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aldivalloch

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Everything posted by aldivalloch

  1. Feeble attempt to revive the 1970's show "That's Life!"? On the strength of tonight's programme, the BBC shouldn't have bothered. Wonder if they'll try to slip in a slot for rudely-shaped fruit?
  2. I reckon that if rifled slugs had been more widely available for the 9mm garden gun, the .17 HMR would never have caught on.
  3. Don't poke fun at the garden gun. A lot of people mistakenly think garden guns are pithless and irrelevant. Not so! I have one, a single-shot bolt-action that's about 100 years old. Just as an experiment I removed the pinch of no. 11 shot and replaced it with a single lead ball from my fishing-tackle box. First time out with it I killed a hare at 705 yards.
  4. Had one done more than thirty years ago. Excruciatingly sore at first, but I later found out that you're supposed to be offered pain relief when you come round from the anaesthetic... I was just left gritting my teeth and exploring every swear-word in the English language. Was in hospital for seven days, then off work for four weeks. I suppose I could have gone back earlier - but it was December, and I was out with the gun three days after I was discharged. Jumping ditches and climbing over rocks on the foreshore made my eyes water a bit, but all in all I'm sure it helped my recovery.
  5. No confusion, jntree, other than your own. There's only ONE bullet in your photograph. The other item is a shotgun cartridge! The item in question is a .297/.230 Short, initially devised in 1883 as the cartridge for the Morris Aiming Tube, a sub-calibre device intended to be fitted into the barrel of the Martini-Henry service rifle to allow short-range (and cheaper) practice. It was later modified to fit the .303 Lee-Metford and was in use until 1906 at which point .22 rim-fire training rifles were adopted. If you get your calipers out, you'll find that overall cartridge length is 0.965", case length is 0.590", rim diameter is 0.345", case diameter is 0.295", neck diameter is 0.240". The bullet is outside lubricated, 0.240" in diameter, and weighs 37 grains. So I'm a dreadful pedant. Are you now convinced? It's not a mystery any more, so shall we put all this to bed now? flazz - the Sherwood was 0.300", not 0.310", and was to all intents and purposes a lengthened 0.300" Rook cartridge. The one illustrated is a 0.310" Cadet - the 0.310" Humane Killer was a shorter round.
  6. God, they're still at it! :o Cottonseed seems to have had a rifle that was BORED OUT to a SMALLER calibre!!
  7. What a fascinatingly weird thread this has been!! The OP shows his unidentified item next to a garden gun shell which is clearly a 9mm rimfire and probably made by Fiocchi. He says he has done so to give a rough idea of its size and goes on to tell us the unidentified item is centre-fire. So we're looking at a bottle-necked centrefire cartridge about an inch long. ".22 short?" says magman...... WHAAAT? In comes Harnser suggesting it could be an old rook rifle cartridge. Spot on, if he hadn't suggested 9mm. Then Mike525steel tells me he saw a revolver "like the one you describe" at an auction house and thought it was a .410. Well, apart from the fact that I described my great-grandfather's simply as "a small revolver", which is hardly definitive, a .410 revolver would be anything but. For those of limited imagination, go and set out five or six .410 cartridges as they would appear in the cylinder.... And then flazz comes along with the astoundingly random suggestion that it could be an 8mm Nambu. WOW! Where did that one come from? In any case, a thirty-second Google will show that the 8mm Nambu was a RIMLESS cartridge. Magus69 is absolutely correct and tells us that he actually shoots the long version of the cartridge in a Francotte Martini. Responses don't come any more authoritative than that, gentlemen. Nothing more to be said, other than that I'm deeply envious! Or is there?? ChrisAsh joins us but clearly hasn't even grasped the original question and suggests the garden gun shell (the OP TOLD us it was a garden gun shell!!) may be a .410. And finally Bazooka Joe provides a very helpful picture that includes the .297/.230 Morris Short Centre-fire, and identifies the garden gun shell as a 9mm. Phew! After reading that lot I feel as though I've had a trip to the Dark Side. And we wonder why police FLO's treat us a bit tentatively! Well, on the basis of the foregoing, just try to imagine some of the daftness they must have to listen to!!!
  8. That's a .297/.230 Short. It was used in rook and rabbit rifles and, possibly, in pistols. You'll find information in Colin Greenwood's "The Classic British Rook & Rabbit Rifle". My late mother told me that her grandfather had a very small revolver in this calibre - and before anybody questions that, let me assure you that mam knew her guns!!
  9. Aberlour versus Famous Grouse? No contest. Grab the Aberlour! Grouse isn't what it was a few years ago, whereas Aberlour is a fine and dependable dram. (I'm biased - my late father spent the last 28 years of his working life making it.) There's a lot of good deals in the supermarkets just now - I got a bottle of Balvenie Signature recently at almost £9 off (Tesco). Not surprisingly, it was the last one on the shelf. Next offer was, I think, on Balvenie Double Wood. And for a special occasion, yet to be determined, I have a bottle of Highland Park Capella hiding at the back of the cupboard....
  10. What's wrong with subtlety and ingenuity?? Despite being registered with the Telephone Preference Service, we still get quite a lot of sales calls. My wife answered the phone recently and the caller - obviously a salesman from his opening gambit - asked to speak to her husband. She put on a pretty good act of bursting into tears and sobbed, "How CAN you ring me at a time like this? My husband has just DIED!!" Never had a follow-up call!!! Made me feel a bit funny, though.
  11. We've already made the local police aware - an officer has taken a statement from my wife and copies of the e-mails she was sent. Wife got fed up of his nonsense a couple of evenings ago and sent a message stating that we were aware he was playing games, that his "local address" was bogus, that the police had become involved, and that he might like to stop trying to con people. There was an immediate and quite threatening response which said that he "would mach (sic) to her door" and that she wouldn't like the consequences. Given that he doesn't know where our door is, we're not exactly quaking with fear! We still can't work out what he was trying to achieve, other than getting off on having the power to mislead and manipulate people. Jacksdad, your post is interesting. I can see the basis for a scam in the details you give. The puppies we were being offered were allegedly in Orkney; I guess it didn't fit the plot too well that we live there, that the bogus address is only two or three hundred yards from our house, and that we know the solicitors whose office it is!
  12. Very strange. In response to a question as to whether the pups are at the local address and able for viewing, "Mark Farrdy" has just e-mailed my wife to tell her to "come to my address and you will meet me there". Off course he won't, because as I said in my original post it's the office of a local law practice, and when I spoke to one of the partners earlier today he confirmed that he and his colleagues had never heard of "Mark Farddy". So is this someone with a very warped sense of humour who enjoys messing with other peoples' lives? There's nothing so queer as folk!! Very strange. In response to a question as to whether the pups are at the local address and able for viewing, "Mark Farrdy" has just e-mailed my wife to tell her to "come to my address and you will meet me there". Off course he won't, because as I said in my original post it's the office of a local law practice, and when I spoke to one of the partners earlier today he confirmed that he and his colleagues had never heard of "Mark Farddy". So is this someone with a very warped sense of humour who enjoys messing with other peoples' lives? There's nothing so queer as folk!!
  13. Our much-loved dog died two weeks ago, so my wife and I have been having discussions about getting another. The main criterion is that the new pup should be child-friendly - we have two small grandchildren, and a third on the way. Whilst fiddling around on the internet my wife saw reference made to "flexible labradors" and was curious enough to e-mail the site. Since then we've been contacted by e-mail by "Mark Farddy", offering labrador pups. There was a sob story about how these pups were no longer compatible with his work-pattern, and how they remionded him of his mother who died just two weeks ago. We started to scent a rodent when he advised that the pups were at a local address - one that just happens to be quite close to our home, and which we know to be the office of a law practice.... Since then it has come to our notice the "Mark Farddy" comes up in connection with puppy sales in Glasgow, Bradford, and several other places..... We are now being told the "local" pups are free to a good home. Nutter? Scammer? Can anyone tell us what's behind all this??
  14. Our old dog took ill at midnight last Wednesday. She'd been relatively fine up till then - pretty good for a 16-year-old, in fact, still able to go little walks and scrounge at meal-times. But I heard a dreadful clattering from the kitchen and when I went in she was having a fit in her bed. She came round, but spent the next two hours pacing up and down in a highly agitated fashion - she must have walked miles round the room, aimlessly bumping into doors, cooker and washing machine, and there was nothing I could do that would calm her. Two further massive fits followed in close succession, leaving her semi-conscious, so at 4.15 am my wife rang the out-of-hours vet service. Two vets were in the house within 15 minutes. They did a quick summation of the situation and we agreed there was no chance of recovery, so they did what needed to be done, reassured us that it was absolutely the right thing, and told us that their bill could easily wait until we felt up to coming in to pay it. I got up early on Thursday morning and buried her in a corner of the garden, next to her sworn enemy the cat. And on Friday we received a hand-written card from the vet practice offering their sympathies for our loss. So I know how you feel, 955i, but there comes a time when you have to do the right thing, no matter how tough it is. As for those posters who, let's say, don't have complete confidence in the motives of their vets, well, don't tar the whole profession with the same brush. Read my post again - two vets in the house within 15 minutes of a call, at half-past-four in the morning, sympathetic, supportive and happy to discuss their diagnosis and recommendation. And no, it didn't cost an arm and a leg - the total bill came to £70. I'm intending to have another dog when the time's right. She won't ever replace the last one, who was as fine an animal as we could ever have hoped for, intelligent and utterly trustworthy. She was to all intents and purposes a rescue dog, as she came from a "home" that had no interest in her comfort, health or welfare, and I'm sure she would have had an early death due to neglect if we hadn't taken her. Sadly, there are still many dogs in the same position, needing a caring home, so we'll look for one of them.
  15. Is anybody watching Autumnwatch Live? I've just fled the sitting-room - I really can't suffer the presenters any longer. Bill Oddie irritated me. But the current line-up?? Sooooo far up themselves you can barely see the soles of their feet. And don't get me started on the rampant anthropomorphosis....... Just more BBC cuddly-bunny rubbish for Britain's brain-dead sofa "naturalists". Man, I'm grumpy tonight. It's been a tough week.
  16. Army & Navy .410 single-barrel, bought in 1975. 12 bore AYA No.2, bought in 1979, used for everything including geese. Never needed anything other than regular cleaning.
  17. For a day you won't forget, go for a gillie suit and a Franchi SPAS.
  18. Got caught a few years back by one of these Community Safety Partnership camera vans (a.k.a. council piggy-banks). Clocked me at 83 mph in a 60 mph limit - on a deserted piece of arrow-straight road in the Highlands on a dry, sunny day. I wasn't too impressed, as I take road safety seriously. I drive a well-maintained vehicle within its - and my own - limitations and with due regard to prevailing road conditions. I don't feel embarrassed to make that claim - it's based on 39 years' experience, no accidents, no other convictions and some advanced-driving courses. Anyway, I resisted the temptation to send in a snotty letter with my licence and cheque for £60. But guess what? Two weeks later, our Chief Constable got caught in exactly the same place at 81 mph!! At least I wasn't the one who had to go on television and make a grovelling apology for "my gross error of judgement"!!
  19. "Ghillie" or "gillie" comes from "gille", which is Gaelic for "lad", "young man" or "servant man". I guess it passed into the English language in the not-too-distant days when the use of Gaelic was widespread within Scotland.
  20. Could be that your host is going for what he regards as "best practice". Quite a lot of inland shooting is done close to the lochs, and to the burns that run into them, and he may be keen not to have lead falling into the water. Don't worry about what to bring with you in the way of ammunition. Unless you shoot with something well out of the ordinary, like a 14 bore, you should be able to get anything you need locally. Just visit William Shearer's in Victoria Street, Kirkwall. Raymond Shearer runs a gunshop tucked away within the premises and, being a keen shooter himself, knows exactly what to have in stock for the wildfowling season. Last time I was in he had a rather nice 10 bore Browning self-loader on the rack. If you want to check in advance, call 01856 873189. Otherwise, just ask for directions at the front counter!
  21. First I've heard of it, and I live in Orkney.
  22. I had one that looked like Derringer; it was probably no more than three inches long. If I remember correctly the metal had a silver finish that started to flake off almost immediately, and the grips were of red plastic. It broke open at the breech to allow the rimmed "cartridge case", which was about the size of a 9mm shell, to be extracted. The case had a small hole drilled through where the primer would be in a real cartridge. This "cartridge" had a chamfered mouth so that it could easily be shoved into the potato and wiggled so as to break off a "spud bullet". All that remained to be done then was to slip it back into the gun, place a paper cap over the "primer hole", cock the hammer, aim at your mother/father/little sister/pal/dog/cat, squeeze the trigger and listen for the howl that followed the sharp crack of the report. And run like hell! The spud bullet left the muzzle at a fair speed, and literally left its mark on the target. At close range it could break the skin, and I've no doubt that one in the eye could have caused permanent damage. Sadly, my gun didn't last long. The combination of corrosive caps and potato juice put paid to the spring that operated the hammer, and it was consigned to the dustbin. I've never seen one on sale again in the intervening forty-five years. Just as well, maybe!!
  23. Just happened upon this thread and am much cheered to see that many of you gentlemen "south of the border" have good taste in whiskies. For the record, an acquaintance of mine, who is a real enthusiast and something of an expert, reckons that 14 year-old Scapa is THE BEST. Hard to come by, though - Scapa was silent for a number of years. Gimlet - you need to buy a map!! Highland Park - a Speyside???
  24. Although I now live much further north, I grew up in Aberlour, in Strathspey. Back in the early 1980's, not long after I had "migrated", my mother rang me to tell me that my father had gone out the previous evening, just after dark, to close up his hen-house. He returned very quickly shouting for his gun and claiming to have come face-to-face with a big black cat which was trying to get into the hen-run. My mother was by nature a bit of a cynic and so teased him mercilessly about seeing things and being frightened by his own shadow. But the next morning she spotted a large black cat on farmland at the Haugh of Elchies, just across the river from their back garden, and was able to get her binoculars on it. My father and mother both came from shooting, fishing and trapping backgrounds - mother's grandfather was one of the most highly regarded gamekeepers in the north-east of Scotland in his day - and were exceptionally knowledgeable about the natural world. I have absolutely no doubt that they saw what they saw. But what DID they see? How big IS a big cat? Mother and father agreed that theirs was (were?) no bigger than a black lab, and quite lightly built. For those of you still inclined to doubt, just google "Kellas cat" and read on..... I look forward with interest to your postings. Later on this evening I'll be talking to an acquaintance who used to be a gamekeeper on a well-known estate near Grantown-on Spey. I'll ask him for the benefit of his experiences, perhaps over a wee glass of what made Strathspey famous! Aaaah, Glenfarclas!!!
  25. In my experience, walking-up pheasants doesn't produce high birds. Are you sure your mate's not trying to nobble you? 32" barrels in o/u configuration tends to equal a heavy-ish gun that's going to feel heavier still by the end of a day's walking; full chokes may help you to bring off the very occasional longish shot, but at closer (i.e. normal) ranges you'll have to be pretty accurate because of the smaller, tighter shot-pattern. And if you ARE accurate, your reward will be birds with a lot of lead and bone splinters in them!! The best gun I've ever owned for walking-up pheasants? A very old 16 bore side-by-side boxlock ejector, 5lbs 13ozs, both barrels true cylinder, shooting fifteen sixteenths of an ounce of no. 6 shot. Easy to carry all day, handles beautifully, and whilst I've got to restrict myself to a maximum range of about 35 yards anything that gets up closer than that is at reasonable risk of being knocked back down again. I'm a long, long way from being a good shot; this gun/cartridge combination helps compensate for my mediocrity and certainly greatly improves my chances of pheasant for Sunday dinner. And that's what it's all about.
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