gasman

I must say it's very quiet around here these days....... Anyway - a better day today - we shot in the afternoon and the birds were landing in the deeks queueing up to be shot. I still missed more than I would like though! We gave up when we needed rehydrating....

What bothered me was that the few birds around had no interest in my deeks at all.... they seemed to be "just passing through"

We watched the combine fetch in the rape yesterday day/night and the woodies were EVERYWHERE! I arrived at first light this morning and parked the Landy up behind some bales. There were a modest number of pigeons already on the deck munching away, but I was distracted by a number of bunnies along the hedgerow. I pulled out the .410 Falco sbs I bought at the game fair on saturday and two shells for two bunnies later was well pleased. Then I turned back to the woodies and they were all gone - AND THEY NEVER CAME BACK!!..... I have never had such a bad day on what I think should have been a good day. My mistake was to go for the bunnies before taking the time to see what the woodies were up to..... sigh ......

Well, 5 notches on a Browning is Skeet...... But in my experience if I am shooting at woodies but not dropping them I need a tighter choke rather than a more open one. If I'm missing clays likewise the first thing I do is put in half or 3/4 choke to try and work out where I am.

Well, I've bought a pair of Motorola PMR's and will take them Roost shooting with us this evening, so I'll let you know how effective they were.

Are we talking about PMR (personal mobile) radios here?? They have a rated range of 3 kilometres - but I wondered how effective they would be in woodland for roost shooting. Has anyone used them in this way??

If you buy and service your bottle at your local SCUBA shop chances are they will refill it for free. They should also fit any special valves / adapters necessary to fit the gun filler nozzle. Its only a few seconds work for them.

I do some SCUBA too, and while you will pay some extra for a 300 bar rated bottle you will be able to go longer between refills. Having said that most SCUBA shops refill bottles for free for their SCUBA customers (it's only compressed air and takes about 30 seconds) so the gift of some birds from the field or an invitation to go shooting should go a long way. Bear in mind that for a PCP rifle the bottle will be pretty much useless when the pressure is down to 150 bar so you should aim to refill it around 180 bar (hence the value of the 300 bar vs 240 bar bottle). Finally - SCUBA bottles are required to be serviced periodically and need a valid service stamp on the neck to be refilled. This needs to be factored in to the overall cost - though if you say it is for an air weapon you may get some local "flexibility" HTH :(

I have the Beretta AL391 Urika sporter (30inch semi auto) and my mate has the field version (lighter and 28"). I'd say he has the better gun when we share a hide, but I also use mine for shooting clays etc, and when I'm shooting by myself I use a hide with a long forward vee to try and avoid snags - they still happen though! Reading all that back - why does it sound vaguely smutty??

My net hide is made from 5 poles (a la John Batley - with a forward vee) and uses a green/brown forest pattern made of the military style camo netting but without the background netting (if you see what I mean ). This makes it less robust but a good deal lighter than the true military stuff.

I've had a set of six of their hide poles - which are excellent by the way. The order was despatched same day and arrived the next. I've ordered another set for a friend who was impressed with them, and also a floater and a lander which should arrive tomorrow. So far I have been impressed, and no I am not connected with them in any way :(

wot?..... you mean like for more than a couple of weeks??...

As a newcomer to shooting feathered rather than clay pigeons I have spent the last month shooting with an old hand (a million thanks Lol!) and assembling my own kit. I really fancied the sound of the N&S de-luxe seat/bag/gunslip combo, but after ordering and a bit of a delay Mike Slater apologetically informed me that a manufacturing glitch prevented him from shipping the seat, but offered a pack of flock shell decoys and a pack of their flexi-sticks as a goodwill gesture if I would settle for the standard seat bag. This was too good an offer to refuse, and I am very pleased with the result. The seat/bag is just what I was looking for and the flock shells combined with the flexi sticks yielded results this very afternoon in driving snow. The other new purchase I was trying out was some newly acquired thermal undies....... why did I wait so long!!, a good set of thermals should be above a box of cartridges on any pigeon shooters must-have list!

Oh.... that raises a question for me! I have an old Westley Richards sbs (circa 1925-30) with 2.5 inch chambers and very nice (nitro proofed) Damascus barrels. I have only shot a few clays with it so far, but having recently started pigeon shooting with my AL391 Urika SA I had hoped to find a good pigeon cartridge for both guns. Is there a major problem with 2 1/2 shotshells in Beretta SA's?... :C

Thanks for the input folks - the Pinewood unit seems to have a lot of support. I've seen an ad on p44 of this weeks (16/1/03) Shooting times for a unit which claims to be the (ultimate rotary decoy machine". It claims a combination of lightweight and robustness. Has anyone any experience of this machine or it's supplier?? I was contemplating "package 2".