PestController

I'm not sure about Euroguns. Lots of stuff in there certainly, but there's just something that I don't like about the place. Can't put my finger on it. Robert The problem with Euroguns is that the morale there is very poor because we've drifted into slump. The staff there are not committed to the business, and I think it'll go under if they don't get smart. I've seen adverts for experienced staff in the local press and on their web, but they never take anybody on...... A company's strength is in its staff, not what they have on display, they need some experience in there. Maybe a decent manager would be a good start. Shame really it's in a nice spot, with the right people at the helmit could fly....and high.

A good link that gives detail about choke and barrel sizing... http://www.kwacs.org.uk/barrels&choke.htm True but much prefer this link Quote from the link. Today, inside barrel diameters are less consistent from manufacturer to manufacturer, ranging from about .722 inches to more than .745 inches. Take a .740 bore shotgun, for example. Insert a full choke and the muzzle diameter changes to .705 inches. Now imagine an improved modified choke (.025 constriction) in the traditional .729 bore. That would give you a muzzle diameter of .704 inches. And in a shotgun with a bore of .722, a modified choke (.020 constriction) would result in a muzzle diameter of .702 inches. All other variables being equal, in all three examples the downrange patterns would be nearly identical, despite the fact that three different chokes were employed. Tiercel That makes for interesting comparisons Tiercel, you'd have to say that if standards vary that much between manufacturers, it's down to the old addage, of what works best for the individual, using basic recommendation as a start point and than adjusting ckokes to suit your own gun? You'd have thought the engineering standards surrounding barrel tube and choke dimensions to fall into a fairly tight spectrum, just shows, nowt's sacred anymore.

Looks a bit like an AYA , had one for years....yes , no?

A good link that gives detail about choke and barrel sizing... http://www.kwacs.org.uk/barrels&choke.htm

I remember going down to my uncle's farm when I was just a young teeny. I'd be about 16 or 17 I guess, I went to help with haymaking and carting. Always looked forward to it, as my auntie Edna was a champion cook, and she'd do tea afterwards. My cousin John was slotting crows with an old English hammer gun. He let me have a go. I fired the gun after a little tuition, but never hit anything. I remember the recoil of my first shot though, I was slightly built as a lad and it hurt a little, I had no padding on me then, not like now...... That day the bug bit me....within 2 years I was shooting at every opportunity, clays, pigeons, rabbits, corvids, geese, the lot, and owned several guns of various calibres. Seems a long time ago now. My uncle passed away a few years ago, and there's a beautiful housing estate where we would shoot on the farm..... Fond memories. Merry Christmas Paul...to you and yours.

To broadly answer your question, I use chokes relevant to the range I'm shooting game at, in order to ensure a filled pattern and clean kill, obviously tightening as ranges increase. If you mean true cylinder by "OPEN" then yes, I use it at about 25yds to great effect. Well,thats to say pigeons don't like it... and welcome....

Jesus Christ......words fail me....and he's still alive? VERY VERY LUCKY....that is until someone like an FLO spots the pics, and bob goes the FAC.

Seeing that he is used to warm game already, and he were mine, I would go back to using a canvass dummy dressed in feathers, and give him some retrieves as normal. If he drops the retrieve, put it back into his mouth and tell him to hold, applying slight pressure to his mouth whilst doing so, and let him hold it for a short time, giving plenty of praise after doing so...and take it from him , repeat the process several times but don't sicken him of it. If he refuses to give up the retrieve force your finger and thumb into the side of his bite by his jowls, taking the retrieve from him, also giving loads of praise..... On no account chastise him for either, you could stop him retrieving, depending on his mentality.

NTTF.... you can only described as a GANNET...... looks good tho... PC

Behave....

Hi Jon, I'm sure there has to have been some mis-understanding here, one way or another. I've spoken to Mr. Shooter on various occasions about different things, indeed had some very interesting conversations, but one thing did strike me as I got to get to know his way...... One of the main difficulties he has in running the NPPC is being able to vouch for his members, and their associated behaviour. I know it's not acceptible to demoralise or belittle anyone, especially on the pretence of making a valid enquiry, but the problem John has, is that he rarely gets to meet his members and I'm fairly sure that in his own way, he was trying to see how experienced you were, or maybe the level of your field craft knowledge, notwithstanding the fact that he's also a Yorkshireman with a broad sense of humour! Reason I mention this is that because he rarely gets to meet his members, he has to try to "suss" them out sufficiently, and that's why he'll always welcome a phone call, so he can speak directly to you, thus gaining a better understanding of your needs and expectations, and also your ability. The main reason is simple, it's because he has to vouch for all the members to his clients, and therefore his reputation is on the line a little.... Obviously any repercussions would come back on him and not you.... I'm sure if you spoke to him directly you would form an entirely different opinion. John Shooter is not the type of person to belittle anyone on purpose, he'll go out of his way to help you. Good Luck PC

Not sure what happened there jon.... John Shooter has probably forgotten more about pigeon shooting than all of us know put together... I've always found him to be informative, honest, helpful to a fault and generally a nice bloke to deal with. Not only that but try to imagine how much time and effort he puts in going round to estates and land-owners to negotiate shooting rights on behalf of his members! A full time job I'll bet.... NPPC is without doubt probably the best pigeon shooting club in the country, for both land and membership fee IMHO. :unsure: PC

You know you're getting old when......You can sing "Sweets for my Sweet", all the way through, when the Searchers come on the radio.

Reason being I guess because cheques can be stopped immediately after purchase order and therefore goods could be received and no payment made. Undoubtedly that would have happened a trillion times. :o The answer to that is obvious.....THEY'VE HEARD ABOUT YOU MIKE....

Here we go again with the conspiracy theory. She was quite a nice hanger for designer dresses, but a bit of a slapper and as mad as a box of frogs. The amount of column inches wasted on her since that crash must have used up millions of trees worth of paper. Move on. Take it you didn't like Di then Hod....... :(

Don't know if the trigger is the same as it's predecessor 595 but it's very easy to adjust down to 2 lbs ......to go lighter would require a modification as the adjustment screw hits a a bolt or something ,can't remember ........ Just remove the car valve spring that Tikka fit :( and replace it with a nice soft one from a cheap ball-point pen. Takes the trigger right down to less than 1lb if you are daft enough. G.M. Don't think I'll be going there somehow Graham, thanks..... It's interesting to see the varying replies about trigger adjustment though, and have to say I'd be inclined to leave mine alone, even though I employ all the usual safety techniques re loading and firing etc. I'd still feel uncomfortable not really knowing the degree of safety that was inherrent in a modified situation. Thanks to all for posting.

Some rifles might possess the above but in the mass production business most need fine tuning .........Like I said especially American Rifles come with a hard trigger pull because of H/S safety reasons Ive, That's an interesting point you made there about American rifles. I've heard the comment before and also read an article about it, which I found on an american marine corps website. I'll try and find it, but it refered to modifications that were made to specifically Barrett rifles, I think it was, for the sake of the sniper school. I think they were refering to the Barrett 50 cal, and had had complaints of trigger malfunction after firing so many rounds of armour piercing bullets, or something, and I remember it puzzled me at the time. I'm guessing all internal trigger parts are made of high carbon steel are they?.....but I suppose like anything else, they'll be varying qualities even in that. The trigger on my Tikka rifle is standard and just as someone described in the thread, it breaks like glass, but I always think the pull pressure seems excessive, and even with it being heavy barrel as well it always seems to flip up on firing, and I wondered how much of that was down to me and the trigger, if you know what I mean, rather than just "natural recoil action"....... Another thing worth mentioning, is that regardless of what folks say about .223 c/f mine kicks like a mule witth Federal ammo, but is surprisingly accurate for all that.

Thanks for replies guys, all err on the side of safety, which has to be good. But when I penned the topic, what was going on in my head was this.... If you take a brand new rifle, with high tolerance crisply machined internal parts, ie trigger seers, and you take it to a gunsmith even, he would say that it is safe to adjust and do the business. But in fact what he has done is to take the tolerance of several years of use, or say maybe 5000 firings, away from the trigger, has he not?....because surely then the trigger seer has less to wear before becoming dangerous....and if the gun is not serviced again for ages, raises a potentially dangerous situation. I've read about folks adjusting triggers and it makes me feel uneasy.. Or am I wrong on this....

Nice one Henry, good bag too! One to remember.

I think you've hit on a good point here, as you say, everybody has to learn,and it does no harm to air some of the evergreen topics again, for the sake of the newcomers and less experienced. I don't think we ever stop learning, and so in the light of that, should show more respect and be flexible in some of the answers we give, or as is the case, we don't give....

Very often when we aquire new rifles or even new second hand rifles, we all try to improve them and make them personal to us, by making adjustments and adding recoil pads etc. That in itself is normal, you'd have to say, because we always want to get the best out of our tools of the trade, as it were, and to make them perform to our specification as well as the manufacturers. But there's one subject that always makes my hair stand up, and that's the subject of trigger adjustment. We know that predominently with all makes of guns and rifles, there's room for improvement and lighter trigger pull pressures, and that some manufacturers explain in detail on how to adjust the trigger adjustment effectively. Having said all that, why do I feel uneasy about lightening a trigger pull? Is it because I'm wondering whether the seer is slightly worn?...and that the gun may discharge on the slightest knock? Even though I know lightening the trigger pull will improve my performance I don't go there.... Is it because I have a mistrust in mechanical things?.....am I too careful? And how far do you go before the trigger has been made dangerous..... What do others think....welcome any opinions..

NPPC provides lawful pigeon shooting for the purpose of pest control, for the benefit of farmers, in order to recognise maximum crop yields wherever possible. The land on which it is undertaken is extensive and covers a large proportion of the English counties. Shooting is allowed on any of the defined areas and is locatable using standard OS map references. Booking the land is straight forward, you pick up the phone and "order" your spot with Mr. John Shooter who runs and administers the shooting rights. You will be expected to be insured, which is a pre-requisite and behave according to the guidelines as laid down in the BASC code of pratice for pigeon pest control and also be expected to respect farmers' land, property and crops and abide by club rules, which includes owning and using appropriate hides and equipment pertaining to the job in hand, pest control. All of the shooting takes place on arable crops, OSR mainly, occasionally peas and other minor crops, depending on what is to be protected. All in all the shooting rights cover many hundreds if not thousands of hectares of arable crops, some will argue undoubtedly some areas are more "productive" for pigeon than others, but alas this is in the lap of the gods. Many shooters have successfully had large bags at many locations, others had not so much. As everybody knows pigeon shooting is fickle by its nature, and NPPC cannot be held responsible for the lack of birds or weather induced circumstances surrounding numbers of birds. You may or possibly will get lucky and get large bags, especially if you do the ground work, go out and find the flightlines, find the birds etc. If you sit at home and just decide to go on the spur of the moment, it could pay off, but maybe not, prep is the key, which involves getting out and looking. But you can go whenever you want, as many times as you want, and wherever you want so long as you abide by the rules, and book the shoot, the rest is down to you. Is it worth it?.....if you're going to put the effort in and get out, it has to be. But the birds won't come to you...hope this helps.

Have a read here: http://www.hps-tr.com/guidance/barrel_runningIn.asp Good stuff.

Hi NTTF I have an Air Ranger set at 55ft/lbs that does rabbits easily out to 80-90 yards. I tend to use Bisley Magnums ( .22) as anything else just folds up and is not accurate enough. Also using the heavier Bismag pellet, you'll get slower muzzle velocity enabling you to get away from the sonic "crack", still maintain a fairly flat trajectory, with awesome hitting power. ( for an air rifle )

Good night's work there....that'll keep any local keepers happy.