Leica Experience Day

Leica are most famous for their classic cameras, but their sports optics are fast earning a fine reputation of their own, based on quality, practicality and style, and helped along by that smart little red badge!

Leica’s products are in the top rank for price too, and as we all know, in the absence of actual experience in the field, buying prestige optics is as much about placing confidence in the brand as about identifying a specification that suits the application we have in mind. Put another way, both on the range and in the field, it is more likely that our fellow shooters will be using optics from the more established brands, and that it is these we will try and ultimately be more inclined to buy- than an optic through which we have observed nothing except the far wall of a gun shop!

Real world

With this in mind, Simon and Selena Barr of Tweed Media, who do Leica’s UK PR, came up with the innovative idea of holding a series of Leica Experience days. These would enable prospective customers not just to try out Leica’s products at real-world ranges and lighting conditions, but also to do so while shooting some smart rifles from Blaser and Rigby, fuelled by Hornady ammunition from UK distributors Edgar Brothers. Further enhancing the experience would be products from Spartan Precision Equipment (the creators of the Javelin lightweight bipod), Can-Am (makers of high-spec ATVs), and Swazi clothing and the venue? Nothing less than the wonderful ranges run by the Pennine Shooting Sports Association at Diggle.

So who would be eligible and what would it all cost? The answer was everyone and nothing! Advertised through social media, the 75 places available on each of the four days (two in May and 2 in August), were quickly snapped up. This was not only a highly efficient approach: it targeted exactly those people who were most likely to spread the word about everything they had seen and experienced on the day. In fact, as the only press journalist present, I felt both privileged and potentially redundant!

A Lotta leica!

Guests got to shoot examples from Leica’s Magnus and ERi/LRS riflescope series on a variety of targets, including a running boar, and at a variety of ranges from 25m to 600m, as well as using the ballistic function in Leica’s Geovid HD-B rangefinders to dial in for first-round hits on the more distant targets.

Magnus scopes all have a 6X zoom factor and come in four versatile formats: 1−6.3x24, 1.5–10x42, 1.8-12 x 50, and 2.4-16 x 56. All feature a 30mm main tube, metric adjustments, centre-dot or circle-dot illuminated reticles in the second focal plane, timer-controlled auto shut-down and tilt-controlled auto start-up, a choice of reticle designs, and a Zeiss-rail option.

The ERi/LRS scopes offer three options: 2.5-10 x 42, 3–12x50 and 6.5–26x56 LRS. Features are similar to those for the Magnus range, but the illumination control is built into the L/H turret not the eye bell. The LRS is non-illuminated, but sports a cap-less elevation turret, and fine 0.05 MRAD (0.5cm@ 100m) adjustments.

The standard dials in Leica’s BDC turrets can also be readily swapped out for one of 12 ‘direct dial’ rings, selected to match your rifle’s ballistics using Leica’s online software. The system is also replicated in Leica’s Geovid rangefinders for perfect compatibility between both types of optic.

Standard issue

For safety and simplicity, all but two of the rifles used were in .308. Ammunition was from both Hornady’s Custom and American Whitetail lines, but, regardless of the box it came from, was the same load: a 165-grain InterLock jacketed-soft-point bullet with a BC of .435. Though the nominal MV of 2,700 fps is from a 24” test barrel, my own chrono tests obtained this from a sporting rifle with a 22” barrel. It’s so much better when ammo manufacturers don’t exaggerate! Incidentally, the main reason we had both types seems to have been simply to ensure there was plenty to go round, and that objective was met in spades!

Whether from the Blaser R8s, Sauer S404s or S101s the load chosen proved very pleasant to shoot. Accuracy was a bit harder to evaluate, however, as a happy combination of warm weather and intensive shooting made for very hot barrels indeed. I particularly enjoyed being reunited with the Sauer S404 Synchro model I had so much fun with in Denmark earlier in the summer. Also equally gratified by getting to use a L/H Blaser R8 on the running-boar range. Believe it or not, this was the first time I’ve shot a left-handed Blaser straight pull, and it really helped me to see how they got to be so popular. Whilst far from ideal, a bolt-action rifle can be manipulated wrong-handed with a bit of practice, but using a R/H Blaser left-handed is a complete non-starter!

Big boys’ toys

Also spicing things up were a couple of big boomers: A Blaser R8 Long Range in .338 Lapua Magnum, and a deluxe Rigby Big Game rifle chambered, appropriately enough, in .416 Rigby. I was fortunate enough to have a good play with the latter at WMS Firearms Training in West Wales last year, and absolutely loved it. Since then Simon Barr has taken the rifle to Africa and hunted buffalo with it. Cameras were also taken of course, and one result was a life-size blow-up, which when used as a target at 25m did a great job of setting the rifle, the cartridge and the optic in context, as well as evoking a sense of just how formidable a quarry the Cape buffalo really is.

I’d been on the range with the .338 before too, but its R/H GRS stock makes it unworkably right-handed for me, so again I left it to others to enjoy its ability to make the .308 Winchester look like a pipsqueak, and to treat a stiff wind like a light breeze.

The ample facilities at Diggle were ideal for the event, as they enabled four separate groups to shoot simultaneously on different ranges, and also to move between ranges as they rotated between stages. Meanwhile, the range staff did an admirably efficient and polite job of ensuring everyone was safe at all times.

Mobility between ranges was facilitated by a couple of Can-Am Defender UTVs. These comfortable, rugged, and agile utility vehicles are also very attractively priced, can be kitted out with a wide range of task-specific accessories, and turn out to be surprisingly nippy on the road.

Spartan precision

Spartan Precision Equipment and their Javelin bipods and Kapita tripods were helping shooters hit their targets on the 200m, 300m and 600m stages. Spartan have made a huge impact on the riflesupport market in the short time since their debut at the 2014 British Shooting Show, and supply bespoke products to Blaser and Sauer as well as their own original versions. The latter are now distributed by RUAG, which will leave the Spartan team more time for designing and developing the next generation.

The Kapita is a particularly neat but of kit. Equipped with three, twist-lock, telescoping legs and Spartan’s patented magnetic mounting interface rising from a ball-joint in the central hub, it can be used as a hands-free support for a rifle, or fitted with a threaded tip to take scope or camera. Deploying a hook under the hub simultaneously lets you hang your bag out of the way and ballasts the tripod for extra stability or to reduce vibration when using optics. With the legs extended, the Kapita is perfect for taking standing shots, or you can retract them when shooting from the kneeling position… but you can also unscrew one leg, to create a bipod that functions as a brace as well as a support when kneeling or sitting, or take all the legs off before screwing one into the hub in place of the hook, to create a monopod or a hiking pole. As with the Javelin bipod, the Kapita’s carbon-fibre/aerospace-aluminium construction makes it stiff, light and smart.

New products were in evidence too. As well as a handsome leather case for the Kapita, made in SA and finished to look like buffalo hide, there was a vehicle mount that looks like the perfect foxing accessory. It combines the Kapita hub with a cam-locking telescopic strut and a magnetic base plate to provide instant but firm support for shooting over a bonnet or cab roof. I understand there’s also a new fully-locking head for the Kapita in the pipeline.

Time flies

All of the above kept me so engaged that I missed out on the opportunity to get expert advice from the British Deer Society or the ammunition reloading workshop, on the special deals on offer from Swillington Shooting Supplies and –almost, but thankfully not quite- on the pig roast!

What I relished most though, more even than the great optics and rifles, the fantastic venue, and all the free ammo, was the opportunity to meet, talk with and shoot alongside avid shooters from all over the UK –and especially the great lads from NI. Social media’s all very well, but for me, real trumps virtual any day of the week!

In short, the Leica Experience was a uniquely superb event. The investment in resources, time and energy made by its organisers and sponsors was immense, but so were the wow factor for those attending and the value of bringing everyone together, trade and public alike for such a great shared experience.