inshallah

97856

Northolt, Near Heathrow.

I re-insured my Volvo estate yesterday. Sensible car, I'm 43, have a PhD., I'm a motorcycle instructor, and never had a point on my licence. Last year I was living in a wood in Wales - quote for renewal £243. I told them that I'd moved back to my boat in London, and asked if it would change the premium. "Yes" they said. "It will now be £670". I had to take it too because I couldn't find another quote that was much under a grand. Robbery.

You're right. This is for the whole population, so there will be a bias if legal drugs are more widely used than illegal ones. But even if you normalise it to the population you'll still probably only get heroin that looks more dangerous than booze and fags. As for wondering if more people would use drugs if they were legalised - my gut feeling is that most people who want to take drugs do, and those who don't, don't. I personally wouldn't if they were legalised. But there may be some increase. This might be balanced by making heroin and cocaine safer with better manufacturing control and strengths on the labels like you get on beer and spirits.

Deaths from drugs 2000-2004, from http://www.drugscope.org.uk/resources/faqs/faqpages/how-many-people-die-from-drugs Cocaine 575 Amphetamine 384 Ecstasy 227 Solvents 246 Opiates (heroin, morphine & methadone) 4,976 Alcohol 25,000 - 200,000 approx. Tobacco half a million approx. Note that LSD isn't on the list because it would be a big fat 0. Also, cannabis deaths are hard to distinguish from smokers, but there are very few if any direct deaths. Basically, alcohol and tobacco are so dangerous that if they were discovered now they would be banned. I don't take illegal drugs. I like a drink and I'm an ex-smoker. But my view is that this debate should be driven by SCIENCE, not opinion. Sacking prof. Nutt for presenting scientific truths was just wrong. When you consider the facts - tobacco deaths of half a million, LSD deaths 0, how can anyone possible argue that taking LSD is more dangerous than smoking? Why then, ban LSD and allow tobacco? It just doesn't make sense. I'm not arguing for the drug users. I'm arguing for science and rationality. Look at the numbers.

Cigarettes are drugs. So is alcohol. So is a cup of tea.

A couple of people on here have hit the nail on the head when they criticised student numbers. I just wanted to add my support to those comments. I think a university education should be elitist. Very elitist. Only the very brightest, regardless of their background or wealth, should get into university, and those who can't afford it get the fees paid and a full maintenance grant lo live on. And university admissions should take into consideration someone's background and access to education. For example, if someone from the worst of inner-city hell-hole school gets 3 Bs and a C at A-level then I would think they are more deserving than someone who has had the best private education but only managed 2 As an 2 Bs. There is nothing new in this idea. You only have to return to the early 80s and before when A-levels were hard, only the best got in, and they got a grant. Its a shame that 'proper' students get tarred with the same brush as the waste of space cretins that shouldn't be there. I did physics at university and ended up getting a PhD. I had to work VERY hard to get my degrees. And to compare what I did, and award the same level of qualification, to someone who did applied hamster knitting and ice-cream studies is just ludicrous. The country could afford to educate and support 8% of the country's brightest to go to university, and would be paid back 10 times by the benefits that those people bring to the economy. If those individuals benefit greatly financially, they will pay back their degree in income tax.

Ringing of wild birds is done for science research. All they want to do is gather data for their research, and need to know the fate of the bird for their experiment. They won't judge at all for shooting it. Any PROPER scientific research (e.g. by museums and universities, GWCT etc.) is a good thing for our countryside. Completely different set of people to the tree hugger antis.

Nicely put. Well done for speaking up.

I was flicking through 'hunting with air rifles' by mathew manning the other day and saw something about shooting pests in the garden. It mentioned pigeons eating your veg, and showed a photo of a dead woodie. When I read it, I wondered if it was legal. It also mentioned baiting pests. OK for rats, but I thought you couldn't put down bait to lure birds.

Now that's nice. I want one. I bet they won't be on the shelves at Tescos for £99 however... My idea was much more simple, but I guess if Webley went to all the trouble of making that complicated design then my simple hack as a flaw or two.

Could you have an airgun that has a very small pressure chamber that you pump up with one stroke. The pressure chamber has a regulator valve so that it pumps up to exactly the same pressure every time you cock it. You could have either a break barrel or underleaver, cock the gun and pressurise the cylinder. When you pull the trigger it released the pressure from the cylinder to fire the pellet. It would be zero-recoil like a pcp but operate just like a springer. If not, why not?

Here's the results from pertcontroller4u's rifle, just in case anyone's interested. Looks pretty good between 120 and 160. I'm not sure if the scatter is genuine shot-to-shot variation or the error associated with the chrono. Just depends on how good the chrono is! Probably a bit of both. Really drops off at low pressure just as I have seen from my S310 from looking at the point of impact.

When I bought my S310 I had all sorts of trouble with it. OK, it's a 10 year old gun, and maybe it needs a service, but I couldn't hit (inanimate) targets consistently. I spent 3 months practicing and trying to learn how to shoot. Eventually I convinced myself it wasn't me, it was the gun. After a lot of testing I found that it shoots very straight with Bisley Magnums with a pressure of between 120 and 150 bar. AA Fields, JSB exacts and many others just spray around all over the place. I have chrono'd a few shots with it at my local club just to make sure it was at the right power (11.2 ft lb measured). But the test I have described on this thread is exactly what I needed to do to sort out the problem, and it would have saved me weeks of guessing if I'd had a chrono and could have done the tests. Now, at the club, resting the gun on a pile of carpet tiles, I can hit a pound coin sized object at 35 yards pretty much every time with the bisleys and at the right fill presure. With any other pellets I'd be lucky to hit a tennis ball every shot. The down side is that Bisley Magnums in .22 drop like bricks, and this limits my hunting range to about 28 yards due to my chosen zero of 25 yards. I'm not a great shot, so in the field shooting from, e.g., a sitting position, this is about my limit anyway, so it's not too much of a problem. 45 yard rabbiting is out of my league.

I don't really understand the experiment you're trying to do. You say you will try 3 different pellet brands at 3 different pressures. But you also say you will do 60 shots. Is this all at the same pressure? Will you pump the gun up after each shot? Or if you don't, you have a different pressure each shot? The way to do it is to fill the gun up to max, fire your 60 pellets (first brand) and take a chrono reading for each one. Then pump it up again and go on to the next brand of pellets, shot another 60 and record all the velocities. Then do the next brand. Then you have a record of each pellet over the whole pressure range. Just from the list of numbers you will get some idea of when the power drops off and and also some idea of the shot to shot consistency. What I was suggesting in my previous post is if you plot these numbers on a graph you should see a nice curve. I would expect the power to drop off at both ends of the pressure range (very high pressure and when the pressure drops very low). In the middle you will hopefully see a nice flat part of the curve (typically with a pressure of 160 down to 120 or so) where the power doesn't change much. You then know that if you keep your gun in this pressure region, the accuracy will be OK as far as pressure goes. The other thing that effects accuracy is the shot to shot consistency. Again, from the list of numbers, you can see if the velocity jumps around a lot. But if you plot the results (same plot as before, just plot the velocity against shot number) you will visually see how much the velocity jumps around shot to shot. If you get less scatter on one of the brands of pellets, that might be the one to go for. You might also see that the shot-to-shot consistency varies at different parts of the power curve for different pellets. My S310 less consistent at higher pressures for example. This will be obvious from the plot too - just look at the amount of scatter you have at different parts of the power curve. Probably the easiest way to produce the plot is just to type the numbers from one of the pellet runs into a single column in excel, select that column and then just plot it as a line or scatter plot. You will then see the power curve and the scatter. Do the other pellet brands just the same. You can also plot all the pellet brands on a single graph, in different colours, and then you will very easily be able to see which one's the best. The next step is only of you're feeling very geeky. It's a bit harder to do, but it will give you a numerical value of the shot to shot consistency and make the graph easier to see the scatter. What you need to do is fit a curve through the points. Think of this as a 'model' of your power curve. If the gun was 'perfect' in terms of shot-to-shot consistency then all the readings would fall exactly on this line. In reality there will always be some inconsistency, so each velocity will be slightly off the line. Plot the curve on the same plot as the measured results. The better the pellet, the closer to the 'ideal' line they would be. You can also turn this into a single number that describes the shot-to-shot performance by summing the differences of the squares of the model and data at each point. The one with the lowest number might be the best pellet. The model that you use would be 2 v = a(n-n0) + b(n-n0) + c v is the velocity and n is the shot number. You have to calculate a, b and c and n0 to be values that produce the best fit of the curve to your measurements. You will need a computer and and statistical software to do this. You can do this in excel by using 'fit trendline -> polynomial -> order 2' I've attached a plot that I've just made with simulated data (I don't have a chrono) to show you what it should look like pelets.tiff

If you are going to the trouble of shooting 60 shots for different batches of pellets, it would be well worth plotting the results. You could do this in Matlab or Octave or something similar, or even excel if you must. Plot f.p.s on the vertical axis against shot number. Then you should be able to see the flattest part of the power curve. Plotting all the pellets on the same plot would be interesting. (Make sure you start at the same pressure.) Variation between shots will be seen as more scatter on the curves. If you want a numerical indication of the shot-to-shot scatter you could fit a parabola to the measurements and look at the chi-squared value from the fit. If you get some results then please post them on PW. I've wanted to do this for ages with my .22 S310, but I don't have a chrono., so I'd love to see your results. If you just post the values I'll plot them if you like. Might even do the parabola fit, but not promising because with college 4 days a week and work 3 days, I'm a bit busy...

Best I ever saw was a pink open top MG going down the A40 into London. I was on my bike on my way to work, and I was unsure about overtaking because the thing kept weaving about and not staying in the lane properly. I finally saw a clear spot and went for it. As I rode past I had a look to see what she was doing..... Shaving her legs. Yes. She was blonde.

What sort of swimming trunks do child molesters wear? ... ... .... Pedos.

Blimey. You can't argue with those...

Although my weekend aquatic residence (Grand Unioun Canal) is only 10 mins walk from fields, it's also 15 mins walk from the Central Line, so I'm up for it. Dave

There are various sites that do this. E.g. http://universimmedia.pagesperso-orange.fr/geo/loc.htm

So, back from the 'field of hares', and here's the story... Within 2 minutes I saw my first hare, only about 25 yards away! I got on the ground and steadied the gun, crosshairs just under the ear... And waited... The hare started hopping towards me, happily feeding. It was getting closer and closer... It must have got within 10 yards because the scope was out of focus by this time. I was chuckling to myself trying to think how much hold UNDER I'd need at this range. I had the crosshairs on it for about 5 minutes in total. Finally it saw/heard me and hopped away. I saw another 9 hares, just on that little 15 acre field, and played 'stalk the hare' with them, just creeping up to them to see how close I could get and just watched them through the scope. Didn't take a shot, but didn't come home empty handed. I had a lovely time. Great to see them. They'll still be there tomorrow, or next week, or when I get a better gun.

Thanks for your support Terry. I'd like to have another day in the pigeons sometime if you're still doing it. When I get a day off...

Yes. I'd read that. But also found another reference to say it was legal (although that won't convince me that it is ethical). Off up to the permission in a few mins. I don't think I'll be shooting a hare 'though yet...

Awesome. I'll get the BSA .22 pistol out then.