A short blog entry for our day out clay pigeon shooting at Cloudside Shooting and Sporting Club. The club is located near Congleton in Cheshire.
Hayley got a gift voucher for her birthday and decided to use it to try clay pigeon shooting. She has shot handguns while in the States, but never rifles here in the UK. Cloudside seemed an excellent way to give it a go.
Booking in
Booking in with the voucher was really easy, we just called the shooting club and arranged a time and date. We were told that with the voucher we had we may be in a small group. On the day however it turned out to be just Hayley and her friend shooting with a dedicated instructor. Perfect and very personal.
Finding the shooting club
I would recommend using your satellite navigation. Although the club has an address in Congleton, it is in the valleys beyond and I would have imagined quite hard to find by map. At least hard to find by me. The satellite navigation took us straight there.
The entrance is clearly marked with a set of very smart looking buildings behind.
The car park was full of expensive cars and we felt a little underdressed.
It had not even occurred to us that there may be a dress code but we need not have worried. While most people were certainly very smart and the instructors dressed to impress, we were given a very warm welcome.
We never felt like we should not have been there, or would not be invited back.
The Shooting Club Clubhouse
In keeping with the rather upmarket feel of the buildings outside, the inside was like stepping into another world, full of leather and tweed. It was very much a shooting club!
We sat around a real fire with a cup of tea or coffee and biscuits while waiting for other people in the group to arrive.
Luckily for us, nobody else turned up so our instructor introduced himself and took us back outside. This time he bought a gun and ammunition!
Initial instruction
The instructor (I am sorry I do not remember your name!) was superb. Initially away from the shooting boxes, he told us how to hold the gun and how to take aim (with the gun unloaded).
Finally, he showed us how to load the ammunition into the gun. We were ready to shoot!
Walking down to the clay pigeon shooting range
The clay pigeon shooting is done from what resemble small huts.
As Cloudside is situated in a valley these are accessed by quite a steep and uneven path down to the huts.
If like Hayley, you have limited mobility this may be an issue but the instructor did tell Hayley he would bring the quad around if she struggled to get back up the hill. Hayley’s scooter is quite powerful and did manage the hill.
The photo really does not show how steep the path was, it is quite steep. This does give the advantage of an elevated shooting position over the valley.
The actual clay pigeon shooting
Everything leads here, to the actual clay pigeon shooting!
Once you get down to the huts, you move from one to another to shoot different angles of clays.
Some huts shoot directly away from you and ones that cross your path. There are many variations and each hut offers something slightly different.
The instructor asked us to don some protective ear defenders and we called for the clays to be released. Then you take aim and – fire!
We actually did quite well, perhaps the instructor took us to the easy huts or Hayley was a natural. Whatever the reason she had a great time and it was a great day out, we recommend it.
The rifle does have some kickback and when you get it in the wrong place it can, and does bruise your arm. I’ll not share the photos of Hayley’s bruises!
What no video?
Unfortunately, there is no video for this blog entry.
We did take a little bit of video but it is not something that edits well together for YouTube, it would end up being 30 seconds long and no use to anyone!
We still thought we would make a written blog entry as the day out was fun and we would recommend it, we hope to do it again.