Jonno243

This might actually be the most abhorrent, vile, racist and bigoted thing I have ever had the displeasure to read on this forum. If that statement truly reflects your world view then you are beneath contempt.

Viht N160 for me...

As if I would...

But worthy enough of two pages of "vegans are snowflakes" / "young people are snowflakes" / "the country is in ruins because of snowflakes" / "everyone is a snowflake" type comments on here. Although, the comment by 243deer did make me laugh!

With basenotes like that? Floris "Elite" or "Santal", or if you want to go daft then their "Leather Oud".

The Blue Marlin is running in and out of Invergordon / Nigg currently. Last weekend she was lying at anchor in the Firth, but the previous time I saw her she was ballast down loading concrete structures on the approach to Nigg. I remember seeing a documentary on her and thinking "that must be an interesting experience", and then changing my mind on sailing past her and thinking "nope"...

In the field, yes. In a roadside service station, whilst making coffee, on the homeward leg of the journey? Not so much. You wouldn't take your loaded rifle, binoculars, dragging strap, saw etc in to the services, why would you take your knife.....?

That is what happens when expert "Deer Managers" get involved! Slightly disappointed that it got shut down to be honest, I was only just getting warmed up...

The perceived stabilization issue with the .243WIN / 100gr combination is a misconception in that the mass of the bullet is somewhat secondary to the dimensions of the bullet. Heavy for caliber bullets tend to boat-tailed and much longer, giving a much greater bearing surface. To ensure good stability with such a construction one has to increase the velocity in a "standard" 1-10" barrel, however in .243 it is often not possible to drive them fast enough due to pressure constraints. The way around this is to use a shorter, flat-based bullet like the Sierra Prohunter (to my mind the benchmark .243 100gr bullet). My pet load uses a Prohunter over N160 in Sako brass and, assuming that I do my part properly, will print <0.5MOA with boring regularity (factory standard Steyr Luxus with a 1-10" twist). 100gr factory options from Sako, Federal and RWS will hover between 0.5-1MOA, slightly looser for Winchester and Norma. 105gr Geco will sit ever so slightly above the 1MOA mark. Against my better judgment I tried to develop a load using 103gr ELD-X / N160 last year and when initial testing returned a best grouping of 6MOA (no, not a typo unfortunately!) I came over all petulant and launched the remainder of the box into a drawer to gather dust. If you feel that you NEED a longer, boat-tail for the improved BC they deliver (and trust me on this, at the ranges you quoted, you do not!) then your only option is to drop the weight below 90gr and drive them faster, otherwise try out the 100gr options from Sako, RWS and Federal (based on my experiences) and see how you get on. As an aside, I have recently read that factory barrels on US production rifles, particularly Remington and Savage, have a slight faster twist-rate; hence why Sierra offer two 100gr standard-hunting options, Prohunter (short and flat) for "standard" twist and Gameking (longer, boat-tailed) for faster twist. As a secondary aside, I note with interest that you say the grouping improved significantly once the moderator was removed? This would imply to me that the ammunition / barrel is not to blame, but rather the moderator or (more likely) the threading is to blame...

Finally a sensible voice. Well done sir.

And, until recently, neither did any other shooting organisation, the Government, Natural England, or most importantly the thousands of shooters who regularly used these licenses. (you know, the ones that are supposed to ensure that the fully understand and comply with the terms of the license) Some of the responses on social media to this event have been quite frankly pathetic at best and downright divisive at worst. There is a lot of talk about the likes of Packham / Avery / Tingay et al. being the biggest danger that shooting faces, to be honest I think that the biggest danger is the MASSIVE negative attitude and divisiveness displayed by a lot of shooters. Now is not the time to be bitching and whining about shooting organisations, now is the time to get behind them. If you don't like the way they are run then do something about it. Stand for election, change the way that they work. Or you could continue to whine on the internet, that will obviously solve the problems...

There will now be a lot of very, very worried professional pigeon guides I should think...

Is this a recent thing? They sent me ELD-X last year with no problems (other than waiting a hell of a long time to get them in stock...)

Morning zipdog, The mod came as part of a rifle package when I was chopping in my existing .243 It cost me a Mannlicher Model L plus T8 plus a few quid to get a Mannlicher Luxus plus Lawrence. The single trigger of the Luxus and the Lawrence were the drivers. Owning one now I would happily pay for another. I'm looking at adding a 7mm sometime soon and will likely put a Lawrence on that.

I was previously using a T8 which was fantastic except for the monstrous weight. Finally bit the bullet (so to speak) and went for a Lawrence Precision titanium job and I cannot sing its praises highly enough. Great sound suppression, doesn't add undue length and oh so light. I barely even know that it is there.

If you are talking about holding value as an investment then it has to be Rolex. As much as I love Omega, and indeed a Seamaster is my "everyday" wear, I have found over the years that nothing performs (in financial terms) like a Rolex. To date I have never lost any money on one.

It is arguable that it is in fact not being "given" away. Those birds have already been bought and paid for by the guns...

Could not agree more, and furthermore it is a preoccupation that seems even more apparent with rifles. I see more and more a quest to push bullets as fast as humanly possible in an effort to flatten trajectory ("I can hold dead on from 0yds to 350yds" blah blah blah), I also see (more and more) deer turning up with the front end written off with massive great holes in them and bruising spread from throat to ribcage.

I see your Berlinair, and raise you one "Trans Air Congo" from Pointe Noire to Brazzaville and return (Republic of the Congo). I still picture it in my nightmares.... Returning to the OP however, I echo most of the above. Mainstream carrier - Virgin, "Budget" carrier - Norwegian.

We organise an awful lot of driven shooting each year (running 4 of our own syndicates, plus additional corporate and group bookings) and are finding an increasing reluctance on the part of many estates to offer what they term "smaller bag" driven days. Just a few years back a 100 bird day was not a problem, nowadays it seems that many estates are stipulating a 150 bag minimum. From a commercial point of view I can see their logic. It "costs" the same (in terms of beaters / pickers up / running costs etc) to run a 100 bird day as a 500 bird day, thus they are seeing more "profit" on a bigger day. From a personal point of view I tend to agree with you. The thought of a 500 bird day at pheasant or partridge does nothing for me...

I assume that you have raised your concerns with the licensing department then? Or is complaining on an internet forum about the apparent injustice of him being granted sufficient to allay any fears you have about public safety?

As an aside, an elderly gentleman farmer of my acquaintance has shot all his days with a 16 bore Dickson round-action that was made for his mother. I was speaking to him last month about the gun and he told me that it was manufactured to specification with a full-length tapered left barrel and a "normally" choked muzzle-constriction right barrel, although I cannot for the life of me work out why? I will catch up with him in the next week or two, and would like to have a look at the gun, and will also have a blether with Mark next time I am up in Dunkeld to see if he can dig anything up in the Dickson records.

Fully agreed, and it is a real bugbear of mine seeing empty cases lying around. Whilst reloading plastic cases (whether privately or by the manufacturer) would go some way towards mitigating environmental impact there will still come a point where their usable service life is done and they become simply additional plastic waste. With plastic being such a hot topic nowadays (and rightly so if you ask me) any move to lessen overall environmental impact should be viewed as a good thing. As a caveat to that, I would stress that disposal should not be the only concern when weighing up impact. The impact of the manufacturing process etc should also be taken into account, something that the minority "holier than thou" hybrid car brigade should bear in mind sometimes (have you ever seen a lithium mine? or the production facilities where these batteries are made for example?) As I mentioned, it is merely somewhat of an idealistic dream to be honest...

Whilst I agree that 36g is a little on the heavy side for me for a day game shooting it seems that nowadays (when everyone wants to be a "high-bird shot") such a load is becoming much more fashionable. I tend to move between a 28g and a 32g load (in 6's or 5's) depending on where I am shooting and what gun I am using, whilst late season on a couple of estates I might move to 34g (in 5's or 4's) if I know that particular drives are to be included in the day. I do like the thought of a pure fibre cartridge, in fact there is a part of me that would like to see a return to paper case cartridges to nullify the environmental impact as much as possible. Surely in this day and age, with technology being what it is, there shouldn't be too many drawbacks to a paper case? Whilst I am quite a geek when it comes to rifle ballistics, I have never really got into shotgun ballistics to any sort of degree. Does copper plating actually make much of an impact? (excuse the unintentional pun...)

I just had a quick Google... Apparently in the early 1700's average (English) life expectancy at birth was 34 years. By the 1800's that had risen to 40 years (if you made it passed the "child" stage then your life expectancy increased a fair bit) I would guess that blood pressure / cholesterol issues were probably always there (although I suspect that the modern diet may have caused more issues with regards cholesterol), but as has been noted previously they were unknown and / or people normally died before they became too much of an issue....