flippermaj

A good right up and result. I was working at 0100 last night and what a nice moon it was. Moon flighting is something I have never really tried properly I keep trying to get motivated to do it but never seem to get there! In wind Skye at the moment so it will have to wait for Januarys moon.

I was hoping no one would be interested in this and then get it in the New Year! I have the SXP and the local gun dealer has a 1200 on the shelf. I picked it up and cycled it and could not believe how smooth it was, a fair bit smoother than the SXP. Only problem is that the dealer wants £450 for it which is rather pricey. It did get me thinking on why the 1200 was so much smoother than the SXP (mine is the 3.5 inch model) Can I make mine any slicker? If the sale falls through please email email! Cheers

A good result there. Interesting use of the fibre wads, may look into that for next season. Bernard on here has done a few loads with them. Meant to say, a nicely composed photo!

Your location may help get a response?

I used to do more morning duck shooting than goose shooting but I always had to wait for a low tide at dawn to be able to get on the mud and get to grips with the ducks. Over time as I have got older I seemed to have moved more towards flighting the geese as it's easier from an access point of view and there just seem to be way more geese than ducks where I am. Having said that I mush prefer the ducks. So I decided to try a morning flight at a nice remote spot that I used to go to regularly but haven't visited for 7 years. The reason for the lack of a visit is that this place takes some getting to and can be a bit hit or miss. It's a 40 min drive, a 20 min bike ride and another 20 min walk across the mud, may not seem much to some but I am spoilt and can get to my local bits in 30 mins in total. Anyway a bad back over the last few years has put me off the bike ride part of the trip but with some improvements on that front and low tide coinciding with dawn and a good gale I decided to set forth. It was blowing a hooley and I couldn't even get the hide\netting to stay up, I ended up with just a mini bit wrapped around 4 canes to give something to break up my silouette. I almost thought it would be too windy for the duck to move but luckily I was proven well wrong. Packs of widgeon and mallard were all over the place and made for some tricky shooting in the gale and half light but it was great to be there in among it all in a proper remote bit of the shore. I should have done better but managed 2 Widgeon and 2 Mallard so I was very happy with that. The bike ride back is a right dog, all up hill but I made it! No 4x4 for me!!!

I have really only been experimenting with the tss duplex loads. Probably shot more at paper than geese so far! I ran one shot through a Winchester sxp pump 3.5 inch chambered gun with a kicks extra full choke and at 40 yards it patterned fairly tight see the pic. I shot a few early season geese with tss and seemed to be fine. Saturdays was the first really rangy one I have shot at and when I processed it this afternoon I was pleased to see several no 7 tss had hit the target plus a couple of steel pellets. The tss went straight through the bird. The limit is really your marksmanship. Generally I use 36grm steel 1 factory stuff but there are times and particular particular places where I certainly don’t want any birds sailing on so I am hoping the tss will be handy for stopping them good and proper when needed. I also wanted a decent goose load for a 70mm cart so I could still carry on with an older AYA side by side as well as the 3inch mg Zabala. Went the duplex route as it’s cheaper and I don’t think you need much more than 16 grm of tss.

Well it always seems to be hard to get to grip with the geese after Bonfire night, the big moon and poor tides often mean a few blanks. The poor end to the summer meant that there have been several fields of barley that never got cut so the normal flight lines have become a bit disrupted as all the geese seem to focus on the one field for weeks at a time. So a plan was hatched to get under them after a few blanks as they had and still are all going to one field a mile from the seawall so I knew the line. Set out to try Friday morning and get to the seawall and with high tide at 0900 the geese were literally 50 yards the other side of the seawall. They messed around as they do. I moved up and down the seawall to match them. I had to make one final move along the seawall to get into "the" spot. There are several deep and wide drainage ditches that run down the sides of the fields to the seawall. There are sections of armco barrier laid across the ditches at key spots to allow a precarious crossing, I could have waded this ditch but as it was freezing I thought I would use the armco bridge to keep the dog out of the cold water. I had already crossed 2 that morning and knew they would be slippey with ice. However I totally miss judged this crossing and my feet flew away from under me and I slammed into the bridge and then in to the freezing water below, all with waders and back pack on and gun held high out of the water. Slapped my face good and proper so had to retire asap to the car, watched 1000s flight off nice and low as I walked back! So back at it again this morning, I knew exactly were to go so set up in a very comfortable position behind the seawall and sat it out. Had 5 swans fly straight over my head barely 6 ft up, amazing sight and sound. 1000s of geese just 150 yards out from me so let 3 early easy ones go unsaluted as I thought a better chance would arise and there would be a better chance of a prolonged flight as again it would probably be one shot and they would all be off. Several skeins lifted and circled around before heading over the seawall, all too high or wide. Finally a mass lot lifted and although high enough I dropped one nicely with a home load of TSS. With the shot the rest all lifted and cleared off, end of flight but what a great one and finally back under them.

Another cracking video. May even inspire me to join a syndicate! Thanks

Having a nose around on Youtube and came across this chap with a pair of Purdeys. What do you make of his technique? This isn't a criticism in any way and it may just be the way it's filmed. I was just surprised at how quick his style was, almost stabby? Seemed to work for him though. Swing through?? Churchill Method? Whats he doing? Cheers Flipper (who will never be able to own a pair of Purdeys!) Clip is at

Great stuff as always. Cheers for making the films

Agree totally with Dave above and have used steel for fowling just asDave has. interesting article in the latest basc mag, the chap fired steel out of a muzzle loader without using any wad cup at all, No damage to the barrel at all. Not sure I am ready for that yet!

Quick question for anyone who owns such a slip, are they padded at all?

Cheers smudged. What’s the problem with choke damage? Seems strange that a fibre cup/wad can damage the chokes.

Hi Dave, sorry for being a bit ignorant here but what is an obturator? If I explore this further I would like to load a 36grm no1 orr 2 steel load in 12 bore. What loads have you done in the 12? cheers

Scully, Technically you are 100% right, very difficult to prove what the contents of the empty carts was. However the probability is that many held lead.

Following on from a post in the wildfowling section "Another Nail in the coffin" I have the following questions. 1) Can you buy on line any "eco wads" for steel shot wildfowling loads for home loaders? 2) Is it possible to make any such wad for steel shot (or TSS)? Cheers Flipper

The problem with all of those who think this is a non story is that sadly these non stories find there way in front of influential people and committees etc who have the power to change rules, regs and laws. So to just dismiss it as a non story may be a bit short sighted. Sadly my personal experience of shooting on the fore shore in Scotland suggests that there are many who do not stick to the non toxic rules so from that point of view we are our own worst enemy. If we cant be compliant we will be forced to be compliant, I believe this is what happened in Denmark when shooters continued to use lead when they should not have? Yes some of the empties may be home reloads with non toxic but I would suspect that these will be a minority as most fowlers I know use shop purchased carts. Someone said that there are bio degradeable cartridges now (Bio Ammo?), however getting hold of them is difficult or impossible if you want steel wildfowling loads. I think they are the only manufacturer? Eley and Gamebore do eco wads with steel fowling loads but if you have a semi there is the problem of picking the empties up anyway so there will always be some plastic littering however hard you try if you have a semi. Plastic wads, they were about way before fowlers had to use steel shot, the magnum lead loads all had plastic wads so this is not a new problem due to the use of steel carts. If you home load your own carts (from what I see) there are no eco wads, all you can buy are plastic wads for steel. Dave, thank you for a good post and raising the issue. Best of luck keeping your local wildfowling rights.

The fore ends even from the same model will not fit with out some tinkering Past experience!

As said leave soaking in tub of oil or diesel for a few days and then the way I did it is to put your choke key pointing upwards into a bench vice. Then place the barrels down over the choke key and once securely located turn the barrels to undo the choke. Much greater leverage this way.

Probably my last chance to get at the pigeons with the decoys this summer and the last day this week with any wind so I gave it a go. This field has been shot 3 times already in the last 2 weeks (twice by me) so it was always going to be a challenge. It was helped by the fact that the farmer started ploughing it in on Monday but has stopped short of doing the whole field so there is a nice concentrated bit of rape stubble. It was baking hot, wall to wall sunshine, so I set up in the shade of a tree in the hedge line, no need for any hide as they simply couldn't see me in the shade. Some decoyed others didn't. Put the whirly out for the first time this year as I thought it would need something extra to get their interest. It was a a very slow start and I contemplated packing up and having a wander down to the seawall but the odd one kept coming so kept at it. Took 3 hrs to get 12 in the bag, should have been more but the shooting was a bit ropey. All destined for the in laws in Skye!

Hi Krico, It's not a Winchester, it's a AYA Yeaoman 2.75 inch chamber beavertail pistol grip 28 inch barrels. I am trying some home load TSS for the geese with it this season although shot a good few with it on standard steel loads in the past. Ditchman, Teal are delicious, probably the best of the duck to eat though a little small!

I am not usually one for starting so early, always shoot the last day but rarely the first week. Anyway, the tide and wind were good for a potential afternoon teal flight so as I had the time I thought why not even though there will not be many about yet. I always hold out that if there are no teal the pigeons usually oblige along a marsh flightline. As expected not too many about and they only moved on the last hour at the top of the tide. Nice to see them about and managed 3 plus a bonus pigeon.

Interesting, I patterned one of these on Monday in no1 shot 36 gram against the plastic wad eley lightning same load. Not exactly scientific but at forty yards through an old Zabala SxS mag (I know I shouldn’t😊) full choke the ESP bio wad patterned slightly tighter, 95 hits in a 30 inch circle. Thought the plastic wad lightning would have been the tightest but in this one cartridge of each test it wasn’t

Yep rape stubble on both occasions but this field had wheat stubbles next to it but they still preferred the rape

Took a couple of hours off this afternoon to see if there were many about. Set up in the wrong spot to start with so wasted the first 4 carts on near impossible birds. Moved around the field a bit and got them coming in okay. Managed 9 (1 not picked) for 15 which I was pleased enough with given the start of 4 for nought. Even managed two left and rights, the skeet practice is paying off! Not a bad result given the same field from the same spot was shot on Saturday by another shooter. Had another 8 last week so a grand summer total of 16 !