The RMTC club range is located in a cellar under a church hall and it usually benefits from being well heated and is a comfortable place to have a club range and is a pleasant place to shoot - especially since its "recent" upgrade and refit.

Since the Covid epidemic first struck us all, the club range the church and the church hall have all been locked-up and closed to everyone, so a lot of our equipment has remained safe but locked-up in our steel lockers inside the clubs cellar range.

For a year or so the church premises has been unoccupied and so the heating has been switched off and our club range has been cold (and a little damp).

Last week Bart49 was able to gain access to the club range and recovered a couple of our shooting jackets - but unfortunately they smell just like they have been locked in a cold damp steel container for the last 12 months....probably because they have been!

These jackets need to be made less smelly (preferably not smelly at all!).

The outside leather is not too bad, but the canvas linings are the parts that are holding the damp smell. At the moment my jacket is outside in the fresh air (and rain) with the canvas inner exposed most to the weather, but I doubt that will fix it and we probably need to give the canvass a good scrubbing before allowing it to dry and air slowly to prevent any damage to the outer leather body of the jacket.

If anyone has successfully washed a leather shooting jacket to rid it of any undesirable smells, please let us know what "products" you used so we can get ours ready in time for the RMTC club re-opening.