Evilv

Aye - he's OK... You won't get his joke about eggs, he was complaining that I hadn't brought him any from my hens at home - I thought of trying to pay for the gun in omlettes and cabbages, but didn't think he'd accept, so I left 'em all at home. Cheers all.

Yup Axe, if you'd seen it you might have relented. It's a very nice example. As Rooster says up above, I think he put to bed the idea that you can't shoot at distance with an airgun and cleanly dispatch the quarry... I saw several examples of smackdowns and staydowns at the longer ranges from him. Me though - I'll have to stick to 40 as my top range, until I'm used to the new gun. Thanks for the offer of making a fill probe and adaptor Rooster (handy lad he is with that lathe) but I'm sorted now, and also got a plug to keep muck out of the filler orifice. I'll spend tomorrow trying things out up at the rabbit infested farm... Don't send 'em word though - I want 'em sitting out sunbathing when I get there...

Hey - thanks for that info Roblade. The Webley part is a sort of hole drilled in the end of the air chamber, maybe 20mm deep by about 4, or 5 in diameter. The fitting, which I saw at Rooster's place, is like a brass rod with two small holes in the centre and two 'o' rings either side of it in grooves. Five quid sounds more like it to me, unless it's a small production part, unique to Webley - on the other hand, I know where the gunshop is. Maybe I'll take a look in the yellow pages for 'pneumatics' and hoses and such. Cheers

Of course, if you're a strong lad, you could buy my old TX200HC with Simmons 3-9 X40 deerfield scope and my slightly dodgy silencer. Cheap as chips and twice as tasty for £180.... Now I've bought a new toy from Old_Rooster, I might not have the time to keep it exercised. I live near you 'an all. http://img361.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscn04043sy.jpg

Must have been a slow news day Axe. They made the point that the old Romans introduced the bunny to Britain, and that now it was undermining their archaeological remains - the kind of twist that appeals to 'em, I suppose.

I drove five hundred miles in the last two days to meet up with Rooster, and buy one of his Webley Axsors. It was worth every single tedious mile. The rifle is 'mint' and performs beautifully - I love it! After looking over the gun and parting with the readies, Old Rooster was decent enough to take me out shooting with it on one of his permissions, and we spent a very pleasant evening putting out the lights of a few bunnies. I am very impressed with what I brought home today, but having seen his new Daystate and watched him perform brain surgery on several rabbits at extened range, I can see why he wanted to change to his new machine. The amazing thing about it is the almost complete silence when it's electronic gizmos open the valve and let the pellet go. Since it has no hammer, all you hear is a sharp wizz and a loud thwack from the rabbit's brain box as they roll over and go to heaven. Quite a remarkable machine. Later we had a few beers and a ****** take away. Thanks for your hospitality Rooster - I appreciate it. By the way mate - the Hills pump, I picked up in York on the way home, is almost brand new, and all I need is an adaptor for the female hose fitting (about 12mm) to change it to the Webley fitting. The local gun shop say they have them for about £15 - seems a bit steep, but won't break the bank, so I'll toddle around there and get one tomorrow, then I'll be toting the pristine Axsor about on 'them thar hills....'

You could shoot them from the mock-up Roman watch towers and the full height reproduction of Hadrian's Wall. It's right near where I live - about half an hour. They'll probably gass 'em though.

Why would that be Dunganick? If it's a pest, it's a pest nomatter what it's ancestors were, surely?

Brilliant in my TX200 if I could only hold the ****** up. I'm thinking of having some kind of cantilever vest made so my arms don't get too tired, that, or either a pilon strapped to my back so I could hang the rifle down the front like a crane jib. It's an ******* heavy bit of kit that as I'm trudging about the slopes of my mountain shootin. I checked on a map yesterday and found that the 1155 ft contour goes through the farmhouse and theres at least another 200 feet above that level.

I've seen a black rabbit like that on my newest shoot- seen it twice actually and took a special deek at it through the scope, just to make sure it wasn't a trick of the evening light. I wondered if it was a cross of some domestic type that had escaped, since I've looked after just such a rabbit for a friend when she was away on holiday - funny that, feeding carrots and stuff to a friends pet rabbit on the way home from slaughtering a dozen of the same species on the farm.... Food fer thought - nah - I've just had most of a bottle of wine and am getting a bit maudlin... Slurrrrp.

How do you get on with the heavy triggers on those guns Nick? I've got a B3, as well as the TX (and soon I'll have a Webley Axsor courtessy of Old Rooster). The B3 was FANTASTIC value for money and it shoots nice groups at 60 feet with iron sights, but the trigger is hellish stiff you never know when it's going to go off, then THWACK. Problem is, when I go back to the TX with it's light trigger, it goes off while I'm taking up the slack, and I need to fire a few just to get back into form. Take your point about the way the B2 feels though. The B3 feels a lot more natural to me than the TX which is quit an armful. I'll probably sell that when I get my new gun.

You old land baron you...

Talking of wearing bright orange - anyone remember that sad case last year when a kid was shot while out lamping with his father? Terrible thing that - I think it was the dad that fired the round, but am not certain. There must be a high chance of that when people in groups are shooting in the dark. Maybe fluorescent reflective jackets for lamping expeditions???

I completely agree. As well as my TX200, I have a b3 air rifle. I bought it for my son. I beleive its the same powerplant as the b2. It has no more than 6-7 foot pounds. Nevertheless, I shot five rabbits with it the other week and my son shot six. The issue is distance. It will kill rabbits convincingly at sixty feet. Stop at that range. You could probably kill them further out, but the curvature of the pellet's trajectory would be far too hard to learn. Try it on a large sheet of card. Zero the rifle at 20 paces, shoot a group on your card at a point marked at the top of the card, then having shot that group, step back another ten paces. Shoot another group, and see how much further down the card they come. Then do it again at forty paces, all groups aimed at the same point at the top of the card. Maybe you'll be surprised at how much further down they strike. The b2 in .22 has about 410 feet per second muzzle velocity. Get a copy of chairgun and put that figure into the table. Then you'll see the way the pellets drop off. Confirm it with the card shooting method I posted up above. If you work within the guns limits, you'll do fine. It should shoot pretty flat between five and twenty two yards, but by forty yards it will be nine inches down on your aiming point.

Baaaaaaaaah, snort, where's that prrdy li'l nanny..... Ok, that old ewe will do....

Hence the police requirement to check out land if you're intending to use such a firearm on it. I get many many more shots now with my feeble 11 ft pound airgun than I ever dared take with my .22WMR. Couldn't fire it except with a bank or a good dry stone wall as a background. I lost count of the number of shots I had to pass up for fear of what might happen six hundred yards down range after a skip off a stone or piece of turf. .22 LR is notorious for being not powerful enough to destroy its bullets after hitting the ground, but plenty powerful enough to spin off in uncontroled ricochets for hundreds of yards. I doubt the .223 would do that mind. The bullet would probably smash to fragments.

This is why .22lr target load is kept down belwo the speed of sound. It is fantastically accurate. The shuttle cock shape of air rifle amunition is designed to stabilise a slow spinning projectile. Taking such a shaped projectile above the sound barrier would radically effect the accuracy of the pellet and rifle combination.

You usually know by the sound of the impact. Soil and grass makes a different sound. Shot one yesterday that 'flopped' over a three foot fence onto a neighbouring farm. Never saw one jump as high. It went over the fence backwards and upside down like a cartoon happening. It was on a steep slope when shot though so it was all downhill stuff.

I don't know about you guys, but up where I shoot, wind can be a real problem, carrying the missile off by as much as six inches in thirty yards. Problem is, it's often unpredictable on hilly land where the pellet's flight may take it over sheltered and exposed bits. I've recently been shortening the ranges I'm prepared to shoot at because of this - it's a real issue on a gusty day. Head shot can easily turn into something else and a good shot on the rifle range may not always put the lights out instantly as expected. I'm getting about 9/10 knock downs and stay downs, but the others are almost always wind related cases where a quick follow up is needed. That nervous system drawing Axe linked to is well worth a good look. There's a lot of rabbit head that won't involve the brain when hit. You must all have had them go down flat like they were out for good, only to see them jump up again three seconds later - surely? By the way - back of the head behind the ears works like a dream. They don't even twitch in my experience.

Thanks for the clarification... I'd have said that was good military tactics rather than political. Disable your enemy by diverting him into caring for his wounded... Cheers. Going back to Axe's point about the power of the .223, it's really all about velocity. The thing is probably travelling at 2600 to 2900 fps depending on the load, and since the kinetic energy is half the mass times the SQUARE of the speed, it doesn't take a LOT more speed to take the energy right up. .22lr, 40 grains at 1090fps or there abouts, .223, fifty two grains at say 2800 fps - no contest in the hard hitter stakes. Now compare that lot with my 16 grain 570 fps TX200. Of course we could also re-hash the .177 versus .22 for hunting debate. My answer would be .17 ANYDAY, as long as its a .17HMR doing 2550fps ...

I'd be guided by how plentyfull the rabbits are, and how skittish they are getting. You can never have too much land to shoot on though, so I'd be looking out for more - actively, I mean. I've stopped going to the place I started out on two months ago because there really weren't that many rabbits there. I'll call in again soon just to keep the farmer on side, but my real attention is elsewhere in a valley plagued with rabbits. Their squashed corpses are all over the roads, so I know I can get more land - the ******* are like midges up there, and the farmers hate 'em.

I don't think realtree blaze would have helped with the only friendly fire incident I've suffered. Happened about twenty years ago when the burk I was shooting with accidently let of his twelve bore right behind me - - - made a football sized hole in the ground about eighteen inches from my foot and covered my head in soil.... Come to think of it, I'm shooting with him again on Friday - anybody know where I can buy a kevlar vest and leggings? Any colour will do...

Yup - I agree. One way though is to glance down at the safety. If you can see the green stripe, it's fully cocked. It's only an issue if you're trying to cock quietly for a second shot. My only grumble about the rifle apart from its weight (which seems to grow as you lug it around on a hot day - all my shooting is on steep ground) is the noise of the anti-beartrap mechanism. Clack, clack, clack, clack.... Still, I've shot eighty-four rabbits with it in the last four or five weeks - can't complain really, though I'm really tempted by a Webley Axsor I've seen. Do they have any faults - other than being now obsolete?

I think the most armed forces have gone to .223 as their infantry personal weapon. If not that exact round, one very like it. Of course, when used on a rabbit, it's not fit for eating afterwards, as you point out, and hardly a 'quiet' option. I was thinking last night on my new piece of shooting land that I could do with a bit more range, errr - like an extra 100 metres. The ******* were sitting out in the middle of fields and they were damned hard to get near. Still got ten though.

Is that done with some kind of running loop (noose) type fixing? I could do with something to help me lug the TXHC around on the forty five degree slopes on my shooting up near Alston. Starting to feel my age up there, loose concentration, and I'm sliding downhill on my ****.