Vince Green

Roughly speaking most bullets by weight are 95% lead. But if you are looking at teaching a class about the envirionmental impact of ammunition look towards the current issues of birth defects in Faluja caused by the American use of depleted uranium shells which are still very dodgy in in terms of legality.

Red dot is a fast burning powder which uses less powder (typically 19.5 grns) so it is favoured because you get more loads out of a tub of powder, but its a bit harsh. Green dot is IMO a much better powder for heavier loads (1-1/8th) and gives a nicer recoil and a better cartridge but it costs more. It depends whether you just want to produce the cheapest cartridge possible or you are looking for quality and are prepared to pay a bit more to get it. I would go for green dot every time.

Where I live you hear the shooting from the West London Shooting ground but its not a problem to me I like it, its a nice sound but I'm biased. I mentioned it once to one of my neigbours he said he had never even noticed it in all the years he had lived there. The antis have their own agenda though. They just don't like shooting, full stop. Many old clubs have been closed down because of noise even if they were there years before the houses. However, to be closed down the noise should have to exceed a certain level ( and usually it doesn't ) but clubs haven't got the money to fight it .

The trouble with a solid is where it goes after it leaves the rabbit. They can go a long way and will deflect off a clump of wet grass or sloping ground and just keep on going. A mushroomed bullet, even if it goes right through the rabbit will have lost much of its energy and is too deformed to fly far although its still potentilly a problem and you should always watch whats behind the rabbit. I'm not sure if its actually legal to use solid bullets on game, its certainly frowned upon and would not be regarded as safe practice if something happened.

Shooters Choice for me. Its faster than 009 for removing copper or lead but I also have a bottle of Shooters Choice copper remover that I use from time to time to give the bore a real birthday. Don't use any of them though as a rust preventer to keep in the bore. For that I use Express Gun Oil but always swab it out with a couple of dry patches before shooting.

It takes a fair bit for an AYA to go loose normally but even so it shouldn't be a problem to get it tightened. The trouble is it won't last that long before it goes loose again. Personally I would look for a cheap Baikal O/U. They handle much better than you think they are going to and will never ever go loose.

I "own" a rifle in the States that was left to me by my friend Jim who died of Leukaemia last year. Its all but impossible to get it back here, I have checked believe me. Its virtually impossible to overcome the anti terrorist hype.

Slugs are 1oz or less (7/8oz) and loading tables drive them at about 1600 fps. Always stick to the loading tables for best results. A lot of slugs give poor accuracy and its quite an art loading for them. There are many weird and wonderful designs of slugs on the market. The ones you describe sound like they came from a Lyman Mould, casting them is one cheap option if you can get them to fly straight but a lot of the commercial ones have big flutes on them to make them spin as they pass through the air. Its much more difficult than loading ordinary shotgun cartridges. Properly loaded with the right slugs you shoud be able to get 2-3" groups at 100 yds but with the wrong loads and the wrong slugs you won't even get a group. More to the point, you won't even get them on the target.

Eley have tradionally used their own, Hull have used Fiocci. A lot of the Hull cartridges are headstamped as Hull but are still Fiocci cases. I don't know if that has changed in recent years but the last time I looked they were Fiocci.

You are right, its simply supply and demand.

Don't forget the miles you have to drive or the carriage you have to pay to get all your stuff.

Years ago when plastic wads became a possibility the cartridge manufacturers saw a great advantage, cost and ease of loading on automated production lines being the main two. The problem was that they had to sell the idea to shooters who were a traditional bunch and not given to accepting new ideas very easily. Espescially when it involved something that was plastic. What they did was to make a big case for the advantages of plastic wads. much of it was hype, some if it was maginally true but none of it made a lot of difference to the average shooter. That situation is still true today.

There is no saving in cost but on the other hand it feels great to down a bird with one of your own. When I started reloading I could save half the price of a cartridge. I don't really understand why the costs have gone up so much but on the other hand over time you learn more about cartridges and what goes in them. I now load 1 1/8 oz cartridges with fibre wads and a slow burning powder. I could buy them for less but I feel my loads are superior to anything on the market and boy! do they feel good to shoot. Cheap cartridges = small shot charges+plastic wads and fast burning powders, all to keep down costs not to give best quality. My reloads are better.

Even if I'm buying ammo to use on the day I still get them to put it on my certificate so I can prove I have made some purchases when it gets to renewal time. Besides I usually buy more than I intend to use that day because there are often shortages and it would be annoying to turn up and not be able to buy any ammunition. Its never a problem with 7.62 but some of the other calibres are a bit erratic. Last year they ran right out of .357 for example. Fortunatly they had some in Fultons but it was a lot dearer.

The impression I have is that PP cases are very good for reloading. I have bucketfulls in my garage and I fully intend to load them one day but cost for cost I can buy new for the same price as reloading so I just end up buying more new. It makes you vey lazy but come the next shortage I will load them. Somebody told me that the PP factory makes cases for Norma now (headstamped Norma presumably). I don't know if thats true but its feasable because their production costs would be cheaper than in Sweden.

There is a little problem with loading RG cases. It depends on what you have on your FAC. RG cases are headstamped 5.56. If you have authority for .223 ammunition on your FAC then its not always seen as being legal to be in possession of 5.56. I know its all the same calibre in reality but I have heard of people having problems because they have a 7.62 rifle and reload .308 cases. Very pedantic IMO but thats how it is these days. The NRA issued a warning about it a couple of years back I know that dealers and the NRA at Bisley won't sell you 5.56 ammo on a .223 certificate. When you apply for a certificate you should specify the calibre as 5.56/.223 or 7.62/308 to get round this problem but a lot of people haven't. Its what is on the headstamp that counts. A similar story I heard of recently involved a person who had bought a .357 mag gallery rifle. and was authorised to own .357 ammunition. His club sold him some .38 Special ammunition and both he and the club got into all sorts of trouble when he got a routine visit from his FEO.

My friend's mum died of it when he was seven. Its like a very bad chest infection that doesn't respond to antibiotcs. Interestingly, they never identified where she picked it up from.

The "official" line is that within reasonable limits barrel length has no effect on accuracy. With a scoped rifle this makes no difference. However, on a target .22 it is desirable to have the front and rear sights as far apart from each other as possible for maximum accuracy so target rifles have long barrels for the sole purpose of extending the sights.

Sorry, I didn't mean to upset the farmers and "proper" users. I was referring to the talk among the clubs where the view is apparantly growing that as long as you have a FAC for stalking/ vermin etc a pistol is not impossible obtain. You only have to see by the growing number of adverts for them in the shooting press that there must be a market. Dealers don't waste their money on buying stock and advertising unless there is somebody at the end of the line to buy the pistols.

Any sort of bait works as long as its regular. I tell my customers to leave a bit of food in the same place every night for a week and I'll be along with my trap after that. Foxes are creatures of habit, they don't roam randomly. In towns they tour the dustbins and the fast food shops in a set order every night. Thats their downfall. The other thing is that they soon wise up to a trap. Its not unknown to catch an old fox in a trap but if the area has been trapped before you will only ever catch young foxes. If you want to catch an old fox you have to leave a trap out with the door jammed open for weeks and let the young foxes take the bait away each night before the old fox finally accepts it and ventures in. You have just missed out on the best way to find out your foxes route each night - snow.

The brass is good quality too, I forgot to mention that

Ammo components have gone up a lot too and the supply situation can be anything from erratic to absolutely dire. Remember you can produce good quality ammunition when you reload but its not guranteed. You need to do a lot of testing and experimenting and that costs money. I have suggested this before, try Privi Partisan ammo, there is no guarantee your rifle will like it but if it does you are in clover. Its around £10 for a box of 20 but the dealers hate it because its less profit for them, my local dealer slags it off every time I go in there. Its heavily subsidised but its not rubbish and best of all its not American with all the cost implications. No ammo suits all rifles but in my rifle PP shoots better than Winchester. Its on a par with my reloads. I shoot about 600 rounds a year at all ranges out to 600 yds and I am very suprised at just how good it is. I've given up reloading completely since I latched on to PP. Try some, What have you got to lose?

People aren't really applying for them because they want them for despatch, thats just what you have to put on the form to get one. Suprisingly, the police don't appear too difficult about them. Everybody should apply

The fact that so many people are applying for them (I wonder why?) and getting them has given the NSRA and NRA some grounds to put pressure on the Government to relax the restrictions on owning target pistols for competitive shooting. At the club where my friend goes there is a bloke who owns one and brings it to the range like in the old days. He can only buy 50 rounds a year on his certificate but the club sells .38 Special anyway. If EVERYONE applied and kept applying it would push the issue a bit further.

The first thing you have to do is fire off an email to the Technical Dept at Remington in America . The second thing to do is Google "REMINGTON+SHOTGUN+PARTS" and look on the American parts websites. British suppliers in general are useless, they know nothing. "Computer says no"