Vince Green

Yeah sure thats not butting in, bring them on, the more the merrier

I have just bought a scope from these people. Faultless service, prices are unreal. They are in Hong Kong. www.market86.net

Incompatible threads on cleaning rods and brushes is an age old problem. Parker hale is sort of standard now but each manufacturer uses their own thread.

The other problem with reloading is sourcing the bits. Claygame is probably the best but you have to pay postage which all adds to the cost. You also now have the problem that a lot of dealers have been stopped by the police from selling primers by post. Its NOT the law so don't let anybody tell you it is. Its just some rule that somebody in the Home Office dreamed up. The way things are going powder will go the same way and gradually reloading will become nearly impossible.

You will never know unless you try. Problem is you would be on your own working up a loads and you would have to be using the latest high performance powders at the very limit. Do you have the knowledge and ability to develop loads like that?

I have bought a lot of bits from America over the years. This week I have bought a scope from Hong Kong. You should get charged import duty which is collected by the postman when he delivers it but often things get through without being charged. Always check out the Foreign sites if you want a bargain. If you get caught for duty its still worth it.

In general the answer is no. For standard 12 bore cartridges you can buy them cheaper than you can reload them but the pleasure of loading your own can be worth more than money alone. In general if you are going to reload then go for making quality cartridges and forget the cost. Years ago I could reload cartridges for half the price of bought cartridges but those days are long gone. If you are going to reload don't think about the money. Just enjoy the buzz it gives you. Everyone should try it because it adds to the feeling of sucess when you fold a pigeon with one of your own cartridges.

The .22 ammunition was around a few years ago, never seen anything else. Quite good cheap ammunition for .22 at the time.

Must semis are fussy about their ammunition and its not just shotguns, .22 rifles can be worse.

No smoking ban there then

I buy PPU all the time now and get very good results. When it first started getting imported it wasn't so good but now it is as good as the dearer stuff. Why pay more? .

I don't but I keep the receipt for what I buy, bullets powder and primers. That way I can prove I have been buying them but I have never had to show them

The true American definition of a wildcat is a one off custom special designed and built by you or made for you as a one off. A personal calibre that only you have. Something completely off the wall and some American wildcats are certainly off the wall. Some are totally weird. Its usually associated with having some extra feature thats not availble in an off the shelf rifle/calibre combiniation. In the past that almost always meant higher velocity by necking down another calibre but you would have to search hard these days to find anything that hasn't already been done. Lots of rich /mad Yanks have been doing it since the 60s but mostly it has been little more than an exercise in vanity and they are sometimes referred to as vanity calibres. If you do find something original to design you can then call it the .xxx Fister. If you are lucky and it gets accepted and goes into production then technically it ceases to be a wildcat in the true sense of the word. Many mainstream calibres today like the .243 started life as wildcats that got accepted. So if you want to design something totally unique you will need to get somebody to build you a rifle to fire it in because unlike the Americans very few of us have the ability to build or adapt out own rifles. Thats why I said you will need to buy a rifle.

The cheapest cartridges are not always the best. Sometimes its better to look for quality rather than just price alone. If you are game shooting you are not going to used that many unless you are very lucky and it could have an effect on your bag at the end of the day. Thats not to say that dearer cartridges are necessarily going to be better just because they are dearer. You have to look at the cartridges and decide for yourself.

Yes Fister but first you have to buy the rifle. Many of the American "wildcat" calibres are only available on rifles to special order.True out and out wildcats need a rifle made specially to the calibre. Like I said, thats not cheap. No reloading data available either and you will probably have to get the cases specially made for you as well. Its not for the ordinary shooter,

Any true wildcat requres a custom rifle and barrel. Big money! No supply of ammo except if you make it yourself. lots of problems for the average shooter, do you need it? Keep life simple.

£28 for Unique is a good price. Its much more that that around here About £39 a tub, I'd advise you to stock upwhile you still can. Its going to go up. The primers are not so good, I can get them for £25 a thousand. but thats only for S&B primers. Mind you they seem to work OK. I've been using them for a while.

Its dearer than lead so it costs more to produce the shot. Harder shot is favoured by clay shooters in particular for the reasons stated above. Most shot contains 2-5% antimony.

The lee tool is slow and it makes your hand ache. I have an ordinary woodworking countersink bit araldited into a file handle. Quicker, probably cheaper, and easier on the hand.

The Lee bushings always throw anything up to about 10% less powder than they say they are going to. I have come to the conclusion that this is deliberately done by them to protect themselves from being sued if there was ever an accident. So you do need some scales to check the charge.

I'm pretty sure Alphamax 16bores go back further that you think. I had an Eley catalogue for 1957 and I am sure they were around then. I gave the catalogue to a friend who collects cartridges but I will get him to check. I've sent him an e-mail. As soon as I hear back from him I will post it. If the cartridges were that old they would probably have gone off, the primers start to degrade and you get hang fires.

You can eat a rabbit with mixy in the sense that it isn't harmful to humans. however I don't think I would like to. I wouldn't give it to the dogs either. I remember them telling us that BSE wouldn't affect humans or dogs until it was too late. Actually mixy doesn't kill a rabbit. At least not outright. the rabbit dies a slow death out in the cold and wet or gets taken by a fox or attacked by crows. They wander away from their burrows and can't find their way back. I hadn't heard the thing about foxes ignoring a rabbit with mixy, in my experience a fox will take anything. We used to shoot the rabbits inthe back of the head with an air rifle and dump them in a hedge but they had usually gone by the next day. It may well be that in a bad epidemic there are just so many rabbits around that the fox can't eat them all. You often see rabbits with mixy out in the rain soaking wet and starving because it can't find food or is too ill to eat. Once the weather gets colder and wetter they will die in droves. Many rabbits do recover though and you will see rabbits with scarring round their eyes but otherwise healthy once the epidemic has passed. it seems to return to an area every three years or so

Yes thats about it. However, its not as easy as it looks. getting the temperature, the drop and the slope JUST right is an art.

Norma bullets in general are top bullets and always worth the extra. So are Lapua bullets. Pricey in general but my old mate Ron used to say something I have often has cause to reflect on his wisdom He used to say "cheap bullets are the most expensive bullets you will ever buy". or a variation on that was "You have to be a very rich man to be able to afford cheap ammunition" so often I have found him to be right.

I just wanted to say that both the rifles I bid for were lost to higher bids and both went for over the estimated prices. I am just posting this so that others might find it useful if they decide to bid in the future, Even at the prices they went for both rifles were bargains, one was only £7 over my bid. You live and learn. I still think its a good way to buy guns .