Dan Williams heads to The Gun Shop in Botley to try out their new Marksman ST-2 Shooting Simulator and see how realistic it is.
The Gun Shop in Botley, Hampshire, have just had a Marksman ST-2 shooting simulator installed and were kind enough to invite me along to try it out before the official opening. There are only a handful of these simulators in the country, so I couldn’t refuse the offer of trying one out, just 20 minutes from home!
After a cup of tea and a quick chat, we were led into the simulator room and got straight down to business. The system is effectively a projector, a huge screen and a series of sensors rigged to the gun, all run through a purpose-built computer. Setting up takes only a matter of minutes, with the camera and trigger sensors fitted, a few measurement inputs into the system, and a quick calibration shot at the screen before you’re good to go.
You can take your own gun along with you, which I would highly recommend, or use the dummy gun that comes with the simulator – although it must be said the dummy gun does lack a bit of realism, being just a little too light for my liking. I managed to forget my gun, but the guys in the shop were good enough to lend me one for the hour.
We got straight into it with some basic clay targets. Nothing too fancy, just a few to get my eye in. Once I got a feel for it, I was ready to play with a few of the built-in options. The thing that took some getting used to was the trigger pulls. You only get the minimal movement on the trigger for obvious reasons, but I got over this very quickly. Once I had destroyed a good few clays, we moved onto grouse, pheasant and duck.
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