcells
Vic Harker tests the A400 Xcel – a budget semi-auto with no compromise on quality The repeating shotgun has always held a special appeal for me. It was of course the Americans who first designed the best and most reliable kind. The development of the gas operated repeating shotgun was a by-product of America’s military [...]
Place your bets
Vic Harker weighs up the competition in the Men’s Double Trap event The most recent clay target event included in the Olympic Games in 1996 is Double Trap. That Great Britain is considered a serious contender for a medal in this discipline at the London Games is very much due to Ian Coley, the [...]
Olympic Skeet at London
Skeet shooting became an Olympic discipline in 1968 and there was every justification for including this highly skilled form of clay target shooting alongside Trap. In its Olympic form, Skeet has produced a breed of gun handlers second to none. Fast targets, gun down and with a three second delay the 25-target round now includes [...]
Gun test: Krieghoff K-80 half-rib
Vic Harker looks at a new Krieghoff that won a medal in the World Championships as a prototype There is an increasing trend among the leading firearms manufacturers to wave the conclusions of their focus groups in our faces to show they’ve done their homework and so must be right, but have they and are [...]
Place Your Bets
We are now in the Olympic Year and, so far as the shooting sports are concerned, which countries will be competing in London and how many quota places they have has mostly been decided. Winning a quota place in one of the ISSF designated events does not guarantee you will have a place in your [...]
Tall men and Trap
In most sports height, if complemented by the appropriate physique and coordination, is an advantage. With greater reach and a longer stride, the taller man or woman has a greater potential to come out on top in most ball games and athletics. In one sport however this is not the case and beyond certain limits [...]
Gun Test: Beretta Silver Pigeon Sporter
Vic Harker tests the Beretta 686 Silver Pigeon 1 Sporter that may break clays but certainly won’t break the bank The other day a magazine editor said to me in the simplistic way that breed are inclined to do, that the only thing he wanted to know from a gun test was whether the gun [...]
A barrel full of innovation
Beretta’s launch of its new DT11 target gun marks the beginning of the company’s strategy to regain the market share at the highest level of clay target shooting. The senior manager of the company, Carlo Ferlito, made no secret of this to an assembled group of Beretta’s European distributors and the shooting press in Cyprus [...]
Back to our Trap shooting roots
Vic Harker looks at the history of a game that recalls Trap shooting’s colourful past
Little Britain
Britain may be small but we try our best to prove that we are Great – why then do we not show a dominance in international shooting events as we do in other sports, asks Vic Harker