JVi1

Weak hand vs strong hand... A good question and the complete answer is not very short. I think we will make a article about this, as we have collected quite much data. But to try to make a short answer, in last world championships, around 30% of overall medalist were weak hand loaders (excluding open of course). Percentage should be in the ballpark, categories not included. I would make educated guess that in 2018 world championships we will see less weak hand loaders on the podium. But as both techniques have proven to be effective, it seems to be more of a question of personal preference. There is a big list of situations that can somewhat favor either technique. Weak hand loading will give advantage in some moving directions and start positions. Strong loading hand can allow for faster reload recovery and better visuals etc.. Strong hand technique is usually easier to master in shorter time, if one is just starting to get in to shotgun shooting, and doesn't mind cutting up the loading port. And consistency is the key what a competitor should be looking for first, not the special tricks.

We created the King MSH system with Kim Leppänen originally in 2014, before last Shotgun World Shoot. Reason was that we wanted to win and needed something better than the traditional clip and spring designs that were available that time. We've already had the "top pusher design" in use that time in Finland, which removes the shell tilt (the top pusher design was also adopted many others after the 2015 SG WS). In addition to the top pusher, we created the magnet retention and the lower module design to improve the retention/release ratio. Everything went quite well in the last World Championships, and the finns came home with a good amount of president medals, which 12 were shot by using the King generation 3 rig. Many shooters were interested in the system, so we made King Competition Products commercial. The generation 5 that was released April 2017 is again improved system. It is self leveling, which means that the lower module will adjust itself to different shell heights. So no screws need to be touched when changing from birdshot to slugs, or no tuning is required to level correctly the upper and lower module. We also increased the hold, as it was noticed necessary when Kim was on his USA 3-gun tour 2016. So much changes were needed to accomplish everything we wanted, that the 5th generation no longer really looks very traditional. To work correctly, the self leveling system requires a "skeleton", which is makes the gen 5 look quite apart from previous designs. But we are confident it technically outperforms everything else that is available for tube shotgun reloading. The MSH design works best as a single uniform rig, for what it is intended for. In IPSC, the amount of shells on the belt is usually around 28. To get consistent loads, a shotgun rig needs to be uniform, and the shells need to be as close to each other than possible. With this kind of system it is possible to load fast repeatedly, the wider the shells are positioned on a person, the less consistent the reloads are due to the optimal angle/reach of the reloading hand. In european IPSC, the distances between shooting positions can be quite short, which means that the loads need to be fast. The gen 5 skeleton design also allowed us to increase the mounting possibilities on different belt clips, and the least belt space consuming design is of course very useful on any type of belt or setup. We're very happy about the interest our systems have gotten. We are very committed competitive shooters ourselves, so it feels very rewarding to be able to develop new systems and techniques that are adopted by the competitors and evolve the sport. - Jaakko Viitala

Here is 7,27 with a pump